Women in the Advancement of Avant-garde Culture: Galka E. Scheyer and the Promotion of Modern Architecture in California

Abstract

The relocation of Galka Scheyer, the renowned art dealer and American representative of the Blue Four, to California in 1925 had a significant, yet unrecognized, impact on the development of the region’s early modern architecture. After multiple efforts to land commissions for Rudolph Schindler, her residence, designed by Richard Neutra and Gregory Ain, became a meeting place for artists and members of Hollywood’s collecting community. Around 1935, Scheyer’s unconventional house and gallery was both her trademark and a reflection of her own character as an art educator and facilitator. This paper explores the role Scheyer and some personalities of her closest art circles, particularly women, played in promoting modernist architecture. Influenced by Scheyer’s enthusiasm for the emancipatory nature of avant-garde culture, figures like Marjorie Eaton became intertwined in numerous episodes of architectural matronage. Although their stories are of paramount importance for achieving a more inclusive understanding of California modernism, these women’s contributions are frequently neglected in the canonical histories of modern architecture, in which Scheyer appears as an inopportune presence. Along with a critique of such inaccurate historiographical accounts, this essay focuses on Scheyer’s agency in linking artistic concepts and contexts as part of her project to advance Californian architecture.