Backyard oasis
Subtitle: the swimming pool in Southern California photography, 1945-1982
By: edited by Daniell Cornell ; research team essays, Daniell Cornell ... [et al.] ; with a contribution by Robert Atkins
Contributors: Palm Springs Art Museum
Publisher: Palm Springs Art Museum and DelMonico Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Palm Springs, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9783791351766
Subjects: Swimming pools; Exhibitions; Landscape photography; Portrait photography; Pictorial works; Architectural photography
Description: "Southern California's pool culture is the subject of this unique and luscious collection of photographs that explore the parallel evolution of an iconic symbol and an artistic genre. Since the end of World War II, Southern California's backyard pools--those blue-green oases in an otherwise often arid landscape--have symbolized any number of American ideals: optimism, wealth, consumerism, escape, physical beauty, and the triumph of people over nature. Simultaneously, the field of photography developed as a transformative method for recording the human condition. This exhibition catalog celebrates the nexus of these two phenomena in a one-of -kind collection that features more than two hundred works by more than forty postwar artists and photographers. It presents works by photographers and artists including Bill Anderson, John Baldessari, Ruth Bernhard, David Hockney, Herb Ritts, Ed Ruscha, Julius Shulman, and Larry Sultan. Thematically grouped into topics ranging from the rise of celebrity culture, suburbia and dystopia, avant garde architectural landscape design, and the cult of the body, these images offer a rich study of the cultural connotations of the swimming pool. Six insightful essays provide a comprehensive overview of the development of the swimming pool and its attendant aesthetic and social culture." --P [4] of cover.
Notes: "Published on the occasion of the exhibition Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California, January 21-May 27, 2012."

Includes bibliographical references and index.