

Los Angeles

Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916)

Date: 1876, printed ca. 1876

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new Open Access for Scholarly Content now provides free access to almost 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain artworks from their collection. We’ve gone through the archives searching for Los Angeles related items that we present to you for your non-commercial enjoyment. This use is part of our longstanding digital study and survey of Los Angeles, its artists, and its history. All images via The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Thomas Brook Simmons, Bunker Hill Tower, Los Angeles, California

Sarah Charlesworth (American, 1947–2013)

In 1980 Sarah Charlesworth searched the archives of wire services and tabloid newspapers for pictures of falling figures. From a selection of seventy she rephoto-graphed seven of the grainy images and enlarged them to human scale; her subjects are transformed into semi-abstract shapes hovering in front of the grids of blurry windows.



Snake Man

Alison Saar (American, born Los Angeles, California, 1956)

Date: 1994

Medium: Woodcut and lithograph



Los Angeles, California

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928–1984)

Date: 1969, printed 1974



Concrete Block from the Charles Ennis House

Frank Lloyd Wright (American, Richland Center, Wisconsin 1867–1959 Phoenix, Arizona)

Date: ca. 1924



Nude on Sand, Oceano

Edward Weston (American, Highland Park, Illinois 1886–1958 Carmel, California)



LA-C 100

James Welling (American, born 1951)

Date: 1977, printed 2000



“Radio Nurse”

Isamu Noguchi (American, Los Angeles, California 1904–1988 New York)

Date: 1937

Medium: Bakelite

Radio Nurse was Noguchi’s first major industrial commission. Together with a separate enameled metal receiver called the Guardian Ear, this piece functions as a baby monitor, transmitting sounds from the baby’s room to the receiver.



Large Interior, Los Angeles

David Hockney (British, born Bradford, 1937)

Date: 1988



Los Angeles

Aaron Siskind (American, 1903–1991)

Date: 1949

Medium: Gelatin silver print



Lake Vineyard and Orange Grove, Los Angeles

Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916)

Date: 1876, printed ca. 1876



Rooming House, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

Robert Frank (American, born Zurich, 1924)

Date: 1955–56, printed ca. 1977



André Smith, 28 Years Old, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, $30

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, born Hartford, Connecticut, 1953)

Date: 1991, printed 1995

In the middle of the 1990’s, diCorcia gained international recognition for his large color photographs of street scenes and passersby. For an earlier series, he traveled to Los Angeles on a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and worked on a part of Santa Monica Boulevard frequented by male prostitutes and drug addicts. For each picture he made there, he carefully composed his setting, then asked young men to pose for him, giving them a small fee (from twenty to fifty dollars) that was negotiated each time.