Greta Magnusson Grossman: A Car and Some Shorts

If your knowledge of Swedish design in Southern California starts and ends at Ikea, expand your range at the Pasadena Museum of California Art with the Greta Magnusson Grossman exhibit. The Swedish-born artist (1906-1999) settled in Los Angeles where she worked for such firms as Barker Bros. and Ralph O. Smith designing furniture before becoming a modern architect and building numerous homes on stilts in the Los Angeles hills. Now seen as influential, her designs have largely been under-recognized until recently. Go see the pieces, which are often characterized by asymmetrical lines, color and unusual-for-their-time materials like laminated table tops. So some things might be a bit familiar after all.