As LACMA prepares for the 2026 public opening of the new David Geffen Galleries, the future home of the museum’s permanent collection spanning a breadth of eras and cultures, we’re sharing 50 iconic artworks that will be on view in the building over the next 50 weeks in the series 50 Works 50 Weeks.
One of the few designers ever featured on the cover of Time magazine, Raymond Loewy was an industrial designer responsible for some of the most iconic objects of his era, including the Coldspot refrigerator, the design for President John F. Kennedy’s Air Force One jet, and a series of cars for Studebaker. Active from the 1930s to the 1970s, Loewy is best known for streamlined design, even in situations where its utility was questionable, such as his famous aerodynamic pencil sharpener.
In February 1961, Studebaker commissioned Loewy to design a sports car. He accepted the offer on the condition that the design work not take place in South Bend, Indiana, under the watchful eyes of executives, but in a rented bungalow in Palm Springs, California, where he kept a home. Loewy’s design team worked furiously, and in about a month, produced an 1/8th-inch scale clay model of the Avanti (“forward” in Italian). The car was produced in record time and debuted at the New York Auto Show in April 1962.
The Avanti was cherished by its designer, who owned two: one that he kept in France, and this one, which he kept at his home in Palm Springs. He customized this one in a number of ways—the three-color paint scheme, the aluminum disks on the door sills, the exhaust cut-out cables that gave the car extra speed, and special plaques that identified it as a Loewy design and noted its speed records. We recently completed a thorough conservation and restoration of the vehicle, returning it to Loewy’s original vision. It will be displayed in a gallery about how car culture and the landscape of the automobile has shaped California art and design.