Casa del Rio

Description

When British industrialist Walter Price visited California in the 1930s, he was so impressed by Pickfair - the glamorous residence of Hollywood stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford - that he decided to construct his own Art Deco mansion back in the Devon countryside. This program examines Price's luxurious creation, a palace fit for Tinseltown complete with a marble staircase built to look like a piano keyboard. Casa del Rio, as Price christened it, also features smaller but no less intriguing accoutrements - Art Deco gadgets such as Bakelite radios and toasters that were cutting-edge for the time. A bar, pool room, and cinema were added later, but with the original Pickfair mansion no longer extant, Casa del Rio stands as a rare example of a fantasy house from the height of England's Art Deco period.

Runtime

29 min

Series

Subjects

Geography

Genre

Date of Publication

[2013], c2011

Database

Films on Demand

Direct Link

Similar Films

Richard Lindner, The Meeting—Masterworks (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Sam Schonzeit, I [art] MARFA
Max Beckmann, Actors—Masterworks (The Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge)
Donde Digo Diego Rivera
Jean Metzinger, At the Cycle-Race Track—Masterworks (Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice)
Rob Weiner And The Chinati Foundation, I [art] MARFA
Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Icons of abstract expressionism
Living Treasures of Japan
Craft in America. Season 2
Edward Hopper, Night Hawks—Masterworks (The Art Institute of Chicago)
This Is the Modern World
The Art of Henry Moore
Georg Baselitz, The Great Friends—Masterworks (Collections in Vienna)
Women
Georges Seurat