In Beverly Hills in the early 1940s, experimental ideas in the arts could be found in the nearby community of surrealist artists who had been displaced by the Second World War, including Man Ray, Dorothea Tanning, and Salvador Dalí, as well as in a triumvirate of nightclubs that dominated the Sunset Strip. Art historian Susan Anderson wrote that the surrealists brought “black humor, the off-the-wall whimsy of pop culture, and a liberating strain of Dada” to the region’s art. At the same time, the Café Trocadero, Ciro’s, and Mocambo were serving up nightclub acts that pulled from a wide range of cultural traditions, becoming incubators for artistic innovation and cross-cultural integration.

Limited BHWC member seating. If you would like the opportunity to join this ticket pool of possibility, and are a current member, please enter your name now! 

Beverly Hills Avant-Garde: From Surrealism to the Sunset Strip invites you to learn more about this vibrant period with an evening of food, conversation, music, and magic.

Pre-program reception takes place from 7pm-8pm followed by panel and performance from 8pm-9pm.

Rachmaninoff Was Here is a series of public programs exploring the creative communities that the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff either participated in or which were flourishing concurrent to his brief but important time as a Beverly Hills resident in the early 1940s.