“A dividend waiting for visitors to ‘L.A. by L.A.’ is an exhibition of exquisitely romantic drawings of old Los Angeles buildings by Mae Babitz. This 70-year-old artist’s light touch isolates and captures the essence of Los Angeles’ old residential architecture.”
~ John Dreyfuss, architecture and design critic, Los Angeles Times, March 1981
L.A. edifice complex. An exhibit portrays the city’s buildings.
“…The drawings by Mrs. Babitz are tender records of a Los Angeles not lost and they manage to steal the show…. Babitz’ drawings are perhaps the strongest imagines in the entire L.A by L.A. show. For a period of decades, this lady preceded Cleveland Wrecking by a week or so, and drew the Victorian Los Angeles that was erased in the name of Los Angeles’ self-consuming pastime: development…Mrs. Babitz serves her subject rather than her technique and she emerges, in this stow, with a genuine and original vision as visionary as any of the serious professionals. She also documents an architecture that while private gave generously to the street and collectively had a strong public impact. She seems to have remembered the buildings as she drew them – on the page, they are already immaterial. Her collection of drawings recreates, in its corner of the Municipal Gallery, not only the houses but a whole neighborhood.
~ Joseph Giovanni. Los Angeles Herald Examiner, March 22, 1981