Blackman Cruz Reviews
836 N Highland Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
(323) 466-8600
Blackman Cruz specializes in extraordinary objects—the rare, the magnificent, the provocative, and the eccentric—in all their many forms. Their collection of furniture and decorative objects spans several centuries, many different styles of design, and a wide range of countries, from America and Mexico to Italy and France and beyond. Instead of period or pedigree, a particular aesthetic sensibility unites the showroom’s far-flung array of antiques and contemporary production pieces. Blackman Cruz’s approach to great design celebrates the virtues of drama, humor, ingenuity, and sculptural brio.
Adam Blackman and David Cruz founded the company in 1993 as a resource for adventurous collectors and designers who share their passion for exceptional, idiosyncratic furniture and accessories. They filled the original showroom on La Cienega Boulevard with a heady mix of vintage treasures and alluring, offbeat curiosities from around the world. The partners soon began to complement the antiques with sympathetic contemporary objects of their own design, produced under the Blackman Cruz Workshop imprimatur. They cultivated their reputation as specialists in the exotic with signature pieces such as their bronze Op Table, Tri Ball Lamp and bronze Skull Lamp. By 2000, the BC Workshop collection had grown to encompass more than 50 pieces, ranging from chairs and tables to mirrors and lamps.
Collaboration with artists has always been an important part of the work of Blackman Cruz. The BC Workshop collection includes sculpture and furniture designed exclusively for the company by artists Kathleen O’Keefe, Jeff Price, Alison Berger, and Lika Moore, Senior Designer at Blackman Cruz. Recently, the Blackman Cruz product mix has expanded into jewelry, with a range of exclusive pieces created by Pamela Park Proctor and Beth Orduna.
In September of 2008, after fifteen years on La Cienega, the trendsetting shop moved its collection of dazzling curiosities into a much grander cabinet on Highland Avenue. Nearly triple the size of its original space, the new Blackman Cruz occupies the former home of the Probe, a gay bar popular in the 1970s and ’80s. The owners have maximized the dramatic potential of the vast-double space by installing monumental attractions and expanding the scope of their overall product offering.