print March 1965

Schmidt-Rottluff, Gabriele Munter, Erich Heckel, Ernst Nay, George Grosz, Gabriele Munter, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Erich Heckel, Ernst Nay, Jun Dobashi, Raoul Dufy, Reuven Rubin, Lyonel Feininger, Sir Jacob Epstein, Dan Lutz, Andrew Dasburg and more

An establishment that has been called “a petite museum,” for their extensive collections of German Expressionist and French Impressionist paintings—whose catholicity of taste and selectivity through the years has made them one of the West Coast’s most important galleries, has organized a group exhibition of unusual interest. Among the German Expressionist painters whose works are displayed are Schmidt-Rottluff, Gabriele Munter, Erich Heckel, Ernst Nay, and George Grosz. There is an especially appealing still-life in watercolor with oil overpainting by Gabriele Munter who is best remembered for

print March 1965

Gloria Longval

This young Spanish-born artist is preoccupied with the humanities. Her oils are rich and glowing, emotion packed and referential to Goya’s strong social and explosive iconographic expressions of fear and loneliness. But this is no copyist; Longval’s work is honest, her brushwork sure. “The Spectre” is a grim comment wherein a haunting, white-faced personality may be either ghost or clown, a psychic phenomenon where beast and human recede and emerge to recede again. The tigers may be animals becoming men or men may be humans becoming tigers. This is an exhibit which may not be easily forgotten,

print March 1965

David Schnabel

A strong colorist, Schnabel paints enigmas with thematic content often with ominous atomic references. The linear strokes are reminiscent of stained glass and a Rouault technique. The pigments are mostly red, purple and pink. Schnabel sets on glazes of tone over tone, achieving a shimmering depth of many-faceted imagery. Archaic and archetypal the forms represent groups, never an individual, caught in a framework of connecting lines. Done by less experienced hands, without the mysterious content and strong painterly qualities, these canvases might be as pretty as a rose, purple and pink boudoir.

print February 1965

Richard Poole, Heman, Harron Weinstein and Friesz

Another of the twice-a-year innumerable group exhibitions which are as seasonal as the season—and just as predictable. Richard Poole’s figurative studies in oil are expressionistic, forcefully painted, and economical. Windows, doors, walls and people are studies in geometric counterbalance. In many of the canvases he captures the mood of women caught in intimate, everyday postures and gestures. Set in an atmosphere of dark juxtaposed with light, the architectural figures often appear huddled and safe from outside pressures.

Heman’s “Sunset” is rendered in rich and thick jewel-toned impasto with

print February 1965

Joshua Meador, Jan De Ruth, Gunnar Anderson, Jean Kalisch, Marlinde von Ruhs, William H. M. Weber, Marjorie Allen, David Rosen, William Gropper, C. B. Johnson and John Jagger

Offers a modicum of styles by competent artists whose works generally remain in the safe confines limited to genre painting, both figurative and land- or seascape. Joshua Meador, the veteran Carmel painter who was with Walt Disney for thirty years, is showing Monterey scenes and seascapes. Though sound in brushwork and freely applied palette-knife techniques, the canvases leave one feeling the landscapes could be anywhere. Jan De Ruth, who was born in Czechoslovakia, is a more than competent painter working in romantic traditions. He brings to his “society portraiture” and lush nudes not only

print February 1965

Piero Averse, John Leeper, Dorothy Brown, Margo Hoff, Edward Kitson, Laverne Krause, Max Kahn, Eleanor Coen, Alice Asmar, Leonard Edmondson, Ann Wolfe, Finkelstein and Rolf Nelson

One of the area’s better collective exhibitions, well-mounted and an interesting survey of the two-month old gallery’s widely divergent stable. The Italian painter Piero Averse is having his first showing on the West Coast. Highly stylized, Aversa’s still-life painting is a fine combination of excellent draftsmanship juxtaposed against flat color surfaces. His “Symphony No. 4,” a white pot with a white spring growth terminating in flower shapes is both Oriental and organic. Set against pale yellow background tiles with a non-dimensional border reminiscent of Persian motifs, the device of

print January 1965

“New Dimensions in Lithography”

This is a retrospective exhibition, selected from the Tamarind Lithography workshop. Significantly, Tamarind’s chop (drystamp) is the medieval alchemist’s sign for stone, chosen by Los Angeles artist June Wayne, who as founder and director of the successful Ford Foundation-backed project, has been rather an alchemist herself in transmuting an ancient process into a modern idiom. Predicated on complete collaboration between artist and master-printer, and established in 1959, a National Panel of Selection nominates twelve artists a year for fellowships. Judging by the choice works done individually

print January 1965

California Watercolor Society 44th Annual Exhibition

A widely divergent selection of entries was chosen by jurors Jonathan Scott, Leonard Edmondson, Noel Quinn, Clem Hall and Hilda Levy for exhibit and awards. Elsa Warner won the top award for her Inward Sun. Four other purchase awards went to John Leeper, John Opie, Dale Hennesy, and Robert E. Wood.

As 96 artists from various parts of the country are shown, the exhibition is an adequate survey of national watercolor trends, running the gamut from traditional to more inventive conceptions. One work does not show any individual fairly and the display areas in the halls, foyer and auditorium

print January 1965

Hilda Levy

There is much more than simplified abstraction in Miss Levy’s recent works, which show a development in highly controlled visual elements combining solid structural form with space exploration. In the “Circular Depression Series,” Miss Levy has created extraordinary lace-like patterned areas of depth. Formulations, a calligraphic study in watercolor and ink, is rendered on hospital-paper (heavy crepe paper used in sterilizing instruments and gauze at an extremely high temperature), the texture of which lends a continuing development and diversity to the non-objective forms. A pastel and

print December 1964

Helen Lundeberg

This first exhibition in the recently-opened, handsome new headquarters points up Helen Lundeberg’s continuing preoccupation with expanding vistas seen through doorways, panoramic scenes of rivers, waterways—and a new theme, the arch which invites the viewer to linger appreciatively at the entrance of the architectural forms before experiencing the visual treat of entering into landscapes which are increasingly referential to her earlier surrealistic work. Done with intellectual precision, great control and fine craftsmanship, the large canvases would reflect the cold geometries of the so-called

print December 1964

Emile Norman

This exhibition marks the gallery’s formal opening. Norman, who lives in Big Sur, also maintains a studio in Italy near the quarries of Carrara and the foundries of Florence. Periodically he returns to Japan and the new year will find him on safari in Africa sketching the animals and birds which are his favorite subject matter. Self-taught, Norman works in wood, stone, bronze and endomosaics with equal skill. Four Seasons, an innovation of cast bronze, a disk encircled with a separate casting representing the sun’s rays, is mounted on a cloth scroll on which he has sketched an ascending design

print December 1964

Serge Mendjisky

Roughly translated, the gallery’s name, “Pleasure From France,” reflects its policy of showing alternating exhibits of works by contemporary and traditional artists including lithographs by such masters as Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Cézanne and Bonnard.

Serge Mendjisky’s small oil paintings are exciting and colorful. Untouched white canvas is juxtaposed with bright, impressionistic strokes; the subject matter is of French landscapes, everyday scenes of villages, forests and people. Although freely done technically, he paints with economy in brush strokes, using contrasting vivid colors in figurative

Betje Howell