print January 1965

Diebenkorn Retrospective in Washington

RICHARD DIEBENKORN IS probably the most celebrated living artist from the western U.S. And with good reason––he is one of the most intelligent, aware and self-directed of artists. He established himself with a fresh abstract painting style before he was thirty years old. He has pursued his own vision regardless of fashion and has changed directions in his art when his early style had achieved sympathetic understanding and even popularity. There is an unquestionable continuity between early work and the more recent, which confirms the artist’s achievement and illuminates his self-direction. It

print Summer 1964

Collecting in Los Angeles

THE 1960S SEE a richness and sophistication in art collecting in southern California that owes its origin to the example of early collectors in the area and the recent guidance of dealers and curators. One of the earliest southern California art dealers, Earl Stendahl, reports that he met the late Walter Arensberg in 1920 and that the then-celebrated collector’s esthetic vision and sophistication made a profound impression on Stendahl. The Stendahl Gallery then took to the new developments in international modern art and branched into pre-Columbian art and artifacts as a result of the enthusiasm

print Summer 1964

A Succession of Visitors

THE SOUTHWEST COASTLINE OF THE United States is often thought of as an unpredictable land of deserts, citrus fruit and film. The folk lore of the residents has it that it was at one time entirely populated by blonde movie stars. The fortunes of the film industry have vaned in recent years with aircraft, satellites and electronics tending to diversify one of the most important industrial and agricultural resources of the nation. A variety of cemeteries are well cared for and some of the suburban communities are reputed to be largely supported by the aged and retired. Perhaps the primary reason

print April 1964

The Wright Ludington Collection

THE WRIGHT LUDINGTON COLLECTION has a special place and reputation in California. Mr. Ludington has been collecting for more than 40 years and has been actively associated with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art since its founding in the late 1930s. Many important gifts have come to the museum through the Ludington Collection in addition to outright purchases for the rapidly developing museum. The display “From the Ludington Collection” at the UCLA Galleries during March and April is the first such exhibition since 1948.

Wright Ludington has had a strong interest in art history since his student

print April 1964

James Brooks

This retrospective exhibition of 42 oils, gouaches and drawings was organized by Sam Hunter for Brandeis University and the Whitney Museum. It spans the period 1947–1962, thereby omitting the artist’s work prior to the age of 41. This makes a consistent exhibition from the artist’s so-called “abstract expressionist” work. Unfortunately 22 additional works seen in the exhibition’s eastern viewings have had to be omitted from the western tour. Their omission from the UCLA show introduces a factor of discontinuity. Cubism, automatism, Pollock and Tomlin are to be recognized as influences which have

print March 1964

Master Drawings in Los Angeles

British

The important holdings in British art of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery are widely known in Europe and America. This reputation for depth and seriousness is sometimes an asset in obtaining additions to the collection. An extended correspondence with the distinguished British collector, Sir Bruce Ingram (for over half a century Editor of The Illustrated London News), has resulted in a very special purchase by the Huntington’s Administration. Ingram’s collection of British drawings was to be sold on his death and his correspondence revealed his wish that the Huntington

print March 1964

Reg Butler

Mr. Butler, 50 year old British sculptor of international reputation, held his first West Coast one-man exhibition during February. 25 sculptures and 6 drawings from 1955 to 1962 provide an accurate cross-section of the sculptor’s recent work when compared with the Speed Museum’s recent retrospective. The sculptures, mostly of the female nude, are worked in a non-sensuous cast bronze medium. Butler appears to be influenced by the lost-wax conceptions of Degas. His figures often strike similar poses and reveal a similar way of seeing. At his best, in works like Girl on a Wheel I, Study for Figure

print February 1964

SHOWPIECE

ACQUIRED IN 1958 AS A RESULT of the scholarly pursuit of Dr. Richard Brown, present Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Portrait of the Marquesa de Santa Cruz by Goya is prized as one of the museum’s principal acquisitions of the decade. The Marquesa was a famous beauty and an intellectual leader of her society. Born to the Ninth Duke and Duchess of Osuna in 1884, she was brought up in a house devoted to art and classical learning. Osuna had a great admiration for and personal friendship with Goya who enjoyed both the personal attachment to one of the greatest aristocratic

print February 1964

Jan de Swart

USC’s School of Architecture and Fine Arts has launched a new lecture and exhibition program of which this show is an element. De Swart has developed a considerable underground reputation in Los Angeles over the last 15 years. His work in glass, wood and metal was shown as early as 1948 at the Modern Institute of Art. The current show purports to show the capacity of sculpture to give meaning to architecture, to “vitalize” its space. These cabinet-sized pieces in glass, wood and cast metal seem largely unrelated to architecture. The random and unrelated placement of a number of small pieces on

print December 1963

Gaston Lachaise

THE LARGEST AND MOST IMPORTANT exhibition ever held of the work of Gaston Lachaise has been organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and opens on December 4. When the exhibit closes in January it will move to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York for the month of February. The collection has been drawn from more than forty-five museums and private collections as well as the estate of the artist’s wife. The more than 100 pieces of sculpture and 60 drawings provide the most comprehensive examination ever accorded the French-American artist. A number of the works have never been

print November 1963

The Suppression of Art

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO in Philadelphia the “Evening Bulletin” was shocked to learn that to Thomas Eakins “Art knows no sex.” The painter had pressed for art students of both sexes to work from the nude model in his classes at the Pennsylvania Academy. The American prudery summoned up by Eakins’ honest efforts to extend the students’ experience and knowledge of human anatomy resulted in his being fired from the Academy. The nude was suspect as an offensive expression of sexuality. 75 years have passed but the same kind of puritan thinking survives in our public life. In the last two years the

print November 1963

“California Artists”

Three Los Angeles galleries—Comara, Rivas and Roples—have loaned representative paintings by members of their stables to this show which runs through late October. Edward Reep’s “Solitude” is a particularly impressive, deep green asymmetric composition with a nicely felt balance of activity. Gordon Nunes’ “Interior with Figures” is an ambitious effort which fails to unify a variety of figurative content and shows a sketchy lack of finish. John Hultberg’s formula of frames within frames and strong color contrasts works as well as ever in his handsome, rather flashy entries. Irene and Gerd Koch

Gerald Nordland