The distinguishing note in this assortment of paintings and sculptures by regular gallery artists including Hill, Bloom, Frank, Strick, Beamish, Nakayana and others, was the Coast introduction to Leo Bukzin who recently returned to the United States after spending 17 years in France. The artist brought with him a bright, strenuous palette judiciously employed in blocking out pleasant landscapes and still-lifes that are a bouquet to the eye. The six works on view all demonstrated a capable straight forward style devoid of tricks and theatrics, implying a mature talent at work.

—Curt Opliger

A nostalgia for primitivism is one simplistic and recurrent response of “civilized” man to the cultural and moral failures of his own society. Theocritus' laments for a pastoral existence, the edenic myth, Montaigne's reflections on cannibals, the nineteenth century vogue of Ossianism, Gauguin's Tahitians, Marées' images of a golden age—all demonstrate a longing for an earlier and somehow glorious time. That cliché which equates civilization with emotional enervation has as its corollary the assertion that life “ab origine” is either good, happy, or brilliantly vigorous. One incident in the long

A difficult show to assess as Forsythe (1886–1962) was one of many typical painters of the West who were greatly admired for some seven decades for their depictions of California deserts, Laguna Beach cliffs, Carmel lagoons, pines and sea coasts. Accordingly, this will be a nostalgic exhibit for many viewers who like only what they understand—the familiar scene, the traditional and illustrative approach. The Struggle, an oil on canvas of a prospector, is by far the best example in the exhibition, and points up Forsythe’s favorite subject—the desert in all its aspects.

Memorials of this type are

Small, painstakingly rendered gouaches in magenta, orange, blue and other bright colors, looking deceptively innocent like easter-egg decoration, the content of Dyer’s compositions are crowded with curious symbology. Every inch of space is filled with patterns. Lush growths of strange plant forms push out from central themes where children hold hands or stand in gesturing wonder and now and then a Chagall-like figure swoops through the cluster. Mostly the gouaches seem too decorative, stemming from a type of folk art that is difficult to place, but there is a peculiar appeal in the lively, happy

The heterogeneous opening show at the gallery’s new quarters in a courtyard off La Cienega successfully establishes an avant tone, a hyperborean air. Shown are works by Nicholas Krushenick, Llyn Foulkes, John Chamberlain, H. C. Westermann, Charles Mattox, Alfred Jensen, Lloyd Hamrol, George Herms, Judith Gerowitz, Phillip Hefferton, and Peter Saul. These make for a lively if extremely uneven grouping, dominated by an aggressive Krushenick “new abstraction,” an icy, double-imaged Foulkes, and two contrasting Chamberlain sculptures.

Krushenick’s Sebring brilliantly combines the intuitive possibilities

Lynn Weston depicts human figures with boldness and dynamicism but not with the static surface faithfulness of representational art. In her work they are integrated with a total and very modern condensed vision of the world. Her work has both a vigorous and emotional appeal and yet is able to suggest the mythological overtones of human life. She can render the poetry of light and motion. She has a skill for breaking up monotonous surfaces into radiant fragments which give mobility and liveliness. In her human figures she portrays drama, joy, pain, loneliness, injustice, but they bathe in an

Sponsored by the Van Nuys Savings and Loan Association, this show “came into being out of a growing need for an exhibition in Southern California that would truly represent what leading artists and art students are accomplishing.” It succeeded; everyone concerned is to be congratulated.

All of the major directions were well represented, and some of the best work being done in these directions was shown. The award winners were: Sheila Ross Liberation of Paris, 1964 (oil, pencil on paper); Lorser Feitelson Hard Edge Painting, July 19, 1964 (oil on canvas); Llyn Foulkes Post Card, 1964 (oil on

Her sculptures are modest in size. Her emotion and technique, when successful, are equally modest. Such immaterial feelings as nostalgia or contemplation are pleasantly clear in a female torso and a seated female in bronze. A small bull and a sheet bronze relief avoid the tentative lumpiness of other works by being simple. She falls farthest where she aims highest; operatic statements are not her metier. Only once does she strike a sonorous note, in a stone Sacrificial Altar that outstrips its size. For the rest she exhibits unpaid debts to Barlach, Rodin, Degas and others with whom she shares

This hodge-podge of prints and paintings was rigid summer fare. The selection of pictures from Israel were dry, unimaginative imports and barely deserved the ocean voyage. These simple, lightly decorative and very dull works were only mildly relieved by a group of American prints including works by Ernest Lacy and Charles White, have been seen regularly.

—Curt Opliger

This exhibition of figurative oil paintings is too slight for a fair judgment. The paintings are colorful and competent, reflecting a background of sound academic instruction with personal overtones which occasionally approach a strong expressionistic statement.

Miss Fisher is at her best when depicting women in mood-evocative poses (if the backgrounds are restrained and do not overwhelm the figurative content). There is a potential strength and depth, an intangible quality of sincerity that demands further exploration of painterly techniques to enable her to express the full range of an individual

Every gallery inclines, more or less consciously, to a clientele. Seekers after disturbance or outrageous novelty rarely find satisfaction at the Galerie De Ville; it is located amid decorator’s shops. Their late group show assembled such confident pros as: Phillipe Marchand, Andre Vignoles, Corbellini, and Spazalli. A painting by any one of them could serve as the leitmotif for a splendid room.

Together, the pictures evoke memories of your trip to Paris—especially if you’ve never been. They console you with good taste. They are the bright, well-bred companions of many a weary, mauve afternoon.

The sculpture in this show of the gallery group is divergent, ranging from Bernice Kussoy’s whimsical and active junk creations to Bruno Groth’s referential Aves theme bronzes.

Assembled from scrap metal, springs, rusted tins and corroding iron rods, Kussoy’s work often approaches the heroic in size if not in content. Welded into extraordinarily rhythmic and fluid figures brim full of fantasy, the creatures ride bicycles, play flutes, jump rope or, as in “Lady With a Parasol,” just sit. Groth’s “Rite of the Crane,” and “Sand Pipers,” are formed with affection and sensitivity, escaping the

The first impression of this retrospective of Burri’s work is one of extreme quiet and order, with a tinge of melancholy. Burri’s collages—his Saccos, Ferros, Legnos, Combustiones and Plasticas—are perfectly structured; the scale and relative positions of his few elements seems almost inevitable, posing an order that derives more from Mondrian and Constructivism than from Cubist, Dada or Surrealist collage.

The drama of these objects (for they are much more objects than pictures) comes primarily from the inherent qualities of his materials, set, as they are, in their immutable architectonic

Balcomb Greene was represented by sixteen medium-to-large oils of mixed landscape and figure subjects, all painted in a rather dry, sparse manner with large white areas as one of the most prominent features. In the pure land- or seascapes, the white works conventionally in the manner of the oriental watercolorists, and often suggests fog or mist rising from the water. But it works differently on the figures, giving the impression of a thick, white, fluid light—rather as if the figure were being defined in hot wax. The white in all of the paintings is important, but only in those works dealing

John Sloan’s long life spanned the period in which American art came of age, and he was instrumental in the maturing process. While his American art is secure, he remains somewhat in the limbo of unappreciation that comes to many artists following their deaths before they are properly evaluated and placed in the over-all artistic scheme of things.

The earlier paintings in this extensive retrospective show a freedom, a sureness of brush stroke, a verve that is pleasing. As his work progressed, the brush stroke grew quieter, and the painting media became dryer and tighter, and line began to emerge,

Ceramic sculpture. A fine survey of one of Southern California’s better designer-craftsmen working in the area of hand-thrown multiple stoneware.

Imaginative and original, De Larios’ pieces are built from central pots with multiple animals, creatures or people jutting out from the body to rotate in an ascending spiral to the apex. Although the shapes are static, due to the limitations of throwing, the carrousel-like design is so well articulated and the figures so well placed that the constructions have the appearance of running, springing and growing movement. Many pieces are incised—some areas

“Kinetics” introduces the viewer to a visual and audible experience which stems from the tradition of Moholy-Nagy, Gabo and Calder, whose mobile constructions are predicated on mechanical movement.

“The Beauty Machine,” a cinemascopic cut-out girl’s head whose eyes and mouth move slowly from one extreme to another registers the cycle of perfection from ugly—a red light and buzzer marking at “N.G.” positions—to a green light and music box tinkling “Beautiful Dreamer” at the “O.K.” position.

Recessed doll’s eyeballs, complete with lashes, open and click shut staring from the windows of an old

Until very recently it was possible to view the paintings of John Hultberg with the distinct hope that he would never tire of depicting the dream-like ice-floes agitated by jams which erupt jagged flat planes into glowering skies. At least until we had tired of them, which at the time seemed unlikely. A change has taken place, and in view of former adulation of the artist’s vision, it is difficult not to be bitter and a little belligerent at his indifference. This is not to say, however, that the change is not for the better; it is merely that it took place before satiation had set in.

The new

The figure and landscape have occupied Avery’s unsophisticated but complete devotion for more than 40 years. Shown were recent canvases (1962–3) and a half dozen from pre-1945; in effect, a capsulated retrospective. His contemplative distillations, as ever, exhibit constant characteristic tense placement, edited simplification, and a contracting limitation of sensuousness. His space is a compressed one, about the center of which movement ricochets along abrupt perspective and exaggerated scale changes. Tipped axes are pinned in permanent, empathically active suspension. The leaning woman of “

Known previously for her widely circulated prints, Vredaparis’ recent promising departure, small sculptures, is seen collectively for the first time. With the accompanying graphic works, we may trace the accidental lyricism of the intaglios translated logically to the natural forms of the sculptures. The pieces, cast and polished bronze concretions, rest supremely on, and are integral with, milled or burnished aluminum bases. Her basic repertoire of shapes consists of irregular oval, rectangular, or tubular masses. These flattened, twisted or folded volumes establish a major axis and incidentally

The impression is of bright colors, clear shapes, and depths upon which no one insists. Uniting the five participating artists is a concern more to fill in shapes than to dazzle, or deepen with complex technique, more to color than to comment but more to comment than to compose.

On the whole, the comments are witty.

Kirsten Kraa’s funniness comes most strongly from her grouped work. She endlessly repeats a geometric man whose eyes and sunglasses have fused. He stares at us, abandoning some desultory amusement; blowing a bubble, playing a record, or sucking a sugar stick. Dutifully, he is about

A remarkable compendium of Judaic art forms, spanning the centuries from a major fragment of the historic Dead Sea Scrolls and priceless antiquities of Biblical times, to the dramatic contrast of contemporary Israeli fine arts and crafts.

Among the many archeological items of great historical value are treasures from the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1500 B.C.) and the Herouian Period—including a stone tomb-door (2nd–3rd Century A.D.). Also on loan from the Antiquities Museum in Jerusalem are two large, well preserved fragments of mosaic flooring from Beit Shean Monastery of Our Lady Mary (2nd Century

Two characteristics of this collector strongly inform this admirable exhibition. The first is a fortitudinous patience in waiting for the right piece at the right time and the second is a cavalier indifference to “name” artists. The primary criterion, it is obvious, is the high pleasure to be obtained from possession. This is particularly pronounced in the selection of small pieces. Strombotne, Tobey, Foulkes, Horiuchi and others are represented here by physically small works, but by no means do the modest dimensions reflect a similar stature esthetically. Larger and equally enjoyable are works

Overshadowed by Rodin, Maillol, Despiau and others, the career of Bourdelle (1861–1929) is offered for reassessment in a showing of twenty-six drawings and fifty-nine bronzes. Working out few motifs of a genre or allegorical vein, an executor of several major commissions, and an enthusiastic teacher (of Richier and Giacometti), his work is the product of highly placed and unabashed eclecticism. Proficient in all the prevailing 19th-century modes of naturalism (Mask of a Smiling Girl) realism (in Maternity) neoclassicism (in M. Charmaux au Chinen) and a baroque romanticism (in Beethoven—A Tragic