Lorser Feitelson
Encyclopedia
Lorser Feitelson was born and raised in New York city but rose to prominence on the West Coast as one of the founding fathers of Southern California-based Hard Edge painting. Though some sources have identified his birthplace as Savannah Georgia, Feitelson’s birth certificate indicates he was born in New York.
The artist, along with his compatriots Karl Benjamin
, Frederick Hammersley
and John McLaughlin
, was featured in the landmark 1959 exhibition Four Abstract Classicists at the Los Angeles County Museum which later was brought to the San Francisco Museum. Curated by Los Angeles based critic and curator Jules Langsner, the exhibition introduced the general public to the dazzling visual language created by a revolutionary group of painters. A revised version of this exhibition re-titled West Coast Hard Edge was mounted in London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
and then in Belfast
, Northern Ireland
at Queens Court.
Feitelson, along with his wife Helen Lundeberg
and the aforementioned artists, pioneered a movement that has been celebrated by the Orange County Museum’s nationally toured exhibition Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury. Additionally, contemporary art writer and scholar Dave Hickey
, in his 2004 exhibition at the Otis College of Art and Design
, christened Feitelson and the other Hard Edge painters as The Los Angeles School.
These artists made profound contributions to the development of American abstract painting. According to Hickey: “The New York School painters would create their idiom by internalizing abstraction, psychologizing it in the manner of Freud and Jung
. The California painters take the opposite route by radically externalizing the surrealism of experience in the West. Their presumption, that surreality, visual anxiety and splendor have their roots in the physical and social world rather than the autonomous self, set art on the West Coast free from the rigor of concept and the regime of the personal that dominated American art in that moment. In the broader sense, this externalized vision granted artists the privilege of their sanity in a manic, narcissistic cultural moment and, in doing so, created the conditions out of which the language of art in Southern California art would evolve in the late twentieth century.”
Though his sketchbooks from those early years reveal a firm foundation in Old Master style draftsmanship, Feitelson rethought his approach to drawing after viewing the legendary International Exhibition of Modern Art in 1913 at the Armory.
The controversial work of Matisse, Duchamp and the Italian Futurists had a profound affect on the young artist. Feitelson began to produce a series of formally experimental figurative drawings and paintings. By 1916, the eighteen year old set up a studio in Greenwich Village and set out to establish himself as a painter.
.
Upon his relocation to Los Angeles, Feitelson turned to neo-classical
figure painting in the 1920s which, more importantly, was followed by Post-Surrealism
in the 30’s. According to Lundeberg, who authored the pair’s mission statement in response to the European Surrealist movement, Feitelson “wanted the utilization of association, the unconscious, to make a rational use of these subjective elements. Nothing of automatism about it. The name he had for this idea at first was ‘New Classicism ‘ or ‘Subjective Classicism.’ As Jules Langsner suggested in his catalogue for Post Surrealists and Other Moderns in 1935 at the Stanley Rose Gallery in Los Angeles, post-surrealism “affirms all that Surrealism negates.”
During this period, Feitelson was also assigned, with Stanton Macdonald-Wright, to oversee the WPA murals project on the West Coast. Though few examples of Feitelson’s design are extant, the large-scale narrative requirements of the mural format are in evidence in some of his larger Post-surrealist works. Flight Over New York at Twilight and Eternal Recurrence, both part of the Feitelson Arts Foundation, are two powerful examples of Feitelson’s technical acumen as well as his dynamic visual style.
Gallery owner and art dealer Joan Ankrum represented Feitelson and wife Helen Lundeberg for three years in the 1960s, until Feitelson claimed that she was using his work "as window dressing." Ankrum described him as a "brilliant, brilliant man," yet hostile and arrogant in personality and teaching style. Feitelson taught life drawing classes at what is now the Art Center College of Design
in Pasadena, where he taught until his retirement in the late 1970s.
. Louis Stern mounted additional Feitelson exhibitions representing his early work in 2005, Lorser Feitelson – The Kinetic Series, and his final paintings in 2009, Lorser Feitelson – The Late Paintings.
As Stern commented in his first publication, “Rarely does one have the privilege of exhibiting the work of an artist of such magnitude as Lorser Feitelson. His contributions as a scholar, teacher, lecturer, collector and pioneer of modern art are invaluable and I am honored to be part of his legacy.”
Lorser Feitelson’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
; the National Museum of American Art; Smithsonian Institution
, Library of Congress
and National Gallery of Art
, Washington D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
; the Whitney Museum of American Art
, Museum of Modern Art
and Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Columbus Museum of Art
; and numerous other public and private collections.
The artist, along with his compatriots Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin is an American painter of vibrant geometric abstractions who rose to fame in 1959 as one of four Los Angeles-based Abstract Classicists and subsequently produced a critically acclaimed body of work that explores a vast array of color relationships...
, Frederick Hammersley
Frederick Hammersley
Frederick Hammersley was a critically acclaimed American abstract painter whose participation in the landmark 1959 Four Abstract Classicists exhibit secured his place in art history.-Early years:...
and John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (artist)
John Dwyer McLaughlin was an American abstract painter. Based primarily in California, he was a pioneer in minimalist and hard-edge painting.-Life:...
, was featured in the landmark 1959 exhibition Four Abstract Classicists at the Los Angeles County Museum which later was brought to the San Francisco Museum. Curated by Los Angeles based critic and curator Jules Langsner, the exhibition introduced the general public to the dazzling visual language created by a revolutionary group of painters. A revised version of this exhibition re-titled West Coast Hard Edge was mounted in London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
and then in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
at Queens Court.
Feitelson, along with his wife Helen Lundeberg
Helen Lundeberg
Helen Lundeberg was an American Post-Surrealist, hard-edge painter.Lundeberg was born in Chicago. She married California artist Lorser Feitelson, her former teacher...
and the aforementioned artists, pioneered a movement that has been celebrated by the Orange County Museum’s nationally toured exhibition Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury. Additionally, contemporary art writer and scholar Dave Hickey
Dave Hickey
David Hickey is an American art and cultural critic. He has written for many American publications including Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, and Vanity Fair...
, in his 2004 exhibition at the Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design is an art and design college in Los Angeles, California.The school's programs, accredited by WASC and National Association of Schools of Art and Design, include four-year BFA degrees in illustration, fine arts, graphic design, architecture, landscape design, interior...
, christened Feitelson and the other Hard Edge painters as The Los Angeles School.
These artists made profound contributions to the development of American abstract painting. According to Hickey: “The New York School painters would create their idiom by internalizing abstraction, psychologizing it in the manner of Freud and Jung
Jung
Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology.Jung may also refer to:* Jung * JUNG, Java Universal Network/Graph Framework-See also:...
. The California painters take the opposite route by radically externalizing the surrealism of experience in the West. Their presumption, that surreality, visual anxiety and splendor have their roots in the physical and social world rather than the autonomous self, set art on the West Coast free from the rigor of concept and the regime of the personal that dominated American art in that moment. In the broader sense, this externalized vision granted artists the privilege of their sanity in a manic, narcissistic cultural moment and, in doing so, created the conditions out of which the language of art in Southern California art would evolve in the late twentieth century.”
Early career
Feitelson was raised in NYC and home-schooled in drawing by his art-loving father. As a child, he poured over the family’s collection of international magazines and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Though his sketchbooks from those early years reveal a firm foundation in Old Master style draftsmanship, Feitelson rethought his approach to drawing after viewing the legendary International Exhibition of Modern Art in 1913 at the Armory.
The controversial work of Matisse, Duchamp and the Italian Futurists had a profound affect on the young artist. Feitelson began to produce a series of formally experimental figurative drawings and paintings. By 1916, the eighteen year old set up a studio in Greenwich Village and set out to establish himself as a painter.
Career Success
Like all serious Modernist painters of the time, Feitelson wanted to continue his study/practice in Europe. He made his first journey to Paris in 1919 and enrolled as an independent student in life drawing at the Académie Colorossi. While in Paris, he also made numerous trips to Corsica, Italy, and sketches from his time there formed the basis for later works featuring peasants as subjects. After numerous trips back and forth, and before returning home to the States for good in 1927, Feitelson exhibited at Paris’ famous Salon d'AutomneSalon d'Automne
In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
.
Upon his relocation to Los Angeles, Feitelson turned to neo-classical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
figure painting in the 1920s which, more importantly, was followed by Post-Surrealism
Post-surrealism
Post-surrealism is a movement that arose in Southern California in 1934 when Helen Lundeberg and Lorser Feitelson wrote a manifesto explaining their desire to use art to convey the relationship between the perceptual and the conceptual....
in the 30’s. According to Lundeberg, who authored the pair’s mission statement in response to the European Surrealist movement, Feitelson “wanted the utilization of association, the unconscious, to make a rational use of these subjective elements. Nothing of automatism about it. The name he had for this idea at first was ‘New Classicism ‘ or ‘Subjective Classicism.’ As Jules Langsner suggested in his catalogue for Post Surrealists and Other Moderns in 1935 at the Stanley Rose Gallery in Los Angeles, post-surrealism “affirms all that Surrealism negates.”
During this period, Feitelson was also assigned, with Stanton Macdonald-Wright, to oversee the WPA murals project on the West Coast. Though few examples of Feitelson’s design are extant, the large-scale narrative requirements of the mural format are in evidence in some of his larger Post-surrealist works. Flight Over New York at Twilight and Eternal Recurrence, both part of the Feitelson Arts Foundation, are two powerful examples of Feitelson’s technical acumen as well as his dynamic visual style.
The Move to Abstraction
By the 1940s, Feitelson had developed the use of biomorphic or “Magical” forms. “In his Magical Forms, Feitelson began to paint more abstractly but retained the shallow space and modeling of his post surrealist work." These evolved into a more formalized visual language in the ‘Magical Space Forms’ series of the 1950s and 60s and culminated in the elegant figurative minimalism of the ‘Ribbon’ paintings in the 70s; “pure gesture that engages the viewer with the intimacy of an embrace.”Gallery owner and art dealer Joan Ankrum represented Feitelson and wife Helen Lundeberg for three years in the 1960s, until Feitelson claimed that she was using his work "as window dressing." Ankrum described him as a "brilliant, brilliant man," yet hostile and arrogant in personality and teaching style. Feitelson taught life drawing classes at what is now the Art Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design is a private college located in Pasadena, California, and was cited by BusinessWeek as one of the 60 best design schools in the world. The college’s industrial design program is consistently ranked number one by both DesignIntelligence and U.S...
in Pasadena, where he taught until his retirement in the late 1970s.
Representation and Collections
Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood represents the estate of Lorser Feitelson on behalf of the Feitelson/Lundeberg Art Foundation. Stern presented Feitelson’s first concise retrospective with catalogue in 2003. Entitled Lorser Feitelson and the invention of Hard Edge Painting, 1945-1965, the exhibition met with significant critical acclaim and rekindled public interest in Feitelson’s oeuvre. In 2006, New York's Washburn Gallery followed suit, presenting Lorser Feitelson - Los Angeles, the 1960s. This exhibition was also well-received and was reviewed in the New York Times and Art in AmericaArt in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
. Louis Stern mounted additional Feitelson exhibitions representing his early work in 2005, Lorser Feitelson – The Kinetic Series, and his final paintings in 2009, Lorser Feitelson – The Late Paintings.
As Stern commented in his first publication, “Rarely does one have the privilege of exhibiting the work of an artist of such magnitude as Lorser Feitelson. His contributions as a scholar, teacher, lecturer, collector and pioneer of modern art are invaluable and I am honored to be part of his legacy.”
Lorser Feitelson’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
; the National Museum of American Art; Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
; the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
and Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Columbus Museum of Art
Columbus Museum of Art
The Columbus Museum of Art is an art museum located in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio.-Building:...
; and numerous other public and private collections.