California Abstractionists Catalogue

LEONARD EDMONDSON

•

GORDON ONSLOW FORD

•

JOHN GRILLO

California Abstractionists

FRANK LOBDELL

•

JACK WRIGHT

•

FRITZ RAUH

Est.

California A

LEONARD EDMONDSON • GORDO FRANK LOBDELL • JACK

3 2 E A S T 5 7 T H S T R E E T, 2 N D F L O O R , N E

1 6 5 W O R T H AV E N U E , PA L M B E A W W W. F I N D L AY G

1870

Abstractionists

ON ONSLOW FORD • JOHN GRILLO K WRIGHT • FRITZ RAUH

EW YORK, NY 10022

•

(212) 421-5390

ACH, FL 33480 (561) 655-2090 GALLERIES.COM •

CALIFORNIA ABSTRACTIONISTS

Findlay Galleries is pleased to present a group exhib of California Abstractionists at our New York gallery

“After World War II, many veterans enrolled in the C their GI Bill to further their art education. Most of th art student, more experienced, more sophisticated an exceptionally serious and vital group of people. T level of maturity quite different from that of the usua

During this same period, in one of those peculiar c gathered together at the art school, under the direc of the development of a new abstract style of pai Still, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt and others. The c and exceptional instructors, resulted in a solar flare run by the artists, sprang up around town, and th in the new movement. Accurately or not, the Fren “École du Pacific.” Many of the painters in San Francis known.” – Mary Fuller, Artforum, 1971

This exhibition includes works from Leonard Edmo Ford, Fritz Rauh and Jack Wright, all artists who h Abstract Expressionist movement in various ways.

bition of abstract works from our esteemed collection y location.

California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, using hese men and women were older than the average d... As the student body of an art school, they were They were concerned with the search for values on a al student, perhaps because of their war experiences.

conjunctions of history, a group of instructors were ction of Douglas MacAgy, who was at the forefront inting in America including artists such as Clyfford combination of these two factors, mature students in San Francisco’s art history. Cooperative galleries, here was a passionate involvement of the painters nch critics eventually named the development the sco at that time are now nationally and internationally

ondson, John Grillo, Frank Lobdell, Gordon Onslow have influenced and participated in the California

LEONARD EDMONDSON (1916 - 2002)

“My painting is not art of rebellion, but one of discovery and sharing. I have found satisfaction in the spontaneous, often compulsive, act of drawing and painting.”

– Leonard Edmondson

Untitled | 1956 watercolor on paper 24 1/2 x 19 in.

FG© 139715

Harvest No. 3 | 1963 oil on canvas 36 x 46 in.

FG© 206696

Opera Season | 1959 gouache and tempera on paper 12 1/2 x 18 1/4 in.

FG© 205575

GORDON ONSLOW FORD (1912 - 2003)

Gordon Onslow Ford was a renowned abstract and surrealist painter.

In 1941 Onslow Ford gave four lectures entitled “Surrealist Painting: An Adventure into the Human Consciousness,” which were attended by various young artists who would shortly become crucial figures within the Abstract Expressionist movement, such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Onslow Ford settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1951, and along with artists Lee Mullican and the ex-surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, formed the Dynaton group. In 1958 he built a home and studio in the secluded woodlands of Bishop Pine Preserve above Inverness. It was in these woods, he recalled, that the revelation came to him in 1951 that the basic forms of the line, circle and dot were “at the root of art.”

The discovery of this basic visual language, which dominated his art for almost two decades, enabled the artist to work with the speed he deemed necessary for capturing the flux of the “inner worlds which lie beyond dreams.”

– Excerpts from Independent, 2003

Untitled | 1986 acrylic on paper 29 x 20 1/2 in.

FG© 139977

Alone in Company | 1945 casein on paper 12 1/2 x 18 in.

FG© 206995

JOHN GRILLO (1917 - 2014)

John Grillo’s approach to action painting was intuitive and exciting. “[he] was remarkably ahead of his time... [he had a] marvelous sensuous feeling for pigment and for smearing it and putting it on. He astounded everybody”, said Douglas MacAgy, Director of the San Francisco Museum of Art during the formative years of Abstract Expressionism in San Francisco.

– Artforum, 1971

Detail image, see next page.

Untitled 13 | 1947 watercolor on paper 19 1/2 x 25 in.

FG© 205997

Untitled 12 | 1947 watercolor on paper 18 x 23 in.

FG© 205996

Untitled 3 | 1947 watercolor on paper 17 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.

FG© 205988

Untitled 2 | 1947 watercolor on paper 17 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.

FG© 205987

FRANK LOBDELL (1921 - 2013)

Lobdell is recognized as one of the founding fathers of Abstract expressionism and was also a member of the famed ‘Sausalito Six.’ His “color is his passion, strong hues urgently laid on in impasto textures or thin glazes and often tempered by vibrant blacks...”

(New York Times, 2002).

Lobdell’s mature work, beginning from the late 1940s, is either allover gestural abstraction—often bright and colorful—or Picassoesque deconstructions and distortions of the human figure in gridlike Cubistic formats.

(cover image) Francisco Street, Fall II | 2004 oil-based pigments on canvas 60 x 52 in.

FG© 138734

2 October | 1947 oil-based pigments on canvas 28 x 36 in.

FG© 139273

JACK WRIGHT (1919 - 2003)

Untitled (7122) | 1971 florescent acrylic on canvas 15 x 19 in.

FG© 138053

FRITZ RAUH (1920 - 2010)

Born in 1920, Fritz Rauh emigrated to the U.S. in 1954 and showed at the DeYoung Museum in 1956 at his first U.S. exhibition. His experiences in WWII and six years spent as a Russian prisoner of war helped shape his later life and career.

In May 1968, San Francisco Chronicle writer Alfred Frankenstein cited Rauh as one of the most original painters in the San Francisco Bay Area: “[Painting] hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small, writhing connecting shapes on his canvas imitating nature and leading to a certain mysticism, the effect is ‘Magnificent.’”

Untitled (1976-005) | 1976 acrylic on canvas 55 1/4 x 55 1/2 in.

FG© 138089

WC-0018 watercolor on paper 22 1/2 x 30 in.

FG© 138102

WC-0014 watercolor on paper 19 1/2 x 27 in.

FG© 138103

F I N D L AY G A L L E R I E S T H R E E

C E N T U R I E S

I N

A R T

For further information and pricing of these artworks please contact the gallery:

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