The View from Here

The View from HereArt from Local Estates

highlights available works of art being deasses-sioned from several private and estate collec-tions in Orange County. The works show the vibrant and forward-thinking perspectives of local art enthusiasts as they curated their per-sonal collections. Many of these works were purchased in the 1970s and ‘80s, a period that has become increasingly collectible in recent years, and are by artists whose names add ca-chet to any collection.

The exhibition highlights works from the Estate of Richard and Grace Narver, two important members of the Orange County arts communi-ty who served as Laguna Art Museum trustees and volunteers. Prior to taking up residence in Three Arch Bay, the Narvers were instrumen-

Cover: Ed Moses (b. 1926)Quest Marker, 1987 (detail; see page 21)Acrylic on canvas60 x 48 inches

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tal supporters of the Pasadena Art Museum. Throughout their lives they were avid and pro-gressive collectors of contemporary art, devel-oping an eclectic and sometimes whimsical col-lection that included noteworthy works by such renowned artists as Larry Bell, Sam Francis, Henry Moore, Ed Moses, and Wayne Thiebaud, among many others.

Several other private collections are also repre-sented in the exhibition, which includes over forty works of art by artists of both national and international reputation. On the whole, the show highlights and celebrates an underrepre-sented facet of Orange County art collecting: the serious collector with a curatorial eye. Miriam L. Smith

The View from HereThe View from Here

ArtistsLita AlbuquerqueLarry BellNicolas CaroneAlan DavieGene DavisWerner DrewesViola FreyDavid GilhoolyMichael GoldbergRobert GoodnoughCleve GrayMarie Zoe Greene-MercierDavid HockneyTom HollandPeter LodatoJohn McCrackenJohn McLaughlinEd MosesKenneth Noland

David Gilhooly (b. 1943)Frog Sandwich, 1987Ceramic1.25 x 2.25 x 1.75 inches

John OkulickBruce RichardsJames RosenquistJohn SaccaroDavid R. SmithWayne ThiebaudRuth WallMichael Corinne WestJack ZajakLarry Zox

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Ed Moses (b. 1926)Re Curr V, 1987Oil and acrylic on canvas43 x 43 1/2 inches

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John McLaughlin (1898 - 1976)Untitled, 1947Oil on board20 x 16 inches

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Michael GoldbergMichael Goldberg

was born on December 24, 1924 in New York City and spent most of his life in Manhattan. He began his artistic training at the Art Students League in New York (1938) and attended Hans Hofmann’s School of Fine Art (1941-1942) before interrupting his studies to serve as a paratroop-er in the United States Army in North Africa, China, Burma, and India.

After World War II Goldberg resumed his class-es with Hofmann. He became involved in the avant-garde New York art scene, meeting Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Milton Resnick, among others.

In 1951 Goldberg, under the name Michael Stu-art, showed his paintings in the “Ninth Street Show,” arguably the first comprehensive dis-play of Abstract Expressionist work. The fol-lowing year he moved to 28 East 2nd Street and joined the artists’ “Club” on Eighth Street, gath-

ering with other Abstract Expressionist painters to exchange artistic ideas.

Goldberg had a prolific career. He painted dy-namic, gestural canvases; monochromatic, min-imalist works; grids; calligraphic images; and patterned or striped paintings; he also experi-mented with collage. By 2003 he had had 99 solo exhibitions since his first show at Tibor de Nagy in New York in 1953.

Goldberg’s artworks are in numerous public collections in the United States, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithso-nian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Philadelphia Mu-seum of Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Mu-seum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Michael Goldberg (1924 - 2007)Untitled, 1951-52Oil on canvas60 x 64 inches

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Larry Bell (b. 1939)Untitled, 1984Vaporized precious metals on paper28 x 22 inches

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Peter Lodato (b. 1946)Whitewash, not datedOil on canvas24.25 x 20.25 x 1.75 inches

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Larry Bell (b. 1939)Bare Bone, 1989Mixed media on white canvas67 x 47.5 inches

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Jack Zajac (b. 1929)Capra L’Ultima, c. 1960Bronze12 x 24 x 12 inchesEdition of 6

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Larry Bell (b. 1939)Meltin 2, 1984Mixed media on paper21 x 27.5 inches

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Larry Bell (b. 1939)Untitled (MS 37, 1978), 1978Mixed media on paper70 x 46 inches

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Nicolas Carone (1917-2010)Figure Study, 1953Oil on paper14 x 10 inches

Tom Holland (b. 1936)Pond Series #47, 1995Epoxy on fiberglass68 x 48 x 6 inches 15

Gene Davis (1920 - 1985)Lincoln Center, 1971Acrylic on canvas72 x 40.5 inches

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Gene Davisuses intervals of color to create complex rhythms and sequences of stripes in his large-scale paint-ings. The stripes themselves vary in hue and intensity, as well as in width, from one-half inch to eight inches. Davis considered the ver-tical stripe a vehicle for color that follows no preexisting chromatic scale. Of the stripes, he wrote, “There is no simpler way to divide a can-vas than with straight lines at equal intervals.

Gene DavisThis enables the viewer to forget the structure and see the color itself.” Forever associated with the Washington School of Color Field Painters, Davis was a self-taught artist whose early work represented several phases of experimentation, including Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, and Proto-Pop. He taught at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. and at a vari-ety of other institutions.

Cleve Gray(1918 - 2004)Conjugation #197, 1975Acrylic on canvas39 x 36 inches

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Larry Zox (1937 - 2006)Untitled, not datedAcrylic on canvas74 x 30 inches

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Ed Mosesreceived his Master of Fine Arts degree from the UCLA in 1958. California-born, he also did a series of coastal architectural drawings, and his affinity for grids became obvious. He later explored more sensual subject matter and in the 1970s worked in translucent resins. Character-istic of his technique is that he seldom uses a brush but instead works by staining, knifing, splashing and mopping; he achieves his lines by using tap and snap lines.Cross-hatching is the centerpiece of Moses’s abstraction. His work ranges from compositions featuring repeated patterns to large fields of flowing color to hard-edged geometric forms. For him, color is used to establish pure aesthetic experience.

Moses has been exhibiting since 1949 and was part of the original group of artists from the Fer-us Gallery in 1957. He has had a career of more than 51 years as a noted artist in non-objective and abstract styles. In 1996 a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, organized by the poet and curator John Yau.

Works by Moses are included in museum col-lections including the Los Angeles County Mu-seum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Menil Foundation, Museum of Modern Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Ed Moses

Ed Moses (b. 1926)Quest Marker, 1987Acrylic on canvas60 x 48 inches 21

Viola Frey (1933 - 2004)Swimmer and One Possession, 1984Ceramic27 x 27 x 7 inches

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John Okulick (b. 1947)Aura, 1988Wood with acrylic and gold leaf29 x 24 x 8 inches

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David Hockney (b. 1937)New and the Old and the New, 1991Lithograph Edition of 5030 x 43 inches

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David R. Smith(1906 - 1965)Untitled ink drawing No. 176, 195410 x 7.5 inches

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John Saccaro (1913 - 1981)Under the Viaduct, 1953Oil on canvas28 x 36 inches

Michael Corinne West (opposite page)(1908 - 1981)Still Life, 1955Oil on canvas44 x 29 inches 27

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Ruth Wallwas born in Wyoming and raised in Utah where she taught high school until she enlisted in the Army. After her discharge, she used the GI Bill to enroll at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) where she studied under Elmer Bischoff, Edward Corbett, David Park, and Hassel Smith.

In 1952 Wall left for Paris where she enrolled in the Academie Frochot. Three years later she returned to the CSFA and worked alongside James Kelly, Deborah Remington, James Was-serstein and Sonia Gechtoff and Roy De Forest under the tutelege of James Budd Dixon, Rob-

ert McChesney and Nathan Oliveira. A writer of both prose and poetry, Wall’s passion none-theless was art. She loved to draw the human figure and is best known for the Abstract Ex-pressionist works she produced throughout the 1950s. She also created what the San Francisco Chronicle referred to as “an astonishing body of lithographs which were the subject of a book, ‘Love of the Stone.’”

A native of San Francisco’s North Beach for more than fifty years, Wall died in 2009. Her work is included in the Blair Collection of the Crocker Art Museum and at the San Jose Museum.

Ruth Wall

Ruth Wall (1917 - 2009)Untitled, 1950-52Oil on canvas30 x 36 inches

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Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920)Country City, 1988Color soft ground etching with drypoint and aquatintEdition of 6022 x 32 inches

John McCracken (1934 - 2011)Painting #6, 1973Resin on panel96 x 14 x 2 inches

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Werner Drewes (1899 - 1985)Annunciation, 1943Watercolor and gouache12.25 x 9 inches

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Marie Zoe Greene-Mercier (1911 - 2001) Untitled, circa 1960sBronze15 x 6.5 x 5.5 inches

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Alan Davie (b. 1920)Carib Island #10, 1976Gouache on paper23.25 x 33 inches

Yoga Structures #26, 1978Gouache on paper23.25 x 33 inches34

Alan Davieis considered one of the most significant British artists of the post-war period. His work is found in galleries around the globe, as well as in the Tate and the Scottish National Museum of Mod-ern Art. His pieces reflect his diverse interests in primitive art, music (he is an accomplished jazz musician), and Zen Buddhism. Influenced by Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery, Davie made spontaneity the hallmark of his work; he paints as automatically as possible in an attempt

to permit his subconscience to flow through his brush.

Davie has traveled widely and was influenced in Venice by the likes of Paul Klee, Jackson Pol-lock and Joan Miro. Davie is adamant that his images have significance as symbols. He is, in the words of the Trinity House Fine Arts Con-sultants, “an inspired soothsayer resisting the inroads of rational civilization.”

Alan Davie

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Lita Albuquerque (b. 1946) Barge #7066, 1986 Oil and iridescent powder on silk6.75 x 71.5 inches

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Robert Goodnough(1917 - 2010)Soaring I, 1994Oil on canvas78 x 28 inches

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Robert Goodnough(1917 - 2010)Soaring II, 1994Oil on canvas78 x 28 inches

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Bruce Richards (b. 1948)Witness (Man Ray), 1992Oil on linen, mounted on panel17.75 x 14 inches

James Rosenquist (1933 - 1991)When a Leak, 1980Color lithograph43.5 x 54 inches

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Kenneth Noland (1924 - 2010)Twin Planes, 1969Screenprint on mounted canvas6 1/4 x 59 inchesEdition of 200Signed, dated

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