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This period is typically historicized as a tussle between two styles: New York-influenced Abstract Expressionism (of which Still was the West-Coast progenitor) and a dissenting, expressly local brand of figuration. In fact, they are impossible to disentwine. Many artists flip-flopped back and forth: Diebenkorn, for example, who had hitherto made landscape-based abstract canvases, became the prime exponent of Bay Area figuration between 1955 and 1968 (influenced by Bischoff and Park) before abruptly returning to expansive, light-filled, geometric abstraction. Jay DeFeo, a major Abstract Expressionist, also produced graphic drawings such as The Eyes (1958). Her husband, Wally Hedrick, later recollected that the painters themselves used to mock this bogus rivalry by organizing softball matches between the two camps; Hedrick, espousing a wildly mercurial approach, was the artist they entrusted as umpire.
Download PDF (2.2 MB)Reprising his role as New York's chief hierophant of California art, curator and dealer Tim Nye has teamed up again with Jacqueline Miro to bring his lens on the old Los Angeles scene — which last year resulted in the eye-zapping "Primary Atmospheres" show and the recreation of the legendary Ferus Gallery — further up on north, to San Francisco. In this first installment of a four-part exhibition series, the focus is on the milieu around the 6 Gallery, a mid-century artist cooperative that was fed both by the Dada strains coming from Europe and the color-soaked art of painters like Richard Diebenkorn. Comprising work by Bruce Conner, Jess, Jay DeFeo and other artists, the show takes things up to 1963 — the year that Marcel Duchamp arrived in Pasadena with a retrospective that landed like something out of Los Alamos. - ANDREW M. GOLDSTEIN
The Cool Revival: Sonia Gechtoff in San Francisco
by Faye Hirsch
Tough, straight-talking abstract painter Sonia Gechtoff is currently being rescued from ill-deserved obscurity, swept up in a wave of fervor for Abstract Expressionism sparked by MoMA's more narrowly selected show (up through Apr. 25). Gechtoff, though, got her start on the West Coast. She had the first solo show at Ferus Gallery in L.A. in 1957, was photographed by Hans Namuth, married the brilliant, under-known artist James Kelly and was once so angry she threw her inebriated lover, the Bay Area abstractionist Ernest Briggs, down a flight of stairs.
Gechtoff is one of just two surviving members of the 18 Bay Area artists, angelheaded hipsters all, featured in the splendid exhibition "Bella Pacifica: Bay Area Abstraction 1946–1963, A Symphony in Four Acts," mounted at four venues around the city: Leslie Feely Fine Art, Nyehaus, Franklin Parrasch Gallery (all through Mar. 5) and David Nolan Gallery (through Feb. 5).
Born in 1926 in Philadelphia, Gechtoff arrived in San Francisco in 1951 and found a heady mix of artists, poets and jazz musicians feeding off each others' energy in a scene as lively as anything back East.
Her large oil Angel (1960) is featured on flyers and in ads for "Bella Pacifica," and it has pride of place at David Nolan Gallery, which focuses on the 6 Gallery. An artists' cooperative that flourished between 1954 and '57 at 3119 Fillmore Street, the gallery is best known as the place where Allen Ginsberg first read "Howl," on Oct. 7, 1955, initiating a national controversy.
Paintings, collages and assemblages by Gechtoff's contemporaries Hassel Smith, Deborah Remington, Jess, Bruce Conner, Wally Hedrick and Kelly, all of whom showed at 6 Gallery, are on also view at Nolan.
Gechtoff, a terrific raconteur, talked to me about the Bay Area scene, which she remembers in sharp detail.
Please view the slide show and read the rest of Hirsch's interview with Sonia Gechtoff here.