We proudly present this exhibition to celebrate the first major publication detailing Claire Falkenstein’s entire career. Claire Falkenstein, with essays by art historians Susan M. Andersonand Maren Henderson, art writer and curator Michael Duncan, and an introduction by Philip Linhares, President of the Falkenstein Foundation and former Chief Curator of Art at the Oakland Museum of California.

Claire Falkenstein’s (1908-1997) work, with its innovative use of materials such as glass, metal, ceramic and resin, reveals an artist with an indomitable spirit; an innovator who so pushed traditional boundaries, that she stands uniquely apart from other artists in the mainstream; many who would be counted among her admirers.

Falkenstein’s earliest exhibition history dates back to circa 1930, and her first solo museum exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art dates to 1948. Photographic images from that museum exhibition (illustrated in the newly-released book) attest to the extraordinary modernity of the artist (and the advanced curatorial leaning of the San Francisco Museum for that time). Many works in that exhibition are presently shown here in this gallery.

Before moving to Paris in 1950, she taught briefly at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, along-side Clyfford Still, David Park, Hassel Smith, Richard Diebenkorn, Edward Corbett and Clay Spohn.

In France, she quickly became affiliated with the avant-garde of Paris including Jean Dubuffet, Hans Hartung, Karl Appel and others. The important critic, Michel Tapié took particular interest in Falkenstein and included her in his now-famous 1952 exhibition, “Un Art Autre” at Studio Paul Fachetti. That historic exhibition was recently featured in Paris, as Christie’s  “re-constructed” the exhibition, including Claire Falkenstein’s monumental “Hommage a Gaudi” now in the French National Museum Collection. In Paris, Falkenstein’s circle of friends included the American art historian, Herbert Read and artists Paul Jenkins, Mark Tobey and Sam Francis.

Henry Moore was among those who came through her studio to remark on Falkenstein’s extraordinary sensibility which, while formed through an early interest in cubism and especially surrealism, was hugely informed by interests in physics, mathematics and biology. Her fascination with the possibilities of chance and choice presciently parallel current views of our expanding universe. Falkenstein’s ability to move sculpture to non-traditional realms, whereby she incorporates and suggests both the expansiveness of form as well as the compression of space, has established her as one of the most important modern artists in this medium.

Her patronage proved impressive with many important commissions. Falkenstein is well-known as the creator of Peggy Guggenheim’s Venice palazzo gates. Her first museum exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art was in 1940, followed by her works being shown at such prestigious museums as the Louvre and the Rodin Museums of Paris. Her works were shown at the Tate Gallery in London, Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Venice, National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Armand Hammer Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

She moved to Venice, California in 1963, essentially removing herself from the art world centers of Paris, London and New York. While she enjoyed considerable success and patronage living in L.A. and at the time of her passing could possibly boast the presence of more public sculpture than any other artist in this city (some now destroyed), Los Angeles was not easily able to hospitably absorb an artist who stood so apart from its clichéd notions of its self-perceived “art scene”.

This stunning exhibition as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time reveals Claire Falkenstein to be a pioneering artist of the 20th century.

This exhibition presents paintings and works on paper by one of Los Angeles’ most celebrated figurative artists. “Ruth Weisberg: Now & Then” presents works from more than three decades, and includes Weisberg’s most recent paintings and drawings, revealing a unique vision through which the viewer sees the convergence of art history, personal memory, and cultural experience.

The exhibition reveals Weisberg’s decades-long interest in re-imagining the works of such past masters such as Titian, Velazquez, Blake and Corot. Through fresco-like effects in her unstretched paintings as well as the veils of washes in her masterful lithographs, Weisberg brings past-time into contemporary context.She also extends that dialogue with artists who have had a profound influence upon her and modern art history in two paintings in this front gallery by imagining her daughter in the company of Alberto Giacometti in the 1989 painting entitled Alone, Together. Again her progeny, as surrogate for the artist herself, is seen in another work entitled Now, Then from 1990, places her daughter in Giacometti’s studio, based upon actual historical photographs of its interior.

Since her arrival in Los Angeles in 1969, Ruth Weisberg has been a formidable influence and mentor to decades of artists in this city and beyond.  Her first major survey in Los Angeles was in 1979 at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. She was the first artist exhibited at The Women’s Building (Judy Chicago was simultaneously presented with a solo exhibition to inaugurate that venue).  With more than 80 solo exhibitions and nearly 200 group exhibitions internationally, Weisberg is the first living painter to have been afforded a solo exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum of Art. Weisberg also holds that distinction at the Huntington Library and two works from that exhibition are included in “Now & Then”.

Ruth Weisberg’s work is included in the permanent collections of over 60 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum, National Gallery ofArt in Washington, D.C., Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, Portland Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,Getty Research Institute, Norton Simon Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, Biblioteque Nationale in Paris, and the Instituto Nationale per la Grafica in Rome, among many others.

Among her numerous citations, Weisberg was awarded the 2009 Women’s Caucus Lifetime Achievement Award, 1999 College Art Association’s Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, a Senior Research Fulbright combined with a visiting artist residency at the American Academy in Rome, a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, and a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Hebrew Union College. She also held the distinction of being President of the College Art Association.

Weisberg has written more than 60 articles, reviews and catalogue essays. She is currently a professor at USC, where she was one of the longest tenured Deans of the Roski School of Fine Arts.