Karl Benjamin’s work signaled a new aesthetic sensibility in abstract painting in Los Angeles. Benjamin first gained visibility for his exhibition "Four Abstract Classicists," a 1959 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in which the term "hard-edge" was coined to describe the new nonobjective painting. At once intuitive and systematic, Benjamin is, in the words of critic Christopher Knight, "a colorist of great wit and inventiveness."
Benjamin’s aesthetic proceeded to influence the next generation of Los Angeles area painters, perhaps none more so than Alex Couwenberg. This exhibition explores those influences, and how Couwenberg’s work has evolved and diverged as his work has matured. Mat Gleason has written, “Couwenberg uses the forms and colors of Eames-era design and hard-edge masterpieces as points of departure for masterful abstractions that develop counterintuitive ideas.”
Related Museum Exhibitions:
Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens: The House that Sam built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley 1945-1985
Related Gallery Exhibitions:
Louis Stern Fine Arts: Karl Benjamin and the Evolution of Abstraction 1950-1
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