Louis Stern Fine Arts is an art gallery located at 9002 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, California, in the heart of the city’s Avenue of Art and Design.

History and development

Louis Stern Fine Arts was founded in 1988 by

Louis Stern Louis Stern (born January 7, 1945) is a Los Angeles art dealer and President of Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood, California. Stern deals in the secondary market for Impressionist and Modern works. His gallery’s program specializes primaril ...

, a second-generation art dealer who was born in

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

, Morocco, and came to the United States in 1955. He entered the art business in Los Angeles with his father, Frederic Stern, and developed expertise in

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

, Modern, and Latin-American art before establishing a gallery that focuses on leading West Coast abstractionists of the twentieth century. Association with Hard-Edge Painters The gallery began to re-examine West Coast abstraction, also called

Hard-edge Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and C ...

, in 2000 and launched an ongoing series of exhibitions in 2003 with the work of

Lorser Feitelson Lorser Feitelson (1898–1978) was an artist known as one of the founding fathers of Southern California-based hard-edge painting. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Feitelson was raised in New York City, where his family relocated shortly after his bir ...

(1898–1978), a public advocate of modern art and founder of Southern California’s

hard-edge Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and C ...

abstraction. The first show, "Lorser Feitelson and the Invention of Hard Edge Painting," was followed by "Lorser Feitelson: The Kinetic Series—Works from 1916-1923" in 2005 and "Lorser Feitelson: The Late Paintings" in 2009.

Helen Lundeberg Helen Lundeberg (1908–1999) was a Southern Californian painter. Along with her husband Lorser Feitelson, she is credited with establishing the Post-Surrealist movement. Her artistic style changed over the course of her career, and has been des ...

(1908–1999) co-founded the New Classicism movement with Lorser Feitelson in 1934. The two later married, but continued creating independent bodies of work. Lundeberg’s distinctive blend of abstraction and figuration made its first appearance at Louis Stern Fine Arts in 2004, in "Helen Lundeberg and the Illusory Landscape: Five Decades of Painting." "Infinite Distance—Architectural Compositions by Helen Lundeberg" followed in 2007.

Karl Benjamin Karl S. Benjamin (December 29, 1925 – July 26, 2012) was an American painter of vibrant geometric abstractions, who rose to fame in 1959 as one of four Los Angeles-based Abstract Classicists and subsequently produced a critically acclaime ...

(1925–2012), who emerged on the national art scene in 1959 as one of four Southern California Abstract Classicists and engaged in a lifelong exploration of color relationships, began his affiliation with the gallery in 2004 with "Karl Benjamin: Paintings from 1950-1965." Subsequent Benjamin exhibitions at Louis Stern Fine Arts include "Dance the Line: Paintings by Karl Benjamin" in 2007, "Karl Benjamin and the Evolution of Abstraction 1950-1980" in 2011, and "Karl Benjamin: The Late Paintings" in 2014.

June Harwood June Harwood (June 16, 1933 – January, 2015) was an American painter based in California who made a name for herself in the 1960s as an inventive artist of the hard-edge movement. Life June Harwood was born in Middleton, New York, and spent muc ...

(1933–2015) although not part of the first exhibition of work considered to be hard edge, Many of her early paintings consisted of shapes that were more or less rectangular, often in silver, gray and black, defined by crisp lines and edges. Characteristic of hard edge paintings, they had a flat, geometric look. Harwood's work was included in a 1964 hard edge show in San Diego, curated by her husband,

Jules Langsner Jules Langsner (19111967) was an American art critic and psychiatrist. Born in New York City in 1911 and died in 1967 in California. Although born in New York, Langsner did not grow up in New York. He and his family moved to Ontario, California sh ...

. Exhibitions at Louis Stern Fine Arts include "June Harwood: Hard Edge Revisited" in 2008, and "June Harwood: Splinter, Divide and Flow" in 2015. Additional work and exhibitions The exhibition program has also featured "Frederick Wight: Visions of California" in 2005, "Seeing the Light: Post-Modern Luminous Landscapes by Frederick Wight" in 2008, and "Roger Kuntz: Signs of LA" in 2012. In addition, the gallery shows contemporary painting, sculpture and photography by

Carlos Cruz-Diez Carlos Cruz-Diez (17 August 1923 – 27 July 2019) was a Venezuelan artist said by some scholars to have been "one of the greatest artistic innovators of the 20th century." Exhibitions * ''Physichromies de Cruz-Diez: Oeuvres de 1954 à 1965' ...

, Knopp Ferro,

George Herms George Herms (born 1935) is an American artist best known for creating assemblages out of discarded, often rusty, dirty or broken every-day objects, and juxtaposing those objects so as to infuse them with poetry, humor and meaning. He is also kn ...

, James Jarvaise,

Samella Lewis Samella Sanders Lewis (February 27, 1923 – May 27, 2022) was an American visual artist and art historian. She worked primarily as a printmaker and painter. She has been called the "Godmother of African American Art". She received Distinguished ...

, Cecilia Miguez, Elizabeth Patterson, among others. Louis Stern Fine Arts is also active in the secondary market, representing impressionist, modern, and contemporary works of art.

The Alfredo Ramos Martinez Research Project

Louis Stern Fine Arts began a public association with Mexican modernist

Alfredo Ramos Martinez Alfredo (, ) is a cognate of the Anglo-Saxon name Alfred and a common Italian, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish language personal name. People with the given name include: *Alfredo (born 1946), Brazilian footballer born as Alfredo Mostarda Filho ...

in 1991 with a retrospective exhibition of works by the artist, who lived in Los Angeles from 1929 until his death, in 1946. In collaboration with his daughter, Maria Martinez Bolster, and art historian Margarita Nieto, the gallery subsequently established the Alfredo Ramos Martinez Research Project to "protect the artist’s legacy and to advance the understanding and appreciation of the artist whom many have deemed the father of Mexican Modern Art." The Research Project published a monograph, Alfredo Ramos Martinez & Modernismo, by Margarita Nieto and Louis Stern in 2009, and is currently compiling a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s paintings and frescos.

Publications

Louis Stern Fine Arts has published catalogs in conjunction with its exhibitions of works by

Lucien Clergue Lucien Clergue (; 14 August 1934 – 15 November 2014) was a French photographer. He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts, Paris for 2013. Biography Lucien Clergue was born in Arles, France. At the age of 7 he began learning to play the ...

, James Jarvaise,

, and Frederick Wight. In collaboration with the Feitelson/Lundeberg Art Foundation, the gallery co-published two monographs, Helen Lundeberg: Poetry Space Silence by Suzanne Muchnic and Lorser Feitelson: Eternal Recurrence by Diane Moran, in 2014. A catalogue raisonné of Karl Benjamin’s work is underway in partnership with the artist’s daughter, Beth Benjamin.

Artists shown

Harry Bertoia Harry Bertoia (March 10, 1915 – November 1978) was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture furniture designer, designer. Bertoia was born in Arzene, San Lorenzo, Province of Pordenone, Pordenone, Italy. A ...

Jean Charlot Louis Henri Jean Charlot (February 8, 1898 – March 20, 1979) was a French people, French-born United States, American Painting, painter and illustrator, active mainly in Mexico and the United States. Life Charlot was born in Paris. His father, ...

*Knopp Ferro *

* James Jarvaise *

Béla Kádár Béla Kádár (1877–1956) was a Hungarian painter influenced by Der Blaue Reiter, Cubism, Futurism, Neo-Primitivism, Constructivism, and Metaphysical painting. Biography Kádár was born into a working-class Jewish family. After only six yea ...

*Judit Kárász *

Roger Kuntz Roger Edward Kuntz (January 4, 1926 – August 22, 1975) was a highly accomplished Southern California landscape painter and a member of the Claremont Group of painters - professors and graduates of Pomona College, Scripps College, and the ...

*Mark Leonard *Seann Brackin *

* Cecilia Miguez *

Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy (; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the ''Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series in 1966, then ...

*Magali Nougaréde *

Doug Ohlson Douglas Dean Ohlson (November 18, 1936 – June 29, 2010) was an American abstract artist who specialized in geometric patterns. Ohlson was born on November 18, 1936, in Cherokee, Iowa and attended Bethel College before serving in the United ...

* Elizabeth Patterson *Anita Payró *

Hugo Scheiber Hugó Scheiber (born 29 September 1873 in Budapest – died there 7 March 1950) was a Hungarian modernist painter.Frederick S. Wight *Richard Wilson

References

External links

* {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Los Angeles Contemporary art galleries in the United States West Hollywood, California French art dealers Stern, Louis