virginia dwan los angeles

The Smithsonian Institution

Virginia Dwan Los AngelesAuthor(s): Jessica DawsonSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 46, No. 3/4 (2007), pp. 36-45Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25435134 .

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Virginia

Dwan



JESSICA DAWSON

Los

Angeles ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART JOURNAL 46: 3-4 37



In 1950s

Los Angeles... all dealers had

to lose was

their money.

Thankfully,

Virginia Dwan

had plenty.

! 4

"ff?ff 1 ink- ^^HK^t:^

Only the foolhardy sold contemporary art in 1950s Los Angeles. Given the city's insular scene with its provincially minded artists,

unengaged collectors, and reactionary art writers, most dealers

didn't even bother showing cutting-edge work. Those who showed

local artists traded in banality. Yet creatively parched Southern California presented an op

portunity. Renegades willing to shake up the community began

showing work coming out of San Francisco, New York, and Europe; some, like the Ferus Gallery, incubated up-and-coming locals. By the late 1950s, galleries sprung up ad hoc on a strip of North La

Ci?nega Boulevard west of downtown. The best known was Ferus, but there was also the Felix Landau Gallery, the Esther Robles

Gallery, and a handful of short-lived venues. Together, they

tapped a minuscule group of collectors willing to learn about new art, though even tutelage didn't guarantee sales. As a result,

the galleries in these years could show whatever they liked?so

long as they didn't mind losing their money. Thankfully, Virginia Dwan had plenty.

Heir to the Minnesota, Mining and Manufacturing fortune, Dwan had deep pockets and a passion for art. When the young UCLA art-school dropout opened her first gallery in 1959, in a

modest storefront on Broxton Avenue in Westwood, she was, by

38 ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART JOURNAL 46: 3-4



her own admission, totally na?ve. In a 1984 interview, she recalled

her relationship to the art business in those days as an "exciting infatuation... I was totally open... to all this energy that we were

in the middle of suddenly."1 As a child growing up in Minnesota

she'd visited Minneapolis' Walker Art Center and been moved by exhibitions of Charles Sheeler and John Marin. After entering art

school, Dwan soon acknowledged that she lacked the chops to

be an artist. So she set out to learn the business of dealing from

Beverly Hills gallery owner Frank Perls while gallery-sitting for

him on Saturday afternoons. Though aware she would face strug

gles for sales and critical attention, she sensed opportunity. By November 1959 Dwan had secured the rented Westwood store

front far from the North La Ci?nega strip but close to her new

husband, who was then a medical student at UCLA.

It took time for Dwan to develop her own vanguard taste.2

She passed her first eighteen months showing a roster of second

tier Abstract Expressionists imported from New York, punctuated

occasionally by more radical artists like Larry Rivers or Philip Guston. But by spring of 1961, Dwan was introducing Los Angeles to some of the most important artists of the time?Yves Klein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ad Reinhardt among them?and her

early na?vet? was replaced by a nearly messianic sense of purpose.

?tfA'rt G? ?

Y 1<|qs?^~m| r. ?IF

Clockwise, from left: Virginia Dwan,

1969; Announcement for an exhibition

of works by Larry Rivers at the Dwan

Gallery, Los Angeles, 1961; Graphic portrait of Lucas Samaras, used in

publicity for "Samaras" at the Dwan

Gallery, Los Angeles, 1964.

Previous Spread: "New York, New York" at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, 1964.

ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART JOURNAL 46: 3-4 39



YVES KLEIN

LE MONOCHROME

MAY 29-JUNE 24

D WAN GALLERY 1091 BROXTON AVE., WESTWOOD VILLAGE, LOS ANGELES 2U, CALIF.



"I was, I suppose, on a spiritual high with this gallery/' she said. "I

felt that what I was showing was not only for my good, but for ev

eryone else's and that it was a gift to the world."3 Dwan's sense of

mission was felt by her artists. She funded them generously and

indulged their whims while asking little in return. For her, sales were happy accidents, not foregone conclusions.

In 1959, Dwan had entered a scene in flux. The most cele

brated artist in Los Angeles of the 1940s and early 1950s, or at

least the most salable, was figurative expressionist Rico Lebrun, a charismatic man who taught for a time at Chouinard Art

Institute.4 His Italian roots, dramatic persona, and good connec

tions secured buyers among the uninformed. Developing at the same time, though less prominent, was the movement that came

to be known as Hard-edge Painting. Its originators were a small

group of California painters who reduced abstraction to strict

geometries and bold colors; four of the best known were show

cased in a Los Angeles County museum exhibition "Four Abstract Classicists" in 1959. Yet even John McLaughlin, the group's most

celebrated member, was a tough sell whose dealer, Felix Landau, found few buyers. Also popular in the 1950s was the ceramicist Peter Voulkos and his Chouinard students Billy Al Bengston and Ken Price. Though all found a measure of success?Price enjoys excellent reception to this day?their reworkings of Abstract

Expressionism in three dimensions remained a largely insular

pursuit. Indeed, Abstract Expressionism lingered in Southern California. As art historian Thomas Crow pointed out recently, the movement's "prestige among older West Coast artists (like the Chouinard faculty) constituted a sure-fire recipe for unend

ing provincial status."5 But by the mid-1950s, small centers of ambition had formed.

A community of Beat-influenced assemblage artists headed by Wallace Berman and Ed Kienholz sprang up in Venice. Young Walter Hopps had come to UCLA, and his early gallery, called

Syndell Studio, enjoyed a brief life in Brentwood showing mostly San Francisco painters. Soon Kienholz and Hopps were collabo

rating, and in March 1957 the two opened Ferus, which soon be came the most talked about of the vanguard galleries. Kienholz

eventually sold his interest in the partnership to Irving Blum, a consummate businessman who ensured the gallery's place in

history. As an incubator for local talent, Ferus was second to none ?Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, and many others in its stable went on to important careers. In November 1958, Ferus moved to 723 North La Ci?nega near the Felix Landau and the Esther Robles galleries.Together, the venues co-hosted the well-attended

Monday night art walks. Tucked into the Westwood neighborhood near UCLA and

some miles from the burgeoning La Ci?nega scene, Dwan strug gled to lure gallery crowds. Her first year passed unremarkably, its exhibition schedule given over to retreads of New York shows (on consignment) full of the kind of predictable work that local

Opposite: Announcement for Yves

Klein's Los Angeles debut at the Dwan

Gallery, 1961.

I felt that what

I was showing was not only for my good, but for everyone

else's and that

it was a gift to the world.




From top: Detail of a catalogue cover for an exhibi

tion of works by Martial Raysse at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, 1967; Announcement for an exhibition

of works by James Rosenquist at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, 1964.

critics Henry Seldis, writing for the Los Angeles Times, and

Charlene Cole of the Beverly Hills Times/Westwood Villager ap

plauded. At the time, Dwan jetted to New York several times a

year for studio visits and dealer meetings. With her French hus

band, she summered overseas each year and got to know France's

up-and-coming artists, the Nouveaux R?alistes. The connections

made during those visits, coupled with Dwan's increasing savvy, were reflected in her more daring exhibition schedule of 1961 and

1962. French provocateur Yves Klein made his LA debut in May 1961, just a month after his first American solo show at the Leo

Castelli Gallery in New York, when Dwan showed monochromes

in the artist's signature international blue alongside brand-new

sponge paintings and gold leaf works. Los Angeles was speech less. Local artists, provincial at heart, hated Dwan for showing a Frenchman, let alone one many considered a charlatan. As for

the critics, silence reigned, at least until Seldis, writing a small

item on Dwan's Ad Reinhardt show, reassured his readers that

Reinhardt's paintings were not the work "of a flippant opportun ist like Yves Klein."6

Dwan delighted in the controversy. "I really enjoyed show

ing work which was so far in the avant-garde that by definition

anyone logical would have to say, It can't sell yet, maybe later

42 ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART JOURNAL 46: 3-4



I really enjoyed showing work which was so far in

the avant-garde that by definition anyone logical would have to say, "It can t

sell yet, maybe later on/'

on,'"7 she recalled. Dwan certainly had her share of unsalable

shows on the roster. Nine months after Klein, she mounted a group

of Robert Rauschenberg's combines in what was his first West Coast exhibition. Again, no reviews appeared. And again, collec

tors balked?even after Dwan devoted a full eighteen months to

the sale of Rauschenberg's 1961 combine First Landing Jump. As she noted later, one person considered it, then another, then anoth

er collector in Texas. Finally, with no takers in sight, she crated the work for its trip back east. LA just didn't get it.8

Despite mounting frustrations, Dwan, in June 1962, opened a new, custom-designed space at 10846 Lindbrook Drive, near

her first gallery. The move cemented her commitment to dealing. She hired a student of Frank Lloyd Wright to design the space,

asking that it be modeled after Wright's V.C. Morris store in San

Francisco, a building Dwan had long admired. The design included a tunnel-like entrance that funneled visitors off the street and into a large open space, physically reinforcing Dwan's belief that art was something rarified and sacred. Art "was to be approached with a different part of [oneself] than the rest of . . . day-to-day

living," she said.9

Dwan inaugurated the expanded gallery with a show of

works by the French neo-Pop assemblage artist Arman, setting




7 1-1



off an important six-month period in the history of Los Angeles Pop. The next month saw Andy Warhol's first-ever solo show open at Ferus; in September, Hopps' "The New Painting of Common

Objects," now widely viewed as the first exhibition of American

Pop, opened at the Pasadena Art Museum with works by Jim

Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Warhol, Ruscha, Robert Dowd, Phillip Hefferton, Joe Goode, and Wayne Thiebaud. Two months later, Dwan mounted her own hand-picked Pop show, "My Country 'Tis

of Thee." Like Hopps, she had noticed artists using everyday im

agery that she thought shared a distinctly American theme. Her

striking installation included some of the most important works

of the day: a 1962 Warhol Man'Zyn, Marisol's 1962 The Kennedys, and a Claes Oldenburg plaster and enamel coffee cup, which she

installed with nonchalant grace near the floor.

Looking back at Dwan from our vantage point, at the very

top of a market-bubble-turned-hot-air-balloon, the young deal

er's conviction and generosity, extravagant as they were, offer a

compelling testament to the power of gallerists. Her story recalls a time when exhibition schedules were driven by dealer passion and taste, not bottom lines, hip young things, or collector de

mand. In early 1960s Los Angeles, dealers created taste, if only for the few who would listen. For Dwan, art was a spiritual offer

ing, a civic duty, and, if at all possible, something better left un

tainted by money. If selling hadn't been an important aspect of

gallery ownership, it's doubtful Dwan would have bothered. She was a dealer who didn't need?or want?art-world money.

Yet no amount of curatorial acumen made up for lack of sales. In many regards, both of Dwan's Los Angeles galleries were more

museum than sales floors, and their mission was to generate buzz and expose Los Angeles to exciting work, not to generate cash. Dwan's discomfort with the gallery system?she asked

that her directors transact all sales?only underscored her am

bition that art be exempt from the everyday, including the laws

of the market. Of course, neither artists nor gallerists can live

outside commerce?to do so is the stuff of myth. Yet the story of

Dwan's idealism, her conviction that art was a spiritual pursuit, is precisely the sort of fable the art world needs right now. O

View of the exhibition "Fifteen of New York" at the Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, 1960.

1 Virginia Dwan, interview conducted by Charles F.

Stuckey, 21 March-7 June 1984, Virginia Dwan Interviews, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., (hereafter cited as Dwan interviews).

2 We know Dwan best for the

eponymous New York gallery that she ran from 1965 to 1971, which became synonymous with the Minimalism and Earthworks movements. Her underwriting of Robert Smithson's outdoor adventures and her association with Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, and others have been exhaustively documented in dissertations, books, journals, and

newspapers.

3 Dwan interviews, transcripts, 21 and 27 March 1984.

4 For this information and

large part of the Los Angeles gallery background, I owe great debt to the research of Anne

Ayres and Andrew Perchuk.

5 Thomas Crow, "November

1962," Artforum, November 2002,72.

6 Henry Seldis, "Reinhardt Canvases Worth a Second

Look," Los Angeles Times, 9

February 1962.

7 Dwan interviews, transcripts, 21 and 27 March 1984.

8 Philip Johnson did. He bought First Landing Jump soon after it arrived back in New York and then promised it to MoMA, where the work now resides.

9 Dwan interviews, 21 and 27 March 1984.




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