Irving Blum Gallery (Los Angeles, Calif.) Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Herbert Palmer, 2004 Dec. 6-22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Herbert Palmer conducted 2004 Dec. 6 and 22, by Susan Ehrlich, for the Archives of American Art, in West Hollywood, Calif.
Palmer discusses his family background and childhood in New York City; early exposure to art exhibitions; music appreciation; attending New York University; taking classes with Winhold Reiss, Meyer Shapiro, Richard Offner, and Heinrich Wolfflin; his master's thesis on Paul Cezanne's paintings of Mount Saint Victoire; moving to California; learning to fly; meeting Lillian, his wife; founding Feigen-Palmer Gallery with Richard Feigen; other galleries in the area, including Irving Blum, David Stuart, Felix Landau, Charles Garabedian, and Joan Ankrum; Monday Night Art Walks; John Cage and David Tudor performance pieces; the many artists he's exhibited; Andy Warhol's "The Kiss"; 1968 split with Richard Feigen to become the Herbert Palmer Gallery; the theft of a Picasso sculpture in Dec. 1981 and the ensuing legal case, which involved numerous galleries and collectors; his longstanding friendships with Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican, and Wolfgang Paalen; membership to the Art Dealers Association of California; and his enjoyment of discovering art, old and new. Palmer also recalls Henriette Riess, Harold Stevenson, Lucienne Bloch, Bridget Riley, Vasa Mihich, Maillol, Red Grooms, Norman Bluhm, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Herbert Palmer (1915-2006) owned the Herbert Palmer Gallery of West Hollywood, Calif. Interviewer Susan Ehrlich is an art historian from Beverly Hills, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 mini discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 15 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 35 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
The Irving Blum Gallery and Ferus Gallery announcements consist of 32 announcements for exhibitions at the Los Angeles Ferus Gallery (1957-1966) and its successor the Irving Blum Gallery (1966-circa 1972). Exhibition announcements are for many exhibitions of southern California contemporary and pop artists, as well as New York artists. Artists represented by announcements include John Altoon, Don Bachardy, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Craig Kauffman, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Moses, Kenneth Noland, Ad Reinhardt, Ed Ruscha, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol, among others.
Scope and Content Note:
The Irving Blum Gallery and Ferus Gallery announcements consist of 32 announcements for exhibitions at the Los Angeles Ferus Gallery (1957-1966) and its successor the Irving Blum Gallery (1966-circa 1972). Exhibition announcements are for many exhibitions of southern California contemporary and pop artists, as well as New York artists. Artists represented by announcements include John Altoon, Don Bachardy, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Craig Kauffman, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Moses, Kenneth Noland, Ad Reinhardt, Ed Ruscha, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol, among others.
Although these announcements are scattered, they provide insight to and documentation of the southern California LA art scene and the Beat era. The exhibition announcements themselves are quite unique.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Ferus Gallery Announcements, 1961-1965 (Box 1; 20 folders)
In 1957, Walter Hopps (1932-2005) and Edward Kienholz (1927-1994) opened the contemporary art Ferus Gallery on North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Kienholz sold his share to Irving Blum (b. 1930) one year later. Hopps left in 1962 to become curator and, later, director of the Pasadena Art Museum. Ferus Gallery closed in 1966 and Irving Blum maintained sole ownership and changed the gallery's name to Irving Blum Gallery.
Ferus Gallery was the first gallery in the Los Angeles area to show contemporary American art, and focused heavily on contemporary Southern California artists, such as John Altoon, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Wallace Berman, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, Ed Kienholz, Ed Moses, Richard Ruben, among many others. Likewise, Ferus Gallery helped to solidify the reputations of many established New York artists, including Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Richard Diebenkorn, Andy Warhol, and others.
The inaugural exhibition at the Ferus Gallery was "Objects on the New Landscape Demanding of the Eye" (March 15 - April 11, 1957), a group show including the work of Frank Lobdell, Jay DeFeo, Craig Kauffman, Richard Diebenkorn, John Altoon and Clyfford Still. Los Angeles artists who had their first solo shows at the gallery included: Wallace Berman (1957), Billy Al Bengston (1958), Ed Moses (1958), Robert Irwin (1959), John Mason (1959), Kenneth Price (1960), Llyn Foulkes (1962), Larry Bell (1962) and Ed Ruscha (1963).
In 1957 the gallery was temporarily closed after LAPD officers arrested and charged Wallace Berman with obscenity over work in his exhibition. It was his first and last solo show.
In 1962 "Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans" was Andy Warhol's first solo pop art exhibition and the first exhibition of the Soup Cans. Five of the canvases sold for $100 each, but Blum bought them back to keep the set intact.
Irving Blum designed many of the exhibition announcements for the gallery with a graphic aesthetic.
In 2007, "The Cool School" was released, a documentary film about the Ferus Gallery and its eccentric artists.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Irving Blum conducted by Paul Cummings on May 31-June 23, 1977.
Provenance:
Mrs. Rochella Orchard donated the Ferus Gallery and Irving Blum Gallery announcements on February 22, 1979.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- California
Citation:
Irving Blum Gallery and Ferus Gallery and announcements, 1961-1972. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
