Art Preview: A major retrospective for a unique artist
Claire Falkenstein found a home and an exceptionally welcoming venue for her art in Los Angeles. Until her death in 1997, she won acclaim and commissions for her large-scale sculptures, while also actively working in painting, jewelry and etchings.
“She did an extraordinary range of things and she did them well,” says Jay Belloli, interim executive director at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and curator of the show “Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture.” The exhibition gathers a wide range of her vibrant work in several mediums. (The show was reviewed by Marquee contributor Kirk Silsbee in April.)
On Saturday, Belloli will personally lead a walk-through of work with a special focus on the cities most influential on the artist: San Francisco, Paris and Los Angeles. He spoke again with Marquee about the show.
Marquee: Who was Claire Falkenstein?
Jay Belloli: She was an artist who became a mature artist in San Francisco. She took a trip to Paris and realized that she needed to be there, and was there for 13 years, until 1963. Then she was given a commission to do a major fountain in Southern California and she came here. She spent the rest of her life next to the beach in Venice. She died in 1997.
She was one of those artists who was fearless. She tried and succeeded in almost everything. She was known as a sculptor but she did amazing paintings. She made remarkable jewelry. She made wonderful works in glass. She made etchings that were very untraditional. And she made really good permanent installations out in the world.
You curated this yourself. What made this the right time for a retrospective?
Curators are always amazed that artists who made really important contributions get left out for a long period of time. She hadn’t had a major general museum exhibition in over 20 years. The last one was not even in the Los Angeles area — it was at the Fresno Art Museum, which is 31/2 hours away.
It seemed incredibly important to do a major show that takes her from the beginning of her career in the late-’20s all the way through the last works of art she made in 1994. She developed her own language both in sculpture and in painting, which is very hard to do. She developed something in her paintings that she called “moving points,” where she would make hundreds and even thousands of repeated marks on the canvas with her brush — it would create a complex sense of movement, color and form.
How have visitors reacted to the work?
Some never knew this artist existed. Other people will maybe know her name, and maybe have seen a couple of sculptures, but they’re knocked out by the range of the work and how interesting the work was for so long. Too often in the world of art, people slip from view, and they don’t get looked at or talked about — sometimes for decades. She’s been gone now for almost 20 years, so a lot of people will have never heard of Claire Falkenstein.
In your walk-through, you’ll be talking about the cities where she spent her life. Was Los Angeles a major influence on her work, or was she already fully formed?
It had a great influence on her because it gave her opportunities that never would have had in Europe. She did four major fountains in Southern California. The scale of the commissions were much larger than the commissions she did in Europe. But the other part is that by the time she left Europe, she’d developed her own language of painting and sculpture that plays out here.
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What: Claire Falkenstein, “Exhibition Walkthrough: City to City”
When: Saturday, July 23, 3 p.m.
Where: Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA), 490 E. Union St., Pasadena
More info: (626) 568-3665, pmcaonline.org
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Steve Appleford, steve.appleford@latimes.com
Twitter: @SteveAppleford
