La Cienega Area

A three-man exhibition titled “American Visions” is described as a celebration of three artists with a common goal: to remain true to their cultural heritage while creating universal art. The heritage in question is black culture and two of the artists on view, Romare Bearden and Charles White, are acknowledged masters of the field.

Work by Bearden, who died last year at 74, is far and away the strongest on view; three small collaged watercolors evocative of Persian miniatures have a wit and elegance that outshine everything else in the gallery. In “At the Well,” a woman balances a basin on her head as she makes her way down a country lane she shares with cut-out images of birds and flowers, while “In Calypso’s Magic Garden” depicts a couple making love in a garden, cradled by the branches of a magical tree. These sweet little pieces are beautifully composed and alive with color.

Charles White’s portraiture seems a bit plodding and pious next to Bearden’s whimsical flights of fancy. “Solid as a Rock” is a full figure portrait of an imposing woman, while “I’ve Seen Rivers” depicts a wise old sage, his back stooped with age. Working with simple, flat shapes, White, who died 10 years ago, interprets the figure as a thing of great dignity and weight, and he often described his sensibility as being rooted in the idea of struggle. This isn’t surprising in light of the fact that five of White’s family members were lynched during the course of the artist’s life.

Also on view is work by White’s son, C. Ian White, who makes mixed-media paintings involving sections of weathered wood, plaster, aluminum and glass. White is most successful when he dispenses with the complex materials and just gets down to painting. Two small watercolors of simple interiors, “Butterfield’s I & II” have a relaxed integrity that’s lacking in his more ambitious abstractions. (Heritage Gallery, 718 N. La Cienega Blvd., to Feb. 18.)