Wilshire Center

Anyone familiar with lithography knows the name Clinton Adams. Recognized artist, UCLA prof by the late ‘40s, Clinton also co-inspired--along with June Wayne--the now famous Tamarind Lithography Workshop, seedbed for the ‘70s print revival in this country.

Billed as a limited retrospective (the size and number of works underscores the “limited” part), this show includes both prints and paintings. Adams was perfectly poised at cross roads between West Coast romantic surrealism, East Coast expressionism and European formalism imported to UCLA in the ‘50s by the visiting Stanton MacDonald Wright. He moves from one to the other, or incorporates combinations without missing a beat.

There’s a handsome early work called “Back Stage” that turns banal props into haunting geometry. Tinged with surrealist portent is the fine egg tempera from the ‘50s, “Still Life With Yellow Sky.” Several crisp, linear building facades have the regional warmth of American Precisionist works. If today’s art is an indulged precocious child whose next project we anticipate with a combination of dread and excitement, the art of Clinton Adams is a staid, thoughtful uncle who always has something for everyone. (Toby C. Moss Gallery, 7321 Beverly Blvd. to March 4.)