Retrospective Shows How Peter Krasnow Saw the Light--and Color--of California

Peter Krasnow was a Los Angeles artist whose unusual style evolved over his 92 years. Originally from the Ukraine and graduated from the Art Institute in Chicago in 1915, he had lived in New York for about three years before buying a flivver and driving to Los Angeles with his wife, Rose, in 1922.

Shortly after arriving, they met photographer Edward Weston, who invited them to pitch a tent on his property near the Los Angeles River. They soon bought the property and built a redwood cabin where they lived and Peter worked until his death in 1979.

“His life was art, the sole focus of his existence,” said gallery owner Tobey Moss, who is presenting a retrospective of about 50 of Krasnow’s paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings from 1916 to 1977. Many of the paintings have never been exhibited. “Once you see his work, you can’t mistake it for anyone else’s,” Moss said.

The effect of California is evident in his 1924 “Landscape With Blue Mountain,” and a portrait of Rose done about 1924. They are brighter and more colorful than his work done in New York, such as “St. Andrew’s One-Cent Coffee Stand,” circa 1919. “It’s that light here,” Moss said. “It’s hit many artists and turned them on.”

After an extended stay in France in the early 1930s, Krasnow returned to Los Angeles in 1934, cleared three years’ growth of trees on his property, and began sculpting with wood. Moss noted that the large, smooth “Two Figures,” carved out of walnut, is particularly attractive to children, who immediately go to touch it.

Krasnow did not paint again until the mid-1940s, and when he did it was “an explosion, a riot of color,” Moss said. “These are the California colors that everyone uses today, so alive and vibrant. He used them at a time when they shocked. They still shock.”

With pinks, greens, yellows, turquoises and purples, he painted nonobjective, interlocking blocks of color. In the 1950s and ‘60s, he added calligraphic elements such as Hebrew letters to his works. “He was conscious of his rich heritage and found joy in his life through biblical sources and scenes of people gathering together,” Moss said. “He expressed that through color and rhythm.”

In the late 1970s, at age 90, Krasnow was off in a new direction, returning to more simplified architectural forms, as in the painting “Waterways,” which resembles a city plan.

Moss, who opened her gallery in 1980 to increase exposure to Southern California artists, said the works in the show come from the Peter Krasnow Foundation, which was established to support research on California modernist art, including Krasnow’s works. Proceeds from the show will finance grants for this purpose.

FEDERAL ART: During the Great Depression, many distinguished Southern California artists were hired by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Projects program--the largest public art program in the world--to create artwork for schools, libraries, parks and post offices. Beginning in 1934, more than 300 works were installed in the Southland, the majority of them murals. Almost 170 artworks still exist.

“They were ‘good news’ murals to reassure a badly shaken public that the American way of hard work and a belief in industrialism and the farmer would get us through this,” said Orville Clark Jr., an art historian who, beginning Tuesday is teaching a UCLA Extension class on Southern California’s murals of the ‘30s and ‘40s. “The murals reflect not their times--which included labor strikes and homelessness--but how the larger populace wanted to see themselves.”

Several of the artists were committed to social reform, so conflicts sometimes developed over what an artist wanted to paint and what the public would accept. “The murals tend to be nice, but there is a hard edge to them as well,” Clarke said. He added that some postmasters did not like the art and felt it defaced their offices. However, the Roosevelt Administration persuaded them otherwise.

Murals are at the following locations:

Venice main post office, 1601 Main St.: Edward Biberman’s 1941 mural depicts the story and history of Venice. The center panel reflects city founder Abbott Kinney’s vision of what he wanted Venice to be; the side panels show the reality of oil wells and industry, and Pacific Ocean Park.

Burbank downtown post office, 135 E. Olive Ave.: In “The People of Burbank” (1940), Barse Miller painted Lockheed aircraft employees building a plane and a film crew working on a Warner Bros. movie.

Canoga Park main post office, 21801 Sherman Way: Maynard Dixon’s “Palomino Ponies” (1942), is a beautifully colored mural illustrating a gaucho guiding horses over the plains.

Canoga Park High School, 6850 Topanga Canyon Blvd.: “The Three Quests of Man”--democracy, object truth and abstract truth--is outdoors on the Assembly Hall walls. Designed by Helen Lundeberg, it was executed by technicians.

San Fernando main post office, 308 S. Maclay Ave.: Gordon Newell and Sherry Peticolas depicted the “Transportation of the Mail” (1936), in a wood sculpture relief.

El Rodeo Elementary School, 605 Whittier Drive, Beverly Hills: Hugo Ballin donated his time, the school donated materials, and the WPA subsidized workers. In 1934, they created one of the first federal art projects, “School Days.”

Beverly Hills post office, 469 N. Crescent Drive: The only Southern California mural that acknowledges poverty exists in Beverly Hills. Artist Charles Kassler shows workers going into a relief office, coming out with money and going to the market.

PLEIN AIR: The Santa Monica Heritage Museum is showing another significant aspect of Southern California art--landscape painting. “Plein Air ‘90s” offers historical and contemporary perspective on the subject, presenting paintings from the early years of this century by 10 artists, including Franz Bischoff and William Wendt, and recent work by 14 contemporary artists.

Shaped by California light and colors, the early paintings depict pastoral scenes of local hills and woodlands that today generate a sense of nostalgia. It is obvious from the contemporary works that much has changed in our environs. Some of the works explore the effect people have had on the landscape.

Larry Cohen’s 1988 “View From Malibu Canyon Road With Storm” presents a beautiful, clear vista of open coastline and purple hills, with the sun shining through clouds and bouncing off the red tile rooftops of homes in the canyon. Stephanie Sanchez shows us storefronts on “Lincoln Boulevard” (1991) and “Late Afternoon--Venice Lifeguard Tower” (1989). David Bungay’s “Silverlake” (1967) faithfully renders the tall palm trees and small houses of that area.

Among the abstract landscapes, three acrylic-on-rag-board works by Carm Goode take a completely nonobjective view of horizons. Using acrylic on paper mounted on board, Susan Lawrence creates the sense of “After Sunset” and “Storm Clouds” with deep violets and clouds of gold, white and yellow. Derrik Van Nimwegen painted his strong “California Landscape, Four Planes” with oils on mahogany panels.

The show is on the second floor of the museum, which is a house built in 1894 for civic leader Ray Jones. Designed by Sumner P. Hunt, it is one of Santa Monica’s earliest examples of American Colonial Revival style. The museum--and the show--provide a respite from the hectic streets of Los Angeles.