Hans Burkhardt’s Flag Paintings Weave Pain of War, Hope of Peace

Hans Burkhardt remembers World War I. The 87-year-old painter was a child living in Switzerland when he saw airplanes flying over Basel that would drop the first bombs of war. “The city shook like an earthquake,” Burkhardt said.

This childhood experience made an indelible mark on the man, who emigrated to New York in 1924 and became a student and then patron and colleague of painter Arshile Gorky. In 1937, Burkhardt moved to Los Angeles, where between 1938 and 1984 he painted almost 200 Abstract Expressionist works in response to the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the Lebanese crisis.

“War, Agony in Death” (1939) was his first large painting. During World War II, he worked in a defense plant making airplane parts by day, but by night he did anti-war paintings. During the Vietnam War, he embedded skulls into the canvas of his 1968 work, “My Lai.”

The day after last year’s invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Burkhardt was stirred to paint again. His answer to the Persian Gulf conflict can be seen in a series of almost 40 flag paintings on view at the Jack Rutberg gallery.

Burkhardt’s flags go beyond nationalistic origins. He has used the American flag as a reference point, but his stripes are painted black and alternated with light-toned color bands. The most recent works are more abstract, losing their stripes altogether. In almost all of the paintings, he has glued old pieces of burlap to the upper left corner, where stars usually appear.

“It is my dream that we should have one flag for the whole world so that we all live together in peace,” said Burkhardt, who created these works in just six months. “The flags are for the people who never came back, the people buried in the desert. They have no names. Some of them could have been great artists. My paintings are in memory of them.”

Most of the works also contain images of the cross, which have been made out of such materials as wood, rope or nails and attached to the canvas. A carved wood figure of Christ on the cross is presented in “The Desert” and “Lime Pit.” “It is Christ looking down at what was happening,” Burkhardt said.

Burkhardt found these Christ figures when he was living in Mexico more than 30 years ago. They had been in his living room until he incorporated them into his new work. The burlap bags that once held potatoes had been lying around in his garden for many years. “Nature has made the bags the way they are now,” Burkhardt said. “Using the burlap is my way of saying people should have food, not guns. We need to settle things at the table, not in wars.”

Although these paintings are somber in tone, Burkhardt has retained a certain sense of hope throughout his lifetime, symbolized in this exhibit by the paintings that show the color red breaking though the flags. “These are the flowers that will bloom again,” he said.

“Hans Burkhardt: Desert Storms” is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays at the Jack Rutberg gallery, 357 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, through Nov. 30. Call (213) 938-5222.

WESTERN ART: In 1964, John Clymer (1907-1989) gave up his career as a commercial artist and illustrator for such publications as the Saturday Evening Post, Field and Stream, and True to devote himself to painting scenes of the American West in a strikingly realistic style.

He wanted to re-create for people today a sense of being there when Sacajawea, Lewis and Clark’s Indian interpreter, saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, when fur trappers danced around a campfire surrounded by snow, and Indians peacefully welcomed a trade boat.

More than 50 of his paintings are at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in the exhibit “The West of John Clymer.” A 25-minute video on Clymer’s life and work, including an interview with him, accompanies the show and runs continuously.

Clymer credits his wife of more than 50 years, Doris Schnebly, with helping him achieve graphic documentation of the scenes in his paintings. A historian, Schnebly would reach back into the American West--where rivers were the roads, Indians followed the animal trails, trappers followed the Indians and traders followed the trails of mountain men--to rescue obscure figures from oblivion. She would read to Clymer the accounts of buffalo hunts, cattle drives and the adventures of fur trappers and traders.

In the book “John Clymer, An Artist’s Rendezvous with the West,” he explained how he painted: “When I start to paint, I always keep in mind that my subject--person or animal--has to be influenced and enveloped by the color and mood of the setting and atmosphere of the picture.”

Clymer and his wife also traveled the paths of 19th-Century explorers, trappers and traders from the Mississippi to the Pacific Northwest, studying ruins, old tools and clothing, tombstones, diaries and maps, all of which became fodder for his paintings. “Part of the fun in the early years was in searching for the places we read about,” he said. “Going and seeing the actual places makes history come alive for me.”

His paintings resonate with historical detail as well as with dramatic interpretations of events. In “Sacajawea at the Big Water,” Clymer said, he wanted to illustrate the exhilaration that Sacajawea must have felt when she took off her moccasins and walked in the ocean for the first time. In “Trading With the Sioux, 1856,” trader James Bordeaux enthusiastically shows his wares to curious Indians. Clymer’s lively portrayals of scenes from the American West and the additional written explanations of the stories behind the paintings make for a pleasant history lesson.

“The West of John Clymer” at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in Griffith Park, next to the Los Angeles Zoo, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, through Nov. 11. General admission $5.50 adults, $4 senior citizens and students with valid ID, $2.50 children 2 to 12. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Call (213) 667-2000. OFF THE WALL: For artist Sandy Bleifer, paper is the medium rather than the surface for her work. In “Wall Series,” her project that has evolved over the past 10 years, she has treated and manipulated paper to explore not only its nature, but its ability to serve as a metaphor for the world around us.

Bleifer’s most recent “Wall Series” pieces are on display at Space Gallery. In the 17 paper works, she conveys the texture of architectural surfaces and of the erosion that results when the surfaces have been subjected to the elements of time, weather and the effects of people. Brick walls, a warehouse garage door, a wooden gate, an aging stone surface and what appeared as a corrugated iron exterior have been fashioned from various papers. “Berlin Wall” is cracking and coming down.

More than half of Bleifer’s walls are covered with graffiti, which she considers legitimate folk art and social commentary. “Much of the graffiti is beautiful calligraphy with unique and innovative type styles,” Bleifer said, while acknowledging mixed feelings about its defacing property, murals in particular.

“Graffiti is hard to do because you have to work large and fast; you don’t get a chance to erase, so you really have to know what you’re doing. It expresses the frustration on the part of young people who feel they’re not being heard or seen, or don’t have a place. I wanted to face the reality of what’s going on in our cities.”

Also in the gallery are paintings by Joe Edward Grant that incorporate old construction materials.