Art Review : ‘Eloquent Lines’ Shows That the Drawing Is Not Kaput

Sometimes it seems the forces of the Computer Age wait in serried ranks to engulf the visual field. At such moments there’s something soothing about a scan of fine modernist drawings. An all-too-infrequent example is “Eloquent Lines” at the Louis Stern Fine Arts emporium.

Organized by the redoubtable independent curator Josine Ianco-Starrels, some 50 images by about 30 artists prove that all museum-quality drawings are not in museums. They’re about equally divided between works by European masters with names as prepossessing as Matisse or Picasso and West Coast Americans. Mainly they are Angelenos, although there is a fine and humorous representation of frogs by Morris Graves and a gaggle of handsome East Coast examples by the likes of Milton Avery and Ellsworth Kelly.

Modernism is still usually billed as a historic revolution, with L.A. art as a cheeky and rebellious part of it. This show, however, emphasizes the respectful continuity that animated the aesthetic upheaval. It also dramatizes the ability of Angeltown artists to absorb and transform classic modernism.

William Brice brings a touch of personal anguish to Matisse’s joie de vivre, recalling the muffled Angst that Joan Didion found here. Don Bachardy’s drawings of our tensely beautiful people update British portraiture through the German Expressionists that hang nearby. Masami Teraoka’s geishas evoke the aura of artistic timelessness that reigns in this border town between Asian contemplation and European restlessness.

There’s something decidedly sexy about the show. Not pornographic or even erotic, just sexy. This is certainly, in part, accounted for by the presence of such well-known masters of lubricity as Gustave Klimt, Egon Schiele and Gaston Lachaise. A drawing of two recumbent penises by John Altoon is too amusing to be dirty, but it does add to the ambience. So does David Hockney’s image of his friend Gregory sleeping as innocently as an odalisque.

But sexy here is less a matter of subject than of attitude. It’s a tingle-making quality of refinement that animates even Lorser Feitelson’s carefully calibrated abstract curves. The exquisite suavity of the work makes it testament to the upside of decadence. After all, you can’t have a decadent civilization without a civilization.

* Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Ave., through March 2, closed Mondays, (310) 276-0147.