Artist’s Woodcuts and Paintings Mix Religion, Civic Landscape : Harry Sternberg retrospective at the Platt Gallery depicts social fabric from 91-year-old’s life.

Warm winds of nostalgia and religious heritage blow through the Harry Sternberg retrospective at the Platt Gallery at the University of Judaism. Sternberg, 91, came of age during the Great Depression. He devoted much of his art to the civic landscape, depicting the social fabric of the times.

While that aspect of Sternberg’s work is represented in a smattering of his woodcuts, the main attraction in this show is his “Tallis Series,” a set of passionate paintings recalling scenes from his Orthodox Jewish upbringing. Sternberg explains that his father’s tallis--a prayer shawl--was the inspiration for these recollections in paint.

The sum effect of the series is a sojourn into a spiritual and literal haven, apart from the slick, edgy dimension of contemporary secular life and culture. The works are rendered with Sternberg’s loose painterly hand, a chunky style of figuration reminiscent of Chagall and textures that appear almost batik-like in their crumply surfaces.

Here we find thoughtful faces, lean and craggy, of elders in their tallises in the synagogue. In “Bar Mitzvah,” there is a palpable sense of a rite of passage, in a cloistered atmosphere. “Tallis, Tvillum” is enhanced by a swath of gold leaf. In the endearing “Cheddar,” a group of boys dutifully study the Torah at a table, watched over by an elder whose face bears a greenish tint, in contrast to the fresh-scrubbed faces of his charges.

Nostalgia continues to waft through some of Sternberg’s woodcuts, which bathe scenes of Coney Island and the Brooklyn Public Library in agreeably sentimental mythology. Domestic bliss and a tight family mesh are celebrated in “Our Kitchen, Lower East Side,” with its family crammed into the small, hearth-like apartment kitchen.

From another emotional realm comes “Strange Fruit,” which takes its title from the haunting song immortalized by Billie Holiday, and whose subject is a lynching. In another direction entirely, the show includes an idyllic landscape of the Maui Coast and a narrow, bemused self-portrait.

Do all of these assorted pieces, of varying intensities, hang together cohesively? Not exactly. A more focused exhibition, limited to the theme of Jewish life, might have made for a more lucid display. But, as it is, we get a hint of the diversity and commitment that has made up Sternberg’s life and art.

* Harry Sternberg Retrospective, through Feb. 11 at the Platt Gallery at the University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive; 310-476-9777.

*

Leo Monahan does paperwork for art’s sake. The Burbank-based artist has developed a system of manipulating paper, to often dazzling effect. In his show at the Creative Arts Center Gallery in Burbank, Monahan sends out mixed messages, in which discernible skill and craft win us over, even as we wonder about the subtext.

Having worked with paper for 30 years, Monahan has obviously explored the possibilities of an obscure medium--cutting, crinkling, painting, folding, rolling his material to create elaborate three-dimensional scenes. Oftentimes, he gets a leathery look from his artfully abused paper, and also weaves minute strands of paper with a remarkable delicacy. Nature provides some models, as with “The Offering,” with its realistic feathers amid dry, dusty grasses.

Works full of feathery regalia, decorative to a fault, evoke a range of innocuous subjects, from Native American culture and lore, to fantastical animal life, to affectionate odes to fly fishing. “Hidden Lake,” with its muted color palette, benefits from an air of restrained mystery that is otherwise mostly absent from the show.

It is not clear whether the artist, by avoiding a more rigorous conceptual focus, is a hobbyist of a high order, or an artist for whom the medium is the message.

* Leo Monahan, Paper Sculpture Exhibition, through Jan. 28 at the Creative Arts Center Gallery, 1100 W. Clark Ave. in Burbank; 818-238-5397.