Ferus Friendships

In the mid-’50s, when Ferus Gallery barely started, with Edward Kienholz at the helm, I knew all those guys and they knew me (“An L.A. Art Story,” by Barbara Isenberg, Sept 22).

At the time, I was presenting my improvisational Instant Theatre at the little Circle workshop on El Centro. In the back was my apartment, filled with Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg and Twombly pieces that constituted most of my collection gleaned from the artists through my friendship with them in New York in the early ‘50s. Every week I would visit the Ferus, and every weekend, the Ferus “stable” would visit my theater and me.

When Irving Blum appeared, he took my classes--and was very talented and witty--and then we went our separate ways. But I still visited the Ferus and stayed in touch with Blum and Hopps. An announcement for Instant Theatre is a part of Kienholz’s “Barney’s Beanery.”

RACHEL ROSENTHAL

Los Angeles