Listed Artist Karl Benjamin (1925-2012) Signed 1952 Mid-Century.

Description

Artwork made in cotton canvas.

Although he began his career as a public school teacher, Karl Benjamin became prominent in the 1960s California art scene for his methodical geometric paintings rendered in vibrant color, which are now affiliated with the West Coast-based “hard edge” movement. His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney, and he was the recipient of National Endowment of the Arts grants in 1983 and 1989. After serving in the navy during World War II, Benjamin studied history at the University of Redlands and began teaching grade school. His students’ artwork informed his own practice, which centered on color as subject matter. Seeing their work as a West Coast alternative to New York’s Abstract Expressionists, Benjamin and fellow California painters Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, and John McLaughlin founded their own movement in 1955. The movement was initially dubbed “abstract classicism,” but critics would later refer to it as “hard-edge” with Benjamin’s approval, as he never liked the former term. LACMA presented the cadre’s work to widespread acclaim in the 1959 exhibition “Four Abstract Classicists.”