Oral history interview with Rosamund Felsen, 2004 Oct. 10-11 Funding for this interview provided by the Art Dealers Association. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Rosamund Felsen on October 10-11, 2004. The interview took place in Los Angeles, California, and was conducted by Anne Ayres for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Rosamund Felsen and Anne Ayres have reviewed the transcript and have made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview MS. ANNE AYRES: The interview is with Rosamund Felsen, founder of the Rosamund Felsen Gallery. The interviewer is Anne Ayres. The interview takes place at Rosamund Felsen’s home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. The date is Sunday, October 10th, 2004. Rosamund, let’s not start at the beginning; let’s start now. I read recently that Duchamp commented, when attending his first-ever retrospective – which, as you know, happened at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1963 – that, quote, “Life begins at 70.” He said, “This show is fun. It gives me a wonderful feeling.” I’ve always had the feeling that you get a lot of fun out of life. You were born in 1934 in Pasadena. Do you still have the large enthusiasms when you show up at your gallery in Bergamot Station every Tuesday through Saturday? MS. ROSAMUND FELSEN: I do, amazingly enough. It’s always an exciting new day. You never know what’s going to happen. You never know who’s going to come walking through the door. For example, yesterday who came walking through the door but Tom Hanks. [Laughs.] So, you never have a clue as to what’s going to happen, how people are going to respond to the art, which, of course, is our first and foremost concern. But probably the most exciting thing is the day that we install a new show. And after 26 years, it has never lost its excitement for me. MS. AYRES: The general focus of your gallery was on Los Angeles artists, and often on artists who weren’t getting that much attention. You seem to have wanted your gallery to be the place where out-of-towners came to see the newest and best of L.A. artists. Did that work out? And was that function more urgent when you started your gallery in 1978 than it is today? MS. FELSEN: It was the exception rather than the rule in 1978. In the early days, the collectors and museum people were most comfortable with the artists with whom they had the most familiarity, the Ed Ruschas and the – I can’t say John Baldessari because he wasn’t a popular artist in 1978 – but a lot of the artists from the Venice area: Billy Al Bengston and Robert Graham and those artists. Those were the ones that people were comfortable with. And in those days, the habit of Los Angeles collectors when they were going to buy some art was to go to New York. And it was before the shift. Where today people are most interested in finding the newest and the youngest artists. In those days it was the exception, I’d say. MS. AYRES: Of course, if you are committed to developing an artist’s career over time, as you are, it is inevitable that your stable of artists will age along with you. I see most of your artists as quite established, mid-career at least; however, you have added younger artists. What younger artists have you added recently? MS. FELSEN: Well, the most recent is an artist we are going to be showing for the first time next week. And his name is Andrew Falkowski. He is a recent graduate from Cal Arts, last year, and a very intelligent artist who paints with great thought and executes his work very beautifully. It’s a combination that’s kind of rare with new, young artists. And there has already been considerable interest in the work. We have already sold a couple of his paintings even before the show was installed. So that’s exciting. MS. AYRES: For some time now there has been ACME, Marc Foxx, Richard Telles, Susan Vielmetter, the various and shifting galleries of Chinatown for those looking for the best of the newest. Do you feel that this new generation of dealers has proven itself for the long haul? And does their focus differ from yours? MS. FELSEN: It’s too soon to tell. As you already mentioned, I do continue to work with these artists into their period of midcareer. We don’t know yet whether these galleries will be continuing to work with them. Right now their focus seems to be on the newest. MS. AYRES: I think that’s probably true of the Chinatown galleries that are brave outposts and come and go and provide interesting opportunities for new graduates to dip into the process of exhibiting for the public, but would you think that ACME has certainly proven itself by now? MS. FELSEN: Oh, I think it’s proven itself. I don’t know that anyone would qualify as a midcareer artist. I can’t think of anybody. I still think of their stable of artists as being young. But I think that they are definitely here to stay and they’re doing a very fine job, and I’m sure that they will continue working with them. MS. AYRES: Well, has there ever been a satisfactory definition of a midcareer artist? [Laughs.] MS. FELSEN: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. At least over 40, probably. MS. AYRES: Probably. I’m old enough to remember when a 42-year-old artist was considered a young artist. MS. FELSEN: You mean like – because Barnett Newman had his first exhibition at age 50. MS. AYRES: That’s right. That’s right. Things have changed that way. Whom among your gallerist colleagues of your own generation do you admire most, and why? MS. FELSEN: Oh, that’s a tough question. I’ll have to answer that later. I’ll have to give that some thought. MS. AYRES: Maybe it will develop through our conversation. MS. FELSEN: Mm-hmm [Affirmative]. MS. AYRES: I think we need to go into a little background because it’s useful for the Archives of American Art, but I’m wondering how much detail we want to go into. I want to credit a 1995 UCLA oral history interview which put a great deal on record. For instance, your parents were Romanian Jews who settled first in Canada, then in Pasadena. You were the much youngest of three children and were born in Pasadena, California, on February 28th, 1934. There was little art museum background, except for the Huntington Library and Gardens, but you do remember interest in popular magazine articles on Duchamp, Dali, Pollock. Were there particular childhood experiences that helped form a character drawn to facilitating the careers of artists? For instance, you characterized yourself as, quote, “insecure but egocentric at the same time.” What are the advantages and disadvantages of that combination? MS. FELSEN: [Laughs.] I don’t even remember saying that. It’s probably true. MS. AYRES: I think that’s probably true of many of us. [Laughs.] MS. FELSEN: [Laughs.] How insightful! Well, I think the willingness to recognize that you have made mistakes, and if you’re veering off in what you decide is not a good direction, you’re able to shift and go in another direction. And so I think that comes with confidence, I think. And the willingness to – the lack of fear of making a mistake, I think, is what allows me to go ahead and do the kinds of things that I want to do. MS. AYRES: Do you feel that confidence involved in not being afraid of making a mistake must have been inculcated early in life? I’m looking for kind of childhood ways of being with your parents and with your siblings and in your home that might have, looking back, given you a clue that you would be a good facilitator of artists or something like that. MS. FELSEN: I don’t think that happened early on. I wasn’t thinking in those terms. I think I learned this as an adult. Also, my experiences at Gemini [Gemini GEL: Graphics Editions Limited] in working with really top-rate artists and learning about the creative process better and learning what it’s like to be a creative person. Early on, I never thought that I would end up in the art world. I always thought I would be in theater, but not as a performer in any way. I always thought I would be like a director or producer or something like that, which is interesting because that translates so perfectly into becoming an art dealer. MS. AYRES: I think that’s what I’m getting at, that there were certain interests or temperamental ways of being in the world that we pick up or learn when we’re young, and then looking back on them years later, we kind of pinpoint that as – you could have been many other things, but what happened in your childhood is useful.