REMINISCING WITH JAMES JARVAISE

By Gerald Nordland The admiration I have nurtured for the work of James Jarvaise has grown from the time when, as a young art critic in Los Angeles for Frontier Magazine, I began to be aware of the burgeoning interest in the local art world for his work. It was the early fifties and I was writing about the American art world.

By the mid-1950s, I was seeing more of Jarvaise’s work and wrote enthusiastically about it in Frontier, Arts, and the Los Angeles Mirror News. I was invited by Felix Landau Gallery to write an introduction for one of the shows he organized for him. The Gallery often included Jarvaise in its occasional group shows that I followed. I was well aware that Jarvaise’s work was being seen in important annual juried shows at national museums, notably: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; twice at the University of Illinois-Champaign/ Urbana (1953, 1957); Addison Gallery, Andover, MA; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C.; Denver Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Art. Notably, he received purchase awards from Addison Gallery; the then Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the then Carnegie-Tech, Philadelphia; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In 1958, I reported that Jarvaise had been selected by Dorothy Canning Miller, a veteran curator of and at the Museum of Modern Art, NY and a valued assistant to the institution’s director, Alfred H. Barr Jr., to be among the artists featured in her Sixteen Americans exhibition. For more than twenty years, starting in 1942, Ms. Miller planned and presented a series of six landmark exhibitions calculated to bring the most innovative and creative young artists to national attention. These ground- breaking exhibitions, presented every three or four years and variably entitled Fourteen (or Sixteen, or Eighteen) Americans were intended to cast a spotlight on a group of painters and sculptors working in this country whom she proposed as standard bearers for their time. Her choice of artists to be thus celebrated proved to be prophetic: Morris Graves, Charles Howard and Knud Merrild (in the 1942 exhibition); Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell and Isamu Noguchi (1946); Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still (1952); Sam Francis, Philip Guston and Franz Kline (1956); Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and James Jarvaise (1959).

Like the other shows in the series, Sixteen Americans was well received and reviewed positively by a variety of critics. All six of Jarvaise’s entries sold. One painting was James Jarvaise at purchased for the MoMA collection with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. home, 229 Islay Street, Independent art dealers contacted him hoping to convince him that a long term contract Santa Barbara, 1968. with them would be beneficial to the development of his career. Jarvaise delegated decision-making in this matter to Felix Landau Gallery, his Los Angeles dealer, who had

9 him join the New York Thibaut Gallery stable where, it turned out, Jarvaise had only one exhibition in 1961. His arrangement continued productively for fifteen years with the Felix Landau Gallery, which was to mount ten solo exhibitions, and as many two or three-person shows featuring his work as possible. Landau was instrumental in getting a partnering institution, the Alan Gallery in New York, to present exhibitions of Jarvaise’s work.

James Jarvaise once described this seminal experience to me:

“When Dorothy made the appointment to meet with me, she expected to see a continuation of the black and white collage she had seen in a recent Landau Gallery show. When she reached my Tujunga, California home and studio, I explained that while I had an unshown body of collages, I had recently begun to work in a new direction. She asked to see these new pieces. I took her into the back bedroom storage area, and the bathroom that was my studio, to see my “Hudson River School Series.” She looked at a dozen works I had set out, and decided rather swiftly that a selection from these works would add a worthy element to the show she was envisioning. She then invited me to be in her Sixteen Americans exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in the autumn of the coming year (1959).”

Fast-forward to this year, 2012, when Louis Stern asked me to write the catalogue introduction for James Jarvaise’s upcoming exhibition at his West Hollywood gallery.

In early May I traveled to a mountainous area of Santa Barbara, California where, over a ten-year period, James Jarvaise created a handsome compound for his growing family (he and his wife Lorraine have five children). When he bought the roughly one-acre property in 1970, it had a few small buildings which he either refurbished or replaced so that now it contains some four good-sized structures - one for each of his adult children who live in California, and their partners, the largest which serves as his studio and living quarters, and another which holds his art storage and also functions as a guest house. Family members collaborated in the lush landscaping. The interiors of all the buildings, but especially the one in which he lives, have multiple, grand fireplaces, and have been embellished with massive, elaborately carved, wooden antique doors and cornices, ancient stone ornamentation, stained glass, fine weavings, and a large collection of pottery and glass objects; all of which he and Lorraine collected in their foreign travels. Jarvaise’s paintings enliven every available wall. His beloved wife Lorraine died in December of 2011.

10 The Jarvaise family, from left to right: Julie, James, Lorraine (front), Jean, Anna, Jeanne, and Jim, 1973.

On May 4th, James and I settled into comfortable chairs at a table by the fireplace in his studio and began to talk about his life and work. Although more than 30 years had passed since we had been in personal contact, it seemed like an “as we were saying” moment.

In Jarvaise’s own words:

“I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 16, 1924, to James Alexis Jarvaise and my mother, Suzanne Conlin Jarvaise. My father was born in Turkey of French parentage. He was a scholar of Greek studies and spoke five languages. Before I was born they had lived in New York and then Chicago.”

“I found the educational program at the Henry Clay Frick Elementary School in Pittsburgh to be exceptional; there I was given an early introduction to the decorative designs of nature with a special focus on wild flowers, wild birds and butterflies. During those Frick School years I was somehow selected to be part of a “gifted art student” program which was not clearly explained to me. I was told that I would be going to Carnegie Tech for a series of classes on Thursdays from 1:00 to 4:00 o’clock. The classes were led by Mr. Sam Rosenberg, who was said to be a well-known professional artist. I was only eight or nine during this experiment. When I was delivered to Rosenberg’s classroom I was astonished to see such tall students; they may have been fifteen to eighteen years old. Sam Rosenberg welcomed me and introduced me to the group. There were no smaller children in the group that day, but later two did appear. I was given paper and a drawing board. I pretty much followed the example of the older boys. The assignment to Carnegie Tech was the high point of that period of my schooling. At 4:00PM I would be picked up and delivered back to the Frick School.”

“Although Sam Rosenberg didn’t give me any special attention, he always made sure I was engaged. He expected me to keep busy. He explained that a model would take poses for a period. It certainly led to a stronger interest in drawing and painting and respect for the practice of the profession. New problems constantly presented themselves and the atmosphere was always positive. One accepted the business-like behavior of one’s classmates and I learned from their work and behavior. I was an admirer of Mr. Rosenberg, and I was always disappointed to know that he was not as celebrated or honored as I felt he deserved to be.”

11 I graduated from the Henry Clay Frick Elementary School and in 1937 I entered the Taylor Allderdice High School. In 1940 my family moved to Los Angeles where I enrolled at John Marshall High School. I played football and ran the 100 and 200-yard sprints. There was an art program at Marshall, but it was nothing like the Frick School. I would draw when I had a chance, which I enjoyed, but I did most of my artwork at home. I didn’t have a specific place to work so I would just sit down at a table anywhere and just draw or paint. I graduated from John Marshall in 1942.”

“The next year, in April, I joined the United States Army. Basic training was held at Camp Roberts, California. I was selected for the Army Air Corps, and was relocated three times, finally to the University of Nebraska. It was school again; we were taking classes in math and science. Even before we qualified as pilots we were hurried to Europe because an emergency had been declared. Our troops and planes were trapped in the Ardennes, with constant clouds, overcast for months, while the Battle of the Bulge was imminent; we were the replacement flyers. While the war was finishing up, I was able to spend time in Caen, Nice and Antibes. I briefly visited the Picasso Museum in Antibes, but missed the opening because I had to return to my post. Suddenly the war was over!”

“In the remainder of 1945 and for a few months in 1946 I traveled through France and a bit of Germany. I met a number of artists in , including Mike Kanemitsu, and we often got together and did things together. Mike and I worked for a time with Fernand Léger, first in Paris and later in a class in Biarritz. Léger would show up once in a while and would go by and say something about everyone’s painting. We saw a show with a big Picasso, a fine Braque and a couple of Léger paintings. This was the first time I saw such things up close and there was a simpleness (sic) about the way Léger put it together. He used every old idea in the book about how to create the image. Mike and I were both blown away by those paintings.”

“By September 1946 I had returned to Los Angeles and was eager for college. I registered at the University of Southern California. I played freshman football the first year and intended to continue with the 100 and 200-yard dashes in the spring. But I suffered a knee injury in a football game and a medical consultation convinced me to refuse to have the recommended surgery. That ended my athletic career.”

“I had been waiting for a place in the architecture program, but it was slow to emerge so I elected to pursue a Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting. I had always enjoyed those pursuits and felt it was right for me. I had many talented and able instructors at USC, but the two I most greatly admired were Francis De Erdely, a draftsman, and Edgar Ewing, a painter. They were both wonderful artists, great teachers, and finally real friends.”

12 CORTEGE DES FLEURS POUR VOUS 1996 roof tar and burlap on canvas 60 x 60 inches 152.4 x 152.4 centimeters LSFA 12005

13 “In 1950, while at USC, I married Lorraine Weber, a fellow student whom I had met several years before. I got my BFA in 1952, and immediately plunged into my MFA. The next year Lorraine got a contract from the US Army Air Corps to teach in France and I didn’t want her to do that alone. We spent a year abroad together, primarily in France. We both loved it! Whenever and wherever I am in Europe, even though I was born in the US, I always feel I am at home, where I belong.”

“We came back to USC and I took up my MFA again and finished it. I began teaching there in 1956. Lorraine and I had seen an architectural design by Vic Sease with a dramatic cantilever that impressed us greatly. We bought one of his houses in Tujunga, a mountainous place and fairly remote. We had our first two children while living there. I started working in the back bathroom, and stored my paintings in the second bedroom. I did most of the cooking while my wife was teaching in Los Angeles. I did the babies’ laundry in the bathroom. The children took long naps and I found time to work at my painting as well.”

It should be noted here that after joining the USC faculty, Jarvaise taught there, on and off, for over thirty years. At various times, he also taught at Occidental College and at Chouinard Art Institute.

“I continued with my collage paintings, but the new environment seemed to affect my work, which now shifted into a series of horizontal abstractions with subtle colors. I had done some reading on the Hudson River School of 19th century American painters and began to think of their study of nature in relation to my own hilltop sanctuary, looking up toward crags covered with trees, bushes and ground cover. The HRS group used muted colors and there was a neutrality about their work that could be boring. As I thought about their isolation deep in the forest, I contrasted it with my own flexibility. Surprisingly I began to see the need for bands of strong color as complementary elements in my new abstractions and my work became much more interesting.”

14 The Hudson River School refers to a group of American landscape painters who, in the first half of the 19th century, took up residence in the Hudson River Valley. They were professionally trained artists who wished to celebrate the natural glories of unspoiled nature. Their members included Frederick Church, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Kensett, among others.

“Then one day a military airplane crashed into the mountain that was the focus of my studio and work. Somehow the mountain had changed. I studied it and thought again of my Hudson River comrades. Before the crash it had just been a mountain, now it had become something more and I began to think of other and stronger colors as being necessary to my work, more of color. I thought more about color than about the “HRS” paintings which related to the landscape idea. My first “HRS Series” paintings were severe; I had a lot of white space and then just bands of blazing color, but they soon became less severe and more interesting.”

“On a day that I was rearranging my paintings as best I could in my limited space, my thoughts were scattered by a visit from my good friend, Jack Von Dornum, a professor of literature at USC. We had periodic talks and I always found them fruitful. He was very smart. When he saw my new paintings around the room he asked “What are these?” and before I could answer he decided “they are landscapes, they must be landscapes.” I had continued to think of them as abstractions, but I found myself agreeing with Jack; clearly they were horizontal, abstract renderings of landscape space. By the way, Jack wrote a short piece for the Sixteen Americans show where I showed my “Hudson River Series” paintings.”

“The Hudson River painters knew their territory thoroughly. They lived there, traveled through it, making notes and doing small drawings to be expanded upon and elaborated during painting sessions in the studio. Those Hudson River artists were totally steeped in their regional environment. Nature was there, surrounding them on all sides, at all times. They enjoyed their individual personal discoveries and shared the stimulus of their group’s mutual interest in natural grandeur and the wish to preserve the region’s resources. I recalled that some of the Hudson River painters were more facile, that they laid in the paint in a smoother, more skillful fashion, while others had a more scratchy style, perhaps with the result that their work deteriorated, leaving a less enduring record. It seems that in every case these painters’ focus was on nature, as faithfully rendered as their sight, skill and materials would permit.”

15 The above autobiographical account by James Jarvaise leaves unanswered the question of why his public career, which began and remained auspicious for more than twenty-five years with high public exposure at the Landau Gallery, many national exhibitions, many awards and purchases, went somewhat silent at the end of the seventies. I would offer a few plausible explanations. Jarvaise regretted his having left, for nearly fifteen years, decisions affecting his career - for exhibitions, purchase prizes, submissions to national shows - entirely in the hands of the Landau Gallery. Without his personal participation, he thinks that he was left without leverage in these areas when the gallery moved its operations to Europe. A further complicating factor is that in the seventies - primarily for financial and administrative reasons - the large American museums discontinued their practice of organizing national, open and competitive exhibitions, events in which Jarvaise had distinguished himself. And then, along with the responsibilities of supporting and caring for a growing family, Jarvaise was teaching full time and simultaneously immersed in the realization of the family compound where he and his family live to this day.

16 Artworks from the Hudson River Series on exhibition at Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles, 1961.

I asked Jarvaise to elaborate on how he approaches his work. I knew, from past conversations that his working process is based on improvisation and that he freely admits that in most of his works he has been “surprised” by this process. As we talked, he seemed to suggest that to fail to be surprised might reflect a betrayal of his sincere commitment to creativity. Robert Motherwell expressed similar sentiments when he wrote (for Frank Perls Gallery, Los Angeles, 1951): “Every intelligent painter carries the whole history of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which anything he paints is both a homage and a critique, and anything he says, a gloss. Fidelity to what occurs between oneself and the canvas, no matter how unexpected becomes central to the artist’s responsibility to himself. That includes not only what one does, but also what one refuses to do in making honest work.”

“Painting seems to come from an unknown source, which you’ve cultivated all your life. Your mind functions unconsciously, contributing to the work, helping to find solutions to problems which we only dimly perceive. You start a work without any intuition of what is to occur. Once you have one small segment, like if I do a little drawing that I like, I can put that shape on the canvas and quickly it starts to become something. It’s not just that shape anymore. I’m going to put another shape over it and it will begin to blossom. In your head you think it is a cloud or you sense rain. I don’t know these things; they are inside of me. I don’t know this when I’m actually painting. All of a sudden the work is finished. I get it done and I say “My god, did this come from Jack in the Pulpit? From Queen Anne’s Lace? It dawns on me that it all put itself together. How much do I have to do with it? I have something to do with it, it’s part of me, and my lifelong involvement with art and its creation.”

This impressive view into the workings of his intuitive creative mind given us by James Jarvaise augurs very well for the retrospective of his life’s work to be presented at Louis Stern Fine Arts. This exhibition will go a long way toward restoring this exceptional artist and his work to the eminence they deserve.

Gerald Nordland is an Art historian, critic, educator, curator and author. His most recent book, Richard Diebenkorn in New Mexico was published in 2007 and, though once an Angelino, the author currently resides in Chicago, Ill.

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