Lorser Feitelson, along with his wife Helen Lundeberg, were pioneers of what was to become known as Hard-Edge abstraction in the late 1940s into the 50’s.  Lorser, along with his peers and fellow artists, Karl Benjamin, Frederick Hammersley and John McLaughlin were featured in the landmark exhibition, Four Abstract Classicists at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1959.  Jules Langsner, critic, psychiatrist and organizer of the exhibition coined the term “hard-edge” in his essay for the exhibition’s catalogue:

“Abstract Classicist painting is hard-edged painting. Forms are finite, flat, rimmed by a hard clean edge. These forms are not intended to evoke in the spectator any recollections of specific shapes he may have encountered in some other connection. They are autonomous shapes, sufficient unto themselves as shapes.” Continue reading Lorser Feitelson, West Coast Hard-Edge Abstraction, Pt4 →