Louis Stern Fine Arts, In the Round, July, 15-August 19, 2023

#14, 1984 oil on canvas 60 x 60 inches; 152.4 x 152.4 centimeters  “I am an intuitive painter, despite the ordered appearance of my paintings, and am fascinated by the infinite range of expression inherent in color relationships. For the past fifteen or twenty years, I have been working with systems including relatively simple numerical progressions, modular constructions, and random sequences. Images formed thusly emerged in very surprising and gratuitous ways, as opposed to being drawn or designed in what had become, for me, on hindsight, a rather self-conscious operation." -- Karl Benjamin Karl Benjamin in his studio, circa 1984. Kicking off a new series for our gallery, Louis Stern Fine Arts is spotlighting the artists featured in our current exhibition, In the Round, on view until August 19.   A Hard Edge painter renowned for his meticulously orchestrated arrangements of color and form, Karl Benjamin began his career as a public school teacher with no intention of becoming an artist. His pursuit of visual art began in the early 1950s, when he was required to develop art lessons for his young students. This inspired his own interest in color relationships and prompted him to pursue an MFA from the Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University), which he obtained in 1960. Benjamin’s work blossomed amid the lively mid-twentieth century art, design, and architecture scene in Los Angeles. Numerous exhibitions of his work culminated in his inclusion in the ground-breaking 1959 exhibition Four Abstract Classicists, curated by Jules Langsner. Featuring the work of Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, John McLaughlin, and Frederick Hammersley, the exhibition opened at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA) and traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum in Exposition Park (now LACMA). It then traveled internationally to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England and Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland under the title West Coast Hard-edge. Benjamin joined the faculty of Pomona College in Claremont, California in 1979 as artist-in-residence and was appointed the Loren Babcock Miller Professor of Fine Arts in 1991. He was granted emeritus status upon his retirement in 1994. His work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions and is included in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, among many others. View More Works by Karl Benjamin #37, 1964 oil on canvas 46 x 23 inches; 116.8 x 58.4 centimeters Louis Stern Fine Arts 9002 Melrose Avenue West Hollywood, CA  90069 Contact 310-276-0147 info@louissternfinearts.com  www.louissternfinearts.com #louissternfineart#fienartmagazine#fineartfun