Felix Henry Landau (1924 – February 17, 2003) was an American art dealer whose

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

gallery was a showcase for modern and contemporary art in the 1960s. Landau was born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, the son of musician Fritz Landau. His family fled the Nazis and moved to New York City in 1938. He served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater, where he met

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

and, after the war, became the folk singer's first manager. He moved to Los Angeles in 1948, and in 1951 opened the Felix Landau Gallery on

La Cienega Boulevard La Cienega Boulevard is a major north–south arterial road in the Los Angeles metropolitan area that runs from the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood in the north to El Segundo Boulevard in Hawthorne in the south. It was named for Rancho Las ...

, which would become a central location for art galleries in the city. He introduced

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painters, painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude sel ...

and

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sket ...

to Los Angeles, and featured California abstract painter John McLaughlin. He presented

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

's first show in Los Angeles, and held an exhibition of

Peter Voulkos Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic c ...

' work. Other artists featured in his gallery included

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

, Leon Goldin,

John Levee John Levee (April 10, 1924 – January 18, 2017) was an American abstract expressionist painter who had worked in Paris since 1949. His father was M. C. Levee. Background John Harrison Levee received a master's degree in philosophy from UCLA ...

, Paul Wonner,

James Jarvaise James Jarvaise (February 16, 1924 – June 19, 2015 ) was an American painter based in Southern California. Background Jarvaise was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, but later lived in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and eventually moved to Los Angeles in 1 ...

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he began ...

, William Dole,

John Rosenbaum John Rosenbaum (September 3, 1934 – September 30, 2003) was an American physicist, educator and Kinetic art, kinetic sculptor, associated with the San Francisco Renaissance and the counterculture of the 1960s. Early life and education Rosenbaum ...

Jack Zajac Jack Zajac (born December 13, 1929) is a Californian West Coast artist who has been concerned with the “ Romantic Surrealist tradition”. :”To have a message or an emotional stimulation soaked up by an uncertainty of the Artist’s tool ...

, Giacomo Benevelli,

Giò Pomodoro Giò Pomodoro (; 17 November 1930 – 21 December 2002) was an Italian sculptor, printmaker, and stage designer. His brother is the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. In 1954 he moved to Milan, where he associated with leading avant-garde artists and st ...

Gaston Lachaise Gaston Lachaise (March 19, 1882 – October 18, 1935) was a French-born sculptor, active in America in the early 20th century. A native of Paris, he is most noted for his robust female nudes such as his heroic '' Standing Woman''. Gaston Lachaise ...

and James Gill as one of the representatives of the early " Pop art". A 1967

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

interview called him "the tastemaker of La Cienega." His clientele included Hollywood celebrities such as

Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and ver ...

Jack Lemmon John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor. Considered proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, he was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in comedy-drama films. He received num ...

Julie Andrews Dame Julie Andrews (born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author. She has garnered numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over eight decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Fi ...

and

Marlo Thomas Margaret Julia "Marlo" Thomas (born November 21, 1937) is an American actress, producer, author, and social activist. She is best known for starring on the sitcom ''That Girl'' (1966–1971) and her Children's television series, children's franc ...

. In 1966 he also began operating the Landau-Alan (later Felix Landau) Gallery in New York City, which introduced

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...

to the U.S. In 1971 he closed his galleries and moved to Europe, working as a private dealer in Paris until his death.

References

External links

Landau at the Getty Center Los Angeles art history website
American art dealers Emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss Art in Greater Los Angeles 1924 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople United States Army personnel of World War II {{US-art-display-stub