The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

which operated from 1957 to 1966. In 1957, the gallery was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard,

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in the

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. In 1958, it was relocated across the street to 723 North La Cienega Boulevard where it remained until its closing in 1966.

History

The gallery was founded in 1957 by the curator

Walter Hopps Walter "Chico" Hopps (May 3, 1932 – March 20, 2005) was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine pract ...

, his wife Shirley Hopps, the artist Edward Kienholz on La Cienega Boulevard. Walter Hopps and Shirley Hopps ran the gallery. They called the gallery “Ferus” to honor a person named James Farris who shot himself to death, and was possibly the friend of a friend of Hopps. They spelled the name "Ferus" because the man who designed the gallery's logo, Robert Alexander (a.k.a. “Baza”), a collage artist and poet, thought that spelling looked stronger on the page, and Hopps agreed. In 1958, Kienholz left to concentrate on producing art, and his stake in the gallery was replaced by Irving Blum. Also at this time, Sayde Moss, a wealthy widow, became a silent partner and with her support the gallery moved across the street to 723 N. La Cienega Boulevard. Up until the autumn of 1958, the gallery held twenty shows, but had made hardly any sales. Blum persuaded Hopps to reduce the number of represented artists to fourteen (seven from San Francisco and seven from Los Angeles) and transformed the financial health of the gallery. Under the directorship of Irving Blum from 1958, the gallery exhibited both the West Coast and New York art of the period. It was the first gallery on the West Coast to devote a solo show to

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

, whom Blum had first met in New York in 1961. Blum also ventured to show other East Coast artists, including Jasper Johns,

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

, and

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career befor ...

. Finish Fetish—a style that emphasized gleaming surfaces—and Light and Space—art about perception—were other Ferus-bred styles that allowed L.A. to distinguish itself from the rest of the art world. Artist Ed Ruscha has likened the gallery to a jazz catalog "where there are a lot of different voices under the same record label. Each had a very distinctive take on the world and on his work, and so that made it a very vital place to aspire to and to be."Barbara Isenberg (September 22, 2002)
An L.A. Art Story
''

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''. From 1960 to 1964, art collector Marcia Simon Weisman hosted monthly proselytizing classes for novice collectors, taught by Blum and Hopps. Committed local art collectors such as Robert Rowan, Edwin Janss, Betty Asher, and author Michael Blankfort were loyal clients. Hopps left in 1962 to become curator and, later, director of the Pasadena Art Museum. Ferus closed in 1967 when Blum sought "a financial leg up" by opening Ferus/Pace with

Arne Glimcher Arnold "Arne" Glimcher (born March 2, 1938) is an American art dealer, gallerist, film producer, and film director. He is the founder of Pace Gallery, which by 2011 sold more than $400 million in art annually. He is the father of Marc Glimcher, ...

, owner of New York's

Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong Kong, ...

. That venture lasted less than two years. Blum operated the Irving Blum Gallery until his departure for New York City in 1972 where in partnership with Joseph Helman he opened the BlumHelman Gallery; he returned full-time to Los Angeles in 1998 as a private dealer. From 1965, the offices of the art magazine Artforum were situated above the gallery, before moving to

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in 1967.

Notable exhibitions

The inaugural exhibition at the Ferus Gallery was ''Objects on the New Landscape Demanding of the Eye'' (March 15 – April 11, 1957), a group show including the work of Frank Lobdell,

Jay DeFeo Jay DeFeo (31 March 1929 – 11 November 1989) was an American visual artist who became celebrated in the 1950s as part of the spirited community of Beat artists, musicians, and poets in San Francisco. Best known for her monumental work ''The Rose ...

, Craig Kauffman, Richard Diebenkorn, John Altoon and

Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American Painting, painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediat ...

. Sonia Gechtoff was also in that show in addition to being the first artist to have a solo show at Ferus, in 1957. In 1957, the gallery was temporarily closed after

LAPD The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

officers arrested and charged Wallace Berman with obscenity over work in his exhibition. It was his first and last solo show. In July 1962, ''Andy Warhol:

Campbell's Soup Cans ''Campbell's Soup Cans'' (sometimes referred to as ''32 Campbell's Soup Cans'') is a Visual arts, work of art produced between November 1961 and June 1962 by the American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuri ...

'' was

's first solo pop art exhibition and the first exhibition of the Soup Cans. Five of the canvases sold for $100 each, but Hopps and his then wife, Shirley Nielsen Blum cancelled some of the sales to keep the set intact. At least two sales were completed, with Warhol restoring the original set with other 'duplicate' paintings that he had already painted, with the gallery buying ownership of 32 paintings for $1000. Los Angeles artists who had their first solo shows at the gallery included: Wallace Berman (1957), Billy Al Bengston (1958), Ed Moses (1958), Robert Irwin (1959), John Mason (1959), Kenneth Price (1960), Llyn Foulkes (1962), Larry Bell (1962) and Ed Ruscha (1963).

Legacy

The

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

organized "Late Fifties at the Ferus" in 1968, and the Newport Harbor Art Museum organized "The Last Time I Saw Ferus" in 1976. In 2002, Gagosian Gallery, New York, mounted an exhibition of about 45 sculptures, paintings, drawings and other artworks by 22 artists shown at Ferus during its 10-year lifetime. Assembled by Irving Blum, the show also included Ferus Gallery exhibition announcements by Lichtenstein and others, several art scene photographs taken by Dennis Hopper, and an elaborate, 144-page catalog. In 2007, "The Cool School" was released, a documentary film about the Ferus Gallery and its eccentric artists. In 2010, the Samuel Freeman gallery in Santa Monica created a replica of the Ferus within its own walls. The exhibition featured the original door that stood at the entrance of the Ferus plus a full-scale re-creation of the gallery's 1960 solo Bengston exhibition. As well in January 2010 The Ferus Gallery reopened its doors at the original site at 723 N La Cienega in Los Angeles under the directorship of Tim Nye of Nyehaus and Franklin Parrasch Galleries with an exhibition entitled Ferus Gallery Greatest Hits Vol. 1. and featured many of the original stable of artists, including Craig Kauffman, Billy Al Bengston, Kenneth Price and Ed Ruscha.

References

External links

THE COOL SCHOOL
site for Independent Lens on PBS
Michael Wilson's Ferus Gallery links sKCET Departure
Art Historian Hunter Drohojowska-Phili discusses the Ferus group {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Los Angeles Contemporary art galleries in the United States Defunct art museums and galleries in California Andy Warhol 1957 establishments in California 1966 disestablishments in California Art museums and galleries established in 1957 Art museums and galleries disestablished in 1966