Lucas Joseph Reiner (born August 17, 1960) is an American painter, printmaker, photographer and filmmaker.Crockett, Tobey. "Lucas Reiner at Bennett Roberts," ''Art in America'', May 1996.Reynolds, Susan Salter. "The natural elements," ''Los Angeles Times'', December 7, 2008. Retrieved Novemb18, 2020.Thomas, Kevin

''Los Angeles Times'', September 14, 2000. Retrieved December 14, 2020. He is most known for painting series that mix elements of representation, narrative, symbolism and abstraction. The work explores subjects such as the collision between organic growth and urban life, the atmospheric effects of fireworks and spiritual themes.Frank, Peter. "Art Pick of the Week: Amir Zaki, Lucas Reiner," ''LA Weekly'', January 26, 2003.Nys Dambrodt, Shana. "Lucas Reiner: Firework Paintings," ''Modern Painters'', November 2005, p. 110.Lewis, Cara Megan and Linnéa Spransy
"Curator’s Corner: Bridge Projects, Los Angeles,"
''Image'', Issue 104, 2020. Retrieved November 18, 2020. His work belongs to the collections of 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 196 ...

, Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, among others,Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Lucas Reiner
Collections. Retrieved November 23, 2020.Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Lucas Reiner
People. Retrieved November 18, 2020.U.S. Department of State
Lucas Reiner
Art in Embassies, Personnel. Retrieved November 18, 2020. and a monograph of his paintings, drawings and photographs, ''Los Angeles Trees'' (2008), was selected as one of the ''Los Angeles Times'' "Favorite Books of 2008."Hirtz, Petra Giloy. "Lucas Reiner’s Los Angeles Trees,
''Los Angeles Trees''
New York" Prestel, 2008. Retrieved November 18, 2020. That paper's critic David Pagel wrote that his "paintings of trees trimmed to within inches of their lives have the pathos of circus freaks and the stubbornness of survivalists."Pagel, David
"Summer sampler has a dark side,"
''Los Angeles Times'', July 8, 2005. Retrieved November 18, 2020. Reiner has exhibited in the U.S., Germany, Italy and Mexico,Frank, Peter. "Art Pick of the Week," ''LA Weekly'', November 1995.Heise, Rudiger. "West Coast Painting," ''Applaus Kultur Magazin'', July/August 2005.Apice, Marzia
"Lucas Reiner Rome, Galleria Traghetto,"
''Exhibart'', April 2010. Retrieved November 19, 2020. at institutions including

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery is located in the Barnsdall Art Park in Los Angeles, California. It focuses on the arts and artists of Southern California. The gallery was first established in 1954. Main building The Los Angeles Municipal ...

and

Museo de la Estampa The Museo de la Estampa (Museum of Graphic Arts) is a museum in Mexico City, dedicated to the history, preservation and promotion of Mexican graphic arts. The word “estampa” means works in the various printmaking techniques which have the quali ...

.Hart, Hugh. "The evolution of art, Otis style," ''Los Angeles Times'', January 20, 2006.Reiner, Lucas
''Los Angeles Trees''
New York" Prestel, 2008. Retrieved November 18, 2020. He is based in Los Angeles and Berlin, and married to Maud Winchester.Reiner, Lucas
"Vision and Empathy,"
''Los Angeles Trees''], ''OBSzine'', #3, September 2017, p. 22–3. Retrieved November 18, 2020.

Early life

Reiner was born Lucas Joseph Reiner in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

on August 17, 1960, the third child of actor, comedian, director and writer

Carl Reiner Carl Reiner (March 20, 1922 – June 29, 2020) was an American actor, stand-up comedian, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned seven decades. He was the recipient of many awards and honors, including 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, ...

and visual artist and performer Estelle (née Lebost) Reiner.Weber, Bruce
"Estelle Reiner, 94, Comedy Matriarch, Is Dead,"
''The New York Times'', October 29, 2008. Retrieved November 18, 2020.Berkvist, Robert and Peter Keepnews

''The New York Times'', June 30, 2020. Retrieved November 18, 2020.

Career

He attributes his interest in art to his mother; both studied with painter Martin Lubner.Wisniewski, Joh
"Interview With Artist Lucas Reiner by John Wisniewski,"
''Artlyst'', April 20, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2020.Catena Artistorum
"Lucas Reiner – Interview,"
March 11, 2020. Retrieved November 18, 2020. Between 1978 and 1986, Reiner attended

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

and

The New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

in New York,

Otis Art Institute Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aerospace headquarte ...

in Los Angeles, and Parsons School of Design Paris. He began exhibiting in group shows in New York (

The Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...

, Grand Salon) and Los Angeles (Manny Silverman) in the early 1990s, before having his first solo exhibition of paintings at Bennett Roberts (1995, Los Angeles).Cutujar, Mario
"Painting Beyond the Idea,"
''Art Scene'', September 1995. Retrieved November 18, 2020.DiMichele, David. "Painting Beyond the Idea," ''Artweek'', November 1995.Pagel, David

''Los Angeles Times'', October 12, 1995. Retrieved November 18, 2020. In subsequent years, he has exhibited individually at Roberts & Tilton and Carl Berg Projects in Los Angeles, Galerie Biedermann and Galerie Peter Bauemler in Germany, and Galeria Traghetto and Claudia Gian Ferrari Arte Contemporanea in Italy,Schiechtl, Sylvia
"Lucas Reiner - Alberi,"
''Exibart'', March 11, 2005. Retrieved November 19, 2020. and in group exhibitions at L.A. Louver,

CSU CSU may refer to: * Channel service unit, a Wide area network equivalent of a network interface card * Chari Aviation Services, Chad, by ICAO airline code * Christian Social Union (UK), an Anglican social gospel organisation * Christian Social ...

Luckman Gallery, Edward Cella Art + Architecture, and Bridge Projects, among others.Roth, Charlene. "Urban Hymns at the Luckman," ''Artweek'', June 2000, p. 23–4.Nys Dambrodt, Shana
"Edward Cella: Dancing About Architecture,"
''Fabrik'', June 2010, p. 44–9.

Work

Reiner's influences include

Old Master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

painters and modern figures such as

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York ...

, and

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

; writer Fred Dewey makes links between Reiner's work and that of

Giorgio Morandi Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 – June 18, 1964) was an Italian painter and printmaking, printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases ...

.Dewey, Fred. "If We Are Lucky,
''Los Angeles Trees''
New York" Prestel, 2008, p. 16–21. Retrieved November 18, 2020. Reiner's early, largely abstract work (which nonetheless references the physical world through color, surface, and text fragments) bears the influence of

conceptualism In metaphysics, conceptualism is a theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized frameworks situated within the thinking mind. Intermediate between nominalism and realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical c ...

and

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

in its reduction of content and figuration in reaction.Bravo, Leonard
"Lucas Reiner: Griffin Contemporary,"
''zingmagazine'', Fall 1998. Retrieved November 18, 2020. His post-2000 work introduces representational elements, often references to the urban landscape and natural phenomena.

Early paintings

Reiner's solo debut at Bennett Roberts featured paintings that distilled everyday experiences into color field-like abstractions; ''Art in America'' likened them to "core samples" extracted from Los Angeles's cultural landscape that "resonate with emotion, poetry and gritty reportage" (e.g., ''dead dog'' and ''thank god roses'', both 1995). He began such work with "field studies"—coded recordings of the colors, verbal fragments and commercial signage of street scenes—which he translated into the chart-like, geometric paintings. ''LA Weekly'' critic Peter Frank wrote that the floating, tenuous squares of color "marry vernacular haiku to very shy minimalism," yielding results "both less mysterious and more affecting than they sound." In subsequent shows, Reiner moved toward more all-over abstract compositions.Mumford, Steve
"Lucas Reiner: milk, piss, blood, rust, dirt," ''zingmagazine''
Winter/Spring 1997. Retrieved November 18, 2020. The exhibition "milk, piss, blood, rust, dirt" (1996) consisted of five large paintings, which combined color-field explorations with wry or poignant inscriptions referencing collective notions concerning the title substances. "Starting with the Flower" (Griffin Contemporary Exhibitions, 1998) featured paintings built upon oppositions of materiality and light lyricism, the abject and transcendent (e.g., ''Rope Trick'' and ''Chicken Flower''); reviews suggest they recall Guston's scumbled, discordant coloration and crudely defined shapes and the scorched, scarred surfaces of

Antoni Tàpies Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tápies (; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist, who became one of the most famous European artists of his generation. Life The son of Josep Tàpies i M ...

.Gleason, Mat. "Lucas Reiner: Poetry in Motion," ''Bleach Magazine'', June 1998. In the later 1990s, Reiner incorporated urban signage to a greater degree in small paintings (e.g., ''La Petite Beauty'' and ''Grace'', 1999) that indicate the aesthetic impact of

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 beg ...

Vija Celmins Vija Celmins (pronounced VEE-ya SELL-muns;Hilarie M. Sheets and Randy Kennedy (September 24, 2015)''New York Times''. lv, Vija Celmiņa, pronounced TSEL-meen-ya) is a Latvian American visual artist best known for photo-realistic paintings and d ...

, and

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating several ...

, who appeared with him in the show, "Urban Hymns" (Luckman Gallery, 2000).

"Los Angeles Trees" (2001–10)

Following a trip to Michigan in 2001, during which he observed unconstrained forests, Reiner began drawing and painting the street-side, largely non-native trees in Los Angeles, noting the strange shapes resulting from the sometimes brutal interventions and functional strictures of modern civilization. He first exhibited the results at Roberts & Tilton in 2003: intimate paintings of loosely rendered, cropped treetops removed from their surroundings and set against delicately colored, minimal abstract-expressionist backgrounds.Wood, Eve
"Implied Narratives,"
''Artnet'', February 2003. Retrieved November 18, 2020.Grider, Nicholas. "Minimalism, Theatricality and You," ''Artslant'', October 9, 2007. Retrieved November 18, 2020. Peter Frank likened Reiner's painterly technique to Barbizon realism, but noted a deeper, more metaphysical meditation on what he described as icon-like images of subjects more resembling "untree things"—clouds, heads of hair, tornadoes, maps, paintings. Several critics remark on the tree paintings' level of detail and individuality, which evoke the personality, character and narrative of portraiture (evidenced by Reiner's inclusion in a 2007 "Portraits" show at Carl Berg Projects).Frank, Peter. "Object Lessons," ''LA Weekly'', October 3, 2007. Retrieved November 18, 2020.Ali, Reyan. "Transcendental Trees," ''Santa Fe Reporter'', July 27, 2011, p. 85. Petra Giloy Hirtz wrote that the trees—crooked, pruned by traffic or grazed by trucks, and strangely trimmed to clear views of billboards, signs, Christmas decorations or graffiti—each reveal a story involving "the domestication of nature by civilization, of survival in an urban context." Others, such as Sylvia Schiechtl, suggest that Reiner's dense brushstrokes express a sense of tenacious lifeforce, an allegory for the tension between external social constraints and internal, boundless energy; his engagement with the material limitations of painting suggests themes involving the desire for freedom and transcendence. In addition to shows in the U.S., Germany, Italy and Latvia exploring a wider range of formats, Reiner's paintings, drawings and film stills of trees were published in the monograph ''Los Angeles Trees'' (2008).Abatemarco, Michael. "I See Men as Trees, Walking," ''Pasatiempo'', August 2011.

Later series

In the 2000s, Reiner produced a concurrent series of large paintings exploring the ephemeral after-effects of fireworks.Lucas Reiner website
Fireworks (2002–2010
Retrieved November 20, 2020. His "Redentore" series captures pyrotechnic afterglows illuminating amorphous, shadowy masses of smoke that quickly recede in diffusing light.Nys Dambrodt, Shana. "Made in Los Angeles," ''Tema Celeste'', January/February 2006, p. 55–6. He painted them in wax and oil, the wax drying his pigment to create scarped, roughly textured passages of varying sheen, whose forms and visible erasures convey the passing of time. ''

Modern Painters ''Modern Painters'' (1843–1860) is a five-volume work by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition o ...

'' described his attempt to capture the transitory as an "impossibly tender and romantic gesture" evoking 'the great mysterious void at the heart of existence." In the wake of his mother’s death in 2008, Reiner began his "

Stations of the Cross The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, refers to a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The stations grew out of imita ...

" series (2008–18), a project initiated by a commission from St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.Lucas Reiner website
The Stations (2008–2018
Retrieved November 20, 2020. The initial project included watercolor studies and fifteen drypoint etchings, and culminated in fifteen large, chromatically different mixed-media canvasses. They represent the Stations (the traditional devotional narrative of Jesus' passage from condemnation to death and redemption) through trees of varying species and positions; engaging the Christian notion of the tree of Jesus’s suffering as one of salvation, the work seeks to create a contemporary, non-affiliated visual space for empathy and the contemplation of suffering, loss and transcendence. Between 2017–19, Reiner developed a similarly contemplative series, "Himmelsleiter" ("Ladder to Heaven"), inspired by the subtle modulations of Berlin's heavy, gray sky as seen from his studio window (e.g., ''Exile'', 2017); this work harkens to his fireworks series' considerations of materiality and surface, and inner and observed worlds.

Photography and filmmaking

Reiner's color photographs of Los Angeles trees have been included in solo exhibitions at Pocket Utopia (Brooklyn, 2007) and Dinter Fine Art (New York, 2009) and group exhibitions in Germany and New York.Dinter Fine Art

2009. Retrieved December 14, 2020. As a filmmaker, he has directed both feature and short films that have screened internationally at film festivals and in galleries.Rotterdam Film Festival
Lucas Reiner
People. Retrieved December 14, 2020.Matsumoto, Neil
"Festivals: 1st Silverlake: East of the Highland Curtain,"
''Indiewire'', September 27, 2000. Retrieved December 14, 2020. His short films include ''Trees of Los Angeles'' (2005), ''Signs of Los Angeles'' (1999), ''Waking Up'' (1998), and ''Balancing Act'' (1996). His feature films include ''The Gold Cup'' (1999), described as a bohemian-flavored ensemble piece set in a Los Angeles café,Harvey, Dennis
"The Gold Cup,"
''Variety'', November 12, 2000. Retrieved December 14, 2020. and the time-travel comedy and 1970s parody, '' The Spirit of '76'' (1990), which starred

David Cassidy David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was best known for his role as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his stepmother, Shirley Jones), in ...

and Olivia d'Abo.''The Spirit of '76''
''eFilmCritic'', May 4, 2004. Retrieved December 14, 2020.TV Guide
"The Spirit of 76,"
Movies. Retrieved December 14, 2020.

Public collections and recognition

Reiner's work has been acquired by private and public collections including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, American Embassy (Riga, Latvia), Colección Jumex, Diözesanmuseum Freising (Germany), Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, and the West Collection.West Collection
Lucas Reiner
Artists. Retrieved November 18, 2020. He received an artist residency at Catena Artistorum in 2020, and has been a visiting artist at institutions in the U.S. and Europe, such as Farmlab and American Academy in Rome.Catena Artistorum
"Freedoms" Artist Residency
2020. Retrieved November 18, 2020.Farmlab

August 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2020.