Susan Landauer (1958–2020) was an American art historian, author, and curator of modern and contemporary art based in California.Schuster, Clayton
"Remembering Susan Landauer, a Curator Who Championed California Art,"
''Hyperallergic'', January 11, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2021. She worked for three decades, both independently and as chief curator of the

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...

(SJMA) and co-founder of the

San Francisco Center for the Book The San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB) is a non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Mary Austin and Kathleen Burch in San Francisco, California in the United States. The first center of its kind on the West Coast, SFCB was modeled after ...

.Hamlin, Jesse
"San Jose Museum's Curator Champions California Art,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', September 4, 2000. Retrieved February 22, 2021.Whiting, Sam
"Susan Landauer, Oakland art historian and museum curator, dead at 62,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', December 21, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2021. Landauer was known for championing movements and idioms of California art, overlooked artists of the past, women artists, and artists of color.Knight, Christopher

''Los Angeles Times'', February 2, 1996. Retrieved February 22, 2021.Benson, Heidi
"San Jose Museum's Landauer Loves 'the Hunt,'"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 15, 2001. Retrieved February 25, 2021. She organized exhibitions that gained national attention; among the best known are: "The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism" (

Laguna Art Museum The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California, on Pacific Coast Highway. LAM exclusively features California art and is the oldest cultural institution in the area. It has been known as the Laguna Beach Art Associati ...

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, 1996),Plagens, Peter
"The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism,"
''Artforum'', November 1996. Retrieved February 22, 2021. "Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement" (SJMA, 2006),Heffley, Lynne

''Los Angeles Times'', January 8, 2006. Retrieved February 25, 2021. and retrospectives of

Elmer Bischoff Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991) was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post- World War II generation of artists who started as abstract ...

,Littlejohn, David
"A Tale of Two Artists,"
''The Wall Street Journal'', December 3, 2001. Retrieved February 25, 2021.

Roy De Forest Roy De Forest (11 February 1930 – 18 May 2007) was an American painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was involved in both the Funk art and Nut art movements in the Bay Area of California. De Forest's art is known for its quirky and comical fantasy ...

(both at the

Oakland Museum of California The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Ca ...

, 2001 and 2017, respectively),Yau, John
"Roy De Forest's Search for Paradise Did Not Always Go Well,"
''Hyperallergic'', June 4, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2021. and Franklin Williams (2017, Museum of Sonoma County).Schuster, Clayton
"The Intimate Abstractions of Franklin Williams, an Unsung Master from the '60s,"
''Hyperallergic'', August 30, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2021. Her work was recognized with awards and grants from the

International Association of Art Critics The International Association of Art Critics (''Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art'', ''AICA'') was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. Affiliated with UNESCO AICA was ad ...

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

and Henry Luce Foundation, among others.Snow, Shauna
"Arts and entertainment reports from The Times,"
''Los Angeles Times'', December 18, 1996. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Landauer, Susan
''The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism''
Berkeley/Laguna Beach, CA: University of California Press/Laguna Art Museum, 1996. Retrieved February 26, 2021.Landauer, Susan
''Elmer Bischoff: The Ethics of Paint''
Berkeley/Oakland, CA: University of California Press/Oakland Museum, 2001. Retrieved February 26, 2021.University of California Press
''Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond''
Book. Retrieved February 26, 2021. Critics, including

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied ...

and

Christopher Knight Christopher or Chris Knight may refer to: Film and television *Christopher Knight (actor) (born 1957), American actor * Christopher Knight (filmmaker), blogger and filmmaker * Chris Knight (''Neighbours''), fictional character in the soap opera '' ...

, praised her scholarship on San Francisco

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, De Forest,

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 ...

, and

Bernice Bing Bernice Bing (10 April 1936 – 18 August 1998) was a Chinese American lesbian artist involved in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene in the 1960s. She was known for her interest in the Beats and Zen Buddhism, and for the " calligraphy-insp ...

, among others, as pioneering.Smith, Roberta
"Roy De Forest's Greatness Shines Even in a Virtual Display,"
''The New York Times'', April 9, 2020, p. C10. Retrieved February 22, 2021.Knight, Christopher
"All for One,"
''Artforum'', September 1996. Retrieved February 22, 2021.Curtis, Cathy

''Los Angeles Times'', August 19, 1997. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Desmarais, Charles
"What if Bernice Bing's art had been celebrated and supported?"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', October 3, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2021. In 2021, ''Art in America'' editor and curator Michael Duncan said that "no other scholar has contributed as much to the study of California art." Landauer died of lung cancer at age 62 in Oakland on December 19, 2020.

Early life and career

Landauer was born Susan Elise Klein in 1958 in Oakland, California. She grew up in Berkeley, four blocks from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

campus, where her mother, Barbara, studied art in preparation to becoming an interior designer. Her mother's friends and acquaintances included bohemians and

Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ...

-era artists such as poet

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

, affiliations that Landauer would herself cultivate throughout her life.Hamlin, Jesse
"De Forest, once too wild for the snobs, now showcased in Oakland,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 5, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2021.California Beat Era
Timeline.
Retrieved February 26, 2021. As a child, she was bused to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in the first year of court-ordered desegregation, attended Berkeley High School, and later graduated from University of California, Berkeley with an art history degree with an emphasis on Chinese and Japanese art in 1982. She enrolled in graduate studies at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

(MA, 1984; PhD, 1992), shifting focus to American art. Her dissertation centered on mid-century San Francisco abstract expressionism, a topic that was initially controversial in her department, which questioned whether it merited rigorous investigation; after successfully defending her subject, she would convert the dissertation into her first book, ''The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism'' (1996). While at Yale, she met her husband, Carl Landauer, who was also studying for a PhD.''San Francisco Chronicle''
"San Jose Museum of Art picks curator,"
April 26, 1999. Retrieved February 25, 2021. They married in 1986 and moved to Oakland in 1991. During the 1990s, Landauer independently organized exhibitions in Los Angeles and Bay Area institutions including the

Richmond Art Center Richmond Art Center is a nonprofit arts organization based in Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in Englan ...

, McPherson Center for Art and History,

Autry Museum of the American West The Autry Museum of the American West is a museum in Los Angeles, California, dedicated to exploring an inclusive history of the American West. Founded in 1988, the museum presents a wide range of exhibitions and public programs, including le ...

, and Laguna Art Museum.Curtis, Cathy
"Efforts of a Minor Player Are on Display at Laguna Museum: Edward Corbett took a back seat to the bolder, more strikingly novel approaches of his famous colleagues,"
''Los Angeles Times'', January 21, 1991. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Kittredge, William

''Los Angeles Times'', December 8, 1996. Retrieved February 25, 2021. In 1996, she was hired as an assistant curator of American Art at 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 ...

and became a co-founder at the San Francisco Center for the Book, serving in that capacity until 1999.San Francisco Center for the Book
"Remembering Susan Landauer,"
Retrieved February 25, 2021. In 1999 she was named chief curator at the San Jose Museum of Art, where she remained until 2009.

Work

Landauer's scholarship and curatorial work was fueled by a strong connection to California and, especially, Bay Area movements (Abstract Expressionism, Beat art, the eccentric

Funk Art Funk art is an American art movement that was a reaction against the nonobjectivity of abstract expressionism. An anti-establishment movement, Funk art brought figuration back as subject matter in painting again rather than limiting itself to th ...

scene) and a passion for championing "underdog" or overlooked artists.Muchnic, Suzanne
"Finally Giving California a Fair Shake,"
''Los Angeles Times'', December 8, 1996. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Yau, John
"Four Bay Area Iconoclasts and Eccentrics,"
December 10, 2017. ''Hyperallergic'', Retrieved February 23, 2021. Her exhibitions and writing often juxtaposed famous and lesser-known artists, establishing dialogues, interrelationships, and insights that served as correctives to dominant art historical narratives that left out significant figures, social groups, and regions.Cheng, Scarlet

''Los Angeles Times'', September 29, 2002. Retrieved February 25, 2021.

Independent curating and scholarship (1990–2001)

In her first decade, Landauer's curating and writing focused on diverse, under-recognized California artists and movements, from early and mid-century

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, ...

psychedelia Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic dr ...

to contemporary work.Landauer, Susan
''California Impressionists''
Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press/Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, 1996. Retrieved February 26, 2021.Landauer, Susan. "Painting Under the Shadow: California Modernism and the Second World War," ''On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art,1900-1950'', Paul Karlstrom (ed.), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. Early exhibitions included " Edward Corbett: A Retrospective" (Richmond Art Center, Laguna Art Museum, 1991), which reintroduced audiences to a onetime Bay Area Abstract Expressionist luminary,Baker, Kenneth
"Richmond Art Center's 75th anniversary show,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 13, 2011. Retrieved February 25, 2021. and "Paper Trails: San Francisco Abstract Expressionist Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors," the inaugural exhibition at the

Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) is a nonprofit educational institution and museum founded in 1996 and located in Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz ( Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz ...

(1993).Landauer, Susan
''Paper Trails: San Francisco Abstract Expressionist Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors''
Santa Cruz, CA: Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, 1993. Retrieved February 26, 2021. In 1995, she co-curated "Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890–1945" at the Autry Museum, contributing an essay on women artists of Northern California to the show's companion book.Landauer, Susan. "Lone Star Spirits,
''Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945''
Patricia Trenton (ed.), Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press/Autry Museum of the American West, 1995. Retrieved February 26, 2021.Landauer, Susan. "Searching for Self-hood: Women Artists of Northern California,
''Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945''
Patricia Trenton (ed.), Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press/Autry Museum of the American West, 1995. Retrieved February 26, 2021. She gained widespread attention for "The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism" (Laguna Art Museum, SFMOMA; 1996), which was based on her Yale dissertation and won a regional museum show award from the International Art Critics Association.Dubin, Zan

''Los Angeles Times'', October 16, 1992. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Littlejohn, David
"The New York School's Cross-Country Rival,"
''The Wall Street Journal'', September 10, 1996. Retrieved February 25, 2021. ''Los Angeles Times'' critic Christopher Knight called the exhibition catalogue a "little bombshell" that "demolished for good the old canard that Abstract Expressionism began in New York and radiated outward across the country." The first comprehensive museum survey of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism, it assembled paintings by

Ronald Bladen Ronald Bladen (July 13, 1918 – February 3, 1988) was a Canadian-born American painter and sculptor. He is particularly known for his large-scale sculptures. His artistic stance, was influenced by European Constructivism, American Hard-Edge Pa ...

, Corbett,

Jay DeFeo Jay DeFeo (March 31, 1929 – November 11, 1989) was a visual artist who first 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' ...

, Diebenkorn,

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,

Sonia Gechtoff Sonia Gechtoff (September 25, 1926 – February 1, 2018) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Her primary medium was painting but she also created drawings and prints. Early life and education Sonia Gechtoff was born in Philadelphia t ...

Hassel Smith Hassel Smith (born Hassell Wendell Smith Jr.; April 24, 1915 – January 2, 2007) was an American painter. Biography Hassel Smith was born in 1915 in Sturgis, Michigan. During childhood and adolescence his family alternated between homes in ...

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 ...

, and others, arguing that artists centered at the old California School of Fine Arts (renamed the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

) were hybridizing abstraction,

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

, and Expressionism simultaneously with others all across the country rather than responding to developments in the artistic center.Knight, Christopher
"Francis, Home at Last,"
''Los Angeles Times'', March 9, 1999. Retrieved February 22, 2021. ''Artforums

Peter Plagens Peter Plagens (born 1941) is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City.Online Archive of CaliforniaPeter Plagens papers, 1938-2014 Retrieved January 18, 2018.Smith, Roberta''The New York Times'', February 7, 2018. Retrie ...

described the show as beautiful and concise, while noting as "discoveries" artists such as

Walter Kuhlman Walter Kuhlman (1918–2009) was a 20th-century American painter and printmaker. In the late 1940s and 1950s, he was a core member of the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism. He later worked in a representational style related to Ameri ...

Frank Lobdell Frank Lobdell (1921 - 2013) was an American painter, often associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Bay Area Abstract Expressionism. Life and career Frank Lobdell was born on August 23, 1921 in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Miss ...

, and Charles Strong. In the retrospective "Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff" (Oakland Museum, 2001–2), Landauer traced the painter's history through 70 canvases (many seldom-seen), from 1940s Abstract Expressionism to hotly colored 1950s figurative scenes to more complex, frenetic 1970s abstraction.Littlefield, Kinney
"A Romantic with a Passion for Color,"
''Los Angeles Times'', February 20, 2002. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Baker, Kenneth
"Retrospective shows Bischoff's ups, downs/Canvases show struggles with surface and image,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 8, 2001. Retrieved February 25, 2021. Her accompanying book, ''Elmer Bischoff: The Ethics of Paint'', characterized him as the "romantic" of Bay Area painters, detailing his lyrically improvisational paint handling (described as "liquid light"), sensuous color, connection to the region and jazz music, and willingness to take risks in order to remain true to himself.Knight, Christopher

''Los Angeles Times'', February 26, 2002. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Yau, John
"Elmer Bischoff's Haunting Figurative Paintings,"
''Hyperallergic'', July 12, 2015. Retrieved February 23, 2021. In the latter 1990s, Landauer organized shows at the intersection of fine arts and book arts for the San Francisco Center for the Book. These included "The Pages of Sin: Beat-Era Book Arts, Ephemera, and Portraits by Harry Redl" (1996), "Flashback: A Psychedelic Exhibition" (1997) and "Breaking Type: The Art of

Karl Kasten Karl Albert Kasten (March 5, 1916 – May 3, 2010) was a painter-printmaker-educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early life Kasten, fourth child of Ferdinand Kasten and his wife Barbara Anna Kasten, grew up in San Francisco's Richmond D ...

" (1999).Landauer, Susa
''Breaking Type: The Art of Karl Kasten''
San Francisco: San Francisco Center for the Book, 1999. Retrieved February 26, 2021. "Pages of Sin" highlighted the work of the lesser-known Venice Beach scene artists, as well as others, such as William Everson,

Bern Porter Bernard Harden Porter (born February 14, 1911, Porter Settlement in Houlton, Aroostook County, Maine – died June 7, 2004, in Belfast, Maine) was an American artist, writer, publisher, performer, and physicist. He was a representative of the ava ...

, and

Kenneth Patchen Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...

; "Flashback" centered on book art, posters, paintings, and ephemera (e.g., printed LSD blotter paper) inspired by rock music and hallucinatory drugs in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the

Summer of Love The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury ...

and included work by Bay Area-based designers

Rick Griffin Richard Alden "Rick" Griffin (June 18, 1944 – August 18, 1991) was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in ...

Victor Moscoso Victor Moscoso (born July 28, 1936) is a Spanish–American artist best known for producing psychedelic rock posters, advertisements, and underground comix in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s. He was the first of the rock poster artists of ...

, and

Wes Wilson Robert Wesley Wilson (July 15, 1937 – January 24, 2020) was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters. Best known for designing posters for Bill Graham of The Fillmore in San Francisco, he invented a style ...

.''San Francisco Chronicle''
Literary Guide
December 29, 1996. Retrieved February 25, 2021.

San Jose Museum of Art (1999-2009)

As the Katie and Drew Gibson Chief Curator at the relatively young San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA), Landauer was given license to organize creative exhibitions, including "random encounters" with interspersed emerging-artist work, as well as historical and themed shows.Baker, Kenneth
"Laugh Lines/ San Jose Museum of Art's 'Lighter Side' features artists breaking with New York orthodoxy,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', September 4, 2000. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Winn, Steven
"A Peace of Their Minds,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', February 4, 2003. Retrieved February 25, 2021. She continued to champion California work, while widening her scope to include underrepresented groups, idioms, and riskier sociopolitical themes, which in part reflected the community's entrepreneurial spirit, independent thought, and openness. She also enhanced the museum's art collection, particularly of works by California artists, some of which was documented in the book, ''Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection'' (2004).Lipman, Peter
"A Fifty-Year Perspective: Why a Permanent Collection for a Twenty-First-Century Museum of Contemporary Art,"
''50X50: Stories of Visionary Artists from the Collection'', San Jose, CA: San Jose Museum of Art, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Landauer, Susan (ed.)
''Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection''
San Jose, CA: San Jose Museum of Art, 2004. Retrieved February 25, 2021. Her inaugural exhibition, "The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration" (2000, co-presented by the

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. With a $5 million annual budget and approximately 75,000 visitors each year, it is Missouri's first and largest contemporary museum. Founders The core of the museum's perm ...

), explored humor in post-World War II, Northern-California art. It featured works from Funk artists

Robert Arneson Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades. Early life and education Robert Carston Arn ...

and

William T. Wiley William Thomas Wiley (October 21, 1937April 25, 2021) was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as ...

and satirists

Robert Colescott Robert H. Colescott (August 26, 1925 – June 4, 2009) was an American painter. He is known for satirical genre and crowd subjects, often conveying his exuberant, comical, or bitter reflections on being African American. He studied with Fernand L ...

and

M. Louise Stanley M. Louise Stanley is an American painter known for irreverent figurative work that combines myth and allegory, satire, autobiography, and social commentary.Chadwick, Whitney. "Narrative Imagism and the Figurative Tradition in Northern California P ...

, among others, highlighting the region's freedom from New York critical orthodoxy. "The Not-So-Still Life" (co-curated, 2003) drew broadly—from early 20th century

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...

floral studies to a 2001 video installation—to argue that Californians took a lead in reviving the venerable convention of the still life.Baker, Kenneth
"California artists take the traditional still-life in wild new directions,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', January 31, 2004. Retrieved February 25, 2021. Circling in time, the show presented an evolving dialogue of diverse artists (e.g.,

Edward Kienholz Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American installation artist and assemblage sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close colla ...

Peter Saul Peter Saul (born August 16, 1934) is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the fa ...

Robert Therrien Robert Therrien (November 17, 1947 – June 17, 2019) was an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures. His work reimagined and reinvented objects from everyday life, such as a set of table and chairs or stacks of plates, turning th ...

Wayne Thiebaud Morton Wayne Thiebaud ( ; November 15, 1920 – December 25, 2021) was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his la ...

), ideas, and traditions. Other region-related exhibitions included solo shows of miniature painter Robert Schwartz (2004), Hassel Smith ("Line on the Loose: A Memorial Exhibition," 2008), and collagist

Wilfried Sätty Wilfried Sätty (; born Wilfried Podriech; April 12, 1939 – January 31, 1982) was a German graphic artist best known for his black and white collage art. Biography Born in Bremen, Germany, Sätty lived through multiple Allied bombings of Ger ...

(2009).Landauer, Susan and Barry Schwabsky
''Dream Games: The Art of Robert Schwartz''
San Jose, CA: San Jose Museum of Art, 2004. Retrieved February 26, 2021.Davis, Ana
"Exhibition salutes Hassel Smith and his exuberance for art, life,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', March 5, 2008. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Gant, Michael S

''Metroactive'', January 21, 2009. Retrieved February 25, 2021. Landauer organized several shows exploring Latinx themes and artists, such as "Contemporary Devotion" (2001), which paired well-known and emerging artists working in a magic realist vein influenced by the Mexican

retablo A retablo is a devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. More generally ''retablo'' is also the Spanish term for a retable or reredos above an altar, whether ...

tradition (e.g.,

Manuel Ocampo Manuel Ocampo (born 1965) is a Filipino artist. His work fuses sacred Baroque religious iconography with secular political narrative. His works draw upon a wide range of art historical references, contain cartoonish elements, and draw inspiratio ...

, Elizabeth Gomez,

Tino Rodríguez Tino Rodríguez is a Mexican-American painter. Born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, Rodriguez was influenced by the symbolism and themes evident in the Catholic churches of his youth. His work was also influenced by his absorption of fairy ta ...

); it was presented in conjunction with a traveling show of retablos from the

New Mexico State University New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the stat ...

collection.San Jose Museum of Art
El Favor de los Santos: The Retablo Collection of New Mexico State University
Exhibitions. Retrieved March 3, 2021. She also curated Rodríguez's first solo exhibition (2003) and one for Mexican photographer

Manuel Álvarez Bravo Manuel Álvarez Bravo (February 4, 1902 – October 19, 2002) was a Mexican artistic photographer and one of the most important figures in 20th century Latin American photography. He was born and raised in Mexico City. While he took art classes a ...

(2003).Fisher, Jack. "The garden of alienation," ''San Jose Mercury News'', 2003.Photography-Now
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Artist. Retrieved February 26, 2021. Two exhibitions (and accompanying catalogues) focused on the edgy, contemporary work of Los Angeles's underground

Lowbrow Lowbrow may refer to: * Lowbrow, relating to, or suitable for a person with little taste or intellectual interest, the converse of highbrow * Lowbrow, forms of entertainment that are unsophisticated, i.e. not difficult or requiring much intelligen ...

art movement, which combines pop-culture iconography, surrealism, and social commentary: "Tragic Kingdom: The Art of

Camille Rose Garcia Camille Rose Garcia (born November 18, 1970) is a California-based lowbrow/pop surrealism artist. She produces paintings in a gothic, "creepy" cartoon style. She cites as influences Walt Disney and Philip K. Dick. Early life and education Garci ...

" (2007) and "

Todd Schorr Todd Schorr (born January 9, 1954) is an American artist and member of the "Lowbrow" art movement or pop surrealism. Combining a cartoon influenced visual vocabulary with a highly polished technical ability, based on the exacting painting metho ...

: American Surreal" (2009).Landauer, Susan
''Tragic Kingdom: The Art of Camille Rose Garcia''
San Jose, CA: San Jose Museum of Art/Last Gasp, 2007. Retrieved February 26, 2021.Landauer, Susan. ''Todd Schorr: American Surreal'', San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2009.Solovitch, Sara. " Todd Schorr's art? Imagine Vermeer painting King Kong," ''San Jose Mercury News'', July 10, 2009. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Gant, Michael S

''San Jose Mercury News'', July 1, 2009. Retrieved February 23, 2021. Two themed group exhibitions were more overtly political: "Disarming Parables" featured works commenting on war on the eve of the U.S.

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

, while "Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement" (2006)San Jose Museum of Art
"Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement"
Exhibitions. Retrieved March 3, 2021. offered a wide-ranging survey of West Coast art that Landauer described as "breathing new life into the iconography of protest."O'Sullivan, Michael
"The Liberal Rules of 'Engagement,'"
''The Washington Post'', April 28, 2006. Retrieved February 23, 2021. The latter show was accompanied by a book by

Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, h ...

to which Landauer contributed the essay, "Countering Cultures: The California Context."von Busack, Richard
" No Blood for Oils,"
''Metroactive'', November 23, 2005. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Landauer, Susan. "Countering Cultures: The California Context,
in ''Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond''
Peter Selz (ed.), Berkeley/San Jose, CA: University of California Press/San Jose Museum of Art, 2005. Retrieved February 26, 2021.

Independent curating and writing (2002–21)

Much of Landauer's later writing focused on under-appreciated women artists, including catalogue essays for the exhibitions "The Dual Worlds of

" (

Sonoma Valley Museum of Art The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art (known colloquially as the SVMA) is an art museum located in Sonoma, California, United States. Founded in 1998, the museum exhibits works by regional, national and international modern and contemporary artists. Hi ...

, 2019) and "Women of Abstract Expressionism" (

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...

, 2016), and the catalogue, ''Her View: The Bay Area Figuration of Gail Chadell Nanao'' (2018, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art).Wilkin, Karen
"'Women of Abstract Expressionism' Review: Blowing Up the Boys' Club,"
''The Wall Street Journal'', August 15, 2016. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Boas, Natasha
"Bernice Bing: O is for Other @ Sonoma Valley Museum of Art,"
''SquareCylinder'', October 16, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Schwabsky, Barry
"Reader's Diary: 'Women of Abstract Expressionism,'"
''Hyperallergic'', May 29, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2021.Landauer, Susan
''Her View: The Bay Area Figuration of Gail Chadell Nanao''
Sonoma, CA: Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2018. Retrieved March 2, 2021. She also contributed essays to catalogues on Richard Diebenkorn,

Guy Diehl Guy Louis Diehl (born 1949, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American artist best known for still life paintings and prints, many of which incorporate direct references to historically significant artists and artworks. Background and education ...

, and

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

, among others.''The Atlantic''
"Cover to Cover,"
(Review, ''The Ocean Park Series''), May 2012. Retrieved February 25, 2021.Knight, Christopher

''Los Angeles Times'', February 29, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2021.Landauer, Susan, Mike McGee
''John Paul Jones: The Pursuit of Beauty's Perfect Proof''
Fullerton, CA: California State University Fullerton, 2009. Retrieved February 26, 2021.Landauer, Susan
''Guy Diehl: Recent Paintings''
San Francisco: Hackett-Freedman Gallery, 2007. Retrieved February 26, 2021. Her major curated exhibitions after leaving SJMA include the retrospective "Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy De Forest" (OCMA, 2017), "Eye Fruit: The Art of Franklin Williams" (Art Museum of Sonoma County, 2017), and "Painting the Face of Infinity: Matthew Barnes and the World of Night" (Oceanside Museum of Art, Monterey Museum of Art, 2019).Roth, David M
Review, Matthew Barnes @ Monterey Museum of Art
''SquareCylinder'', June 23, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2021. The De Forest show took on an under-recognized contrarian from the funk milieu of the late 1950s who Landauer appreciated since childhood and set out to vindicate.''Hyperallergic''
"Best of 2017: Our Top 20 Exhibitions Across the United States; Eye Fruit: The Art of Franklin Williams at the Art Museum of Sonoma County,"
December 21, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2021.

described its catalogue as a "vivid, informed account" detailing his sophistication and wide-ranging knowledge of art history and native cultures. "Eye Fruit" offered the first retrospective on Williams's career, introducing the art world to a Bay Area artist often deemed unclassifiable; ''Hyperallergic'' described him as "the very distillation of authentic self-expression" and named the show one of its "Best of 2017."

Major publications

Books and catalogues

* ''Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy De Forest'', Oakland/Berkeley, CA: Oakland Museum of California/University of California Press, 2017.Landauer, Susan
''Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy De Forest''
Oakland/Berkeley CA: Oakland Museum of California/University of California Press, 2017. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * ''Eye Fruit: The Art of Franklin Williams'', Santa Rosa, CA: Art Museum of Sonoma County, 2017.Landauer, Susan
''Eye Fruit: The Art of Franklin Williams''
Santa Rosa, CA: Art Museum of Sonoma County, 2017. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * (with Petra Giloy-Hirtz and Paul J. Karlstrom). ''Hassel Smith: Paintings, 1937-1997'', Munich/New York: Prestel Verlag/Random House, 2011.Landauer, Susan, Petra Giloy-Hirtz and Paul J. Karlstrom
''Hassel Smith: Paintings, 1937-1997''
Munich/New York: Prestel Verlag/Random House, 2011. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * (with Sarah Bancroft and Peter Levitt). ''Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series'', Munich/Newport Beach, CA: Prestel Verlag/Orange County Museum of Art, 2011.Landauer, Susan, Sarah Bancroft and Peter Levitt
''Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series''
Munich/Newport Beach, CA: Prestel Verlag/Orange County Museum of Art, 2011. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * (with Mike McGee). ''John Paul Jones: The Pursuit of Beauty's Perfect Proof'', Fullerton, CA: California State University Fullerton, 2009. * (with William Gerdts and Patricia Trenton). ''The Not-So-Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture'', Berkeley/San Jose, CA: University of California Press/San Jose Museum of Art, 2003.Landauer, Susan, William Gerdts and Patricia Trenton
''The Not-So-Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture''
Berkeley/San Jose, CA: University of California Press/San Jose Museum of Art, 2003. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * ''Elmer Bischoff: The Ethics of Paint'', Berkeley/Oakland, CA: University of California Press/Oakland Museum, 2001. * ''The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration'', Kansas City, MO/San Jose, CA: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art/San Jose Museum of Art, 2000.Landauer, Susan
''The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration''
Kansas City, MO/San Jose, CA: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art/San Jose Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * ''The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism'', Berkeley/Laguna Beach, CA: University of California Press/Laguna Art Museum, 1996. * ''California Impressionists'', Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press/Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, 1996. * ''Paper Trails: San Francisco Abstract Expressionist Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors'', Santa Cruz, CA: Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, 1993. * (with Janice T. Driesbach). ''Obata's Yosemite: The Art and Letters of Chiura Obata from his Trip to the High Sierra in 1927'', Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association, 1993.Landauer, Susan and Janice T. Driesbach
''Obata's Yosemite: The Art and Letters of Chiura Obata from his Trip to the High Sierra in 1927''
Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association 1993. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * ''Edward Corbett: A Retrospective'', Richmond, CA: Richmond Art Center, 1990.Landauer, Susan
''Edward Corbett: A Retrospective''
Richmond, CA: Richmond Art Center, 1990. Retrieved February 26, 2021.

Essays

* "The Dual Worlds of Bernice Bing," in ''Bingo: The Life and Art of Bernice Bing'', by Jennifer Banta, Linda Keaton and Susan Landauer, Sonoma, CA: Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2019.Landauer, Susan. "The Dual Worlds of Bernice Bing,
''Bingo: The Life and Art of Bernice Bing''
by Jennifer Banta, Linda Keaton and Susan Landauer, Sonoma, CA: Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2019. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * "The Advantages of Obscurity: Women Abstract Expressionists in San Francisco," in ''Women of Abstract Expressionism'', Joan Marter (ed.), New Haven, CT/Denver, CO: Yale University Press/Denver Art Museum, 2016.Landauer, Susan. "The Advantages of Obscurity: Women Abstract Expressionists in San Francisco,
''Women of Abstract Expressionism''
Joan Marter (ed.), New Haven, CT/Denver, CO: Yale University Press/Denver Art Museum, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2021. * (with Carl Landauer). "Open Eye, Open Palette: The Art of Lawrence Ferlinghetti," ''Confrontation'', Spring 2015.Landauer, Susan and Carl Landauer. "Open Eye, Open Palette: The Art of Lawrence Ferlinghetti," ''Confrontation'', Spring 2015. * "Countering Cultures: The California Context," in ''Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond'', Peter Selz (ed.), Berkeley/San Jose, CA: University of California Press/San Jose Museum of Art, 2005. *"Painting Under the Shadow: California Modernism and the Second World War," in ''On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900-1950'', Paul Karlstrom (ed.), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press with Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Smithsonian Institution, 1996.Landauer, Susan. "Painting Under the Shadow: California Modernism and the Second World War," i
''On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900-1950''
Paul Karlstrom (ed.), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press with Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Smithsonian Institution, 1996. Retrieved March 6, 2021. * "Clyfford Still and Abstract Expressionism in San Francisco," in ''Clyfford Still: The Buffalo and San Francisco Collections'', Thomas Kellein (ed.), Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1992.Landauer, Susan. "Clyfford Still and Abstract Expressionism in San Francisco,
''Clyfford Still: The Buffalo and San Francisco Collections''
Thomas Kellein (ed.), Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1992. Retrieved February 26, 2021.

References

External links

Lecture with Susan Landauer, September 2016
Denver Art Museum
Lecture: Galka Scheyer: Patron Saint of Modernism in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1925–1933
Norton Simon Museum {{DEFAULTSORT:Landauer, Susan American women curators American curators Women art historians American art historians American contemporary art University of California, Berkeley alumni Yale University alumni Writers from Oakland, California 1958 births 2020 deaths Historians from California 20th-century American historians 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers Deaths from lung cancer in California