Rebels in Paradise (8 page)

 

CHAPTER FOUR

Ferus Goes Forth

Hopps was working in the gallery one day in 1958 when Adolph Gottlieb and his wife Esther walked through the door. The New York Abstract Expressionist was teaching that semester at UCLA. Hopps was about to welcome them, when, “All of a sudden this guy comes in whom I'd seen several times before but never met,” Hopps said. “He had a booming, bogus Cary Grant accent, a very special style. Anyway, he walks in, flings his arms wide, and says, ‘Adolph! Esther! It's Irving Blum. How are you?' At this point, he throws me a wink. ‘Isn't this an extraordinary place?' He says, ‘Best gallery in Los Angeles! Let me introduce you to the proprietor.' And he walks over and says, ‘Walter, I'd like you to meet Adolph and Esther Gottlieb.' Well, I say to myself, ‘This guy is something else.' The Gottliebs leave eventually, and I say, ‘Irving Blum, I think you and I should go across the street and have a drink. We may have business to discuss.' And Irving, in that accent, says, ‘I think we do have business to discuss. I hear you're looking for someone.' And that's the way it happened.”
1

Blum, his dark hair trimmed short, with heavy brows and down-turned eyes, was a native New Yorker. His father owned three Astor Furniture stores in Brooklyn. When Blum was twelve, his parents retired to the dry heat of Phoenix, Arizona, for his father's health. Blum was an English major at the University of Arizona in Tucson with a minor in drama. After joining the air force, he became an announcer for Armed Forces Radio, thanks to his resounding baritone voice. Discharged after three and a half years, he returned to New York to pursue a career in theater. Through his friend David Herbert, who worked for an art gallery, he met furniture manufacturer Hans Knoll. “He was just incredibly charismatic,” recalled Blum.

Knoll became something of a role model and surrogate father for Blum, introducing him to the work of modern furniture designers Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia. Blum had never seen anything like it. Knoll invited Blum to work in his showroom for a year and if he didn't like it, Knoll would give him a bonus to help him pursue his interest in theater. “They were absolutely formative years for me in that I very quickly began to assist Mrs. Knoll, who … was in charge of designing corporate offices.”
2
Florence Knoll sent Blum around to New York galleries such as Stable, Betty Parsons, Sidney Janis, and Sam Kootz to pick up paintings to accessorize the modern furniture in Knoll-designed offices, including those of the newly opened Seagram Building.

Through Herbert, who worked for Parsons and Janis before opening his own gallery, Blum enjoyed the Manhattan art scene of the early 1950s, when the first-generation Abstract Expressionists Pollock, Rothko, Kline, and De Kooning were having regular shows. When Betty Parsons, an artist turned dealer, lost Rothko to Sidney Janis, who was an organized businessman, Blum took notice. “I learned that lesson,” Blum said. “You had to have an eye so that you could really select the right people. And then you had to service them in a very professional way.”
3

Blum had worked for Knoll for two years when his mentor was killed in a car crash. It was a difficult time for Blum, and he decided to make a fresh start in Los Angeles by opening an art gallery. Over drinks at Barney's Beanery, Blum told Hopps that he would insist on reducing the number of artists from forty to fifteen. Hopps agreed. “Much as I hated it, I knew you had to seem exclusive, and get behind a small number,” he said.
4

Although Kienholz recalled selling his share of Ferus to Hopps for $1,500, Blum maintained that he bought Kienholz out himself for $500. Regardless, Blum took over Kienholz's share. Blum wasn't wealthy, but he had a $2,500 bonus from Knoll, and another $1,500 from selling his share in the soft-core pornographic film
The Immoral Mr. Teas
, for which he had contributed the story and the narration. The story of a timid fellow who is able to see through people's clothes with a pair of magical glasses, Russ Meyer's directorial debut became the first porn movie to gain widespread theatrical release. Blum would have profited substantially if he hadn't sold out.

But his dream at that time concerned Ferus, which had potential, but “it was as much a club as anything else.… I thought it unprofessional.”
5
To transform it, he needed more money. He was introduced to Sayde Moss, whose late husband Oscar had funded Los Angeles's respected new music series, Monday Evening Concerts. Moss, who was friends with art collector Lucille Simon, the wife of wealthy industrialist Norton Simon, bought a one-third interest in Ferus for $3,333. Over the next five years, she gave the gallery some $8,000 a year. Amused and flattered by the debonair Blum and reassured by the scholarly presence of Shirley Hopps, Moss even made up the gallery deficit at the end of each year.

In 1958, the newly capitalized Ferus moved across the street to 723 North La Cienega Boulevard. The space was renovated to reflect Blum's experience at Knoll. Large and small galleries were painted blinding white, with an overhead lighting system, carpeted floors, rear storage, and a large plate-glass window facing the street where the art on view could be seen easily by passing cars. Hopps and Shirley lived in the attached rear apartment. Altoon was called in to negotiate the $100 monthly rent with the Armenian landlord.

Kienholz did not approve of the tidy ambience and boycotted the place for three months. After a cooling-off period, Blum called and asked him to come down and fix the front door because it wouldn't close. Kienholz said he would only go if Blum would write him a letter about his role at the gallery being extremely special. On crisp new Ferus letterhead, Blum wrote, “The undersigned does hereby make generally known that one Edward Kienholz (known in this local area as an artist, forager, balladeer, and crack pistol shot) is granted by vested powers an extraordinary dispensation to enter the sacrosanct premises occupied by the Ferus Gallery at 723 N. La Cienega Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles, said intended object of design of above grant perpetuated solely to permit the competent repair of one busted hinge. Signed, on this 7th day of June, 1959, before God and all, Irving Blum.”

This theatrical gesture of the former actor said much about Blum's approach, which was good for business if alien to the laid-back sensibilities of the artists and to the patrician Hopps. “Irving was always comfortable. If you wanted to have a party, you invited Irving Blum. He made the party because he was always on. But the truth of it is, what he did was curb a really raw direction and influence a lot of artists in the new Ferus Gallery, and round off a lot of rough corners for the sake of sales,” said Kienholz.
6

Under Kienholz and Hopps, Ferus had presented only West Coast artists, a strategy Blum felt to be provincial. In January 1960, Ferus showed New York school paintings by De Kooning, Kline, Pollock, Rothko, Barnett Newman, and others. That market, however, was too competitive for the novice Hopps and Blum. Paul Kantor and other established dealers had ties with most of those artists and their collectors. It became apparent that Ferus would have to focus on the uncertain future of emerging artists.

There followed shows by Bengston, Ken Price, and Bay Area abstract painter Jay DeFeo, who would work on a single canvas, tellingly called
The Death Rose
, for seven years until it was eleven inches thick and weighed three thousand pounds.
7

Blum wanted Jasper Johns, but dealer Leo Castelli had a waiting list for Johns's paintings of flags and targets. Castelli suggested that Blum call Johns directly and visit his studio in New York. While there, Blum spotted a collage on the wall by German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters, and as Johns arranged a selection of his new small sculptures
Light Blub
,
Flashlight
, and
Ale Cans
, Blum said, “Why don't we do a show in California of your sculpture and include collages by Schwitters?”
8
Thanks to Hopps, he knew that expatriate German dealer Galka Scheyer had left her collection of Schwitters to the Pasadena Art Museum. They could borrow some pieces. On that condition, Johns agreed to a September 1960 show.
9

That October, Blum brought in a show by Josef Albers, a Bauhaus Modernist whose paintings he had sold at Knoll. In his series Homage to the Square, Albers had dedicated himself to the study of color by using simple geometric shapes. Up-and-coming collectors Stanley and Elyse Grinstein paid $2,800 for a canvas on the installment plan. “It was the first major thing we ever bought and I still love it,” Elyse said. “We found we could afford this stuff by paying ten dollars a week.”
10
That purchase launched them into collecting and, more important, socializing with artists.

*   *   *

Kienholz's 1959 show at Ferus proved how effective it had been for him to remain in the studio. His critical outlook on society mixed with gallows humor in pieces of freestanding sculpture that incorporated parts of mannequins, such as
John Doe
, the top half of a nude adult man resting in a baby stroller, his head and chest dripping with blood-colored paint.

As a guest curator, Hopps arranged a Kienholz show at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1961, the same year that his work was included in the Art of Assemblage, a historical survey organized by William Seitz for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Seitz's exhibition was unusual in its inclusion of West Coast art by George Herms and Bruce Conner, as well as a mention of the Watts Towers. Kienholz's larger-than-life personality led producer David Wolper to create an episode about him for:
The Story of…,
a television biographical series.

Wolper followed Kienholz around junkyards and flea markets as he found the pieces to complete his first life-sized tableau,
Roxy's
.
11
He transformed Ferus into a bleak replica of what had been, in 1943, a notorious Las Vegas whorehouse. With pieces scavenged from an old theater on Central Avenue, the open-sided, dimly lit rooms were furnished with worn sofas and chairs and a jukebox. A portrait of General MacArthur hung on the wall. A vanity table was covered in cosmetics. The madam who stands guard had a head made of a bleached deer skull, and an altered mannequin named “Five Dollar Billy” lay on her back on an old sewing machine treadle that could pump her up and down. Other mannequin whores had names such as “Cockeyed Jenny,” and each was fiercely repellent in appearance. To complete the environment, period music played on the Wurlitzer jukebox and the aroma of disinfectant and cherry perfume laced the air. “I went back in memory to Kellogg, Idaho, to whorehouses when I was a kid, and just being sort of appalled by the whole situation—not being able to perform because it was just a really crummy, bad experience, a bunch of old women with sagging breasts that were supposed to turn you on,” Kienholz said.
12

The 1962 opening of
Roxy's
at Ferus was a sensation. Collector Monte Factor remembered, “Kienholz stationed a Brink's guard at the door and wouldn't let anyone in without a white tie. Kienholz wore a tuxedo. Kenny Price dressed like a Texan in white coat and tails and had a limousine drive him. He came up La Cienega and told the driver to make a U-turn to stop right in front of the gallery. The driver said, ‘I can't make it.' Kenny said, ‘I'm paying for this fucking thing. You make a U-turn right here.' The driver made the U-turn and he sees the Brink's guard. And the driver says, ‘Ah, shit, we're busted.' He thought the guard was a cop. Kenny gets out and tips him and sends him away and walks in, making an entrance. Inside, they were serving boilermakers. Everybody got drunk. Bob Irwin wore a white hat and coat.”
13

Roxy's
established Kienholz as a mature artist of biting insight and wit. In one of the first reviews to be published in the newly launched magazine
Artforum
, painter Arthur Secunda opined that it was “thematically effective—not always formally satisfying but unreservedly tasteful.” That was the last time that anyone would accuse Kienholz of being “tasteful.”
14

For another sculpture, Kienholz used a cut-out figure from a Bardahl oil sign to make
Walter Hopps, Hopps, Hopps.
The title referred to his friend's frenetic pace and old-school surname: Hopps III. Kienholz altered the suit jacket so that it could be opened to reveal miniature replicas of paintings for sale by Pollock, De Kooning, and Kline. Since Hopps was never on time, the watch on his wrist states “LATE.” The sculpture was purchased by Hopps's dedicated patron and friend, art collector Edwin Janss Jr., who had inherited a sizable fortune from his father, Dr. Edwin Janss, the developer of Westwood, Holmby Hills, and areas of the San Fernando Valley. A handsome, fun-loving renegade, Janss, with his wife and three children, raised cattle and bred thoroughbred horses on his ten-thousand-acre ranch in the Conejo Valley, acreage that he developed as the suburb of Thousand Oaks.

Janss had just begun collecting art in the early sixties when he flew to New York and bought paintings by Rothko, Pollock, and Sam Francis, which he hung on the walls of his ranch house. Shortly afterward,
Sports Illustrated
sent a reporter to interview him about plans for a resort to be built at Sun Valley, Idaho, on land the Janss Investment Corporation had purchased from Union Pacific. The reporter could scarcely help but notice the three large abstract paintings and asked Janss who he thought were the best painters in the world at that time. Thinking quickly, Janss replied, “Rothko, Pollock, and Francis.” A few months later, there was a knock at the front door. Janss opened it to a stocky stranger who said, “I want to meet the man who thinks my painting is as good as Pollock's.” Sam Francis and Janss became immediate friends.
15