California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation
Date: February 4, 2026 – March 20, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 21, 2026, 5:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m.
Curator and Artist Walkthrough: TBD
Closing Reception: TBD
Curated By: Billie Milam Weisman
Venue: Coastline College Arts Gallery
1515 Monrovia Ave, Newport Beach, CA, 92663
Hours: Wednesday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Exhibited Artists:
Lita Albuquerque, Peter Alexander, Charles Arnoldi, Natalie Arnoldi, Gilad Ben-Artzi, Fletcher Benton, Kelly Berg, Tony Berlant, Casper Brindle, Ronald Davis, Woods Davy, Michael Dee, Guy Dill, Laddie John Dill, Roy Dowell, Doug Edge, Ned Evans, Charles Fine, Sam Francis, Jimi Gleason, Joe Goode, Channing Hansen, Todd Hebert, Charles Christopher Hill, David Hockney, Gary Lang, Mimi Lauter, Peter Lodato, Renee Lotenero, Joel Morrison, Andy Moses, Ed Moses, Manfred Muller, John Okulick, Eric Orr, Ruth Pastine, Zemer Peled, Jessica Rath, RETNA (Marquis Lewis), John Rose, Ed Ruscha, Paul Rusconi, Ali Smith, Robert Standish, Roy Thurston, Vasa, Feodor Voronov, Roger Weik
California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation
Since the 1960s, California has emerged as a center for Contemporary art that rivals New York in both accomplishment and innovation. Frederick R. Weisman was a pioneering collector whose rise as an influential patron paralleled the emergence of the Los Angeles Contemporary art scene. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he collected both international and Los Angeles–based artists, forming close personal relationships that shaped his collecting. Weisman was an early supporter of many artists who rose to prominence through the legendary Ferus Gallery, which opened in Los Angeles and was founded by Walter Hopps, Ed Kienholz, and, later, Irving Blum. Known for its unconventional exhibitions, Ferus played a central role in defining California Modernism.
During this period, Walter Hopps emerged as an innovative young curator attuned to the idiosyncratic styles of Los Angeles artists, which had developed in relative isolation during the postwar years. Drawing inspiration from their daily lives and surroundings—the local terrain, vibrant sun, beach culture, blue skies, surfboards, and fast cars—these artists helped give rise to new movements such as Light and Space and Finish Fetish, as well as the Cool School, which later propelled Pop Art in the West and laid the foundation for the contemporary California art scene. Artists like Ed Ruscha, who worked with Hopps, drew inspiration from the crowded billboards and text signs he saw while cruising along Sunset Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway. At the same time, David Hockney embraced California’s unique aesthetics, like swimming pools, bright skies, and a vibrant landscape, which he had not experienced back in his hometown in England.
The art exhibited in California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation represents a range of dynamic movements that played a decisive role in shaping the visual arts in California. California native Sam Francis brought international recognition to the region with his large-scale, brightly colored Abstract Expressionist paintings. His improvisational color-field paintings were deeply influenced by California’s distinctive natural light. Fellow Cool School artist Ed Moses embraced experimental and unpredictable forms of abstraction, distinguishing his work from the abstraction associated with the East Coast, paving the way for later generations of artists, including Ned Evans and Charles Hill. Charles Arnoldi used his work to push the boundaries of process and materials within abstraction, while Joe Goode’s Forest Fire series blurs recognizable imagery with abstraction, creating an atmospheric experience that challenges the way each viewer translates the work.
Pioneer of the Light and Space movement, Laddie John Dill explored how light could be manipulated through materials such as cement pigments and glass, altering the viewer’s perception of space. Vasa, meanwhile, developed a new aesthetic grounded in sensory experience, using cast acrylics and plastics to create vividly colored sculptures. The use of automotive paints, lacquers, resins, and surf culture became hallmarks of Southern California’s "Finish Fetish" aesthetic. Casper Brindle’s acrylic works explore perception through atmospheric density and the diffusion of light, while Jimi Gleason creates visual spaces that “explore the reflective possibilities of a painterly surface” using iridescent coatings. The viewer often has different interpretations of these artists’ works, depending on the lighting in the gallery space. Lita Alburquerque highlights forms with vibrant color and highly reflective 24k gold leaf, creating a meditative and hypnotic interplay of light and material. Ronald Davis created his own style of illusionistic paintings, using multi-shaped canvases and materials like resin and fiberglass, enhancing his geometric forms and further challenging the art’s formal qualities.
Another hallmark of California art is the emphasis on sculptural simplicity of shape and form. Fletcher Benton redefined geometric sculpture by exploring the interplay of shape, space, movement, and color, blending simple, machine-like forms, which were reflective of his industrial design background, combined with a painterly sense of composition. Guy Dill suggests the lines and curves of bodies in motion, later creating cardboard models before he created his bronze sculptures. John Okulick experiments with depth and perception by layering wood or metal geometric shapes to create complex three-dimensional objects, designed to be read against the two-dimensional surface of the wall, where small pops of gold disrupt the otherwise precise harmony of his sculptures.
In keeping with Frederick Weisman’s legacy of supporting local artists, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation continues to build a substantial collection of Los Angeles and California art, along with young international artists.