Explore the Era

Delve into the postwar Los Angeles art world in this online archive, which provides additional material related to the exhibitions on view at the Getty Center. Learn about hipsters and happenings, and the venues across the city where all the action took place through images from the archives and first-hand accounts with the artists.

Torn Cloud Painting 73

Torn Cloud Painting 73

Torn Cloud Painting 73, 1972, Joe Goode. Oil on canvas. 72 x 96 in. Collection of Joe Goode & Hiromi Katayama. © Joe Goode

This work is part of a series of Torn Cloud paintings in which Goode scratched, ripped, and tore away the surface of the canvas. In this piece, the gradated light-blue surface contrasts with a largely unpainted canvas underneath that evokes a field of strangely ragged clouds strewn across the sky. Yet Goode undercuts the painting’s illusionism by literally cutting into its surface, reversing the conventional figure/ground relationship and suggesting that something “behind the scenes” is being revealed. The two canvases are held together by a layer of plexiglass that reflects the space of the surrounding gallery and allows the viewer to see his or her image mirrored within the atmosphere of the torn clouds.

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  • Video: Joe Goode, Larry Bell, Ron Miyashiro, and Jerry McMillan

    Video: Joe Goode, Larry Bell, Ron Miyashiro, and Jerry McMillan speak about the exhibition War Babies, 2010–11

  • Video: Joe Goode

    Video: Joe Goode speaks about his work, March 2011

  • Poster for Joe Goode exhibition

    Poster for Joe Goode exhibition at Dilexi Gallery in Los Angeles, 1963. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Michael Asher, 2009.M.30.15. Image courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. © Jerry McMillan

  • Joe Goode, Jerry McMillan, Ed Ruscha, and Patrick Blackwell

    Joe Goode, Jerry McMillan, Ed Ruscha, and Patrick Blackwell in the studio space they shared while in school at Chouinard, ca. 1959. Photo by Patrick Blackwell. Courtesy of the Joe Goode Studio

  • Joe Goode, ca. 1970

    Joe Goode in his studio, ca. 1970. Image courtesy of Steven Steinman. © Steven Steinman

  • Poster for "War babies" exhibition

    Poster for the exhibition War Babies at Huysman Gallery in Los Angeles, May 29–June 17, 1961. Poster created by Jerry McMillan and Joe Goode. Photo © Jerry McMillan. Design © Joe Goode. The Getty Research Institute, 2006.M.1.5. Image courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica

  • Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode on horseback

    Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode on horseback. Exhibition catalogue cover for the Fine Arts Patrons of Newport Harbor at the Balboa Pavillion Gallery, 1968. Image courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. © Jerry McMillan