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.

Felix Landau Gallery

Felix Landau in his gallery on La Cienega

Felix Landau in his gallery on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. Photo by Frank J. Thomas. Courtesy of the Frank J. Thomas Archives

Felix Landau opened his gallery in 1951, ushering in an era when La Cienega Boulevard would be the center of Los Angeles’s gallery scene. Not only did he support several important Californian painters and ceramicists, he also held exhibitions of European artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon, bringing many of their work to Los Angeles for the first time.

Historic Map Locations

Works of Art

  • Untitled, John McLaughlin

    Untitled, 1952, John McLaughlin. Oil and casein on fiberboard. 32 1/8 x 48 1/8 in. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 1991. Photographer: Lee Stalsworth

  • Ocean Park No. 67

    Ocean Park No. 67, 1973, Richard Diebenkorn. Oil on canvas. 100 x 81 in. The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection. © The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn, Catalogue Raisonné #1482

  • Ocean Park No. 26

    Ocean Park No. 26, 1970, Richard Diebenkorn. Oil on canvas. 89 x 81 in. Nerman Family Collection. © The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn, Catalogue Raisonné #2415

  • North Wall

    Norman Zammitt executing his painting North Wall, 1976. Acrylic on canvas. 96 x 168 in. Collection of Leon Gazarian & Monique Powell. © Norman Zammitt Estate

  • Little Big Horn

    Little Big Horn, 1959, Peter Voulkos. Polychromed stoneware. 62 x 40 x 40 in. The Oakland Museum of California, gift of the Art Guild in memory of Helen Schilling Stelzner. © Mrs. Ann Voulkos, Voulkos Family Trust. Image courtesy of the Voulkos & Co. Catalogue Project. Photo by Joe Schopplein

  • #18–1961

    #18–1961, 1961, John McLaughlin. Oil on canvas. 48 x 60 in. Private Collection

  • #8, 1966, John McLaughlin.

    # 8, 1966, John McLaughlin. Oil on canvas. 48 x 60 in. The Marilynn and Carl Thoma Collection. Image courtesy of Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York

Explore the Archive

  • Video: Excerpt from the film 'The Painter Sam Francis'

    Video: Excerpt from the film The Painter Sam Francis, produced and directed by Jeffrey Perkins. ©2008 Body and Soul Productions, All Rights Reserved

  • Video: Sarah Bancroft on Richard Diebenkorn

    Video: Sarah Bancroft speaks about Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park series, June 2011

  • Video: Peter Voulkos

    Video: Irving Blum, John Mason, and Billy Al Bengston speak about the work of Peter Voulkos, 2010–11

  • Abstract Classicists

    Abstract Classicists meet at Lorser Feitelson’s studio in Los Angeles, May 10, 1959

  • Sam Francis in his studio

    Sam Francis in his studio on West Channel Road in Santa Monica, California, 1968. Photo by Frank J. Thomas. Image courtesy of the Sam Francis Foundation, California