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.

Rolf Nelson
Gallerist

Rolf Nelson at the Rolf Nelson Gallery, ca. 1964-66.

Rolf Nelson at the Rolf Nelson Gallery, ca. 1964-66. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Rolf G. Nelson, 2010.M.38. Image courtesy Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. © Jerry McMillan

Rolf Nelson was born in Brooklyn in 1935 to Norwegian immigrant parents, and grew up in New York. In the late 1950s, he lived on Coenties Slip in lower Manhattan, and got to know fellow residents such as Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, and Robert Indiana, and through them, the contemporary art scene. He was hired by the Martha Jackson Gallery, where he worked with Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg. He moved to Los Angeles in 1962 to open a branch of the San Francisco-based Dilexi Gallery. Within a year, the outpost folded, and Nelson set up his own gallery, which became an important venue for both local and international artists, including Llyn Foulkes, Robert Watts, Alison Knowles, George Herms, Phillip Hefferton, H.C. Westermann, Ed Bereal, Joe Goode, Doug Wheeler, Judy Gerowitz, Jess, Lloyd Hamrol, Irving Petlin, Robert Indiana, and Iain Baxter. Before closing his space and moving back to New York, Nelson held a single-painting exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above Clouds IV (1966), now at the Art Institute of Chicago.  His second venue subsequently became the Mizuno Gallery.

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Explore the Archive

  • Video: the postwar L.A. gallery scene

    Video: Making the Scene—find out about the L.A. gallery scene during the postwar years

  • Judy Chicago and Sunset Squares installation

    Judy Gerowitz, also known as Judy Chicago, with her Sunset Squares installation at Rolf Nelson Gallery in Los Angeles, 1966. © 2011 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Rolf G. Nelson, 2010.M.38. Image courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. © Jerry McMillan

  • Announcement, George Herms "Nativity '63"

    Announcement for George Herms exhibition Nativity '63 at Rolf Nelson gallery in Los Angeles, 1963. © George Herms. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Michael Asher, 2009.M.30.9

  • Announcement, Come and See exhibition

    Announcement for the exhibition Come and See at the Rolf Nelson Gallery in Los Angeles, June 14–July 23, 1965. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Rolf G. Nelson, 2010.M.38.1

  • Hard Edge group exhibition

    Hard Edge group exhibition with works by Ronald Davis and Judy Chicago at Rolf Nelson Gallery in Los Angeles, May 1964. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Rolf G. Nelson, 2010.M.38.2