Celebrated Rosamund Felsen Gallery Briefly Reopens in Culver City

Longtime LA art hub that closed in 2016 now has a “mini-gallery”

By Keldine Hull

A mini Rosamund Felsen Gallery will be on display from November 7 to December 20 at West Los Angeles College’s (WLAC) Fine Arts Gallery in Culver City. Co-curated by Rosamund Felsen and Molly Barnes, Rosamund’s Choice will feature work from a selection of artists including Les Biller, Ruth Greene, Steven Hull, Jean Lowe, Kim MacConnel, Grand Mudford and C.K. Wilde.

The Rosamund Felsen Gallery, founded by Felsen in 1978, held its final art show, “Closing Celebratory Show,” in the summer of 2016 before closing its doors after nearly 40 years in business. It was one of the longest-running art galleries in Los Angeles and held the work of renowned artists including the debut of Chris Burden’s 1979 sculpture “The Big Wheel.” Despite closing the gallery, Felsen remains in business, curating events like the upcoming Rosamund’s Choice.

While technically not part of the show, visitors will see War Baby on the walk into the gallery. This large aluminum sculpture is by Guy Dill, one of the first artists Felsen ever showed.

About the Artists

LES BILLER has exhibited regularly in galleries in both Honolulu and Los Angeles throughout his career. He has had one-artist exhibitions at the Frederick Wight Gallery, UCLA; the Contemporary Art Center in Honolulu; and the Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara. He is the recipient of a LACMA Painting Prize and a Fullbright Grant, affiliated with Tokyo University of the Arts

RUTH GREENE was known for her sculptures of books. At first glance, they seemed like they must be from the collection of an eccentric yet erudite bibliophile. Several series or topics recur, such as a group of books authored by illustrious crows, and a persistent theme of unrequited love.

STEVEN HULL has shown at galleries including Schmidt MacZollek and Rolf Ricke in Koln, Germany and been included in group exhibitions at the Neues Museum in Nuremberg, Germany. He organized Las Cienegas Projects in Los Angeles, a collaborative artists and writer’s space and workshop. Hull has also compiled and edited numerous artist publications; an album and catalogue in which visual artists and writers responded to a 1972 album by Al Green; and is a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for painting.

JEAN LOWE was a lecturer at UC San Diego and San Diego State University. She was also a member of the visiting faculty at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and gave an artist lecture as part of Art Talks at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. She has received numerous awards and grants including two WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowships (sculpture); a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; a California Art Council grant; the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation Purchase Award; CalArts/Alpert Ucross Residency Prize; and The SD Art Prize cash grant presented by San Diego Visual Arts Network.

KIM MACCONNEL is one of the founding artists of the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s, and began showing with the Holly Solomon Gallery, NY in 1976. The gallery became a stronghold of the movement. His works – paintings, drawings and sculpture – are in numerous public collections including the Albright Knox, Buffalo, NY; Brooklyn Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Fowler Museum, UCLA; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Neue Galerie/Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen, Germany; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY among many others.

GRANT MUDFORD was born in Sydney, Australia where he studied architecture at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. In the 1960s & 1970s he photographed for advertising, fashion, magazine editorial and theater, and worked on numerous short films as a cinematographer. he had editorial assignments for American and international publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Fortune, House and Garden, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and many others. The Museum of Contemporary Art commissioned him to travel throughout the US for their architecture exhibition and book, Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture. Mudford was later commissioned by the Getty Museum to photograph Walt Disney Concert Hall while under construction and upon completion for the book, Symphony. His photograph of Philips Exeter Academy Library, designed by Louis I. Kahn was selected in 2005 for Commemorative USPS Stamp Program and in 2014 received the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award.

C.K. WILDE is well known for his accomplished work in collage. However, his handmade books are in various public collections such as the Bibliotecha Alexandria, Egypt; the Boston Athenaeum; the Boston Public Library, Rare Books; The Brooklyn Museum of Art Library; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art Library, NY; Scripps College, Claremont, CA; Smithsonian Library; as well as numerous private collections. Wilde has lectured at NYU, and has taught at Cooper Union, NY; the Center for the Book Arts, NY; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; Murakviovka Park Ecological Camp, Amur Region, Russia; and V.A.S.T. Art School, Thimphu, Kingdom of Bhutan.