James Jarvaise Rediscovered September 2012

By FRANKLIN EINSPRUCH | September 21, 2012 | The New York Sun

This week an exhibition catalog crossed the desk of your reporter of the work of a painter unknown to him, one James Jarvaise. In the acknowledgments, Louis Stern of the eponymous gallery in Los Angeles notes the profound influence of Museum of Modern Art curator Dorothy Canning Miller, and writes, “Her selection of James Jarvaise for inclusion in the 1959 Sixteen Americans exhibition had the potential to change his professional destiny. The caliber of his work (he was selected in the class of Jay deFeo, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella) was and is unquestionable. However, time, temperament, luck, and the art business are not always allies in the building of careers. Jarvaise's phenomenal gifts were showcased on the West Coast. A teaching job, a growing family, and desire for a less urban lifestyle rearranged Jarvaise's priorities.”

For this temerity, history shunted him aside. “After a dazzling beginning, despite his obvious talent, James Jarvaise did not become a household name.”

Lous Stern Fine Arts has set out to remedy this in an exhibition that opens tomorrow, “James Jarvaise and the Hudson River Series.” With abstracted landscapes that recall those by Richard Diebenkorn, and figures that make one think of Elmer Bischoff, Jarvaise would have made a fine Bay Area Figurative painter if not for the latitude of Santa Barbara, to where the artist moved in the early '70s.

“These elegant, challenging canvasses are ripe for re-investigation,” says the gallery. “They serve as eloquent reminders of the artist’s accomplishment and his ongoing engagement with painting. As the artist commented, 'Painting seems to come from an unknown source, which you have cultivated all your life... it’s part of me and my lifelong involvement with art and its creation.'”

“James Jarvaise and the Hudson River Series” opens tomorrow, September 22, with a reception 5-8 PM, and runs through November 10 at Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, California, 310-276-0147, louissternfinearts.com.

Franklin Einspruch is the art critic for The New York Sun. He blogs at Artblog.net.