"Four Abstract Classicists reveals, in retrospect, not merely four senior moderns who reduced their painting to precise, flat profundities, but a current of sensibility in the esthetic climate of Los Angeles," critic Peter Plagens wrote in 1974.
•
The exhibition was organized by critic Jules Langsner for the Los Angeles County Museum (which evolved into the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and also appeared at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).
Benjamin Franklin | Karl Marx | Benjamin Britten | Benjamin Harrison | Benjamin Disraeli | Benjamin Netanyahu | Walter Benjamin | Karl Pilkington | Karl Lagerfeld | Karl G. Heider | Benjamin West | Karl Rove | Karl Pearson | Karl May | Karl Liebknecht | Karl Friedrich Schinkel | Karl Dönitz | Karl Jenkins | Benjamin Zephaniah | Benjamin Rush | Breaking Benjamin | Karl Stefanovic | George Benjamin | Benjamin Spock | Benjamin | Karl Bodmer | Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law | Benjamin Silliman | Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel | Karl Malone |
In the late 1950s, Langsner and Peter Selz, then professor at the Claremont Colleges, observed a common link among the recent work of John McLaughlin (1898–1976), Lorser Feitelson (1898-1978), Karl Benjamin (1925-2012), Frederick Hammersley (1919–2009) and Feitelson's wife Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999).
This was called, simply, California Hard-edge painting. Included in this show were Florence Arnold, John Barbour, Larry Bell, Karl Benjamin, John Coplans, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, June Harwood, Helen Lundeberg, John McLaughlin, and Dorothy Waldman.