Kandinsky, Feininger, Klee and Jawlensky to the U.S., offered to exhibit his work alongside that of the "Blue Four"-- but he rejected her overture.  Fellow-artist Paul Carey described Hegedorn as “an outsider, a 'loner,' . . . who walked down the street looking like a question-mark; he had no use for success."  He achieved it, nevertheless, and the two simultaneous exhibitions at Couturier Gallery and Denenberg Fine Arts are an excellent review of the career of a major California artist that reminds us of the richness and depth of the West Coast art scene -- even before Ferus Gallery. 

The following is excerpted from the background literature supplied by the Couturier Gallery and Denenberg Fine Arts:

Political and theoretical struggle dominated European and American art in the three decades represented by the works included in this dual exhibition; at this period great art ideas flourished within the enlightening influences of Cezanne's  intelligent spatial restatements and Picasso's cornucopia from elaborate cubist explorations to surrealism, classicism, and beyond.

Hagendorn's work is often charged with organic forms drawn from the deep subconscious set in landscapes filled with volcanic eruptions and celestial phenomena. He populates dark visions with his fellow man as demon, mob, victim and dreamer, in temperas, watercolors, pastels, woodcuts, linocuts, etchings, dry points, and lithographs of high quality.

Much of Hagedorn's inspiration derived from the Germans. He parted company with other California artists of the 1920's and '30s, many of whom were, rather, influenced by the French movements of Impressionism, Cubism, and, especially, Fauvism. German influence is particularly evident in his graphic work of the late 1920's and early 1930's.  His deep etchings or ferociously gouged relief prints abound with images of huge skeletons marching through cities, destroying populations. There are hints of the macabre work of James Ensor, a key precursor to both the Expressionists and the Surrealists.”

In a different mode and mood, Hagedorn's female nudes in pastel, tempera or line drawing achieve a handsome simplicity reminiscent of Maillol, or the classical elegance of Picasso and Matisse of the 1920s.  A surrounding nimbus of color creates a pulsating energy field that gives the pastel figures in particular real movement. The temperas are drawn with bold black outlines, the forms filled with a modulated, almost monochromatic palette.

Born in Berkeley, California, Hagedorn (1902-1982) was legally adopted and raised by his maternal grandmother and aunt; his mother had died giving birth. In 1927, his father, a severe Prussian, disowned him for exhibiting a painting of a female nude at the Oakland Museum, his second public showing.  After briefly attending the San Francisco School of Fine Arts as early as age 16, Ed and his longtime friend Paul Carey opened a studio together in the so-called "Monkey Block" of Montgomery Street, a haven for artists and other bohemians such as John Atherton, Jacques Schnier & Ruth Cravath. In the late 1930s an inheritance from Hagedorn's grandmother and aunt made him increasingly independent, and he seems to have withdrawn to the seclusion of his studio/residence at 2436 Woolsey Street in Berkeley, where he died in 1982.

EDWARD HAGEDORN, California Modernist
March 14 - May 2, 2009
Two Opening Receptions:  Saturday, March 14
3-6 pm at Denenberg Fine Arts
6-9 pm at Couturier Gallery

Couturier Gallery
166 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, California 90036
323 933 5557
couturiergallery.com
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am-5pm

Denenberg Fine Arts
417 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90048    
310 360 9360
denenbergfinearts.com
Gallery Hours, Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm