Ed Moses (April 9, 1926 – January 17, 2018) was an American artist based in Los Angeles and a central figure of postwar West Coast art.

Ed Moses
Born(1926-04-09)April 9, 1926
DiedJanuary 17, 2018(2018-01-17) (aged 91)
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles[2]
Known forPainting
MovementAbstract art
Spouse
Avilda Peters
(m. 1959)
[2]
Awards

Moses first exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in 1957 and became widely known over the next five decades.

Early life and education

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Moses was born in Long Beach, California to Olivia Branco and Alphonse Lemuel Moses on April 9, 1926.[1][3]

Moses enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 17, serving in the Navy Medical Corps as a scrub assistant during World War II.[1][4] Moses subsequently enrolled in a pre-med program at Long Beach City College.[1][4] When he was not accepted into medical school, he enrolled in art classes with Pedro Miller, a graduate from the Art Institute of Chicago.[4] In 1949, he left Long Beach City College, transferring to UCLA and subsequently the University of Oregon. He left school, worked odd jobs before re-enrolling at UCLA in 1953, where he became friends with Craig Kauffman and Walter Hopps.[4][5][6] To complete his master's degree, Moses held his graduate show at the Ferus Gallery, rather than on his college campus.

In 1958 Moses moved to New York City, where he met Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and Milton Resnick.[7] In 1960 he returned to California.[7]

In 1959, Moses married Avilda Peters; and moved to the state of Virginia, followed by San Francisco and again to Los Angeles.

Art career and later life

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Early years

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In the 1950s and 1960s, Moses was part a group of artists named the Cool School, composed of Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Edward Kienholz, John Altoon, Ken Price and Billy Al Bengston.[2]

Early on, Moses gained attention for his "Rose Drawings" based on a pattern he traced off an oilcloth tablecloth found in Mexico. He repeated the patterns until they became dense abstractions. One of these pieces is part of Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's permanent collection.[8]

Middle years

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Moses joined the art faculty in 1968 at the new University of California campus at Irvine, where he would stay until 1972.[2] In 1980, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Moses began working with Peter Goulds at L.A. Louver. He remained with Goulds for the next 15 years.

Later years

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In 1991, he took part in the Whitney Biennial.[2]

In 1996, Moses' paintings were documented in a major retrospective exhibition at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Los Angeles.[2]

In 2016, the year he turned 90, Moses exhibited a new series of paintings based on a craquelure technique where he painted the canvas with either black or white, then adding a subsequent medium over the paint (which he kept "secret") and then smashing the canvas with his fist or elbow.[8]

Moses died at his home in Venice, California, at the age of 91.[2]

Personal life

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Ed is survived by his son, Andy Moses, who is also an accomplished artist.

Public collections

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Awards

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Ed Moses: Pacific Standard Time at the Getty". Pacific Standard Time at the Getty.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Vankin, Deborah; Muchnic, Suzanne (January 18, 2018). "Ed Moses, 'Cool School' painter who helped forge L.A.'s art scene, dies at 91". Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ January 22, Kevin Roderick. "LA Observed Notes: Guild vote isn't even the top LA Times story". LA Observed.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b c d "Prolific artist Ed Moses of LA's 'Cool School' dies at 91". Santa Monica Daily Press. 20 January 2018.
  5. ^ Greenberger, Alex (January 18, 2018). "Ed Moses, Pioneering L.A. Painter and Paragon of the California Art Scene, Dies at 91". ARTnews. ISSN 0004-3273.
  6. ^ Williams, Maxwell (8 June 2015). "Ed Moses: The Compulsive Creator". KCET.
  7. ^ a b Moses, Ed; Gallery, Frederick S. Wight Art; Masheck, Joseph (1976). Ed Moses: Drawings 1958-1976 : an Exhibition Initiated and Sponsored by the Fellows of Contemporary Art, July 13-August 15, 1976, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles. The Gallery.
  8. ^ a b Rogers, John (2018-01-20). "Ed Moses, prolific artist who helped transform LA scene, dies". SFGATE. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  9. ^ "Ed Moses | Albright-Knox". www.albrightknox.org.
  10. ^ "Untitled". The Art Institute of Chicago.
  11. ^ "Cincinnati Art Museum: Explore the Collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum". Cincinnati Art Museum.
  12. ^ "DMA Collection Online". collections.dma.org.
  13. ^ "Ed Moses Untitled". emuseum.mfah.org.
  14. ^ "Ed Moses | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
  15. ^ "Artist Info". www.nga.gov.
  16. ^ "Ed Moses | Smithsonian American Art Museum". americanart.si.edu.
  17. ^ "Ed Moses | OMCA COLLECTIONS". collections.museumca.org.
  18. ^ "Ed Moses". whitney.org.
  19. ^ "Ed Moses". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved January 18, 2018.

Further reading

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