Bay Area Figurative Movements

The Artists

It's History

In the spring of 1951, one of San Francisco’s most respected Abstract Expressionist painters shocked the art community when he submitted a small figurative canvas to a competitive exhibition and won a prize. The painter was David Park, and the astonished reaction of his fellow artists signaled that something dramatic had occurred. At a time when non-0bjective, abstract painting seemed to be the only possible route for progressive artists, Park’s turn to the figure was perplexing, even enraging. His colleagues saw it simply as a “failure of nerve,” an inability to summon the deep inner resources that contemporary abstract painting was felt to require. Few knew then that Park’s “defection” was to be the first of many; still fewer could have guessed that the figurative art it prompted would grow to be one of the most salient postwar artistic developments on the West Coast.

The new figurative “pictures” created by the Bay Area artists were neither reactionary nor merely illustrational. Although clearly moving away from the subjective isolation and grandiosity of Abstract Expressionism, the new work was equally clearly in its debt. Each of the artists came to figuration with a sympathetic understanding of abstraction and a deep enthusiasm for the Abstract Expressionists’ achievements; all had themselves worked non-objectively, and several had received national recognition for their abstract work. Their mature post-abstract figurative paintings preserved a sophisticated dialogue between abstraction and representation—the image oscillating between a recognizable subject and a boldly colored, abstract arrangement of thick slabs of paint. The Bay Area Figurative tradition is a unique movement of art that began in northern California in 1950 with David Park’s winning figurative painting. Among those in the early group to follow Park’s example were Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn and James Weeks. Clearly this early group’s figurative work are related to the work of Abstract Expressionist painters, notably Hassel Smith, and also to have begun a tradition that includes many other figurative artists who are, today, continuing that tradition. Many artists important in the Bay Area Figurative Movement were less documented or left out entirely, some of whom were women: Adelie Bischoff, June Landis, June Felter, and Ann Hogle were a few among many.

Much like the Abstract Expressionist Movement, there was a 2nd and 3rd wave of the Bay Area Figurative Art Movement that continues today. Some of the figurative artists working in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s were Gerald Ballaine, Kent Rupp, and Clayton Pinkerton. Pinkerton, a critical artist in the group, earned his Master of Fine Arts at California College of Arts & Crafts at the same time as Nathan Oliveria and was painting in the figurative style at the same times as many of the major figurative painters.

We, at the John Natsoulas Gallery, are dedicated to exhibiting art by major Bay Area figurative artists, but also work of lesser known artists, as well as work by the generations of artists who carry on that tradition—artists like James Chafee and Kim Frohsin.