The Ferus Gallery The Beginnings
The Ferus 'Studs' the new generation of aritists young abstract painters, ceramicists and assemblage makers who had been flying under the wire now were the featured artists at the Ferus Gallery.The Gallery was ripe for the adventurous artists who would set the new bar in contemporary styles. The Ferus Gallery had belief in the performance of their work and was one of the first galleries to support it.
Ferus Gallery Artists
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A community of artists first
formed by artist Ed Kienholz & Walter Hopps in 1957. The idea was to show art what was Contemporary by artist's that were unknown at the time. Some of the most Iconic post-war period art was being shown at the Ferus Gallery. 
Irvin Blum with 'Studs'. Moses, Irwin, Price and Bengston posing for Studs show media shot. |
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Wallace Berman Ed Kienholz
Artie Richer Ed Ruscha John Altoon Roy Lichtenstein Ed Moses Frank Stella Les Kerr Joesph Cornell Craig Kaufmann Bruce Conner Billy Al Bengston Hassel Smith Frank Lobdell Sonia Gechhoff Robert Irwin Andy Warhol Jay DeFeo Larry Bell Allen Lynch Kenneth Price Clyford Still Llyn Foulkes Richard Diebenkorn John Mason Ferus Gallery in late 1950's
The Ferus Gallery spanned the time from 1947-1966 with the generation of California artists laying the foundations in that period of time art in California. Becoming truly modern illuminating the pioneering of the avante-garde and what was to come later from artists from San Francisco to Los Angeles. There were art schools like Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute, and Art Center School were most these guys in Ferus went and some ending up teaching. They all would make a name for themselves.
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Most of the aritst's lived in a culture of surfing, jazz motorcycles and a few of them lived in Venice or Santa Monica near the beach.
Wallace Berman was one of the first artists and was a hipster who had made hand press original art and poetry called 'Semina' by a cadre of Beat era Artists. He didn't sell them rather the copies were handed out to friends and artists he knew. His original show at the Ferus Gallery had been raided and closed by the L.A. Vice Squad for lewd and obscene art. The actual art that he had been arrested for was actually done by Cameron and was placed into one of Wallaces shrines at the exhibit. The original gallery had been run by Wally Hopps and Kienholz. Later Hopps gave it over to Irving Blum who put the Ferus Gallery in the running. Irving got east coast artists Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol. The west coast artists felt that these guys were taking a piece of their pie. It wasn't gonna be long before there names would all mean something in the art world. 
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