Primeval

Leonard Edmondson

Launching his distinctive style from abstract surrealism of Paul Klee and the expressionism of Hans Hofmann, Los Angeles artist Leonard Edmondson's aesthetic imagery invokes ‘almost remembered' forms, feelings and spaces in his paintings, watercolors, etchings and screenprints.

Edmondson transforms the opaque, flat surfaces that defined the serigraphs of the WPA era into a transparent composition, a microcosm of life forms that exist in a hostile, apparently lifeless, environment, describing them with his own visual "vocabulary."

Edmondson wrote: "This vocabulary manifests itself in a dynamic structure where color responds to the size and position of shapes, and reinforces the intent of the composition. Lines close to make shapes that occupy shallow space. I am equally concerned with what I want to say and the formal values I use to say it. My painting is not art of rebellion but one of discovery and sharing. I have found satisfaction in the spontaneous, often compulsive, act of drawing and painting."

Leonard Edmondson was born in Sacramento, California on June 21, 1916. His formal art studies began at Los Angeles City College, and in 1937, he entered the University of California at Berkeley, receiving his B.A. degree in 1940 and his M.A. degree in 1942. With the onset of World War II, Edmondson served in the U.S. Army in Military Intelligence, stationed in Europe from 1942 to 1946. During these years he was exposed to the work of Paul Klee, whose art would remain an influence on Edmondson throughout his career and would inspire his turn from figurative art to non-objective. When the war ended and he continued to be stationed in France, he spent his spare time exploring the collections of the Louvre.

Edmondson took a class in etching from Ernest Freed in 1951 and the following year his print, "Heralds of Inquiry", won an award at the 6th annual National Print Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. His first solo museum exhibition at the De Young Memorial Museum in 1952 was followed by solo exhibitions at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and the Santa Barbara Museum. He won his first Tiffany Fellowship in 1953 and the second in 1955. Edmondson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1960, which allowed him to focus on his printmaking. In 1967 a retrospective of his work was held at the San Francisco Museum of Art and he published his technical treatise, "Etching", in 1970.

Leonard Edmondson died in Pasadena, California on July 22, 2002.