Paul J. Karlstrom and Susan Ehrlich Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists 1920-1956, Barry M. Heisler Introduction Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1990, 1960s
Paul J. Karlstrom Modernism in Southern California, 1920 -1956, Reflections on the Art and the Times
"This has certainly been the case since 1960, and in the work of some of the best earlier artists - among them those in this exhibition - it seems to be equally true. Frank Gehry, Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Larry Bell, Ed Ruscha -none of these well-known artists developed in a creative vacuum."
June Wayne [b. 1918], 1990, 1960s
"Raised in Chicago by her single, working mother and her grandmother, Wayne displayed as a child precocious talents in art and a passionate love of learning. With characteristic self-reliance, she taught herself to paint and in 1935 made her artistic debut at Chicago's Boulevard Gallery. Two years later, at nineteen, she was managing Marshall Field's art galleries and by 1938 was working as an easel painter on the Federal Art Project.
"In 1939 Wayne moved to New York City, lured by a post in the fashion industry as a jewelry designer. After the outbreak of World War II, she travelled to Southern California where she studied technical drawing at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. This training, which led to a certificate in production illustration, sparked her interest in optics which she explored in her paintings and prints of the postwar years.
"After her California sojourn Wayne worked as a writer for a radio station in Chicago and then returned to Los Angeles in 1946. She soon became a prominent figure within the art community. Gravitating toward the circle of artists, writers and designers around Arts and Architecture magazine she counted among her friends Charles and Ray Eames, John Entenza, Rico Lebrun, Jules Engel, Peter Krasnow, Lorser Feitelson, and Jules Langsner.
"In 1947 Wayne delved into the field of lithography, a medium which she would rapidly earn international fame. Collaborating with printmaker Lynton Kistler, she produced a distinguished body of work . . .
" . . . figures . . . mix references to brain cells and optical fibers with a trumpet, a fortress, a mole, and a scale of justice [all] inspired by Franz Kafka's books. Strung next to one another, they form a serpentine chain of allusions. In obliging the eye to follow their sinuous trail, they challenge the mind to decipher the meaning of their arcane codes.
" . . .
"The Dark One [1950] . . . alludes to the "human predicament" via its titular figure which personifies the atom bomb. Incarnating the new technology. the Dark One stands half human being, half steely machine . . .
"The sixties opened with Wayne winning a Ford Foundation grant and becoming the founding director of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. Legendary in its own time, Tamarind garnered world renown for its superb craftsmanship . . .
"In 1970 Wayne formed the Tamarind Institute at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque . . . designed tapestries, wrote and hosted a television show (1972), and produced the . . . film Four Stones for Kanemitsu, which was nominated for an Academy Award . . .
" . . . Wayne has played a prominent role in the art community. Beginning in 1951, when she appeared at City Hall to oppose the red-baiting of artists shown in the All-City Municipal Festival in Griffith Park, she has actively championed artist's rights."