Hans Burkhardt’s (1904–1994) expansive career and influence in L.A. are the focus of a survey exhibition of paintings and drawings entitled Hans Burkhardt: Within  & Beyond the Mainstream. The exhibition, as part of the October 1 initiative of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980, opens with a preview reception Saturday, September 24 at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles and coincides with the new release of the Burkhardt documentary, Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream; a film by Eric Minh Swenson. 

Arriving in L.A. in 1937, following his association with Arshile Gorky, whose studio he shared in New York from 1928-37, Burkhardt represented L.A.’s earliest and most critical link to the New York School. The exhibition will also juxtapose Burkhardt’s works with contemporaneous reviews and rare archival documentation spanning more than six decades. 

Included are important paintings shown in his first solo exhibition at the Stendahl Gallery, and his first museum exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1945, which the L.A. Times called an exhibition of “…dynamic power…a striking transfer of feeling into form.”

Following that exhibition, Burkhardt was both critically celebrated and “censored,” as his works proved controversial in the years leading up to the McCarthy Era, when modern artists in L.A. were seen as Communist threats.  Particularly controversial were his anti-war paintings and Hollywood studio strike paintings, including his “indictment” of then, Screen Actor Guild head, Ronald Reagan.   “Less incendiary” subjects also proved controversial, such as his Crucifixion Series – condemned for his use of red color and abstract style, regarded as subversive; examples of which are included in Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream.

Works of the 1950s onward were hugely influential to young artists emerging onto the scene.  Artists ranging from Ed Kienholz, John Altoon and Karl Benjamin to Tony Berlant, etc, were impacted by Burkhardt’s independent and provocative works, as he received extensive critical recognition.  In the 1950s alone, Burkhardt had an impressive 23 solo exhibitions including a 10 year Retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum, as well as museums in Mexico and inclusion in the Sao Paulo Biennale.  

In the 1960s Burkhardt was the subject of museum retrospectives at San Diego Art Institute and San Diego Museum of Art and afforded a 30 year retrospective exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum, San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. 

Also shown in the Rutberg exhibition will be Burkhardt’s profound anti-war paintings of the 1960s and 70s, reacting to the Vietnam War, prompting art historian Donald Kuspit to cite: “Burkhardt is the master - indeed the inventor of the Abstract Memento Mori.” Throughout these years, Burkhardt taught at numerous schools; among them: USC, UCLA, Choinard, Otis, and CSUN where his influence was profound.

The reactive and prescient nature of Burkhardt’s work is evident in the exhibition, through the earliest anti-war subjects dating as early as 1938 through his final painting included in this exhibition dating 1993. His Graffiti Series of the early 1980s shows Burkhardt to have been among the earliest responses to graffiti art. In 1992 Hans Burkhardt received the American Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Hans Burkhardt was born in 1904 in Basel, Switzerland.  He arrived in New York in 1924. When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1937, he represented the most critical link between L.A. and the New York School, as he was part of its genesis.  Burkhardt lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1994.

Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream opens with a preview reception September 24, extending through December 24 at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts located at 357 N. La Brea Avenue. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., and Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. The exhibition and related educational programs, to be announced in the future, will be presented with the support of the Hans G. & Thordis W. Burkhardt Foundation. For further information on the exhibition, educational programs or the Burkhardt documentary, please contact Jack Rutberg Fine Arts at Tel (323) 938-5222 or Email  jrutberg@jackrutbergfinearts.com

As part of the The J. Paul Getty Museum’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980,

Hans Burkhardt works are included in the following museum exhibitions:

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Real and Imagined: Southern California Artists Represent the Landscape, 1945-1980

Los Angeles Municipal Gallery

Civic Virtue: The Impact of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery

Pacific Asia Museum

A History of the Pasadena Art Museum

Pasadena Museum of California Art

L.A. Raw: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles, 1945-1980, From Rico Lebrun to Paul McCarthy

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California 1951-1969