EMERSON WOELFFER (1914-2003)

Known as one of the grandfathers of L.A. Modernism, Emerson Woeffler had a profound impact on post-war American art in California. Born and raised in Chicago, Woeffler studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1930s and practiced abstract expressionism throughout the 1940s and 1950s. December is exemplary work from this period, employing symbols and strokes that are reminiscent of the early abstract paintings of Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, artists whom Woeffler was acquainted with and influenced by.

In 1960, years after teaching under Buckminster Fuller at Black Mountain College, Woeffler moved to Los Angeles and began to teach at the Chouinard Art Institute, later known as CalArts. It was at Chouinard that Woeffler influenced a generation of Californian artists, including Ed Ruscha, Llyn Foulkes, Larry Bell and Joe Goode, all of whom were Chouinard students in the early 1960s, when art in Los Angeles was blossoming. After Woeffler’s death in 2003, Ruscha curated a posthumous exhibition of the artist’s work, remarking that Woeffler "was an American original, a tender tough guy who turned a lot of people on to the beauty of abstract painting.”