The Estate of Ed Moses

Ed Moses, Edges, Magmas and Waterfalls

September 18 - October 30, 2021
Gallery 1, 2 & 3

Kohn Gallery is pleased to present Edges, Magmas and Waterfalls the inaugural exhibition of Los Angeles abstract painter, Ed Moses, whose estate the gallery proudly represents. The exhibition will feature historically significant paintings from the estate showcasing works from the “Magma”, “Waterfall”, and “Edge” series. 

The late Ed Moses (1926-2018), was a significant figure in the development and history of postwar, abstract painting in Los Angeles. Wielding an eclectic and varied aesthetic style that was constantly evolving, Moses employed a process-based abstraction that operated as a constant mode of discovery and exploration. As a practicing Buddhist, Moses was endlessly intrigued with the metaphysical power of painting- creating works that embraced temporality, process and presence. His visionary approach to painting produced a career that lasted over six decades.

A fixture of the Los Angeles art community, Moses’ first solo exhibition was held at the legendary Ferus Gallery in 1958 while completing his graduate studies at UCLA. At Ferus, Moses would befriend and identify with a generation of “Cool School” artists including Ken Price, Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, and Larry Bell whose practices, philosophies, and conversations around art defined the zeitgeist of their era and would influence generations of artists working in Los Angeles from the 1960s to today.

Moses received national and international accolades with his work in the permanent collections of over 40 museums worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; among others. In 1996, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles launched a major retrospective of Moses’ career with works made between the years of 1951 to 1996. More recently in 2015, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented Ed Moses: Drawings from the 1960s and 70s a major museum exhibition of approximately 100 drawings by the artist.

Ed Moses: Master of Crazy Wisdom

 

“My thought is that the artist functions in a tribal context, that he is the shaman. When the urban life came in, tribes no longer existed ... but there was still a genetic core of shamans, of magic men, broken loose and genetically floating around. And when they had this gene, they shook the rattles. The shamans were the interpreters of the unknown, they reacted to the unknown with symbols and objects and wall painting. And that’s where it all came from. That’s where I came from, but when you’re a young man you don’t know that.”

-Ed Moses

Video courtesy of Telluride Gallery of Fine Art

Selected Press

Featured
Ed Moses - KCRW
Ed Moses - KCRW

On view at Kohn Gallery in Hollywood is a posthumous exhibition of paintings by the influential LA abstractionist Ed Moses, who passed away in 2018 at the age of 91. Working prolifically until just two weeks before his death, Moses was a notable member of the “Cool School” artists and made work that was constantly experimental, pushing the boundaries of what paint and abstraction can do.

Ed Moses - Art Matters with Edward Goldman
Ed Moses - Art Matters with Edward Goldman

The Kohn Gallery presents paintings by Ed Moses (1926-2018) from the last decades of his life. One of the most distinguished artists during the post-war Los Angeles art scene, Moses continued to challenge himself artistically through six decades of his career. His abstract paintings were constantly evolving,

Ed Moses - Artnews
Ed Moses - Artnews

The Los Angeles-based enterprise Kohn Gallery has added to its roster the estate of Ed Moses, an L.A. painter who died last year. The gallery will include works by Moses in a group presentation in its booth at Art Basel Miami Beach in December

Ed Moses - Los Angeles Times
Ed Moses - Los Angeles Times

When he was 90 years old, preparing for a 2016 exhibition of new work, Ed Moses zipped across the courtyard of his Los Angeles art studio in a paint-spattered wheelchair and stained Birkenstocks. The artist, who was still working every day, jerked his chair to a stop at a row of enormous canvases, the fresh paint drying in the sun.

Ed Moses - Artnews
Ed Moses - Artnews

In 2016, on the occasion of his first East Coast retrospective, at Albertz Benda gallery in New York, the Los Angeles-based artist Ed Moses told ARTnews, “When I catch onto something, I push it a little bit, and sometimes I get lucky. I say, ‘Wow, how did you make that?’ If it has the wow factor, I’m OK.” Judging by the critical reception of his work over the course of a long career, many of Moses’s paintings did, indeed, have that wow factor.

Books

Ed Moses
Ed Moses
$39.99

Published on the occasion of Ed Moses’s exhibition “Edges | Magmas | Waterfalls” at Kohn Gallery
Softcover
100 pages
Published by Kohn Gallery

 

About the Artist

In a career that spanned 7 decades, Moses received national and international recognition for his practice, known for its restless intensity and ever-evolving style. Considered one of LA’s most innovative painters and a central figure in the city’s art scene, Moses often referred to himself as a “mutator”, driven less by the desire for self-expression than by an insatiable curiosity to explore and discover. Describing his approach, Moses said, “The rational mind constantly wants to be in charge. The other parts want to fly. My painting is the encounter between the mind’s necessity for control and its yearning to fly, to be free from our ever-confining skull.”

Ed Moses was born on April 9, 1926 in Long Beach, CA. His mother Olivia Branco had just separated from his father Alphonses Moses, and was relocating the family from Hawaii to California. Moses did not initially choose the artistic path. After serving as a surgical technician during World War II, Moses intended to become a doctor. He enrolled in Long Beach City College’s pre-med program, but dropped out, citing his inability to memorize the curriculum. On a whim, he took a life-changing class with artist Pedro Miller, who recognized the spark of untapped talent. Moses changed course and enrolled in UCLA’s MFA program. There he met artist Craig Kauffman who introduced him to the future Ferus Gallery owner Walter Hopps.

Moses had his first exhibition at Ferus Gallery in 1958 while still a graduate student at UCLA. It was at Ferus that Moses would become a member of the raucous group of artists known as the “Cool School”; a group that included Kauffman, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, Edward Kienholz, Ken Price, Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, John Altoon and Wallace Berman - all of whom pushed the boundaries of Post War art and shaped the nascent LA art scene at a time when almost none existed. His decades long friendships in the artworld include Frank Gehry, Tony Berlant, Vija Celmins, Alexis Smith, Joe Goode, and James Hayward.

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