Impressions of Los Angeles: 60 Years of Printmaking at Gemini G.E.L. celebrates the extraordinary output of one of the country’s most longstanding and vital publisher of fine art prints and sculpture. When Sidney Felsen and Stanley Grinstein founded their print publishing venture in Los Angeles in 1966, they could not have anticipated the role their business and the city would play in the history of American printmaking. Inviting artists to visit the workshop and experiment with lithography resulted in some of the most important prints made in the mid-twentieth century. From lithography, the range of print techniques grew, and artists were encouraged to make printed images and multiples using whatever medium best suits their ideas. Impressions of Los Angeles encompasses the range of artists and print media that Gemini G.E.L. has nurtured over the past 60 years, emphasizing the role that the city has played in inspiring its artists. The exhibition’s initial days coincide with Frieze Los Angeles, a fair that brings artists, collectors, and all manner of art enthusiasts to southern California. Unlike other parts of the country in February, Los Angeles is a kind of paradise – warm, sunny, and inviting. The theme and organization of the exhibition reflect this SoCal atmosphere, and the effect it had on the artists working at Gemini. Divided into two sections, the show’s artworks reveal what visitors and residents alike see and feel as they navigate the city.

The first section presented in the ground floor gallery features prints that portray Los Angeles’s atmospheric conditions, from its sunlit ocean to its foggy hills to its dreamy skies. Ken Price’s screenprint, Western Sunset, perfectly captures the stark bright orange light visible from an office building window overlooking the hills and neighborhoods to the west.

Ken Price signing his ceramic cup edition, Mildred, assisted by the Gemini curator, Octavio Molina, at Gemini G.E.L. © 1991 Sidney B. Felsen

David Hockney’s Sun similarly illuminates a room with a lone plant thriving in the sun’s streaming yellow rays.

David Hockney at Gemini G.E.L. © 1976 Sidney B. Felsen

Color is deployed by many of the artists in the exhibition to reveal the changing ambiance of the city. Lithographs from Tacita Dean’s two skyward-looking print series, LA Exuberance and LA Magic Hour, reveal the implausible range of hues that color the skies from sunrise to sunset, while Hockney’s Rain and Mist use soft pastels to evoke the quiet tranquility that overtakes the city when it rains. The gallery space with its printed depictions of sunny beaches and looming palm trees represents the range of atmospheric conditions the city offers.

Tacita Dean © 2016 Sidney B. Felsen

LA’s street life is the theme of the second section of the exhibition installed in the gallery space designed by Frank Gehry. The cityscape, store fronts, and Hollywood landmarks had a profound effect on the New York-based artist Rauschenberg who commemorated his encounters in the series of screenprints, L.A. Uncovered

Robert Rauschenberg working on L.A. Uncovered #6 at Gemini G.E.L. © 1998

The assembled photographs that comprise the prints offer a vivid picture of the city’s clubs, restaurants, and local life, including a sandwich board advertisement that announces: “Movie Star Maps Sold Here.” Sweetzer Avenue, near the Gemini workshop, inspired Elizabeth Murray’s colorful assemblages, including Woof, which suggests the soundscape of the city’s many dogs, pictured by her in purple and yellow.

Elizabeth Murray, assisted by Richard Kaz, during a proofing session at Gemini G.E.L. © 2001 Sidney B. Felsen

In his etchings, the architect Frank Gehry draws our attention to the local architecture – houses of his own design that inhabit the city.

Frank Gehry during the construction of the building he designed for Gemini G.E.L. © 1979 Sidney B. Felsen

Meanwhile, Analia Saban made the interior of her house the subject of her work, etching the design of floor planks and grain onto a wooden support, and thus offering us the look and feel of the hard wood floors typical in the city’s iconic bungalows.

John Baldessari and Analia Saban, 1991

Impressions of Los Angeles seeks to remind visitors to the gallery that artists working at Gemini employed the urban environment to enhance the landscape of printmaking over the past 60 years. Through experimentation and the execution of their creative visions, Gemini’s artists have enabled all of us to see the city through their eyes.

Susan Dackerman

About Susan Dackerman

Susan Dackerman is a Lecturer in Art History at UCLA, with  specializtion in western print culture. Previously, she has held posts at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Harvard Art Museums, Getty Research Institute, and Stanford University. Her publications include Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, 2011; and Corita Kent and the Language of Pop, 2015, Jasper Johns: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Monotypes, with Jennifer Roberts, 2017, and Dürer's Knots: Early European Print and the Islamic East, 2024.