Advance of the Rear Guard: Out of the Mainstream in 1960s California: Ceeje Gallery

A fresh and radical view of Los Angeles art in the 1960s.

Los Angeles art of the past is a treasure trove, awaiting full excavation. Scratch the surface of LA art in the 1960s, and what you’ll discover is much more than Ed Ruscha and Robert Irwin. A range of lesser-known artists reflected the social and cultural changes of that volatile decade. Hiding in plain sight have been offbeat and lyrical works by an ethnically diverse group of artists who exhibited with a 1960s gallery with an alternative take on the mainstream, the Ceeje Gallery. Ceeje opened as the dream project of a gay couple, Cecil Hedrick and Jerry Jerome, and focused on painters who shared an expressionist style of mythic figuration and oblique narrative. This book offers a celebration of the gallery’s inclusiveness and unique aesthetic, which included artists from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, all united in making challenging art oblivious of the commercial market.
 

Michael Duncan is an independent curator and associate curator at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Recent projects include a history of art in San Francisco from 1930 to 1960 and surveys of the Transcendental Painting Group and the artists of Ceeje Gallery in the 1960s.