Michael Loew Abstract Paintings

The artist constructs his spirit animal through mixed media. 48" x 60" Spray Paint, Oil, Construction Paper, Acrylic, Pastel, Marker

Shortly before Walt Esslinger died a few years ago, we talked in his small yellow painted studio in Bakersfield. Sixteen years my senior, he’d been my close friend, mentor and running mate since 1960. “You still writing?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered, taking in the space’s renovations he’d recently sub-contracted. Ninety one years old, and he was thinking ahead. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Write the Andy Warhol story.” Walt was a Central Valley guy, an L.A. guy, a Las Vegas guy. A man who knew his way around. “I want you to put on record what happened back then when I bought the soup can painting.” Back then was the fall of 1962. The two of us had been exhibiting our paintings in the L.A. Art Institute’s gallery for locals only. Walt had given legendary Ad Rhinehardt a story about how he and I had been working in both Edward Kienholz’s and John Altoon’s studios (false—we’d only been visiting). One morning, the Institute’s Director, who hadn’t suspected us to be charlatans yet, introduced us to a reed thin, tow headed young man leaning against the main gallery’s wall. “Meet Andy Warhola,” he said. “Andy is from New York.” “Warhol,” the boy/man said. “Painter?” Walt asked him. “Shoe Illustrator.” The director made a snorting noise I took to mean that Warhola or Warhol’s modesty was posed. He mentioned something about Andy having a show on the La Cienega strip of galleries. We exchanged mumbles about how the art world was in flux, nothing more than that, and Walt and I moved on. If this strange cat had anything to look at, we’d see it. It was a Monday, and La Cienega’s twenty some galleries would be opening new shows and serving champagne that evening. North La Cienega Avenue, laid over a network of oil veins decades before, had become the street for the Cool School, a group of artists and gallery people trying to bring Los Angeles’s art scene to life. The galleries were small but proud. Sure, Jazz was born on the Delta and raised in New Orleans, St, Luis and Chicago, but L.A. had fifty-three jazz joints according to Chet Baker, who’d blown with the best. Why then should the West Coast be lagging behind New York in the other truly American expression, abstract art? At the Ferus Gallery that night we found Warhol’s exhibit. “Shit,” I said. Walt grinned. “You no like?” “Not exactly my can of soup,” I said, peeking into the small space, loaded now wall to wall with paintings of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Walt stepped into the space. “How about the idea of it?” I made my way through spectators looking at once to be confused, amused, enthused and abused. When I came back to Walt he was still smiling. “Why didn’t he silk screen ‘em?” I asked. “That’s probably his next move,” Walt said. “You wanna stay?” Walt’s keen eyes cased the joint. “I see Irving Bloom over there,” he said. “Believe I’ll stick around and talk with him.” Bloom had been operating this popular gallery for some time now. “One hundred a month,” he’d told me. “It’s not like I’m getting rich.” I stood around for a bit, heard a fellow abstract expressionist I’d met tell a young lady who looked to be lost, “Okay that’s the soup. Come with me, baby, and I’ll show you the juice.” Two doors down I stopped at the Primus-Stuart Gallery. A group of people had gathered around a display of soup cans, stacked grocer’s pyramid style in the window. All Campbell’s. All Tomato. A sign leaning against the grouping stated: “Get the real thing. Thirty cents each.” That’s the way it was. Twenty-four galleries forming a gauntlet between La Cienega’s 300 block, all the way up to Barney’s Beanery at the corner of Santa Monica. Hollywood types dressed to the nines, Beats dressed for the times just gone. Champagne popping...

"Pastel Constructivist Forms" is a hand-painted acrylic painting on high-quality 300g paper by artist Ryan Rivadeneyra. This series focuses on geometric patterns and combinations of...

"Pastel Constructivist Triangles" is an abstract painting by Spanish artist Natalia Roman. It is a beautiful combination of geometric shapes in a classy gamut of colors. The use of p...

These series of paintings by Natalia Roman gather their inspiration from geometric, minimalist shapes and paintings from the beginning of Modernism, with a special emphasis on Art De...

"Pastel Prism" is a hand-painted acrylic painting on high-quality 300g paper by artist Ryan Rivadeneyra. This series focuses on geometric patterns and combinations of shapes to form...

"Futuristic Constructivist Geometry" is an abstract painting by Spanish artist Natalia Roman. It is a beautiful combination of geometric shapes in a classy gamut of colors. The use o...

This artwork on paper is not framed. Antony Squizzato is a talented French artist who likes to experiment with different styles and techniques.

"Constructivist Sunset Triangles" is an abstract painting by Spanish artist Natalia Roman. It is a beautiful combination of geometric shapes in a classy gamut of colors. The use of p...

These series of paintings by Natalia Roman gather their inspiration from geometric, minimalist shapes and paintings from the beginning of Modernism, with a special emphasis on Art De...

"Bigoudi" means "hair curler". Artist's comment : "Artworks from the "Duels" series concerns duality between instinct, the colored background, and reason, the black tracks...

This painting is the first of a number of paintings about Walt Disney's characters, in different styles although all seen through Antony Squizzato's prism of Neue Constructivism. Th...