William Leavitt

American, b. 1941

Untitled
1983

Pastel on paper
30.5 x 38.5 in. (77.47 x 97.79 cm)
Gift of the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2010.5

William Leavitt is associated with a group of Los Angeles artists who humorously muse about the sometimes over-the-top culture of the Southern California metropolis. Drawing inspiration from the area’s diverse architecture and exotic plant life, as well as from clichés that are prevalent in the entertainment industry, Leavitt creates quirky, open-ended narratives using settings that could be considered empty stages for which viewers are encouraged to imagine a story line.

In this untitled drawing, Leavitt juxtaposes two types of landscape, one manufactured and the other completely natural. In the center of the composition, he depicts a fountain surrounded by a precisely manicured garden, a scene based on a fountain from a plaza in an office building complex in the city’s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, where the artist was living at the time. Contrasting with the formality of this setting is the landscape where the fountain with garden is situated, a sandy beach with the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

In spite of the irrationality of the juxtaposition and the obvious differences between the two types of settings, they do have something in common. Both, in fact, have ties to the movie industry. While constructed fountains and formal gardens were often used for staging the spectacular Hollywood movie musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, Southern California beaches were frequently the settings for the rock-and-roll films of the 1950s and 1960s.

David S. Rubin

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This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Collecting on the Edge Part I , 9/15/2018 - 12/15/2018
• Collecting on the Edge , 9/15/2018 - 5/4/2019

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