Ferus Gallery

The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery in Los Angeles that operated from 1957 to 1966 and became the most influential showcase for avant-garde art on the American West Coast. Founded by curator Walter Hopps, artist Edward Kienholz, and collage artist Robert Alexander, the gallery introduced Los Angeles to Pop Art, Finish Fetish, and Light and Space, while giving first solo shows to artists who would define Southern California's artistic identity. Its promotion of both local talent and New York transplants such as Andy Warhol established Los Angeles as a serious rival to New York in the postwar art world.

The gallery opened in 1957 at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, behind an antique shop, with Walter and Shirley Hopps running daily operations. The name "Ferus" honored James Farris, an acquaintance of Hopps who had died by suicide; Robert Alexander, who designed the logo, preferred the spelling for its visual strength. In 1958, Kienholz withdrew to focus on his own art, and Irving Blum replaced him as co-director. Wealthy widow Sayde Moss became a silent partner, enabling the move across the street to 723 North La Cienega Boulevard, where the gallery remained until closing. The first twenty shows had generated almost no sales, but Blum streamlined the roster to fourteen artists, seven from San Francisco and seven from Los Angeles, and stabilized finances. From 1960 to 1964, collector Marcia Simon Weisman hosted monthly classes for novice collectors at the gallery, taught by Blum and Hopps, cultivating a loyal local base including Robert Rowan, Edwin Janss, Betty Asher, and Michael Blankfort. Hopps departed in 1962 to join the Pasadena Art Museum. Ferus closed in 1967 when Blum formed Ferus/Pace with Arne Glimcher of New York's Pace Gallery; that venture lasted less than two years. Blum continued with the Irving Blum Gallery, then moved to New York in 1972 to open BlumHelman Gallery with Joseph Helman, returning to Los Angeles as a private dealer in 1998. From 1965, Artforum maintained offices above the gallery before relocating to New York in 1967.

Ferus operated as a commercial gallery rather than a collecting institution, but its exhibition program defined the scope of postwar West Coast art. Under Blum's direction from 1958, the gallery balanced two distinct programs: Los Angeles-based artists working in emerging local idioms, and East Coast figures who brought New York's latest developments to the West. The gallery became the primary platform for Finish Fetish, with its immaculate industrial surfaces, and Light and Space, art concerned with perception and environment. Ed Ruscha later described the gallery as resembling a jazz label, with many distinctive voices operating under one umbrella. This dual coast strategy allowed Ferus to position Los Angeles as an independent center rather than a provincial outpost.

As a commercial gallery, Ferus did not maintain a permanent collection, yet several exhibitions became landmark events in art history. The inaugural group show, Objects on the New Landscape Demanding of the Eye (March 15, April 11, 1957), presented Frank Lobdell, Jay DeFeo, Craig Kauffman, Richard Diebenkorn, John Altoon, Clyfford Still, and Sonia Gechtoff, who also received the gallery's first solo exhibition that year. Wallace Berman's 1957 solo show, his first and last at Ferus, led to his arrest on obscenity charges by the Los Angeles Police Department and the temporary closure of the gallery. In July 1962, Ferus presented Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans, Warhol's first solo Pop Art exhibition and the first showing of the Soup Cans. Five canvases initially sold for $100 each, but Hopps and Shirley Nielsen Blum cancelled some sales to preserve the set; Blum ultimately acquired all thirty-two paintings for $1,000. The gallery gave first solo shows to numerous Los Angeles artists: Wallace Berman (1957), Billy Al Bengston (1958), Ed Moses (1958), Robert Irwin (1959), John Mason (1959), Kenneth Price (1960), Llyn Foulkes (1962), Larry Bell (1962), and Ed Ruscha (1963).

The Ferus Gallery occupied two successive locations on North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. It opened in 1957 at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, situated behind an antique dealer. In 1958, with financial backing from Sayde Moss, the gallery relocated across the street to 723 North La Cienega Boulevard, where it remained for the duration of its existence. From 1965, the art magazine Artforum maintained offices in the space above the gallery, creating a concentrated node of art world activity on this stretch of La Cienega until both operations departed for New York in 1967. The original entrance door from the gallery was later preserved and featured in a 2010 recreation.

The Ferus Gallery no longer exists as an operating venue; it closed in 1967 and the original 723 North La Cienega Boulevard site has long since passed to other uses. The gallery's legacy has been sustained through exhibitions and recreations rather than continuous operation. In 1968, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art organized "Late Fifties at the Ferus," followed by "The Last Time I Saw Ferus" at the Newport Harbor Art Museum in 1976. In 2002, Gagosian Gallery in New York mounted a survey of approximately forty-five works by twenty-two Ferus-associated artists, assembled by Irving Blum with exhibition announcements by Roy Lichtenstein and others, photographs by Dennis Hopper, and a 144-page catalog. The 2007 documentary "The Cool School" examined the gallery's history. In 2010, Samuel Freeman gallery in Santa Monica created a replica including the original door and a full-scale recreation of Billy Al Bengston's 1960 solo exhibition. That same year, Tim Nye of Nyehaus and Franklin Parrasch Galleries briefly reopened a space at 723 North La Cienega under the Ferus name with "Ferus Gallery Greatest Hits Vol. 1," featuring Craig Kauffman, Billy Al Bengston, Kenneth Price, and Ed Ruscha.