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"…nothing gives me so whole a joy,
as good art. It makes life dimensional
like a religion, a background of
emotional stability expanding one's
greater self. But it also makes us
hostile to all mediocre art or painting,
and we constantly try to hold that
feeling down so as not to hurt our
surroundings or its followers."
|
| | Anders Aldrin, March 1959
|
| | |
"The work of this
man is a
declaration of
independence from
the styles and
manners of his
contemporaries..."
--Millard Sheets | | These words, spoken by Anders Aldrin when he was
seventy years old, epitomizes his life philosophy which
he faithfully followed. A consummate artist, who did
not begin his studies until he was thirty-four years old,
he soon garnered respect and admiration from his peers
without any solicitation. His highly individual work did
not fit into any art movement, no dealer promoted his
work, and few works were sold by the artist himself.
Yet his commitment to his art, his life's occupation,
never faltered. It was his destiny.
|
Swedish
Landscape
(1951) | | Anders G. Aldrin was born in Stjernsfors, Varmland,
Sweden on August 29, 1889. He was aware of his
artistic abilities and aspirations at a young age, but he
found little encouragement from his family nor time to
pursue such yearnings. Economics forced him to take a
variety of menial jobs during his youth and early
adulthood. Immigrating to the United States in 1911, he
first went to Chicago before finally settling in
Minneapolis, an area with a large number of
Scandinavian immigrants. There me met and later
married Mabel Esther Lindberg, daughter of a Swedish
Baptist minister. Drafted for service in World War I, he
was sent to France where he served for one year. In the
military he contracted tuberculosis which led to he
being sent to recuperate at the Veteran's Administration
Hospital in Prescott, Arizona, where he started to paint.
He remained there with his family until the summer of
1923 at which time he moved to Los Angeles.
|
Moreno Hills
(1925)
| | After his move to California, a modest army pension
allowed him to support his small family while attending
Otis Art Institute for four years (1923-1927). He was
awarded a full scholarship for his last year, which was
announced in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts.
The announcement described him as "one of the best
trained and most promising students….Mr. Aldrin's
splendid unconditioned attitude will continue to
achieve, both physically and spiritually." Also noted
were the difficulties that Aldrin had encountered as an
older student whose heath was not optimal (due to the
tuberculosis), and who already had a family to support.
[1]
|
Self Portrait
(1928) | | After finishing at Otis, Aldrin moved to Santa Barbara
where he attended the Santa Barbara School of Arts on a
full Scholarship from 1927 to 1930. He further
supplemented his education with six months at the
California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco
(Summer and Fall of 1929). He returned to Los
Angeles in 1930.
|
Big Tujunga
(1936) | | He began exhibiting locally and was accorded a
one-man show at the Los Angeles Museum in 1935.
Jake Zeitlin exhibited his work in February 1940,
including prints, pastels, and oils. Reviewing the
exhibition, Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier
had high praise for the artist, "a quiet painter who runs
in no pack….To him the world is dominantly red and
green, but how he makes these colors sing!" [2]
Throughout his career Aldrin was also a participant in
many group exhibitions in California, especially with
the California Water Color Society in which he was an
occasional exhibitor beginning in 1927 and continuing
through the 1960s.
|
| | In 1940 his painting Echo Park became the subject of
Arthur Millier's "The Art Thrill of the Week," when it
was exhibited at the 20th Annual California Water
Color Society exhibition. Not garnering any award, it
nevertheless caught Millier's attention as "the most
profound, perhaps the only profound, job of painting in
this best show the society has ever put on." [3]
|
Silverlake
Between the Trees
(1943)
| | He painted in Los Angeles and its environs. Favorite
spots were Echo Park and Silver Lake near his home on
Allesandro Street. He traveled to Oregon to visit his
artist friend John Dominique (b. 1893). In November
1940 a one-person exhibition of his work - oil
paintings, watercolors, pastels, and prints - was held at
Scripps College in Claremont. Artist Millard Sheets
selected the works and wrote the foreword to the
catalogue:
The work of this man is a declaration
of independence from the styles and
manners of his contemporaries and is
the most forthright work I have seen
produced in California. Strong
poetry…flavored with color…free
from imitation…solid
construction…make his painting as
honest as the man is himself. These
qualities coupled with the innate good
taste of the artist make his work
outstanding. He has worked as a
laborer in the fields he paints. He
paints what he knows. A close
observer of nature, he has found the
best approach to all art. [4]
|
Oregon Stream
(1938)
Photograph
of the Artist
(1938) | | In reviewing the show Arthur Millier called Aldrin "one
of California's finest contemporary painters."
His painting wears no trace of
fashion. Aldrin has affinities with
great artists but none whatsoever with
art movements. The brooding beauty
of his rich color calls up the word
"romantic." His firm, restrained style
proclaims a "classic" bent.
Juries so often turned his pictures
down that opportunities to see his
work rarely occurred….I came away
from Claremont seeing the real world
anew through Anders Aldrin's
profound and lovely insight. [5]
|
New England
(1945)
Seascape
(1945) | | Throughout the 1940s he continued to participate in
local exhibitions. In 1945 he spent several months in
the East - in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut, living with his daughter Inez and her
husband. Paintings from that trip were included in a
one-person exhibition at the Pasadena Art Institute in
September and October 1948. Millier again responded
positively to his work:
Exquisite color harmonies of dusk,
fog, bright noon and diaphanous
moonlight along the shore were
captured by the sensitive eye and swift
brush of Anders Aldrin, Los Angeles
painter, during sketching trips in
California, Oregon, and
Massachusetts last year….The
paintings all bear the imaginative
stamp of Aldrin's very personal vision.
[6]
|
Swedish
Landscape
(1962)
| | He made the first of four trips to his native Sweden in
1951, going again the following year and in 1962 and
1968. His enjoyment at being in his homeland was
evident in his letters to his children. "…I was very glad
to be back in beautiful Varmland again. Since coming
back I have painted every day, two good ones from my
Norway tour. I have done a great amount of work here in
Sweden, more than anyone can realize…" [7]
|
Ginza
(1957)
| | In 1957 he went to Japan where his daughter Betty was
living with her family. He spent six months during
which he also traveled to Hong Kong, Thailand, Wake
Island, and Hawaii. Japan made a lasting impression on
him, and he would recall imagery from that trip in
works that he made on his return from California. The
following spring he had a one-person show at Mount St.
Mary's College in Westwood, in which he exhibited
works from his travels in the Far East.
|
| | Aldrin found that these one-person shows enabled him
to reflect on his work. He remarked that the subject
matter in all of his painting since the very beginning was
secondary to the role of color, of "the feeling of light
being enclosed by color." He remarked that if one
lingered near the paintings, they left "a lasting
impression in the consciousness." [8]
|
Kellogg
Ranch
(1966)
| | By the 1960s he painted less directly from nature and
more from past experience and imagination. He
remarked that he was putting more intellect into his
work, not just the emotional impression he would get
from working out of doors. But the outdoors would
"bring fresh colors, a mood and, if you are sensitive, a
poem and originality." [9] Aldrin continued to exhibit
and received awards for his work throughout the 1960s.
In July 1961 he was awarded the purchase prize for
painting at the California State Fair.
|
Self Portrait
(1966)
| | Never wishing to cease in his aspirations, Aldrin
continued to work even when he was hospitalized at the
Veteran's Administration Hospital in San Fernando for
long periods during 1967 and 1968. He was no longer
interested in exhibiting his work, turning down two
galleries' offers to do so. He lacked energy and could
no longer see the purpose. Fortunately he regained his
health enough to enable him to make one last trip to
Sweden in 1968. Continuing to explore new
possibilities in his art, in 1969, the year before his
death, he began to work in acrylic, finding it to be a
"marvelous medium in which you can get any color
effect you wish." [10]
|
| | Notes |
| |
- Note 1
- Bulletin of the Los Angeles Museum, July 1926.
 Back to Text
- Note 2
- Los Angeles Times, 25 February 1940, part 3, p.
8.
Back to Text
- Note 3
- Los Angeles Times, 13 October 1940, part 3, p.
8.
Back to Text
- Note 4
- Catalog for exhibition,1940, part 3, p. 8.
Back to Text
- Note 5
- Los Angeles Times, 24 November 1940, part 3, p.
9.
Back to Text
- Note 6
- Los Angeles Times, 12 September 1948, part 4,
p. 4.
Back to Text
- Note 7
- Anders Aldrin to Inez Kimble, 22 July 1952.
Back to Text
- Note 8
- Anders Aldrin to Betty Bentley, 23 April 1958.
Back to Text
- Note 9
- Anders Aldrin to Margaret Cromer, 7 November
1961.
Back to Text
- Note 10
- Anders Aldrin to Margaret Cromer, 10 April
1969.
Back to Text
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