Recent Acquisitions

Wild Trac

Ed Moses, <em>Wild Trac</em>, 1975, Acrylic on canvas backed by wood panel, 60 x 48 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of Richard C. Smith and Patricia Frobes
Ed Moses, Wild Trac, 1975, Acrylic on canvas backed by wood panel, 60 x 48 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of Richard C. Smith and Patricia Frobes

Wild Trac

Ed Moses

Wild Trac (1975)
Gifted by Richard C. Smith and Patricia Frobes 

Wild Trac is a painting from Ed Moses’ Trac series. The artist applied drips, smudges, and diagonal lines (or “tracs”) of red, black, and white paint in a crisscross fashion generating a tension between the flat surface of the picture plane and its illusionistic depth. Similar to some of his resin works (see Untitled, 1971), Moses’ geometric compositions were often inspired by Navajo blanket designs.

Ed Moses (1926 – 2018)
Ed Moses was born in Long Beach, CA and lived and worked most of his life in Southern California. In 1957, while a graduate student at UCLA, Moses had his first solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery where he became a member of the Cool School. Cool School artists—including John Altoon, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Wallace Berman, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, Edward Kienholz, Ken Price, and Ed Ruscha—combined pop, abstraction, and minimalism, often imbued with sarcasm and humor. Throughout his life, Moses explored the limits of painting, experimenting with many styles, materials, and mark-making techniques. He embraced elements of chance and focused on process over product.

“In a career that spanned seven decades, Moses received national and international recognition for his practice, known for its restless intensity and ever-evolving style. Considered one of LA’s most innovative painters and a central figure in the city’s art scene, Moses often referred to himself as a ‘mutator’, driven less by the desire for self-expression than by an insatiable curiosity to explore and discover. Describing his approach, Moses said, ‘The rational mind constantly wants to be in charge. The other parts want to fly. My painting is the encounter between the mind’s necessity for control and its yearning to fly, to be free from our ever-confining skull’ (kohngallery.com/moses).”

From 1968 to 1972 Moses was on faculty in the art department at UC Irvine and the subject of the 2014 exhibition Ed Moses: Cross Section organized by Juli Carson and Kevin Appel and presented at UCI’s University Art Galleries. The artist’s work is also included in the collections of the Hammer Museum (UCLA, Los Angeles); Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Modern Art (NY), and Whitney Museum of American Art (NY).

Year acquired: 2020

Manuel Neri Trust Acquisition

<em>Mujer Pegada Series No. 5 </em>, 1985/2005, Bronze, oil-based pigments, sealer, 85 x 55 x 15 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of the Manuel Neri Trust | <em>Window Series Sculpture I </em>, 1968, Plaster with aggregate, wood, wire mesh, 29 x 27 x 26 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of the Manuel Neri Trust
Mujer Pegada Series No. 5 , 1985/2005, Bronze, oil-based pigments, sealer, 85 x 55 x 15 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of the Manuel Neri Trust | Window Series Sculpture I , 1968, Plaster with aggregate, wood, wire mesh, 29 x 27 x 26 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of the Manuel Neri Trust

Mujer Pegada Series No. 5

Window Series Sculpture I

Manuel Neri

Mujer Pegada Series No. 5 (1985/2005)
Window Series Sculpture I (1968)
Gift of the Manuel Neri Trust

Manuel Neri (1930 – 2021)
“Manuel Neri was a leading member of the Bay Area Figurative movement along with David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, and Elmer Bischoff. The climate of the Post-War era encouraged bold artistic searches for new expression and Neri led the way in the Bay Area through a sculptural practice rooted in the desire to explore and manipulate material, beginning with cardboard and junk material and later oscillating between plaster, bronze, and marble (hackettmill.com).”

“During the 1990s, Neri focused on the figure in relief, first in a series of small plaster maquettes, and then in an ambitious series of life-sized figural sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble, in which figures seem to emerge from, or into, a flat wall, a spectacular revival of an ancient sculptural form that addresses modern ideas of appearance and disappearance, hiddenness and disclosure. Further, the relief extended his ideas regarding the use of the partial or fragmented form as a means of expressing complex emotional states in figures whose identities are otherwise buried by their fragmented condition (The Trustees of The Manuel Neri Trust).”

The Manuel Neri Trust gifted 48 works by the artist to Langson IMCA, including Mujer Pegada Series No. 5 and Window Series Sculpture I. This significant acquisition will enhance visitors’ understanding of Neri’s body of work and artistic practice, augment IMCA’s holdings of works by notable Bay Area artists, including several of Neri’s contemporaries, and strengthen the museum’s role as a center for the study and appreciation of California Art.

Year acquired: 2019

From Afar, Trestles

Rick Delanty, <em>From Afar, Trestles</em>, 2017, Oil over acrylic on panel, 30 x 40 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from The Edward H. and Yvonne J. Boseker Collection © 2017, Rick J. Delanty, Delanty Fine Art
Rick Delanty, From Afar, Trestles, 2017, Oil over acrylic on panel, 30 x 40 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from The Edward H. and Yvonne J. Boseker Collection © 2017, Rick J. Delanty, Delanty Fine Art

From Afar, Trestles

Rick Delanty

From Afar, Trestles (2017)
Gifted by The Edward H. and Yvonne J. Boseker Collection

In From Afar, Trestles, Rick J. Delanty captures one of Orange County’s best-known spots for surfing. Located between northern San Onofre Beach and southern San Clemente, Trestles is a three and a half mile stretch of coastline made up of five separate surf breaks and named after Trestles Bridge, the original railroad bridge that surfers walked under to reach the beach. The painting is heightened by effervescent color, furious brushwork, and an explosion of light—qualities present throughout much of Delanty’s body of work.

Rick J. Delanty (b. 1951)
Rick J. Delanty has painted the California landscape en plein air and from his San Clemente studio for more than four decades. He is best known for his impressionist style and has been recognized over the years with numerous awards and accolades. A lifelong educator, Delanty taught painting and drawing at San Clemente High School from 1974 to 2006 where he also served as the chair of the art department. He continues to teach workshops and classes for adults, and in 2021, he published a new book, Beauty Unites Us, that includes more than 50 of his paintings accompanied by essays reflecting on his life and artistic practice.

Year acquired: 2017

Jump Start

James Turrell, <em>Jump Start</em>, Cast plaster and wood, 50 x 34 x 34 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from William Griffin
James Turrell, Jump Start, Cast plaster and wood, 50 x 34 x 34 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from William Griffin

Jump Start

James Turrell

Jump Start (1990)
Gifted by William Griffin

Langson IMCA acquired four cast-plaster models of Turrell’s Autonomous Structures including Jump Start. “Made between 1989 and 2010, the models evolved from spaces Turrell built and designed within the Roden Crater and, like the crater’s chambers, contain Skypaces (apertures to the sky carved into an enclosed space) or Ganzfeld pieces (unmodulated field of light that dissolve architectural space). Influenced by the design of ancient observatories, including Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Mayan and Egyptian pyramids, the structures are simultaneously ancient and futuristic. As Turrell explains, ‘Autonomous Structures are just containers for the light; the art is in the experience of the viewer’ (artobserved.com).”

James Turrell (b. 1943)
Known for his perception-altering light and space installations, James Turrell is among the most influential artists of the past 50 years. Turrell attended Pomona College, where he studied psychology and mathematics, briefly enrolled in the graduate studio art program at UCI in 1966, and received a Master’s degree in Art from Claremont Graduate School in 1973.

“Informed by his training in perceptual psychology and a childhood fascination with light, [James] Turrell began experimenting with light as a medium in Southern California in the mid-1960s. . . These investigations aligning and mixing interior and exterior, formed the groundwork for the open sky spaces found in his later Skyspace, Tunnel and Crater artworks (jamesturrell.com).” Since 1977 Turrell has been transforming Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in Arizona, into a monumental observatory designed specifically for viewing and experiencing the earth’s atmosphere and celestial phenomena through a series of underground spaces, shafts, and tunnels.

Turrell has works permanently installed in several institutions, including DeYoung Museum (San Francisco), MoMA PS1 (New York), Pomona College Museum of Art (CA), and Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). Collections containing his work include Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, DC); Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Orange County Museum of Art (Santa Ana); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); The Museum of Modern Art (New York); and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).

Year acquired: 2018

Cold Storage

James Turrell, <em>Cold Storage</em>, 1989, Cast plaster and wood, 46 x 34 x 34 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from William Griffin
James Turrell, Cold Storage, 1989, Cast plaster and wood, 46 x 34 x 34 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from William Griffin

Cold Storage

James Turrell

Cold Storage (1989)
Gifted by William Griffin

Langson IMCA acquired four cast-plaster models of Turrell’s Autonomous Structures including Cold Storage. “Made between 1989 and 2010, the models evolved from spaces Turrell built and designed within the Roden Crater and, like the crater’s chambers, contain Skypaces (apertures to the sky carved into an enclosed space) or Ganzfeld pieces (unmodulated field of light that dissolve architectural space). Influenced by the design of ancient observatories, including Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Mayan and Egyptian pyramids, the structures are simultaneously ancient and futuristic. As Turrell explains, ‘Autonomous Structures are just containers for the light; the art is in the experience of the viewer’ (artobserved.com).”

James Turrell (b. 1943)
Known for his perception-altering light and space installations, James Turrell is among the most influential artists of the past 50 years. Turrell attended Pomona College, where he studied psychology and mathematics, briefly enrolled in the graduate studio art program at UCI in 1966, and received a Master’s degree in Art from Claremont Graduate School in 1973.

“Informed by his training in perceptual psychology and a childhood fascination with light, [James] Turrell began experimenting with light as a medium in Southern California in the mid-1960s. . . . These investigations aligning and mixing interior and exterior, formed the groundwork for the open sky spaces found in his later Skyspace, Tunnel and Crater artworks (jamesturrell.com).” Since 1977 Turrell has been transforming Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in Arizona, into a monumental observatory designed specifically for viewing and experiencing the earth’s atmosphere and celestial phenomena through a series of underground spaces, shafts, and tunnels.

Turrell has works permanently installed in several institutions, including DeYoung Museum (San Francisco,CA), MoMA PS1 (NY), Pomona College Museum of Art (CA), and Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN). Collections containing his work include Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, DC); Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Orange County Museum of Art (Santa Ana, CA); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); The Museum of Modern Art (New York); and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).

Year acquired: 2018

Catalina Twilight

Jeff Sewell, <em>Catalina Twilight</em>, 2015, Oil on canvas, 48 x 72 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Anonymous gift
Jeff Sewell, Catalina Twilight, 2015, Oil on canvas, 48 x 72 in. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Anonymous gift

Catalina Twilight

Jeff Sewell

Catalina Twilight (2013)
Gifted by an anonymous donor

Painted from the vantage point of Crystal Cove (Newport Beach, CA), the composition of Catalina Twilight serves as an invitation to witness the passage of time. Jeff Sewell deftly captures the play of natural light on the landscape in this impression of Santa Catalina Island at evening twilight, the magical time of day when the sun disappears on the horizon.

Over the last few decades, Sewell’s artistic practice has adhered closely to the principles of California Impressionism, including working en plein air and deepening the artist’s connection to the land, ocean, and sky. Sewell describes himself as both self-taught and open to learning from others, finding inspiration by visiting galleries and museums. Langson IMCA is pleased to include Catalina Twilight in its permanent collection with the hope that it will inspire future generations of California artists to work en plein air.

Jeff Sewell (b. 1967)
Laguna Beach-based artist, and avid surfer, Jeff Sewell was born and raised in Orange County, CA and studied art at the University of Southern California and Irvine Valley College. Sewell is an artist member of the California Art Club, signature member of The American Society of Marine Artists, and signature member of the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association (LPAPA) where he serves on their board of directors as the director of education and mentorship.

Year acquired: 2017