John Wesley Original Vintage Still Life Linear Landscape with Styled Objects "Cafe" Los Angeles California American Modernist Painting
Original vintage figural surreal landscape with still life objects in an abstract composition, by Los Angeles, California artist, John Wesley (1928-2022). In the background of the painting is a "Cafe," holding a much deeper meaning within the surreal symbolism of the composition.
John Wesley (November 25, 1928 – February 10, 2022) was an American painter renowned for his unique figurative works that blend humor and eros, rendered in a precise, hard-edged, and deadpan style. His art consistently maintained the stylistic principles he developed in the 1960s: flat shapes, delicate black outlines, a limited matte palette of saturated colors, and elegant, pared-down compositions. Wesley's characteristic subjects included nymphs, nudes, infants, animals, pastoral scenes, historical references, and 1950s comic strip characters, often placed in humorously blasphemous and ambiguous scenarios of forbidden desire, rage, or despair. Initially classified as a Pop artist due to his appropriation of popular culture's visual language, Wesley was later recognized as an art outsider whose work defied categorization. Critics noted his psychological exploration of the American male unconscious, formal affinities with abstraction, and wide-ranging art-historical borrowings. Artforum's Jennifer Borum described Wesley's work as a combination of "a Pop vocabulary, a refined Minimal sensibility, and a surrealistic proclivity for uncanny juxtapositions," while Dave Hickey likened him to an eighteenth-century Rococo "fabulist" for his penchant for erotic narratives.
Wesley's work has been exhibited in major institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Portikus in Frankfurt, and the Chinati Foundation. His art is held in public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Whitney Museum. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976.
Life and Career
Wesley's early exhibitions included group shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Art Museum, and the Whitney Painting Annual. He participated in Documenta 5 and had solo shows at Robert Elkon Gallery. Later, surveys of his work were held at the Stedelijk Museum, MoMA PS1, the Harvard Art Museums, Chinati Foundation, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, and Fondazione Prada.
Work and Reception
Throughout his career, Wesley's work appropriated popular media imagery but was noted for its more discomfiting and peculiar recontextualizations compared to Pop art. Critics highlighted his poetic mix of charm and trauma, sweetness and underlying eroticism, and personal memory and fantasy. His work often featured jarring couplings and Minimalist-like repetitions of figures, suggesting elusive narratives and deeply personal meanings.
Wesley's later work continued to explore themes of eroticism, frustration, terror, despair, and violence within mundane, everyday life. His paintings often depicted ambiguous and primal scenarios using popular 1950s comic strip characters, with a particular focus on Dagwood Bumstead from Blondie. These works examined themes of insatiable desire, inadequacy, rage, longing, and loss. In the 2000s, Wesley incorporated a female character inspired by the Japanese ukiyo-e genre, exploring shared erotic preoccupations.
Public Collections and Recognition
Wesley's work is part of numerous permanent collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Blanton Museum of Art, Chinati Foundation, Denver Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Harvard Art Museums, Hirshhorn Museum, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Museum Ludwig, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Portland Art Museum, Rose Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Whitney Museum, and Wadsworth Atheneum.
He received several awards and recognitions, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and accolades from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Circa 1930
Nude in a Modernist Landscape
Acrylic on Wooden Board Panel
The painting alone measures approximately 24” X 32”. Measurements are larger, in the frame. Painting’s board is sealed with a type of clear wax glue, to the original vintage frame.
The painting is in very good condition. The paint is stable. There are a couple of very small areas/previous chips that have been restored in the last decade and a couple of minor areas of wearing of the paint. Please note: the shine on the (black shadow, to the left) first image, is a reflection from the (natural) light. Please review all images
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