Considered one of the foremost postwar abstract painters in the Southern California scene, working alongside a generation of artists known as the “cool school,” Ed Moses has been engaged in what he sees as a continual process of discovery for more than half a century. As he describes, “Painting is like discovery, trying this, trying that, bending this, twirling that, and then every once in a while it goes bing!” His compositions include Braque-inspired, semi-representational scenes; abstract, allover patterns; color fields; hard-edged geometric shapes; and, recently, what he calls his “crackle paintings,” whose cracked and layered surfaces resemble tree bark or parched ground. He was among the first generation of artists to be shown at L.A.’s legendary Ferus Gallery in 1957, and his work continues to be exhibited worldwide. For Moses, however, success is secondary to the pleasure of painting itself.
Considered one of the foremost postwar abstract painters in the Southern California scene, working alongside a generation of artists known as the “cool school,” Ed Moses has been engaged in what he sees as a continual process of discovery for more than half a century. As he describes, “Painting is like discovery, trying this, trying that, bending this, twirling that, and then every once in a while it goes bing!” His compositions include Braque-inspired, semi-representational scenes; abstract, allover patterns; color fields; hard-edged geometric shapes; and, recently, what he calls his “crackle paintings,” whose cracked and layered surfaces resemble tree bark or parched ground. He was among the first generation of artists to be shown at L.A.’s legendary Ferus Gallery in 1957, and his work continues to be exhibited worldwide. For Moses, however, success is secondary to the pleasure of painting itself.
