Self Taught Artist, Burton Kopelow, Age 89 to Have First Exhibition, Covering Nearly 50 Years of Work, at the LA Artcore Brewery Annex February 2, 2014.
(PRWEB) January 09, 2014 -- At the age of 89 Burton Kopelow is having his first, long-awaited exhibition at the LA Artcore Brewery Annex opening on February 2, 2014.
Kopelow is a self-taught artist with a large body of work and this retrospective show, which reflects his striking and distinctive abstract style, represents a fraction of his catalogue of over 2,000 pieces. Nearly 100 abstract pieces from the 1970s through today will be on view; ranging from wall-filling works of vibrant, colorful, geometric shapes with touches of irregular tessellation to smaller more recent works of more organic, free-form abstraction.
Kopelow’s painting career spans sixty years of exploration, expression and invention and his bold use of color, evocative imagery and personal mythology are strongly felt in all of his art.
Born in 1924 in Brooklyn to a Jewish, Russian/Austrian, immigrant family, as a child Kopelow was a troublemaker and an avid reader. He began his interest in art by reading about the lives of artists and frequenting the museums of New York City. In 1942, after completing high school, Kopelow was drafted into the Army, serving in the south pacific and emerging in 1945 as one of the few survivors of his Division in the Philippines. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
After the War Kopelow returned to New York and attended New York University on the GI Bill. When he finished school he moved to Los Angeles to work in a family business. Eventually he returned to New York and Greenwich Village, working at an art store by day and spending the evenings at the beatnik/artist/musician/writer hotspot Le Figaro Café, where he became aware of the avant-garde movement of the time. He left New York to travel across the country, spending time in California and Mexico. Throughout the 60s he lived and painted in a storefront on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, and in the evenings he hung out with friends George Herms, Wally Berman and other artists of the time, including Larry Bell and John Altoon. Kopelow’s painting career started in the 40s but it was in the 70s that he devoted his full time efforts to his art.
In the mid 70s, in Sacramento, Kopelow codified his artistic vision, influenced heavily by Jung and theosophy, and began work full time on “Chromorphism”: a series of 29 large canvases, 10 of which will be hung at the LA Artcore show.
Kopelow has since lived in a loft in San Francisco and in the late 80s became an early resident of the Downtown LA loft scene. Today he lives in Lake Balboa, California where he continues to work to this day, despite serious physical disabilities.
Media Contact: Nancy Blumstein, btcfilms(at)aol(dot)com
Contact:
Nancy Blumstein
btcfilms(at)aol(dot)com
Tel: 1-818-609-0062
http://burtonkopelow.carbonmade.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Burton.Kopelow.Artist
LA Artcore Show Dates:
Sunday, February 2 through Thursday, February 27
Hours: Thursday – Sunday, 12 – 5 PM (2/27 closes early at 3 PM)
Wednesdays by appointment only.
LA ARTCORE BREWERY ANNEX
650 A South Avenue 21
Los Angeles, CA 90031
Burton Kopelow, Burton Kopelow, http://burtonkopelow.carbonmade.com/, +1 310-825-1333, [email protected]
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