Frederick Hammersley Archive
Frederick Hammersley sketchbooks, prints, notes, and working materials, 1948–1980
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This small but very dense collection, generously donated by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation, sheds considerable light on Hammersley's artistic process from both an intellectual and technical standpoint. The materials have very high research potential for art historians and conservators. Because Hammersley was a generation older than the 1960s and 1970s artists whose work forms the Research Institute's strongest holdings in this area, the acquisition also significantly expands the scope of the Institute's related collections.
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Hammersley's attention to both craft and avant-garde visual strategies align him with a narrative of art in Los Angeles populated by poised, considered, carefully constructed objects, including those of artists Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, and Ken Price. This influence continues in younger generations of artists in Southern California, and owing in part to a renewed interest in abstraction, the last two decades have witnessed newfound attention to Hammersley's work.
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