Lorser Feitelson - Harry Carmean's teacher

Lorser Feitelson was the artist that taught Harry Carmean most of which he knows and changed his life completely in terms of art. Carmean met him in the late 1940’s at Art Center where Feitelson was teaching at the time and the meeting forever changed Carmean’s life. He and Feitelson became good friends and Carmean continued to study with him for the next thirty years until Feitelson's death in 1978.

Feitelson lived in France in the early 1900’s and was part of the Paris art scene which was quite vibrant at that time and included artists such as Picasso. Feitelson came out of a time where people still had good training and aesthetics were valued. He was surrounded by the world’s top artists who had excellence and high standards and so Feitelson absorbed what he could out of this environment before moving to America. Feitelson’s European training in art was something he passed onto Harry Carmean over the course of thirty years until his death in 1978.

Feitelson had a number of distinctive periods throughout his career and explored both abstract and figurative art. His first period done in the early 1900’s was inspired by the Futurists and is known as Feitelson’s kinetic period. (bottom painting) In the 1920’s he began exploring the world of traditional figurative art and looked at the Renaissance and Nazarene artists. (middle painting) This early series was an influence on Harry Carmean’s stunning family paintings from the 1960’s. Next, he began working on a series of spectacular surrealist works (a whole blog will be devoted to this period) and in the 1940’s Feitelson completed a series of painterly, moody and very romantic paintings which featured strong lights and darks (also called tenebrism.) The top middle painting of a couple is an example of this period. It is called "La Boheme" and is a self portrait of Feitelson and his lover at the time, Marjorie Morse. Feitelson went on to create some more abstract works and founded the Hard-edge art movement of the 1950's and 1960's. The second from the top photo is of one of his grand "Magical Space Form" paintings done in the mid 1940's and which are transitional works leading to his hard-edge paintings.

As can be seen from these works, Feitelson was an accomplished artist, loaded with ideas and had a thorough knowledge of aesthetics and composition. He was an inspiration to Harry Carmean who, along with Feitelson's wife Helen Lundeburg, are considered the two best interpreters of Feitelson's teachings.