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Innovation prevails in daring works by Claire Falkenstein
Edenhurst Gallery boldly steps into contemporary art this year, beginning with an impressive exhibition of works by the pioneering California sculptor Claire Falkenstein (1908-1997).
Falkenstein’s wildly abstract and expressive sculptures often fuse Venetian glass and copper in a process fueled by uninhibited experimentation. The raw materials suggest a high degree of difficulty, yet the pieces often appear to defy their physical limitations.
Falkenstein graduated from University of California, Berkeley, in 1930, and worked in San Francisco, Paris, and Los Angeles, where she settled and gained notoriety for her exhibitions and monumental commissions. In Paris, she was part of the avant-garde scene that included early Modernist artists including Jean Arp, Alberto Giacometti, and Antoni Tapies.
Edenhurst Gallery — known for its early California and American Impressionist paintings — selected Falkenstein for her radical, conceptual use of materials, which are as important to her work as the final forms, or “structures,” as she called them. Her aesthetic continues to capture the imagination of collectors.
— S.B.
Claire Falkenstein: Fusion opens Nov. 2 at Edenhurst Gallery, 73-655 El Paseo, Palm Desert; 346-7900.
