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"LA's early moderrns unearths an eclectic community of artists, architects and photographers who pioneered the early Modernist movement in Los Angeles. The book's first essay, by Victoria Dailey, considers closely the work of five key artists--sculptor Peter Krasnow, lithographer Elise Seeds, surrealist and Abstract Expressionist painter Knud Merrild, painter and muralist Henrietta Shore and wood-engraver Paul Landacre. Their work defined Modernism in distinctly Californian terms: as an exploration of nature rather than machine, as a celebration of health and physicality. I was intrigued to learn how these artists found champions in bookseller and art dealer Jake Zeitlin and impresario Merle Armitage. At Zeitlin's bookstore on Hope Street, Arthur Miller reviewed the prints of Paul Landacre for the Los Angeles Times; Armitage designed a series of books to showcase the work of his friends, most notably Edward Weston , the first American photographic monograph of the early modern period; and Carey McWilliams, who went on to become editor of The Nation, co-founded The Primavera Press, a small press devoted to publishing rare classics of California."


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