ArtistAbril, Ben

Artist Years1923-1995

Artist NationalityAmerican

TitleOld Church on the Marsh

Yearca. 1950

MediumPainting > Oil

DimensionsCanvas: 20 X 30 inches

Accession NumberRC453

NotesBen Abril was born in 1923, the son of Ventura Abril and Sarah Varela Abril. He was an American artist best known for his paintings of California, often depicting urban landscapes, vehicles, and buildings of historical interest. He also focused "on weathered buildings that have been standing for 100 years or more, on ghost towns, on old roads passing through rural places." His scenes of a now-vanished Los Angeles have become his most sought-after works.

After serving in the air force during World War II, Abril studied briefly at the Glendale School of Allied Arts with Arthur Beaumont (1890-1973). He then worked on night shifts at a post office in order to paint during the day. During these years he painted the circus and became interested in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles. He returned to school in the late 1940s to study art at Glendale College and landscape painting at the Art Center School of Design with Trude Hanscom (born 1898). He studied architectural rendering at Chouinard Art Institute and took watercolor classes at the Otis Art Institute. Abril also studied privately with landscape painter Orrin A. White and painted with members of the California Water Color Society.

The County of Los Angeles hired him in 1955 as a cartographer and architectural draftsman, a position he held for some twenty years. He also worked for architectural firms and briefly as a scenic designer for Desilu Productions.

From 1959 to 1963, Abril embarked on a series of thirty-six paintings of old buildings, including dilapidated Victorian mansions, in the Bunker Hill area of downtown Los Angeles. His work attracted the attention of Alexander Cowie, one of the "big three" art dealers of Southern California, who in 1962 began to represent Abril. During this period, Abril also illustrated three children's books about railroads by David Robert Burleigh, How Engines Talk (1961), Piggyback (1962), and Shoofly (1963). A major exhibit of his work at the Cowie Wilshire Galleries in Los Angeles in 1964 was described as a "prodigious display" by Artforum. The 1964 Cowie exhibit was a watershed in Abril's career. That year, actor and art collector Vincent Price bought out Abril's entire studio, purchasing 37 paintings.

The United States Navy commissioned Abril to paint a series on Japan and another of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam for their collection. California governor George Deukmejian collected his work, as did President Richard Nixon, who in 1972 acquired one of Abril's Northern California seascapes.

In 1987, Abril was commissioned by Cardinal Mahoney to paint the San Fernando Mission; the work was presented to Pope John Paul II during his visit to Los Angeles, and is housed in the Vatican.

1987 also saw the release of Abril's book Images of a Golden Era: Paintings of Historical California, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and at the San Bernardino County Museum.

At least one of his paintings, a landscape with ruins along the Appian Way south of Rome, suggests Abril spent time in Italy.

Abril's technique was to begin with a "a lengthy study of the site, taking several photographs in different types of light. He may take 400 photos a week of various sites. By the time he puts brush to canvas he feels a kinship with his subject. 'You see an old barn or something and you stare at it long enough until you become that barn,' Abril says. 'Art is not what you do, it is what you are.'"

Abril died of complications from cancer on June 7, 1995, age 74, in La Cañada Flintridge, California.
(source: wikipedia.org)