LEONARD EDMONDSON (1916-2002)
Initiation

"Leonard Edmondson's art career began at the University of California at Berkeley. After service in the Army, from 1942 to 1946, Edmondson embarked on a distinguished teaching career that has spanned five decades. Although renowned for his work as a printmaker, Edmondson has used a wide variety of media in his art. By 1950, he made an abrupt change from figuration to abstraction, cited by the artist as a journey of discovery of inspiration and meaning in his work.

Launching his distinctive style from abstract surrealism of Paul Klee and expressionism of Hans Hofmann to techniques of Stanley William Hayter, Edmondson's aesthetic vocabulary invokes 'almost remembered' forms, feelings and spaces in his paintings, watercolors, etchings and screenprints.

Leonard Edmondson wrote: ""This vocabulary manifests itself in a dynamic structure where color responds to the size and position of shapes, and reinforces the intent of the composition. Lines close to make shapes that occupy shallow space. I am equally concerned with what I want to say and the formal values I use to say it. My painting is not art of rebellion but one of discovery and sharing. I have found satisfaction in the spontaneous, often compulsive, active of drawing and painting."""