The Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery announces the first retrospective exhibition of portrait artist Juan Bastos, part of The Getty’s “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA – Latin American & Latino Art in LA.” The exhibition brings together 35 oil paintings, pastels and pencil drawings of distinguished Californians and celebrities painted and drawn by Bastos from 1996 to 2017.
Portraits of Richard Harrison, Sir Ian McKellen, the children of Jimmy and Vicki Iovine, Rudolph Nureyev, Patricia Morison, Lawrence Platt, Don Bachardy, Dr. Alan Shabo, Valerie Sobel, Susan Sontag, Charlize Theron, Gore Vidal, Maria Vidal, Andrew and Erna Viterbi and Hutton and Ruth Wilkinson will be among those on view.
“Juan Bastos: California Portraits” is part of the Participating Gallery Program of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, an exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty.
Juan Bastos is a Bolivian-American who has lived and worked in Los Angeles for 22 years. Born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1958, he with his family returned to their homeland 11 years later. In 1979 Juan came to the United States where he enrolled at Georgetown University, later obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and a Master of Fine Arts from Towson University.
Bastos portraits are displayed in private residences, embassies, churches, libraries, universities, government buildings, and corporate offices in California, and throughout the US, South America, and Europe. Commissioning institutions include the University of Southern California, Good Samaritan Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, George Washington University, and Harvard University.
“This is an opportunity for many of my portrait subjects to see their portraits displayed in a group exhibition for the first time,” says Bastos.
In 1999 the New York Times featured Bastos in a front page Arts & Culture story about the reemergence of traditional portraiture. Important art collectors Philip Niarchos, Eugenio Lopez, and Pamela Joyner have commissioned Bastos portraits.
Denenberg Fine Arts was established in Boston in 1965, in San Francisco from 1983 to 2001, and since 2002 in a landmark building in the West Hollywood Design District at 417 N. San Vicente Blvd. It is a private gallery open by appointment, with special public hours for the Bastos exhibition as follows:
The opening is Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or by appointment, through Nov. 18.
