The California-based artist Danny Heller paints the elements that define mid-century Modernism. Evening Swim (2025) depicts a Los Angeles swimming pool.
It took many years for Danny Heller to realize that the unremarkable place in which he grew up was actually so remarkable that it would become his painterly subject. As a boy growing up in the 1980s and ’90s in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley, Heller considered his family’s suburban setting to be “blank and bland and vanilla,” as he says now from his studio and home in Desert Hot Springs, California. “My childhood was a nice one, but for excitement, for cultural outings and sites, we would drive over the mountains into L.A. It wasn’t until I returned to the Valley after going to college up the coast that I really started to realize that there was a lot to look at. I started painting what I knew and what I grew up with. I wanted a subject matter to paint and I had found it.”
Given the post-War era in which the vast San Fernando Valley came into being as a suburban adjunct to the city of Los Angeles, some of its areas came to be defined—and still are—by exemplary mid-century Modern houses. These dwellings, most of them built in the 1950s and ‘60s, were made for their sunny California climes—with strong rectilinear lines, large expanses of glass, overhanging and butterfly roofs, swimming pools, terraces and interior courtyards, carports, and novel architectural forms akin to landed alien craft.
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A Millennial Modernist
California artist Danny Heller grew up well after MID-CENTURY MODERNISM prevailed in America, but he has recaptured and reinterpreted the era by painting its architecture, automobiles, and its very mood By David Masello It took many years for Danny Heller to realize that the unremarkable place in which he grew up was actually so remarkable…
Brought to Light
After 10 years in the making, San Francisco’s Legion of Honor now presents “The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy,” a landmark show of hundreds of objects that reveals the ancient civilization. As the show’s curator, Renée Dreyfus, says, “This exhibition tells the story of this overlooked culture, featuring icons of Etruscan art surrounded…
Aboriginal Originals
Indigenous artists of Australia reveal a people who create artworks that are ancient in origin while also remaining relevant and affecting today By David Masello When Australian indigenous artists create works, they often use materials immediately at hand. Earth, sand, the bark of eucalyptus trees, resin, sap, timber, bush cane, jungle vines, dyes harnessed from…
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Portraitist of Moods
Drive-In Dusk (2020) All images courtesy of John Dowd Although John Dowd has been coursing the streets and beaches of Provincetown for decades, he always finds something new to paint. And even if it’s the same subject, he sees it differently every time. By David Masello Should you be walking the streets of Provincetown late…
The City of Light in the Dark
An opium smoker, along with her pet cat, circa 1931 Courtesy of Moderna Museet, Stockholm © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026 The legacy of photographer Brassaï and his nocturnal wanderings through Paris in the 1940s goes on view at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet By David Masello For some, it’s among the most pleasurable and…
Always In Fashion
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (c. 1750) All photos by Joseph Coscia Jr., courtesy of the Frick Collection Thomas Gainsborough wasn’t a clothing designer,but he knew how to paint those garbed in the fashionable wear of his time, as an exhibition at the Frick Collection reveals By David Masello While Thomas Gainsborough understood the need to…
New Nation, New Art
With Nigeria’s independence came new art. London’s Tate Modern tells the story of 20th-century art in the nation, highlighting unique, Pan-African aesthetics. Written by Ashley Busby On October 1, 1960, Nigeria established independence from British colonial rule, and just after that declaration members of the Zaria Art Society published a manifesto that charged the nation’s…
Fit for a Queen
The Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York spotlights the opulence and over-the-top silhouettes of the Spanish Golden Age, including hoop skirts so large that women were accused of concealing illicit pregnancies. Written by Fred Voon In the 16th century, the world’s fashion capital wasn’t Paris or Milan. It was Madrid. After all, this…
Hail Trajan!
A fresco of Selene and Endymion, dating from the 1st century, once decorated a home in Pompeii The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston A touring exhibition, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, brings the ancient Roman emperor to life, as well as the lives of the subjects who lived under his rule Written…
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