Westlake art show draws fans of James Gill
Contemporary artist makes return
By Sophia Fischer sfischer@theacorn.com

Art history was made in Westlake Village last week.

After more than 30 years in seclusion, Pop Art icon James Gill returned to the art world at an auction of his work held Thursday at the Four Seasons Hotel.

"We gave him a good coming-out party," said Ian Wilson, a Westlake Village-based art broker and dealer. "We had an amazing response, including after the auction."

Gill's work hangs in the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum in New York City; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago. TIME and Life magazines featured Gill's work on their covers.

In 1967, Gill was part of a prominent exhibition in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that also highlighted then little-known artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns.

Gill's colorful acrylic paintings feature portraits of celebrities such as John Lennon, Elizabeth Taylor and John Wayne.

"James Gill is a significant member of art history who was present at the genesis of the Pop Art movement," Wilson said.

Born in Texas, Gill came to Los Angeles during the 1960s. His art was noticed by a prominent dealer who began supporting Gill so that he could afford to paint.

Shortly after, Gill's one-man show in New York was a huge success, and the Museum of Modern Art purchased his triptych of Marilyn Monroe. In the early 1970s Gill left the art world to retreat to rural Oregon.

Gill doesn't say much about why he walked away from the art scene, Wilson said, but he believes the reasons included the quick success Gill experienced, along with the drug-infused atmosphere of the 1960s.

"James Gill was the toast of Hollywood, living a sort of rock star lifestyle," Wilson said. "I would surmise that he wanted to get out of that--it was unhealthy."

Gill, 73, again lives in his native Texas. Now that the artist has reemerged, Wilson believes the price of Gill's work will increase to the levels of his contemporaries. The auction was an unusual opportunity for the public to purchase Gill's art, Wilson said.

"It is rare that a collector gets a chance to collect museum-quality artwork, by a museum-quality artist, short of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars," Wilson said.

"If he had not retreated into seclusion and disappeared for over 30 years," Wilson said, "his pricing should have been in line with David Hockney, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg."

For more information, visit www.ianwilsonfineart.com.