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Leslie Kerr was a prominent figure in the California avant-garde art scene of the 50s and 60s; he had a solo show at Los Angeles’s Ferus Gallery in 1958, then moved up to San Francisco, where, between 1960 and 1966, he had five solo shows at the Dilexi Gallery; in 1962, he was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s seminal exhibition Fifty California Artists. In 1964, Kerr moved to New York, where he had solo shows at Odyssia Gallery and Bianchini Gallery, was in a group show at Green Gallery, and was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s annual exhibition of 1967.

Kerr built bright, sharp-edged paintings that reference the illustration art and advertising popular during his youth as a way to, in the words of curator Laura Whitcomb, “suggest that modern iconography had replaced systems of religiosity.” Kerr employed a remarkable precision in creating paintings that feature forms that are sometimes perfectly recognizable—like tongues, starbursts and sunbursts, rainbows, fountains, and clean circles—and other times morph into tubes and bulbous shapes that, while rendered with precise clarity, remain unrecognizable and mysterious, though they seem to reference the body. The mix of tones in Kerr’s paintings—sometimes clear and referential, sometimes shrouded—has built a body of work sometimes described as Pop Art, and other times as Surrealism. Always apparent in Kerr’s work is a technical precision; his superior abilities as a draftsman inspired ArtForum to call Kerr, in 1962, “one of the most able painters in California.”

Kerr earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in Art from UCLA in the 1950s, and was included in the show 10 Painters from UCLA, which traveled to several museums. When the Ferus gallery opened in Los Angeles in the late 50s, Kerr was included first in a group exhibition, then was given a solo show there. When friend Jim Newman moved to San Francisco and opened the Dilexi Gallery, Kerr followed suit, and became a prominent figure in early 60s painting in the Bay Area. Kerr lived in the building at 2322 Fillmore Street that became known as Painterland, which housed a shifting collection of painters and poets that included Michael McClure, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Ed Moses and Craig Kauffman; during that time, Kerr had five solo shows at Dilexi, whose stable of artists included Jess, Roy De Forest, Hassel Smith, Jay DeFeo, Craig Kauffman and Joe Goode.

Kerr thrived in the creative energy of the Bay Area; things became harder for him when he moved to New York in 1964. Kerr had a certain amount of success in New York—he had solo shows at Odyssia and Bianchini, and was included in a group show at Green—all prominent galleries—and was also included in the Whitney Annual in 1967. But things were challenging personally. In the mid-60s, a large group of Kerr’s paintings were shipped to him in New York, and were subsequently stolen from his studio there; the loss of much of his life’s work was a substantial emotional blow. When Green gallery closed, its director, Richard Bellamy, introduced Kerr to Ivan Karp, who would soon become the director of Castelli, arguably New York’s most prestigious gallery of the era. Karp loved Kerr’s work and suggested that Kerr make plastic renderings of his paintings, intimating that he’d like to show them. Kerr was incensed by that idea, which ended his relationship with Karp and ruined any chance he might have had to show at Castelli. Ultimately, Kerr’s years in New York felt hardscrabble and frustrating; in 1969, he returned to California.

Years later, Kerr, nostalgic for the scene in San Francisco in the 60s, said, “It was better when art wasn’t popular. The big bucks attracted the wrong element.” Kerr’s friend and fellow Dilexi artist William Dubin expressed the same sentiment about the Bay Area in the 60s. “Art for art’s sake was what it was all about—that, and a certain ‘heroic’ self-image we could still have as artists. All that’s gone now, as artists are promoters and marketers of their own stuff.” Back then, Dubin recalls, “It was like SF was oozing creativity, and it rubbed off on everyone.”

Leslie (Les) Kerr (1934-1992) was included in the Oakland Museum’s 1964 group show Pop Art and the Whitney Annual in 1967, and showed at Los Angeles’s Ferus Gallery in 1957 and 1958. He had five solo shows at San Francisco’s famed Dilexi Gallery in the 60s, and was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s seminal 1962 exhibition Fifty California Artists. He also showed at two of New York’s era-defining 60s galleries: at Bianchini Gallery in 1964 and at Green Gallery in 1963. Kerr received his MFA from UCLA in 1958. His works are in the permanent collections of the SFMOMA, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, the Crocker Art Museum, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum, and the di Rosa Collection.