Out there : the transcendent life and art of Burt Shonberg

Resource Information

The work Out there : the transcendent life and art of Burt Shonberg represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in San Francisco Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Out there : the transcendent life and art of Burt Shonberg

Title remainder

the transcendent life and art of Burt Shonberg

Statement of responsibility

by Spencer Kansa

Creator

• Kansa, Spencer

Author

• Kansa, Spencer

Subject

• Cameron, Marjorie, 1922-1995 -- Influence
• Janiger, Oscar -- Influence
• LSD (Drug)
• Laurel Canyon (Los Angeles, Calif.)
• Muralists -- 20th century
• Painters -- 20th century
• Artists -- California | Los Angeles -- 20th century
• Psychedelic art -- California, Southern -- 20th century -- Biography
• Shonberg, Burt, 1933-1977
• Shonberg, Burt, 1933-1977 -- Biography
• Peyote
• Biographies

Genre

• Biography
• Biographies

Language

eng

Summary

"From the late-1950s until his premature death in 1977, Burt Shonberg was one of the most highly admired artists in Los Angeles. During this period, his eye-popping murals graced the facades and interiors of popular coffeehouses and hip clubs on the Sunset Strip; his paintings adorned several notable rock album covers, and his haunting portraits featured prominently in Roger Corman's film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and The Premature Burial. Born in 1933, Shonberg grew up in the all-American beach town of Revere, Massachusetts, where, according to his friends, he spent most of his time drawing and indulging in his love of monster movies. After graduating high school, he studied for two years at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and then, after a brief spell in the army, he ventured to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a commercial artist. Soon after he settled in L.A., Shonberg became the lover of the legendary occult artist Marjorie Cameron who turned him on to the teachings of the Edwardian magus Aleister Crowley and introduced him to the mind-warping properties of peyote. Shonberg also embraced the Fourth Way system of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, and his canvases began to reflect the mystical illumination inspired by his higher states of consciousness. In 1960, the artist was chosen by Dr. Oscar Janiger to participate in his groundbreaking study into the effects of LSD-25 on the creative process. Although Shonberg regarded himself as a magical realist, his remarkable renderings of his hallucinogenic visions led many of his acolytes to regard him as the preeminent psychedelic artist of the era, and in the words of his friend and fellow painter Walter Teller, "Burt was the artist of Laurel Canyon." Yet despite his popularity and status, Shonberg's artistry has been criminally overlooked in all historical accounts of the Southern Californian art scene, until now. Out There redresses this injustice and brings some long overdue recognition to L.A.'s greatest lost artist, in a book illustrated with rare examples of his incandescent artwork"--Amazon.com

Cataloging source

YDX

Dewey number

759.13

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

ND237.C2217

LC item number

K35 2017

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography