130

Roger Kuntz

1926-1975

"Beach Porch II," circa 1960

Oil on canvas
Signed lower left corner: Kuntz; titled in pencil, and inscribed with black marker "RK13," both on the stretcher
39.5" H x 40.25" W

  • Provenance:
    The Estate of Sergei Bongart
  • Notes:
    Roger Kuntz was an American artist who trained, painted, and taught in southern California during a pivotal time in 20th-century art. His two large paintings in this auction act as guideposts to the evolution of his style and interests, from his early years in Claremont to his later years in Laguna Beach. They also reflect his awareness of the mid-century debate, both nationally and internationally, surrounding the artistic merits of realism versus abstraction.

    "Morning Interior #4," was likely done in the mid-1950s, shortly after he completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at two institutions in Claremont, a college town east of Los Angeles with a growing reputation for its art community. With this painting, which likely depicts his young wife in their own home, Roger Kuntz demonstrates the traditional techniques he learned in college from notable instructors such as Millard Sheets and Henry Lee McFee. Equally, it may reflect an appreciation for art he saw during post-graduation travels to France, Italy, and England. The scene, reminiscent of some of Henri Matisse's and Pierre Bonnard's interiors, also aligns with Kuntz's 1952 statement:  "I find the strongest joy in painting when I can equate the subject matter with a formal ordering of the canvas." There is certainly a sense here that the reading female, set deep within an interior space bathed in warm sunlight, is both protected and yet somehow also distanced from us by a visual grid created via the verticals and horizontals of partial walls, doors, half-open windows, and a multitude of furnishings and decorations.

    This desire for "formal ordering" is even more evident in "Beach Porch II." Similar to a nearly identical painting at the Laguna Art Museum, this work dates to around 1960. By this time, Kuntz and his family began regularly escaping the heat of Claremont by driving 50 miles to the seaside area of Laguna Beach. Soon after, he resigned from his role as an art instructor at the Claremont colleges, joined the newly formed School of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, and permanently relocated there with his wife and daughter. 

    Roger Kuntz often painted multiple works on the same theme, and both "Morning Interior #4" and "Beach Porch II" have companion pieces exploring similar subjects. Throughout his career, he created several painted series featuring single female figures seated in domestic interiors. Some depict an interior with a palette similar to the one in this auction, while others show the woman seated with her back against a series of windows, her facial features obscured by the resulting shadows, and the brilliant blue ocean serving as a horizon line outside the windows.

    Among Roger Kuntz's most famous works are his paintings of California freeway ramps, overpasses, tunnels, and signs, created around the same time as "Beach Porch II."  Like this porch which, aside from the recognizable empty chairs, is essentially an abstracted combination of harmoniously-colored geometric forms, Kuntz's freeway-themed paintings with their reductive tendencies, exaggerated viewing angles, dramatic lighting, and cropping, are a skillful mix of everyday realism and abstraction. By the 1960s, Kuntz was sometimes associated with Pop Art, as noted in a "Los Angeles Times" article titled, "Who's Who in California Pop." How Kuntz ultimately envisioned being remembered is hard to say. Exhibitions such as the Laguna Art Museum's 2009 retrospective, "Roger Kuntz: The Shadow Between Representation and Abstraction," argued that he was accomplished at uniting the two opposing approaches. Had he lived longer, he might have resolved that question for us. Instead, when a battle with cancer in the early 1970s caused severe mobility issues and an inability to paint, Kuntz committed suicide at just 49. One can only wonder about the art he might have created, had he just lived and worked for another 30 or so years.
  • Condition: Visual: Overall good condition. Dust accumulation and slight grime. Scattered small areas of stable craquelure, including in the upright porch beam left of center, and in the darker pigments of the upper quarter of the composition. A few spots of stray pigment, pea-sized or smaller, at the extreme right edge.

    Blacklight: No evidence of restoration.

    Frame: 41" H x 41" W x 1.5" D


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November 19, 2024 12:00 PM PST
Monrovia, CA, US

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