The jewel-like colors are bright, electrifying. The lines contain an almost giddy motion. Faces are nearly cartoonish.
But on closer inspection you'll see those bodies are contorted. Limbs are misshapen. Faces register distress, despair, an Orwellian void or satisfied smirks.
 Hela Norman sits on a bed in her Tunitas Creek Road house. Behind her is a painting by her late husband Irving, titled "War Wounded." In her hand is a copy of a new book set for a launch party later this month. |
In many ways, this film-noirish art gives us our world.
This haunting look at civilization gone askew is the work of late artist Irving Norman (1906-1989), a Jewish Lithuanian immigrant and Half Moon Bay resident from 1960 until his death. With influences ranging from the Spanish Civil War to FBI blacklisting to horror at urban sprawl, he was a shrewd artistic commentator.
His work is gaining greater recognition now through the efforts of his widow, Hela, of Half Moon Bay.
"He reveals the tough truth, that not everything is hunky-dory," she said. "It's difficult to deal with."
This week, Coastsiders can discover Irving Norman's gift. On Friday evening, Nov. 17, the Coastside Film Society will screen three films including a Norman documentary made by Coastside filmmaker Susan Friedman (hmbfilm.com.) Next Friday, Nov. 24, there will be a launch party in San Gregorio for the book "Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman's Social Surrealism" co-edited by Coastside resident Ray Day (726-5889).
Want more? Visit the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, where "Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman's Social Surrealism," an exhibit of 25 large Norman paintings and 14 of his works on paper, runs through Jan. 2. In it sprawl the 27-foot-tall "Crucifixion" and 17-foot-wide symbolic triptych "War and Peace."
What took so long?
"I've always wanted to do an exhibition of (Norman.) This year, the anniversary of his 100th birthday, made sense," Crocker curator Scott A. Shields told Sacramento Bee art correspondent Victoria Dalkey in September. "Politically, our times cry out for a show like this. I think he becomes more and more relevant for us. But I also think he is technically powerful, with amazing things to say."
In the same article, Hela Norman agreed. "I think his work will be more understood (today) because the country is experiencing hardships and insecurities," she said. "He was ahead of his time."
She is making sure that understanding comes. At a tireless 79, her eyes crackle with the zeal that prompted her to contact 80 to 90 museums across the country, bringing her husband out of artistic obscurity.
Irving Norman was born Isaac Noachowitz in Vilius, Lithuania, where he grew up in poverty and first witnessed warfare with the 1915 German invasion. He apprenticed as a barber and came to New York in 1923. Eleven years later, he came to Los Angeles.
He became an American citizen in 1929 and later flirted with the Communist Party. In 1938 he volunteered as a machine-gunner with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. His Communist ties earned Norman 20 years' surveillance by the FBI.
The war, and exposure to urban Los Angeles and the Bay Area, where he came in 1940, left their mark on Norman, his wife said. First in black-and-white drawings, then watercolor and oil paintings, he began expressing his reactions.
"He would look at cities and say, 'I have to do (paint) it,'" she told the Review by phone from her home.
The results, she said, dealt with technology versus humanity. "You can see bodies that aren't like Grecian" ones often seen in fine art, she said dryly. "You can see the effect of modern life on human beings, in the historical context."
Hela Norman had a background that helped her understand her husband. She grew up in Nazi Germany in a village bombed by the Allies. Those years "made me appreciate what (Irving) was doing," she said. "I found it comforting that Irving did deal with it. It made me a staunch ally."
Bright, gifted in math and science, she fled Germany in 1954, sponsored by a relative in Marin County. She and Irving met on a bus in Sausalito, when he brazenly sat down beside her. They married in 1955.
Their marriage was a model of partnership. Hela worked for a florist, Irving worked one day a week as a barber and painted every day after making Hela's breakfast, and they made ends meet while living in Sausalito, Europe, San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.
In December 1988, a downed power line ignited a fire that consumed their rustic cabin and many of Norman's works on paper. The couple escaped "in their pajamas," Hela said. Fortunately, his paintings were stored in a warehouse.
Being married to him was "a handful," she said, but "I would not be the person I am now without having been married to him. He enriched my life, and I hope I enriched his ... It was a rich life, not one you could buy for money."
Shortly after the fire, he died in his studio from a heart attack.
Eventually, Hela rebuilt the house. Then she started contacting the museums.
As a result, Norman's work is in public and private collections nationwide.
In 1997, local photographer and videographer Susan Friedman made the 27-minute documentary "To Whom It May Concern" about Norman's work. She was helped by Half Moon Bay film producer Ray Day, who was so taken with Norman's work that he created the irvingnorman.com Web site and edited the book "Dark Metropolis."
A different kind of Norman watercolor - the lighthearted 60-by-84-inch "Small Town" (1986), depicting Half Moon Bay with familiar sites like Cunha's Country Grocery - hangs in Coastside Books, sponsor of the Nov. 24 book launch party.
"He was truly visionary" because he put things in that painting that didn't exist then but do now, said bookstore owner Inge Hildebrand.
"He just had fun, I think," with that painting, said his wife.
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Coastsiders pay tribute to Irving Norman
By Stacy Trevenon--[ stacy@hmbreview.com ]
Filmmaker Susan Friedman of Half Moon Bay is a friend of Hela Norman, widow of surrealist artist Irving Norman. Documentary film producer Ray Day, also of Half Moon Bay, hadn't heard of Norman until 10 years ago when he agreed to help Friedman.
Both grew to admire the artist.
"I was quite amazed," said Day. "He was an artist who was able to thoroughly think through an idea."
Over six months in 1997, Friedman made "To Whom It May Concern" -- something Norman was known to say -- a 27-minute documentary around the Lithuanian immigrant whose stark paintings pitted humans against technology and crowded cities.
Her work wasn't all about those bleak images, but "a pretty personal film" about the Normans.
"I like to tell stories," she said. "For me, it was a love story of Irving and Hela."
It does include his paintings, recordings of him talking about his work, and his "contempt" for politics.
Her film took prizes at the 1997 National Educational Film Festival.
It will be screened by the Coastside Film Society this Friday evening, Nov. 17, at the Community United Methodist Church at 777 Miramontes St. Admission is $6 at the door. Friedman will speak that evening. For information, see hmbfilm.com.
Day, an audio mixer in documentary film production for television and theater and also a Web site designer, had "never seen anyone so dedicated to his work and exploration of all avenues of an idea, like (Norman) does."
He designed the Norman Web site in 2003 and spent several years editing "Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman's Social Surrealism" (Crocker Art Museum, $35) a 223-page collection of Norman's work, categorized in topics like "The Social Illusion," "The Cycle of War" or "The Human Predicament." It contains an introduction by Crocker curator Scott A. Shields.
The book will be premiered at a launch party from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Nov. 24 at the San Gregorio Store on Stage Road in San Gregorio. The event is sponsored by Coastside Books. Day will speak at the event. For information and to RSVP, call the bookstore at 726-5889.
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AT A GLANCE
What: Three films shown by the Coastside Film Society, including "To Whom It May Concern" about artist Irving Norman
Where: Community United Methodist Church
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17
Cost: $6 donation
Information: www.hmbfilm.org
ALSO
What: Book launch party for "Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman's Social Surrealism"
Where: San Gregorio Store, Stage Road, San Gregorio
When: 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 24
Cost: Free
Information: To RSVP, 726-5889
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