Tag: 01.20.18

I had “a strong suspicion that I’d done my best work and anything more would be inferior. I was by this time no longer in possession of the mental vitality or the verbal energy or the physical fitness needed to mount and sustain a large creative attack of any duration on a complex structure as demanding as a novel…. Every talent has its terms — its nature, its scope, its force; also its term, a tenure, a life span…. Not everyone can be fruitful forever.”

Moses will be remembered as an L.A. art world fixture, one of the city’s most productive and experimental artists of the last half-century. He had a restless romance with abstract painting that sparked a perpetually evolving body of work, leading him to dub himself “The Mutator.” Moses formed the “Cool School” of artists — who included Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Edward Kienholz, John Altoon, Ken Price and Billy Al Bengston — at L.A.’s influential Ferus Gallery in the 1950s and ’60s. Their raucous partying and creative camaraderie not only fused a nascent local scene but made the art world beyond take notice.

“After initially publishing the instruction book The Folksinger’s Guide to the 12-String Guitar as Played by Leadbelly with musician Pete Seeger in 1965, Professor Lester went on to write essays, fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. Among the latter was 1968’s To Be a Slave, which was named a Newbery Honor Book – a finalist for the prestigious Newbery Medal. He also collaborated with African-American illustrator Jerry Pinkney on children’s books, including a reworking of the Uncle Remus tales and 1996’s Sam and the Tigers: A Retelling of Little Black Sambo.”