20 Collage Birds
Los Angeles-based Lou Beach is an artist, illustrator and writer who has been working in the medium of collage for more than 50 years. It began back in 1968 when he moved to California, where, in addition to being a veritable factotum, he made a study of Surrealism and started experimenting with assemblage art by making collages out of cut-up Life magazines. A road trip took him to Boston, where he ended up staying for several years, working ardently on his collages and illustration and getting his first solo show at the newly established Boston Center for the Arts.
After returning to Los Angeles, he focused more on his illustration career, creating images for record covers, magazines and newspapers. Collage-making was relegated to the realm of hobby, and his artwork created during this time was given away as gifts rather than shown in galleries. It wouldn’t be until decades later that he would begin to seriously attend to his craft again, spurred on by the encouragement of his adult children.
In 2009, a show at Billy Shire Fine Arts marked Beach’s official re-entrance into the fine art world, and he has had numerous shows in the years across the U.S. since then, including at: Adventureland, Craig Krull Gallery, Firecat Projects, Frederick Holmes and Company, Jack Fischer Gallery, La Luz de Jesus, Metro Show, Nickelodeon and OffRamp Gallery.
Beach’s collages are always as whimsical, vibrant and as surprising as the artist’s own storied life. His artistry is aptly exemplified in the following 20 avian-themed collage works, collected here as a set below!
Lou Beach (né Andrzej Jerzy Lubicz-Ledwochowski) was born in Göttingen, Germany in 1947, the son of Polish parents displaced by the Second World War. He is represented in Los Angeles by Craig Krull Gallery, in San Francisco by Jack Fischer Gallery, and in Seattle by Frederick Holmes and Company. More: loubeach.com