Tobey C. Moss has been an art dealer since 1978, specializing in Los Angeles abstractionists such as Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg, John McLaughlin and Jules Engel. We asked Moss to reflect on her city’s unique style.

WHAT IS CALIFORNIA MODERNISM?
I call it California modernism to contrast it with California plein-air painting and California Impressionism. The latter have European roots brought by Hudson River painters who went West. California Modernism can claim Californian roots. Here, Post-Surrealism rejected the automatic-writing approach of European Surrealism, asserting that the artist’s intellectual and aesthetic control guided the "out-of-reality" imagery. By the 1950s, the terms "colorform" and "hardedge abstraction" are truly descriptive of California modernism.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK ART SCENES?
Lorser Feitelson, one of the most influential figures in the art history of L.A., fled from New York in the 1920s. He felt it was incestuous, and that the artists there were always looking over their shoulders. Oskar Fischinger and Jules Engel, who were European immigrants, fled from the restrictions of the East Coast seeking Western freedoms. We’re the Wild West; we don’t have same rules and limits as the rest of the art world. In my limited experience, New York is an entirely other scene, based on emotional responses, as in Abstract Expressionism. California has a cool, philosophical, contemplative quality. There’s an intellectual bent to the Western artists. To me, it’s more soulful, more truthful than the unbridled passions of Expressionism.

DOES IT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE LANDSCAPE?
Oh, yes. There’s a mood of mystery in Southern California, which is always associated with limitless space, light and freedom. California light is very famous; you can see it in the work of Peter Krasnow, another immigrant from Russia who came here from Chicago. Peter discovered the California pastel colors—pinks, yellows, lavenders and purples. California likes to strip away the frippery and reveal the bone structure. Space and light—those are words that are very important in California.

HOW DID YOU BECOME A DEALER IN THE FIELD?
I was a late starter. I began as a docent at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. My children were grown, and I wanted to find another direction for my life. I was asked to join the staff at Zeitlin & Verbrugge, a dealer in antiquarian books and graphic arts. Jake Zeitlin was very influential for me; he felt I could definitely serve the print community. So I began Tobey C. Moss Fine Arts as a business in 1978, as a print dealer offering five centuries of prints and drawings. At the same time, I was friends with Lorser Feitelson and his wife, the Post-Surrealist Helen Lundeberg. When he died, Helen asked me to go over what was in his storeroom. I began to research the art history of the United States and found that hardly any curator or publication crossed the Hudson River. So I changed directions. I’m still a dealer of fine prints, but I began to focus on Feitelson and his peers and their place in history. I felt a driving force to put this in historical context.

WHAT ABOUT THE CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS?
The contemporary scene is so exciting, but with younger artists I have to put blinders on because I haven’t the heart to reject them. They want criticism and guidance, which I love, but I can’t do it justice. I’m just a small, independent dealer, and it would be unfair to them for me to accept the responsibility of handling and promoting their work. I do protest against younger artists not knowing the influences they’re following. They don’t understand that they’re reinventing the wheel. But when I come across a true, innovative, inventive artist, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. I steer them to a place where they can get an audience, an arena.