The Cool School

New York City has long been regarded as the heart of the American art movement, but by the 1950’s, as the post-war rise of Abstract Expressionism became the new wave of painting in the United States, a small but determined band of painters, curators and collectors on the West Coast were determined to make themselves known. Filmmaker Morgan Neville examines the rise of the Los Angeles art scene and how it brought a new and vigorously American slant to contemporary painting in the documentary The Cool School. Neville profiles Walter Hopps and Irving Blum, owners of the Ferus Gallery, which championed the new school of Los Angeles art; sculptors Ed Kienholz and Larry Bell and painters Ed Ruscha, John Altoon and Billy Al Bengston, all of whom were championed by the Ferus Gallery; architect Frank Gehry, whose ideas dovetailed with those of the new L.A. artists; and Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell, actors and Hollywood bohemians whose love of the new L.A. art (and willingness to buy pieces) provided crucial support for a struggling movement.

“The Cool School, a breezy, lively documentary about a thin slice of the Los Angeles fine art scene in the 1950s, is easy on the eyes, and the ears too.” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times)

“Cool School is a must for anyone interested in 20th century American art... what The Cool School does so well, through its color accents and black-and-white photography...is impart a sense of discovery.” (John Anderson, Newsday/Variety)

”All told, and well told, this is essential history.” (Nathan Lee, Village Voice)

“Documentarian Morgan Neville takes an appropriately lively, left-field approach to The Cool School's eye-opening history of the Beat-era Left Coast art scene -- a lesser-known chapter in the story of American modern art.” (Liza Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly)