L.A.'s artistic roots

All four exhibitions are funded in large part by the Getty Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the Getty Trust, under the umbrella of "On the Record: Art in L.A., 1945-1980." A joint initiative of the foundation and the research institute, it was launched in 2002 "to document the history of advanced art in Los Angeles in the second half of the 20th century." The institute's principal role is to conduct oral histories and public panels that help tell the post-World War II story. The foundation provides support to museums, libraries and universities to preserve records of artists, collectors, museums, curators and dealers and make them available to scholars.

The Getty money -- several million dollars of it -- has jump-started a lot of behind-the-scenes research and closet-cleaning, much of it still in process. All this activity seems to have emerged from a confluence of forces: a coming of age, globalization and the Getty's increasing engagement with L.A.'s postwar art. Interest in the art history of a place sometimes thought to have no history has been growing for years -- at home and abroad -- as lots of independent projects attest.

One of the fall attractions at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm is "Time & Place: Los Angeles, 1958-1968," organized by Lars Nittve, the Swedish-born curator and museum director whose earlier creation, "Sunshine & Noir: Art in L.A. 1960-1997," traveled from Denmark to Germany, Italy and the U.S. from 1997 to 1999. Catherine Grenier, a curator at the Pompidou Center in Paris, made a big splash there in 2006 with "Los Angeles 1955-1985: Birth of an Art Capital." Her primary motivator, she said when the show opened, was young French artists' infatuation with L.A.

Although critics complain that such exhibits feature the same prominent figures and reinforce cliches, a fuller picture is likely to emerge with new exhibitions and publications.

In Southern California, the Norton Simon Museum has revived memories of Marcel Duchamp's 1963 retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum in a small show that runs through Dec. 8. Artists affiliated with L.A.'s Ferus Gallery in the mid-1950s and '60s are the subject of Morgan Neville's 2008 documentary film, "The Cool School," co-written by Kristine McKenna. Cecile Whiting's book, "Pop LA: Art and the City in the 1960s," appeared in 2006, and many other publications are in progress.