Photograph by Jim McHugh

Louis Stern, president/director of Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood, is a second generation dealer and one of three brothers in the art world. Born in Casablanca, Morocco, he immigrated with his family to the United States in 1955. This year marks his 46th year in the art business.

Recognized for his activities in the secondary market as dealer, advisor and consultant, Mr. Stern specializes in Impressionist and important modern painting and drawing. He has been consulted by the Los Angeles Police Department as well as the District Attorney’s office. He has also served as an expert witness in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. In addition to his current gallery in Los Angeles, Mr. Stern has operated galleries in London and Paris.

Gallery exhibitions have included solo shows for Matisse, Picasso, Leger, Villon, Kupka and other important modern artists. In addition he has organized thematic exhibitions such as Urban/Suburban Landscape, Surrealism and Outsider Art. In 2002, his gallery presented a seminal historical exhibition of Hungarian Avant-Garde paintings and drawings from the period of 1910-1935. He has acquired and placed works by the most renowned artists of the late 19th and 20th centuries including, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cassatt, Degas, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Chagall, Léger, Modigliani, Giacometti, de Kooning, Dubuffet, Francis and Warhol.

Over the years, his exhibition program has expanded to incorporate Latin American Art and works by a variety of contemporary Latin American artists. In 1991, Mr. Stern presented the first recent retrospective of the modern Mexican master, Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1871-1946) and continues to handle the artist’s estate. This exhibition served as the cornerstone for the major retrospective of the artist presented by the National Museum of Art in Mexico City in 1992.

Over the past five years, his gallery has begun representing the estates of a number of influential West Coast artists including Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg, Frederick Wight and Claire Falkenstein. Mr. Stern also represents renowned hard edge painter Karl Benjamin.

The gallery is currently in the process of creating the catalogue raisonné for Alfredo Ramos Martinez. Additionally, the gallery, in conjunction with the Feitelson Arts Foundation, is working on catalogue raisonné for the works of Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg.

Louis Stern Fine Arts has presented numerous exhibitions showcasing the work of contemporary and established photographers and has served on the selection committee for the photographic competition organized by Advertising Photographers of America/Los Angeles in 2002, 2003 and 2006.

Mr. Stern is on the Board of Directors of the Fine Art Dealers Association (FADA); the Art Dealers Association of California, Vice-President 1990-1991; International Foundation for Art Research, New York; Archives of American Art (Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; and a founding member of the Photographic Arts Council at LACMA. He is also on the advisory board of Gallery 825/Los Angeles Art Association and is listed in Who’s Who In America Art. He has spoken to numerous groups and assemblies regarding buying, selling and collecting important Impressionist and Modern works of art.

Louis Stern is a member of the executive committee of the Board of Governors at the Cedar Sinai Medical Center. He also serves on the board of directors for the French Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles. In 2001, he was awarded the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres presented by the French Ministry of Culture.

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