Best Of WeHo: Art, Cannabis, Dry Cleaners

No. 1. Louis Stern Fine Arts

If you had any doubts about the quality of the work on display at this gallery on Melrose, consider the story of its owner, Louis Stern. Born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1945, he was the oldest son of art dealer Frederic Stern, whose focus was 19th Century French painting. In other words, Louis Stern’s life has been art.

Stern’s galley focuses on Mid-Century West Coast Geometric Abstraction and, it says, “represents the artists who defined and epitomized the California Hard Edge movement: Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg, and Karl Benjamin. The gallery also holds works by other influential Mid-Century abstract painters including John McLaughlin, Frederick Hammersley, Roger Kuntz, Matsumi Kanemitsu, and Ynez Johnston.”

Its contemporary artists including Mark Leonard, Kellyann Burns, Mokha Laget, and Richard Wilson, along with sculptors Knopp Ferro and Cecilia Miguez and photographers Magali Nougarède and Jean-Francois Spricigo.

Oh, et si vous êtes francophile, considérez ceci: In 2007, Stern was presented with the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (“Knight of the Legion of Honor”) by Pierre Vimont, the French ambassador to the United States, on behalf of the President of France. France’s most prestigious award went to Stern in recognition of his promotion of French culture and French artists and his French/American civic affiliations.