La Cienega Area

The American artist Charles White died in 1979. In a small homage exhibit marking a decade since his death, the artist’s longtime friend and dealer mounts a show spanning the arc of White’s career. Included are some lovely first sketches made in White’s teens, harbingers of the deft drawing and probing social sensitivity that would mark the mature work. There are also samples from the works completed in the last months of his life, done “on the sneak” against the orders of doctors who felt that paint fumes exacerbated the lung condition that eventually caused his death. (From this group a lyrical painting of a woman in night clothes is quite remarkable).

The show mainly highlights the versatility of an artist who could produce an Old Master Durer look in the pastel “Patriarch,” shift to the blocky disjointed lessons of Cubism in “Starred Cuff,” and float through one after another image of noble blacks from all walks without ever striking us as ingenuous, judgmental or maudlin. (Heritage Gallery, 718 La Cienega Blvd. to Nov. 11).