Reviews
Below are newspaper reviews which span a period of 60 years. They represent three generations of professional observers who have been consistent in expressing their appreciation for Don’s work.
December 25, 1948
Citizen-News, Hollywood, “At the Art Galleries” by Herman Reuter
A notable feeling for form and structure and above all for color, which is managed with taste, characterize a group of oils being shown at the Barnsdall Art and Craft Center by Don Totten. The paintings—still lifes and figures—are good and tough in the way they welded together.
November 7, 1960
by Helen Wurdemann, Mirror Art Critic
The first one man show in a long time by Donald Totten must surely surprise everyone, for this reserved and quiet painter (who teaches at the Barnsdall Art Center) has produced a brilliant procession of oils, sparkling with synchronic color.
Here are the gay and happy forms from the artist’s imagination, without allusion to the world of nature. There are none of the brutal menacing, even obscene, shapes that are so much a sign of our times.
November 10, 1960
Beverly Hills Times, “Art Review” by Charlene Cole
Light and bright are the abstract paintings of Donald Totten at the Plummer Gallery. At large show, the paintings are composed of both compartmental and open masses activated by small shapes and lines. Transparencies are used to advantage and color harmonies as well selected, however, individual colors are occasionally a little thin. The resultant works have a gay, occasionally whimsical quality evident in “Trio”, “Imprints”, and “Structure”.
November 13, 1960
Los Angeles Examiner, “First—Rules” by Caroline Strickler
The one thing Donald Totten refuses to teach his students at Barnsdall Art Center is abstract painting.
Why?
“I insist that they learn the grammar of painting first,” he said, “They must know how to see design and relationship of line and color. After they do this, I. Feel they can say what they want and go on from there. The fact that he has followed his own advice is seen in his exciting show at the Paul Plummer Galleries, 816 N. La Ciennega Blvd.
In his own case he thinks he has reached the point where he can say what he wants more directly without the intermediary of representational shapes.
He uses colors in their purest forms—blues and vivid purples are remarkably pure, grays are grays, yellows are real yellows. In this abstract exhibit, his executions of beautifully balanced shapes in swirling active motions, some of which resemble falling autumn leaves, are impressive examples of forceful, vital painting.
January 11, 1962
Los Angeles Times, “Artist Succeeds in Quest for Own Style”, by Henry J. Seldis, Times Art Editora
Donald Totten’s Paul Plummer Gallery exhibition is the best show to date offered by this gallery. His semi-abstract comments on landscape themes have become quite assured. The best of them are memorable for their palette and composition. It may well be that this young artist is about to find a style distinctive enough to put him among our leading artists.
March 20, 1997
The Beach Reporter, “Don Totten re-emerges at PVAC: More than 30 years after his work last showed, the abstract oil paintings of the late Donald C. Totten display the little-known artist’s desire to bring modern painting to Los Angeles” by Steve Coulter
It is precisely their sudden re-emergence after so long that makes this show seem so overwhelming.
Although impressive in both size and use of color. Totten’s works are most successful in their fluid composition.
Often hinting somewhat playfully at figurative representation of both human and landscape forms, Totten’s work provide sideways glimpses into a space defined solely by the artist’s interpretation.
His paintings are vibrant and portray a sort of energy that must have emanated from the artist’s, but are at the same time insightful and carefully crafted.
In contrast to many of the contemporaries, with whom he is associated and compared, Totten avoided the popular hard edge style and instead employed a more evocative approach that resulted in these impressive canvases.
It is easy to predict that these works will begin to be recognized with the respect they deserve and on a much larger scale in the very near future.
March 27, 1997
Press-Telegram (Long Beach), “A gathering of bold, colorful abstractions”, by Shirle Gottleib, free-lance art critic
Abstractions, yes, but allusions to nature and vibrant, colorful landscapes abound. Check out “Purple Ground,” for example, where a cascade of purple, gold and brown swatches seems float through the air like so many autumn leaves. Or “Day,” where the right side of the canvas is painted in darkness, moving through a pink band of glowing dawn, to a abstracted landscape of tree and cloud formations.
Much of the composition is geometrical, evoking the influence of Constructivism; but the skillful layering of transparent washes also reminds one of the rich color and expressionism of Kandinsky.
“Abstraction is using the language of nature and recognizing man as a part of nature,” says Totten in his notebook. “In great painting, one finds two elements existing side by side almost … at the reality of what one sees and (the inner reality of) what one knows.”
January 20, 2006
Los Angeles Times, “The evolution of art, Otis style” by Hugh Hart
…Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Executive Director Mark Steven Greenfield…”This is a snapshot of the evolution of art in Los Angeles...,” he said of the (77) works by artists who have studied at Otis College of Art and Design since its formation.
….”Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art.”
….To select works for the show, Greenfield, along with Meg Linton, director of Ben Maltz Gallery & Public Programs at Otis, and Scott Canty, curator at Municipal Art Gallery, sifted through thousands of slides solicit from the School’s alumni.
“We made this huge list and just went on gut reaction: We love this person’s work,” Linton said, “And then we had to get real.”
….Paintings from Altoon (“Untitled” from the mid-1960s) Bengston (“Bossea Draculas,” 1975) and Don Totten (Abstraction,” 1961) retain their power to intrique, Greenfield says.