Museo CYDT

STENDAHL GALLERIES
Founded, 1911

The two-house compound where author April lives on an avenue in the Hollywood Hills has been home to her husband's family business, Stendahl Galleries, since 1940. For twenty years prior, Earl L. Stendahl provided the finest examples of Impressionist and Modern art to the elite of Los Angeles collectors from his renowned galleries on Wilshire Boulevard. Stendahl was lured to the Hollywood neighborhood by collector Walter Arensberg, who, with Stendahl's help, amassed what was called by an art historian in 1950 "the most discriminating single group of twentieth century paintings and sculpture in existence."
Such was Stendahl's influence on the Southern California landscape, which began in 1911 and lasted well beyond his passing in 1966, when son Alfred Stendahl and son-in-law Joseph Dammann (already veteran dealers) carried on the business. Few remember that in 1939 Stendahl hosted one of only two non-museum exhibitions of Pablo Picasso's masterwork, Guernica, to benefit Spanish refugees. That historic showing was one of many pioneering efforts by Stendahl Galleries to bring important artworks to the attention of a public hungry for exposure to fine art.

Earl L. Stendahl was born in Menomonie, Wisconsin of Norwegian descent to a large family of confectioners. In San Diego, California, Stendahl began selling the works of local painters and opened his first gallery at the inauguration of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1921. Stendahl emerged as one of the most innovative and influential art dealers in Southern California. By the 1930s, the gallerist had established his reputation as the premier dealer in painters of the California Impressionist School. William Wendt, Guy Rose, Edgar Payne, Joseph Kleitsch and Nicolai Fechin were part of the early Stendahl stable of artists. Moving to larger quarters on Wilshire Boulevard, Stendahl introduced Modern art to the West Coast with works by Matisse, Chagall, Klee, Feitelson, Siqueiros, Cantú, Kandinsky, Braque and Picasso. In 1939 his gallery was one of only two non-museum venues in the U.S. to exhibit Pablo Picasso's masterwork, Guernica as a fundraiser for Spanish war orphans.
As early as 1935, Stendahl began promoting ancient artifacts from Mexico and Central America before branching out to become a significant dealer of the Pre-Columbian art of his day. Stendahl's son, Alfred E. Stendahl and son-in-law, Joseph Dammann, joined the family business. The gallery's archives were donated to the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art in 1976.The Stendahl Gallery continues to operate, celebrating its centennial in 2011, with Earl Stendahl's grandson, Ronald W. Dammann, presiding