Partridge
exhibits California pictures
By Christine G. Adamo
On-line Forty-Niner
LOS
ANGELES— The trail to the Hollywood sign,
spreads across an undeveloped stretch of
Los Angeles’ earthy flesh, can be as elusive
as Andy Warhol’s promise of everyone’s turn
at 15 minutes of fame.
 Pulling
up to the curb that aligns them with this
architectural jewel, visitors to Dawson’s
Book Shop find what they were looking for
— an antidote for artists and activists
seeking refuge from an ever-encroaching
world.
Rondal Partridge and the other photographers
and authors whose works are on display win
an even sweeter prize. Their 15 minutes
have been frozen in time.
Twenty-nine of Partridge’s photographic
prints are currently on display in the bookstore’s
Michael Dawson Gallery to promote a retrospective
look at the 85-year-old artist’s accomplishments
in “Quizzical Eye: The Photography of Rondal
Partridge,” published by the California
Historical Society Press and Heyday Books.
“(This collection) provides a broad overview
of the history —the social history — of
the California landscape,” Francis DellaVecchia,
the business manager of Dawson’s Bookstore,
said of Partridge’s work. “(Patrons) can
come and watch what happened to it, right
before their eyes.”
DellaVecchia called Partridge’s photography
a juxtaposition of natural and manmade elements.
DellaVecchia said Partridge’s mentors Dorothea
Lange and Ansel Adams focused on isolating
various aspects of the changing California
landscape.
Adams sought to isolate the landscape and
bring it to the forefront of Californians’
attention, using the state’s natural splendor
to remind them to hold it precious in their
hearts and in their minds.
Power lines rise like mighty giants, obstructing
an otherwise idyllic view in “Berkeley Sunset;”
a sea of automobiles creates its own landscape
in an ode to consumerism titled “The American
Way;” and save for a few dozen bulldozer
tracks “Pismo Beach” looks like the perfect
place to dig your toes into the sand and
let the ocean wash your cares away.
The collection captures Partridge’s subjects,
both animate and inanimate, in the act of
contemplation. They contemplate change,
resistance to change and the struggle to
coexist with a society that reveres continual
deconstruction and reconstruction.
That society, as Partridge and his counterparts
captured it, was being buried under a sea
of waste — the byproduct of progress made
in pre-World War II California, through
the baby boom and beyond.
Selections from Partridge’s collection were
formerly on display at the Cal State Long
Beach University Art Museum from June 20
to Aug. 6, 2000, when Partridge was invited
to participate in “Beyond Boundaries: Contemporary
Photography in California.”
The “Quizzical Eye” collection is available
for viewing and purchase through March 29.
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