Les Kerr papers
name: label: Creator
content: Kerr, Leslie William, 1934-1992
label: Names
content: Kerr, Mary, 1937-
place: label: Place
content: North Beach (San Francisco, Calif.)
title: label: Topic
content: The Beach: San Francisco's North Beach, 1950s
topic: label: Occupation
content: Painters -- California -- San Francisco
label: Topic
content: Beat generation
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Donated 1994 and 1996 by Mary Kerr, widow of Les Kerr.
creator: label: Creator
content: Kerr, Leslie William, 1934-1992
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Painter; San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York; b. 1934, d. 1992. Les Kerr was an artist active in New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area in the 1950s and 1960s. Formally trained as an painter at UCLA, he studied under William Brice and John Paul Jones in the 1950s. His oeuvre included small sculptures and mixed media boxes, however, Kerr referred to himself as an "abstract" painter mainly within the Beat circle, principally in the North Beach area of San Francisco. Despite the fact that Kerr did not actively exhibit within the mainstream galleries, he did exhibit extensively with the Syndall Gallery, Dilexi Galleries (Los Angeles and San Francisco), and the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, mostly noted for showing the works of Beat and assemblage artists such as Ed Moses and Craig Kauffman.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.2 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1955-1996
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.kerrles
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Video recordings
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Video recordings
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Biographical material, photographs of Kerr, (1957-1969); correspondence (1961); list of artwork (1959-1992); exhibition announcements (1958-1984); clippings (1955-1984); slides of artwork; photocopies from exhibition catalogs (1960-1984); and a video, "The Beach : San Francisco's North Beach, 1950s" directed and produced by Kerr's wife, Mary, c1995 (1 hr.).