75 years

C h r i s t i a n t i t l eG e o r G e S t e r n F i n e A r t S Los AngeLes 8920 Melrose Avenue West Hollywood, CA 90069 (213) 652-0525

CArmeL P.O. Box 2953 Carmel, CA 92921 gsfa@sternfinearts.com www.sternfinearts.com

Front Cover: Mona Lisa II, 1986 Back Cover: Ice Cream Lady, 1998

40 x 30 Oil on Canvas

De Ville Galleries 8751 Melrose Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90069 (213) 652-0525

Design: grdesignorr, Orralyn Vithyavuthi Printing: Color West Inc., Burbank, CA

All rights resevered. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in

writing from the publisher.

75 years

C h r i s t i a n t i t l e

A Personal Statement My figurative images take place in a mystical state. One where my hand is guided by subconscious forces.

I believe in a cult of simplicity where symbols play the leading roles in the play. The symbols are the means

of poking fun at morality and the facade of social acceptance. I reduce the intellectual reasoning as the logical

impasse, and put the emphasis on instinctive response. With the vocabulary developed through many decades

of direct experience and the desire for the final reduction, I search for the simplest way to express what one

knows to be true. People are all about their sex, their image, and their desires. I find the ambiguity, the pun, and

the double take of oneself the inspiration. In these I have become indifferent to light and concentrate upon the

transposed expression of forms, to expose the world of appearance.

1

“Great Grandfather Christian Anderberg” 1947 18 x 14 inches Pencil Drawing

A Current Evaluation of the Work of Christian Title To intellectualize in an attempt to explain Art literally and reasonably has been the continuing challenge of

my lifetime. After hundreds of reviews and numerous articles, I have synthesized my evaluations and realized,

intuition and expression are the most prized elements in the creative process that defines the art. To view the

picture as something apart and beyond nature with an individual concept. Nurturing a philosophy of change,

the formal expression of something imagined. There is no explanation for the spiritual creative impulse and

expression, and no one can write assuredly of the aesthetic. What can be determined is the originality of the

creation. In the case of Christian he has progressed into an esthetic which is unique. In a search for the secret

realms of the intuitive expression and creation, he has escaped from the easy enjoyments of imitative realism.

He found in his experimental advances in impressionist concepts and color harmonies, a limiting creative

endeavor. His senses thrilled to a finer sensitivity and enlarged capacity for aesthetic experience. His uncanny

evaluations of character portray their Freudian masked frustrations. Symbols and illusions confuse and

stimulate the mind. To search beyond the obvious is the secret in reviewing these works.

“Train Station in Soller” 1992 30 x 40 inches Oil on Canvas

2

I ask myself what kind of a

mind can invent thesefantasies,

how real are they? It is particularly

interesting to study the drawings

to understand, as they are

spontaneous and revealing.

He has abandoned the search for

perfection in the natural world,

as it will always be inadequate as

opposed to the mysteries in the further

reaches of creation. He has not forgotten

the plastic architecture of the picture, the organization of volumes, or the stabilizing of the sense of movement.

He achieves a range of values depending on the nature of the subject, projecting a human stimulation.

The best of the abstract figurative expressionist painters grew through a series of stages. However, it is

important to not discard the classical training, or the experimental purges into the various realms of art that

have set the standards. There are many voyages into the unknown to find a harmonious and final truth. As

I have spent time with the new work, I have realized that it is completely original, unlike anything that I

have encountered. It possesses a unity of its own. Having known Christian for more than half a century and

experienced his overwhelming creative accomplishments, I can say assuredly that he is truly the essence of the

creative spirit. All of his mature works speak to people with an aesthetic sensitivity, and that is enough. But,

there is an inner dimension which is not known, the artist is searching for a deeper value and hidden truth, and

the manifestation from a well of truth interpreted through the use of his vocabulary of personal forms. I find a

unidentifiable mystic value in the concept and forms.

Guided more by a inner process of evaluation and portrayed through subconscious training and knowledge.

3

“Nude Study” 1952 Ecole des Beaux Arts 36 x 27 inches Oil in Canvas

It is something new in the world, different from nature and what has gone before. The expression is instinctive,

not thinking about the effect he is achieving specifically with paint and canvas, as it is an extension of himself.

The most important element is the subjective contribution, a stripping away of the non essential, and a sifting of

the remaining elements for subjective expressiveness. He vaults both the subconscious and the objective thought

and arrives at a source beyond. A harmony of physical being, portrayed thought, and sexuality. The reflection of

human life as it is now in the twenty first century.

4

“The Red Bottle” 1955 32 x 27 inches Oil in Canvas

In the early years at the Ecole de Beaux

Arts, Christian displayed his great talent as

a classical draftsman, “Nude Study”, is an

example. For a period of time he broke with

the classical and the impressionist style, and

while preparing his thesis he became enamored

with the work of Roualt and Soutine. In this

period he embraced a more expressionist

idiom. His experiments followed closely the

German expressionist painters. “The Red

Bottle” and the above were the survivors

of the Bel Aire fire where many of his early

works were lost. In the following years his

work portrayed the familiar impressionist

style. As the work progressed and became

more individualized, he searched for the

inner dimension and deeper value. His

experimentation with the glare aesthetic and

multiple light source, gave birth to a unique

impressionist style. He would embrace and

develop this style for many years, but, always

5

“Rae” 1957

24 x 20 inches Oil on Canvas

“Red Hammock” 1958

36 x 48 Oil on Canvas

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venturing out, sometimes when his life changed, his art changed with it. Spending time in Guaymas in Mexico,

the intense light inspired him to paint in the Fauve style with pure color. He made the color even more intense

by using a bold black outline. This three year adventure culminated in a very successful exhibit at the Perreau

Saussine Gallery in West Los Angeles, Examples of this period are, “Red Hammock” and “Rae”. In 1961, after

a divorce the artist measured his response in a strong expressionist idiom using reds, blacks, whites and greys,

with various dashes of accent colors, in a series of mood paintings which was the reflection of his disappointment

and inner conflict., The body of this work was shown at the Frederick Hobbs Galleries in San Francisco.

“Morning Letter”, is an example of the Woman series.

As early as the 1950’s in Paris, the artist was fascinated with the Cubists and Modernists. He studied with

Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote, and began experimenting with the abstract figurative image. Studies with

“Morning Letter” 1960 30 x 30 inches Oil in Canvas

7

“Way to the Village” 1986

24 x 30 inches Oil on Canvas

Master Oskar Kokoschka in his London studio, and contact with Francis Bacon and his work furthered his

interest. The distortion and dissecting of the human figure held his interest. Slowly over a period of years the

impressionist work declined and the specialized figurative work grew. Although his impressionist paintings

had created a substantial demand, his direction became ever more focused on the mystic manifestation from

his vocabulary of forms. Curious and unsatisfied his impatient energy continues with the love and contempt

of a young man. Fulfilling his desire to be entirely free to create his own world with no rules, no conventions,

no prejudices, He continues to paint the figurative interpretations with a remarkable stylistic originality

inspired from his exposure to country, his society and his friends.

2007 Marcel Briand Marcel Briand has been a leading Art Critic in France for over sixty years.

8

“Flea Market” 1954 24 x 30 inches Oil on Canvas

A Conversation with Title I asked the artist about his abrupt change after forty-five years of impressionism, to the abstract figurative

works which he started to show in a new realm of galleries, only to be told that the work had been pursued for

over thirty years. It was initially experimental but progressed into a pursuit which increasingly required more of

his working hours. Not wanting to conflict with the work that was paying the bills, he refrained from exhibiting

his new canvases. This is his reply:

“As an artist I have been a lover of impressionist paintings for well over fifty years. There has been during this

period an inner conflict of abstraction verses realism. The sum total of my experience refers to nature, but ever

present is an emotional essence which needs to express lifes force in personal terms. My abstractions represent

a symbolic personal language. It is a devised alphabet consciously repeated until it becomes second nature, only

9

“Steps on the Bodeasse” 1978

24 x 30 inches Oil on Canvas

then can it be emotional and spontaneous. The figurative subjects which I pursue are specific individuals, from

my personal life, or public figures which for various reasons trigger a response. If it then becomes universal, it

is accidental. Impressionism is the playground in which I can experiment with light and color. Abstraction is the

carnival of line, shapes, volumes patterns and colors used to entertain my evaluations. When the viewer stands

before one of my impressionist paintings, I hope to give him an insight into the ever changing prism of my vision.

In my figurative work I hope to awaken within him an emotional response which is not understood but pursued.”

On close examination of the symbolic imagery, one can understand the artists moral dimension of the human

condition, both in terms of humor and protest.

Marcel Briand, Paris, 1997

10

“The Red Boat” 1988 30 x 24 inches Oil on Canvas

“The phenomenon of light and atmosphere as it applies to the figure and landscape is a fleeting one. Even the swiftest and most astute of painters cannot record canvas in that brief moment. The moment must, therefore, be recorded in the mind and senses.”

CHRISTIAN TITLE