Norton Simon Museum Exhibition Celebrates Galka Scheyer, Modernism's West Coast Champion

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, is presenting "Dear Little Friend: Impressions of Galka Scheyer," an exhibition running through July 20 that shifts focus from the famous artists she represented to Scheyer herself. Born Emilie Esther Scheyer in Germany in 1889, she began as a painter but her trajectory changed after meeting Russian artist Alexei Jawlensky in 1916. The show features personal correspondence and Modernist artworks, including eight rare portraits of Scheyer, highlighting the friendships she cultivated and her efforts to introduce European Modernism to the United States. A letter from artist Lyonel Feininger to Scheyer, dated January 1945, praises her for giving the artists their first foothold in America, arriving just months before her death in Los Angeles at age 56.