Going back to Cali

After a cool start, locals warm to Kidder Smith Gallery's affection for West Coast art

California artist Greg Miller's big paintings borrow images from 1950s-era pulp novels, film noir, and glitzy Las Vegas signage. (Globe Staff / Yoon S. Byun)

Nobody knew that Bostonians had a taste for California art, until Kidder Smith Gallery opened on Newbury Street in 2002 and discovered a hunger for it. This month, with an exhibit by Greg Miller, the Venice Beach artist who first defined the bold Kidder Smith aesthetic, the gallery comes full circle.

"Our first real LA show was Greg Miller," says Tom Smith, who owns the gallery with his wife, Becky Kidder Smith. "I met him through his gallery in San Francisco and walked into his studio at Venice Beach a year before we opened. I said, 'I love the work. I can't guarantee it will sell in Boston.' "

Miller makes big paintings that borrow images from 1950s-era pulp novels, film noir, and glitzy Las Vegas signage. He finishes them with a thick coat of resin that gives them a wild sheen. Like the work of many Kidder Smith artists, Miller's paintings blend technical sophistication with Pop Art accessibility.

That first Miller show at Kidder Smith sold out. This month's show is Miller's third. Smith says 90 percent of the work in all three has sold.

"That gave us confidence that there was an audience," Smith reports. The gallery followed Miller's first show with more California artists, such as Todd Brainard, Jimi Gleason, and Patti Oleon.

"I think it's valuable to bring a California aesthetic to Boston," says Nick Capasso, curator at the DeCordova Museum and a regular visitor to the gallery. "It makes for a more national, cosmopolitan art scene in Boston."

Some find the Kidder Smith aesthetic too flashy. "I don't want to say the work doesn't have weight," says Kathleen Bitetti, executive director of the Artists Foundation. "But they focus on selling the flash."

Smith and Kidder Smith found a slew of collectors in their 30s and 40s who wanted something new.

The gallery places full-page ads in Art in America, which garners attention to their website, and they've recently started going to art fairs. Despite doing business out of town and over the Internet, Kidder Smith says, the key to their marketing is their presence on Newbury Street.

"We looked at our client list, and three quarters of that number comes from walking by that window on Newbury Street," she points out.

That's what happened to Larry Burman, who has a house in Mashpee, and regularly visits Newbury Street in the summer. "My wife and I were walking down the street on a summer afternoon, and we walked into the gallery, and we kept going back," Burman says. "They have some unique artists that I haven't seen in the Boston area before."

On a recent Friday, Smith is just back from Los Angeles, jet-lagged and in need of a shave, but his dark-haired wife is sharp and succinct. She stayed home with their 4-year-old son, Griffin. Smith is the business's front man; Kidder Smith manages the books. They got into the gallery business after running a West Coast-themed restaurant in Wellesley.

"Juice bar, wrap sandwiches, good food fast," says Kidder Smith. She grew up in New Hampshire, and Smith hails from Queens, New York.

Their conversation together is rapid; they fill in the blanks in each other's stories.

"Traveling was our introduction to West Coast art," Smith says.

"We did research for our juice bar out there, and we kept getting swayed away to the galleries," Kidder Smith says.

"We were stealing menus and buying paintings," says Smith. Their passion for art turned out to be stronger than their passion for juice; they decided to open a gallery.

Boston collectors greeted the venue's California style with enthusiasm, but it rankled some local artists.

"When you explain to one or two artists that you're trying to bring new work in, and we're not showing local artists, that created tension with local artists," Smith says. "We didn't want to show work that had been shown eight doors down."

Besides, the local art didn't fit in the gallery. "It's like someone coming into the juice bar and ordering a cheeseburger," says Kidder Smith. "We urge [Boston artists] to try to show in West Coast galleries, or in Chicago galleries."

Over the years, the Kidder Smith Gallery has picked up a few Boston painters who fit into their vision, such as David Moore, Ann Strassman, Miroslav Antic, Peter Harris, and the late Ralph Hamilton. Most of their roster is still made up of out-of-town artists, but the initial resentment on the part of locals has died down.

Even so, their West Coast aesthetic imbues the gallery with an outsider status. Kidder Smith Gallery does not belong to the Boston Art Dealers Association; then again, neither do many of the newer galleries on Harrison Avenue. The gallery does boast good relationships with other dealers. Nielsen Gallery has reached out to Smith with an unusual proposition: In March, they'll rent Kidder Smith Gallery to mount a two-venue retrospective for painter John Walker.

"They're close to us, and I've always liked what they do," says Nina Nielsen, a fixture on the Boston gallery scene since 1963. "It's very different from what we do. . . . They do something that's their own. I respect that emphasis on West Coast art and Pop. It's a good addition to Boston."