Curator Elizabeth Armstrong speculates that California cool was, in part, a reaction against East Coast angst. Painter John McLaughlin, Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, and Frederick Hammersley, a disparate group of California painters, plus Feitelson's wife, Helen Lundeberg, make up Armstrong's argument for cool art.

From left, Benjamin's "Red Blue Pink," "Black Pillars," and "Totem Group IV."