Jean Milant, the master printmaker who helped expand the creative reach of young L.A. conceptual artists such as Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari with the 1970 founding of Cirrus Gallery and Cirrus Editions, has died. He was 81.
Milant died peacefully at home on Dec. 30, Cirrus Gallery announced Saturday.
Milant founded Cirrus as a gallery, printer and publisher at a particularly auspicious time for the Los Angeles art scene. The legendary Ferus Gallery had recently closed, but its counterculture legacy continued in the work of a politically active group of experimental artists including Ruscha, Baldessari, Ed Moses, John Altoon, Billy Al Bengston, Ken Price, Vija Celmins and Lita Albuquerque — all of whom made original prints with Milant and Cirrus.
At that time, only three major printing houses existed in Los Angeles: Tamarind Workshop (where Milant apprenticed as a printer-fellow under Garo Antreasian); Gemini G.E.L.; and Cirrus. The latter distinguished itself by focusing on the work of groundbreaking young artists based in Southern California. Milant also stood out as a craftsman who was not afraid to experiment with the printmaking process or the form it took. He once famously helped Ruscha use Pepto-Bismol and caviar to silkscreen an image of the Hollywood sign. He printed work by Eric Orr on lead, William T. Wiley on leather hide and Jill Giegerich on cork.
“In the early ’70s, because of the renaissance of printmaking, a lot of parameters were established for what a good print is. I think there are some people who try to take the technology and make it a tour de force. And that’s not where I’m coming from. I really only work with what the artist wants to do and hopefully push a little further,” Milant told The Times in a 1995 interview, when Los Angeles County Museum of Art staged a retrospective celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cirrus, titled, “Made in L.A.: The Prints of Cirrus Editions.”
Milant was also an artist and cared deeply about the experience of making art — for himself and also for the artists with whom he collaborated. As a printer, he wasn’t looking to reproduce work but rather to create new work, with fresh parameters that stretched what an artist thought themselves capable of.
“The exciting part for me is to be involved in the creation of the work,” Milant told The Times. “For one thing, the artist doesn’t bring in a painting to make into prints. They come in with an idea that they want to talk about, and the ball just starts to roll. It’s truly an original work of art in a graphic format, not just a reproduction of something that exists.”
Cirrus publications helped expand the reach of the vibrant L.A. art scene to far-flung locales and audiences. Shortly after founding Cirrus, Milant began traveling regularly, including to art fairs in Basel, Switzerland, and Cologne and Düsseldorf, Germany.
“My theory was that if I was showing this young art, and I thought it was the greatest art around, then I should put it next to [dealers] Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend’s art and see what they thought,” Milant told The Times. “And in fact, we had great success. There was tremendous interest in California art in Europe, and there still is. It was an awakening for me.
Milant was born in Milwaukee in 1943, and earned a degree in fine art from the University of Wisconsin before beginning his career as a painter. He spent time in a master’s program at the University of New Mexico in 1967, before heading to Los Angeles to begin his printmaking work at Tamarind. He founded Cirrus with $1200 in a Hollywood space that Ruscha helped him find near his studio. The collector Terry Inch later bought shares of Cirrus, becoming a behind-the-scenes partner.
In 1979, Cirrus moved its operations to Alameda Street in downtown L.A. at a time when few galleries existed there — eventually becoming a vital force in L.A.‘s Arts District. As the years passed, Milant never took his finger off the creative pulse of his beloved adopted hometown. Over the years, Cirrus has published and exhibited work by Fred Eversley, Craig Kauffman, John Mason, Eve Sonneman, Lari Pittman, Mary Weatherford, Sabina Ott, Jill Giegerich, Sarah Seager, Mark Bradford and Matthew Brannon.
“My whole concept was that I loved L.A. I thought it was like living in New York in 1910 or the ’20s. Everyone was building their own tradition,” Milant told The Times.
Milant is survived by his two sisters, Sue Lynn Milant and Jacqueline Milant Lohuis, as well as Cirrus staff members Robert DeMangus, Dan Bayles and Travis Lober.
