Art Auction Featuring Late Local Legends

Slideshow of all the artists works here: In Memoriam – A Fine Art Auction  

The Long Beach Creative Group is presenting In Memoriam, a week-long silent auction and exhibition featuring important museum-quality works from the estates of esteemed local artists, including Howard Hitchcock, Domenic Cretara, Richard Lopez, Steve Werlick, and Rod Briggs. 

Karena Massengill, auxiliary board member for LBCG said, “This memoriam exhibition offers an opportunity for people to acquire well-known artists’ artworks, at very reasonable prices while helping to fund good causes at the same time.” 

This is a rare opportunity to purchase a masterpiece, support the gallery, and the estates of these beloved artists. The Long Beach Creative Group intends to donate 10% of their share to Able ARTS Work a local nonprofit established in 1982, whose mission is to provide lifelong learning, therapeutic and vocational opportunities through the creative arts for people of all abilities and all ages in an environment of warmth, encouragement and inclusion. 

The namesake of LBCG Rod Briggs, who died in 2017, was a Long Beach Unified School District teacher for decades. When he wasn’t teaching, he spent nights and weekends in his studio, which is now the LBCG/Rod Briggs Gallery. He was a highly skilled, prolific and adventurous artist whose photo realistic paintings depicted familiar and surprising places throughout Long Beach. He also explored abstract expressionism, watercolor landscapes and many other media and forms.

Other artists In Memoriam include Domenic Cretara who completed his Fine Arts degree, graduating magna cum laude, from Boston University, where he also earned his master’s degree. Cretara served as chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the Art Institute of Boston. In 1986, he joined the faculty of California State University, Long Beach, also serving as resident director of the CSU International Program in Florence, Italy.

Howard Hitchcock was an American west coast modernist, and an accomplished printmaker, draftsman, and painter in acrylic and watercolor. His bronzes and linoleum prints depict human forms in architectural and whimsical situations. And his landscapes and drypoint (printmaking) show a keen sensitivity to the natural world.

Stephen Werlick earned a scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He went on to receive a Fulbright Fellowship, enabling him to study sculpture and bronze casting with Heinrich Kirchner in Munich, Germany. He earned his MFA from Tulane then for 35 years, he served as a celebrated instructor at CSULB. His work celebrates societal human conditions as depicted in monument-like groupings of figures interacting with and through various angled planes. 

The auction begins July 10 and runs from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, Bidding continues on Saturday, July 16, and concludes at 3 pm.

Time: 1 to 4 p.m. July 10 

Cost: Free

Details: https://longbeachcreativegroup.com/new-exhibits

Venue: Long Beach Creative Group, 2221 E. Broadway Long Beach