Art: Landscapes of the Mind

Los Angeles’ Lee Mullican, 32, is a lanky (6 ft. 4 in.), transplanted Oklahoman with prematurely grey hair and a bird’s-eye approach to art. His bright abstractions have a rarefied upper-air look, almost as if they were terrain studies done from 30,000 ft. There is good reason for this. Lee Mullican discovered his personal art style as a member of a topographical battalion in World War II— drawing operations maps from aerial photographs.

After a look at Mullican’s current show, the first he has ever held in Los Angeles, the critics gave him hearty cheers. It was not the first time for the cheers. In four years, his canvases have been hung in 19 exhibits from coast to coast, and have been bought up by museums and private collectors. The San Francisco Chronicle calls him “one of the most original, independent and thoroughly accomplished young painters in this or any other part of the world.”

Painter Mullican has spent half his young life searching for a style. He tried everything from printmaking to wildly abstract human figures, but it was the war and his 21 months as an Army topographer in the Pacific that showed him what he was looking for. Today, he builds his strange and wonderful landscapes by laying on row after row of thin, radiating lines in red, yellow and brown paint with the blunt edge of a knife. He works until the ridges seem to catch and reflect the light, like fine embroidery done in metallic thread, and then he is satisfied.

In his tumble-down cottage in Los Angeles’ Brentwood section, Mullican leads the life of a happy bachelor. His steady companions are three wise-looking Siamese cats, and he spends his time painting in his personal stratosphere. Sometimes it seems a lot more interesting than the world down below. Says he: “You might call my paintings landscapes of the mind. Anything can happen; there can be caves in space, or mountains in the sky, or stars on the ground. It’s rather like playing God, myself.”