This is the first monograph on the Californian pop artist in more than
thirty years, with a representative selection of works from 1957 to
2014. Billy Al Bengston is the very personification of the cheerful,
carefree attitude towards life in California--in both his work and his
personal life. After studying at the California College of Arts and
Crafts and the Otis Art Institute, he exhibited at the legendary Ferus
Gallery in 1957 and was the central figure among a group of artists that
included Frank Gehry, Edward Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, and Ken Price. BAB, as
he apostrophizes himself, inserts car and motorcycle parts as motifs
into his otherwise abstract paintings. He uses lacquer and spray paint
instead of oil and aluminum panels with dented surfaces instead of the
traditional canvas. Art and lifestyle combine to create the individual
"Bengston iconography" of California Cool.