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flip side, as it were, auction records of the past six years demonstrate that the L.A. aesthetic, long ridiculed or ignored outside its home base, has found its audience. Significantly, the highest prices were paid for works completed in Los Angeles in the 1960s: Ruscha’s Burning Gas Station , 1965, sold for $6,985,000, Baldessari’s text painting Quality Material , 1967, for $4,408,000; Hockney’s Beverly Hills Housewife , 1966, for $7,922,500, and his 1966 Portrait of Nick Wilder (in a swimming pool!) for $2,869,500. Nauman’s Henry Moore Bound to Fail , 1967, sold for $9,906,000; Irwin’s untitled two lines of red on tan, 1963, for $1,058,500; Bell’s coated glass box, 1969, for $623,400; and Chicago’s Car Hood , 1964, for $288,000. Kienholz’s 1959 sculpture Walter Hopps, Hopps, Hopps sold in 1989 from the late Ed Janss Jr.’s collection for $176,000. The Hotel Green sign signed in 1963 by Marcel Duchamp and Dennis Hopper sold for $362,500.
    Of course, the artists do not receive much financial gain from these sales, but validation from the market marches in tandem with validation from art history these days. The end of innocence marks the beginning of maturity.

 
    Acknowledgments
    Despite the cliché that those who remember the sixties weren’t really there, I found I could rely on the memories of any number of people who definitely were. Walter Hopps had a few memories to share with me just days before his death on March 20, 2005. Irving Blum offered many stories about this glittering era. Ed Ruscha, the first Ferus artist I met after moving to Los Angeles, was and is an inspiration. Others who offered encouragement at the outset of this project were Dave Hickey, Peter Plagens, Lawrence Weschler and Christopher Knight, all of whom have written astutely about these artists and this period.
    I am grateful to all the artists, dealers, collectors, their friends and family: Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Ken Price, John Mason, Frank Gehry, Joe Goode, Jerry McMillan, Mason Williams, John Baldessari, Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell, Mark Di Suvero, Claes Oldenburg, Don Bachardy, David Hockney, Gregory Evans, Doug Wheeler, James Turrell, Peter Alexander, DeWain Valentine, Helen Pashgian, Judy Chicago, Vija Celmins, Virginia Dwan, Cecilia Dan, James Corcoran, Dagny Corcoran, Babs Altoon, Rosamund Felsen, Sidney Felsen, Stanley and Elyse Grinstein, James Demetrion, Hal Glicksman, Lyn Kienholz, Mary Lynch Kienholz, Vivian Rowan, Penny Little Hawks, Happy Price, Bridget Johnson, Doreen Nelson, Shirley Hopps Blum, Danna Ruscha, Eve Babitz, Julian Wasser, Zazu Faure, Paul Ruscha, Robert Dean, Mary Dean, Larry Gagosian, Margo Leavin, Frank Lloyd, Craig Krull, Renato Danese, Arnold Glimcher, Michael Kohn, Jean Milant, Ulrike Kantor, Shoshana Blank, Patricia Hamilton, Charles Cowles, Doug Chrismas, Kimberly Davis, Elizabeth East, Peter Goulds, Ronnie and Vidal Sassoon, Sally Drennon, Peggy Moffitt, Chris Claxton, Ann Marshall, Teri Garr, Michelle Phillips, and the beat goes on.…
    A moment here to remember those who have died with their boots on in recent years: Henry Hopkins, Dennis Hopper, Craig Kauffman, Betty Freeman, and Patricia Faure.
    I’m indebted to the colleagues who have contributed to a deeper understanding of L.A.’s cultural history including Cécelie Whiting, Michael Duncan, Thomas Crow, Kristine McKenna, James Meyers, David Pagel, Leah Ollmann, Richard Hertz, Pamela Burton, Barbara Rose, Barbara Haskell, Gail Levin, Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, Debra Burchette Lere, Calvin Tomkins, Kevin Starr, Lars Nittve, Robert Berman, Suzanne Muchnic, and Barbara Isenberg. At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Carol Eliel, Stephanie Barron, and Toby Tannenbaum; at the Orange County Museum of Art, Karen Moss and Elizabeth Armstrong (now at Walker Art Center); at the Museum of Contemporary Art: Paul Schimmel and Ann Goldstein (now at the Stedelijk Museum);