Text Julian Lucas
Photography John Cizmas

One positive thing about 2020 is I received a really, really, I mean really, nice gift from a really nice friend. I rarely receive gifts, especially a gift such as what I received. This got me thinking why don’t I receive receive gifts often? It might probably be because of my blunt nature, but then I realized, nah, whether I am outspoken or direct, people who really know me understand where I come from. Anyway, let me give you the tea about Marcia Hafif, the artist, and who she was, so that I could get the gift.

Marcia Hafif born Marcia Jean Woods in 1929 in Pomona, CA attended Pomona College and received her master's at UC Irvine. Hafif later moved and resided in the same neighborhood as the prominent Ferus Gallery on La Cienega in Los Angeles. She eventually travelled to Rome, and what was supposed to be a year-long trip ended up an 8-year stay. During this time, in 1964, she had her first solo show at Galleria La Salita, had a child who is her surviving son, Peter Nitoglia, and created some of her most notable, vivid Pop-Minimal works of art. Her exhibition, Italian Paintings, 1961 - 1969, based on this period, she displayed in her New York gallery.

Hafif relocated back to California in 1969 to be part of the University of California at Irvine's inaugural MFA class. For many years, she put painting aside, and began to concentrate on photography, sound, and sculpture. She then traveled to New York, first with her series Pencil on Paper (1972-1976), where she delved into drawing, and then started painting again, progressing into creating the monochromatic works that characterized much of her most mature series. For the rest of her six-decade-long career, she kept working through mediums, including performance. Sometime when arriving back in California, Marcia had made a book entitled, Pomona Houses.

Pomona Houses, consists of black-and-white photographs of suburban homes in Pomona, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Published by Motherlode Editions 1972.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

When Marcia Hafif returned home to her Pomona, California suburb after a decade of living abroad, she found that her childhood home had been demolished. In an exercise to recreate memories of the place, she photographed other houses in the neighborhood, of which a selection are collected in this book.

Similar in format, style and subject matter to Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Pomona Houses was published several years afterward to accompany an exhibition at Ivan Karp Gallery in New York. Hafif, whose oeuvre is largely painting, said that she didn’t know of Ruscha’s work at the time of photographing the series, and that it was Ivan Karp who designed and produced the book.

I honestly chuckled when reading the description of the book. I couldn’t believe what I had read. I read it again and this time I smirked in disbelief shaking my head: “She found that her childhood home had been demolished”. I then thought to myself demolishing houses and buildings is an issue in Pomona.

Furthermore, as a fine art photographer and a photojournalist and one who has made photo-books in the past, Pomona Houses, has definitely highlighted the importance of documentation.  

To any creative person interested in architecture, experience, history and photojournalism – I strongly recommend making attempts to find this book and purchase it. Just know there were only 300 copies printed, so you will have to search far and wide.

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer and photojournalist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.