Gladys Aller


Gladys Aller was an American painter.

1915-1940

Gladys Aller was born in Massachusetts. Until applying for a passport in her forties, she thought she was born on July 14. Her father, Simeon Aller, being superstitious about Friday the 13th, had always told her she was born the day after. Her father, a Jewish Russian emigre, moved with his brother Joseph Aller to Hollywood in 1920 to work in the film industry. Her uncle Joseph Aller ran the darkroom for D. W. Griffith while her father sold raw film to the studios for Dupont. Other relatives were her uncle Modest Altschuler, the conductor and founder of the Russian Symphony Orchestra, and her uncle Gregory Aller, his daughter Eleanor Aller, both cellists, his son, pianist Victor Aller, and her cousin, art director Boris Leven. She was the youngest member admitted to the California Watercolor Society at the age of 14. At 15 she left high school to attend the Otis Art Institute. She also studied in Los Angeles at Chouinard Art Institute. In 1933 she went to New York City to study at The Art Students League of New York with George Grosz, Richard Lahey, and John Sloan.
Her watercolor "Portrait of Helen" was purchased by the New York Metropolitan Museum in 1937. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 35.11 in 1940, Harry B. Wehle wrote, "The West Coast has in recent years produced a particularly promising crop of water colorists, including Millard Sheets, Dong Kingman, George Post, Alexander Nepote, Milford Zornes and Gladys Aller."
Other exhibits include the California Water Color Society, 1930-46 ; Painters & Sculptors of LA, 1937–38; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1941–43; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts PAFA, 1937–40; Zeitlin Gallery, 1938 ; All-Calif. Exhibition, 1939; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Brooklyn Museum, the Legion of Honor at San Francisco, San Diego Gallery of Fine Arts, and Riverside Museum in New York City.
As an example of the art scene in Los Angeles in the 1930s, in February 1937, the Los Angeles unit of the American Artists' Congress held a Surrealist Valentine's Ball in Hollywood. Los Angeles artists gathered in elaborate costumes. Fletcher Martin, Edward Biberman, Eula Long, Brooke Waring, Tom Craig, Yvonne Siegel, Elaine Fullerson, and Charles Teske participated. Costumes were judged by Jean Muir, George Antheil, Paul T. Franco and Stella Adler while Eddie Barefield's swing band played.

1940-1970

On July 14, 1941, she married orthodontist Eugene Farber and moved with him to Los Angeles. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of that same year, her husband joined the US Air Force as a dentist. She accompanied him to his postings at Hamilton Air Force Base in Northern California, and at Tonopah Army Air Field, and Wallace Albertson were some of the other painters in the group.