SANTA MONICA, CA.- It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of the revered artist and dear friend, James “Jimmy” Hayward, who died this morning. Born in San Francisco in 1943, Hayward spent the majority of his life in Los Angeles, where he became a defining figure in the region’s post-minimal and monochrome painting tradition. Until recently, Hayward lived in an airstream on his beloved horse farm in Moorpark, an image that suited him: a painter who was part philosopher, part cowboy, and wholly singular.

For more than four decades, Hayward pursued a deeply committed investigation into gesture, materiality, and the physical act of painting. Associated with the lineage of West Coast abstraction, he developed a distinctive monochrome practice defined by densely worked surfaces of thick oil paint. Built through deliberate, diagonal strokes across canvas-covered panels, his paintings form ridges and textures that emphasize both the physical presence of paint and the quiet discipline behind each mark.

At the core of Hayward’s work was a philosophy of equality—of marks, of attention, of experience. He resisted hierarchy within the pictorial field, seeking instead a “proletariat” approach to painting in which every gesture held equal weight. The result was a body of work that balanced vigor with stillness: surfaces alive with movement, yet remarkably stable and contemplative. Critics often remarked on this paradox, noting the way his paintings could feel at once dynamic and meditative, immersive and restrained.

Color was central to his vision. Working frequently in red, black, and white, Hayward created deeply resonant monochromes that heightened perception and invited sustained looking. In certain installations, his works extended beyond the canvas, saturating entire spaces and dissolving the boundary between painting, architecture, and viewer.

Hayward received his BFA from San Diego State University and later studied at UCLA before earning his MFA from the University of Washington. Over the course of his career, he exhibited widely, with work shown at major institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many others. His paintings are held in numerous public collections across the United States.

A dedicated teacher as well as an artist, Hayward mentored generations of students at institutions including ArtCenter College of Design and the University of California, Los Angeles. His influence extended far beyond his own practice, shaping the language of painting in Los Angeles and beyond.

He was the recipient of many prestigious honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Artist Mike Kelley once described him as “one of the few truly important West Coast painters.”

Above all, Jimmy will be remembered for his integrity, his generosity of spirit, and his unwavering belief in the human capacity to make something meaningful and shareable. As he once said, he hoped his work might allow others to feel, even briefly, a sense of pride in what we are capable of creating together.

We feel fortunate to have been in touch with him recently, and to have included two of his remarkable paintings in our current group exhibition, Surface Tension. He will be deeply missed.

-William Turner