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Charles Brittin Wallace Brittin Leaning Against a Wall at the Ferus Gallery Just Prior to the Opening of His Ill-fated Solo Exhibit, Which Was Closed Down on It's Opening Night by the LAPD for Pornography. The Words on The Wall Are Berman's Poetry 1957

“…For many it’s impossible to talk about Topanga’s glory days without invoking the name of Wallace Berman. An influential assemblage artist, Berman created collages with an early photocopying machine called a Verifax. With his hatchet-like nose and long, steel gray ponytail, Berman was part beatnik, part pool shark and all art. 'Wallace Berman was as pure an artist as there ever was,’ said longtime Topanga resident Dean Stockwell. 'He was the funniest motherfucker that ever lived, the greatest cocksman that ever lived…a big magus, the big affecter…Wallace Berman was the Monster Mash.’

Berman was known to be eerily prescient, even predicting his own death at age 50 in 1976. Stockwell recalls seeing the future in Berman’s house in 1958: ‘One day I noticed a decal on his backdoor window-an American flag and at the top of the thing were the words 'Support the American Revolution.’ All of a sudden it was like someone said my mother was a hooker...it bothered me. It struck me so heavily I couldn’t even confront Wallace abut it. Some years go by and I see the fucking revolution happen, man. I see everything in the world change around me.'"

A Stockwell photo of Berman would appear in the lineup on (the cover of) Sgt Pepper…”