Roger Herman's new show at @prazdelavallade is called My French Paintings but that doesn't mean that's everything the exhibition contains. On a quiet Saturday, when LA has now ghosted almost everything around, this lively, colorful show is a tonic, a sight for impoverished eyes, a blessing, even.

Herman is known both as a beloved, longstanding professor of art at UCLA but also a practicing artist whose work spans decades of experimentation and delight. German by birth, a Frenchman in his cool, seductive personality (and the pronunciation of his name, it's Ro-jay) and finally fully an Angeleno by self-definition, he came to the US, first to San Francisico, a fan of the work of David Park--who had already died-- (a recent retrospective of this hero of Bay Area Figurative at @SFMoMA all too evanescent) and Richard Diebenkorn--who was by then in LA. Where he landed eventually too--enamored of its anti history, its openess, a freedom he felt. Migrating from this Ocean Park-ness of semi-abstraction that reminds me also of Frank Auerbach, to pattern and decoration (as if Lari Pittman had taken acid), to the photo-based haunted qualities of Gerhard Richter, in the end, one hates to compare him to anything but himself.

My coup de foudre is for the pots. I was gifted one small one that had the sly, erotic etchings he became known for, but have now grown into full blown, colorful thin skinned vessels into which he has poured joy and life. I long to be able to buy one of these babies, but in the interim, there are still copies left of his limited edition signed book at @arcanabooks which will just have to do.