De Herrera, Gloria, 1929-1985

Biographical/Historical Note

Gloria Claire de Herrera was born in Los Angeles on April 26, 1929, of Mexican and German descent. In 1947, while still in high school, she befriended Barbara C. Byrnes, owner of the American Contemporary Gallery on Hollywood Boulevard, and her husband James B. Byrnes. In 1949 James Byrnes, at that time a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, offered De Herrera a position as project secretary for the California Centennial Exhibition; she also acted as slide-pusher for Byrnes's course on twentieth-century art at USC, and learned art conservation at the LACMA conservation laboratory. During these years De Herrera also became friendly with Man Ray and his wife Juliet (née Browner), as well as artist and collector William Nelson Copley. Through Copley and Man Ray she received entrée to a circle of artists connected to the Surrealist movement, including Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Roberto Matta-Echauren, Yves Tanguy, and Marcel Duchamp.

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