This essay places Hugo Ballin's life and work in its historic context, showing how his years living in Los Angeles influenced his artistic style and his career as an artist. Ballin himself might deny that notion, because he, like so many others, came to Los Angeles believing it provided an empty social and cultural terrain where he could advance artistic ideals he developed during his early years as a painter in New York and Europe. He insisted until the end of his life that he had never strayed from his classical training and was vocally critical of many of his contemporaries. This essay challenges Ballin's claims by examining the shifting landscape of American art in the first four decades of the twentieth century, highlighting the dramatic changes in the city of Los Angeles that occurred over the course of the four decades of his life there, and reflecting on how those developments influenced Ballin's work.

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