In February 1930,
at the age of sixteen years old, Harold Lehman left his home in New
York City to join his father in Los Angeles, CA. He began attending
Manual Arts High School in South Los Angeles because of its excellent
art department. It was there that Lehman met fellow students Philip
Guston (then Philip Goldstein), and Jackson Pollock. They all became
close friends, sharing the same interest in art, politics, and other
youthful ideals.
Lehman soon moved
to his own apartment in South Los Angeles in order to be closer to the
school. Jackson Pollock steered Lehman to this new address. Lehman recalls,
"Pollock was always coming around since his girl friend was the
landlady's sister".
In the national
best seller, Jackson Pollock, An American Saga (c1989),
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith write that: "Lehman was everything
that Pollock wasn't: self-confident, erudite, articulate, and extraordinarily
talented...Of all the artists Jackson had encountered, and perhaps ever
would encounter, Lehman came closest to that ideal of effortless accomplishment
expressed in the term 'gifted'. There was no doubt: Harold Lehman was
extravagantly gifted."
During these early
years, Lehman's main interest was in sculpture. Just prior to coming
to Los Angeles he had already had experience with clay and plaster-casting
in a large professional sculpture studio in New York City. As Lehman
recalls, "I took with me a full set of modeling and plaster tools
- which I put to good use in Manual Arts High School."
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Schwany, 1931
