Photos: David Weidman, the artist at home

The Weidmans live in a rambling L.A. home that they designed and built themselves in the 1950s, on a hillside lot bought at a city auction for less than $1,000. David Weidman’s touch is everywhere: in the address numbered and lettered by hand out front, in the ceramic mailbox, in tiles surrounding the studio door.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A hint, courtesy of the artist.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

David and Dorothy met in art school after World War II. He was a precocious painter who had mastered the then-popular illustration style of Norman Rockwell. She taught silk-screen printing. “I didn’t take her class, but I dated her for a couple of years,” he says, “and then she gave me the ultimatum.” They married in 1953. Weidman pored over magazine advertisements at the library, learning about building materials: cinder block, Douglas fir beams and panels, louvered windows, sliding doors, cork flooring and mahogany cabinetry. With the Weidman-designed built-ins, the house is filled with a lifetime of souvenirs but remains a compelling example of Midcentury open-plan living.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

African carvings and masks fill a wall behind the stovepipe chimney.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Glassware as colorful as Weidman’s silk-screen line shelves by a patio door.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Another piece of Midcentury style: the capiz lamp on the patio.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Weidman learned to print his designs on Masonite. Pictured here: his graphic treatment of cabinet doors in the bathroom.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Weidman’s work in cartoon animation and print illustration put food on the table but didn’t satisfy his artistic ambitions. Inspired by Matisse, Picasso, Chagall and Ben Shahn, he took up silk-screen printing in the 1960s and pushed the medium forward with innovative techniques. “I was the best thief in the business,” says Weidman, pictured here in his studio. “I would steal right and left but intelligently, without leaving fingerprints, in such a way that it became mine.” Weidman’s prints spanned moods and styles. Some looked like woodcut prints or pen-and-ink cartoons. Others had the imprint of Scandinavian design or some other ethnic decoration. Humor and a genuine affection for the world informed most of his work.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

The renewed interest in Weidman’s work has yet to reap a financial windfall, says his daughter, Lenna, who maintains the David Weidman website, where her father’s prints are sold. An August show is planned for the Vintage Collective in Long Beach. A line of stationery may be forthcoming too. It’s a lot of work, Lenna Weidman says, “but finally there are people who understand that his work is not just authentic to the period but are graphic statements.”

Weidman stopped making silkscreen prints in the 1980s, and the screens have since been destroyed, meaning all that’s left of the work from the 1960s and ‘70s are numbered prints that the artist still signs as they sell. Sculpture that he created but does not sell also is on display in his studio.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Weidman applied his graphic punch to old wooden hat blocks too.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

The hand-made mailbox.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)