Peter Plagens reviews Helen Lundeberg: A Retrospective at the Laguna Art Museum, on view through May 30, 2016.

Plagens begins: "The art of the Southern California painter Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999) is nothing if not clear, and she was nothing if not clear about it: 'My aim, realized or not,' she said in 1942, 'is to calculate, and reconsider, every element in a painting with regard to its function in the whole organization. That, I believe, is the classic attitude.' That perspective—removed and measured, but never cold or stingy—is continuously visible in what is, surprisingly, the first comprehensive survey (it includes 60-plus works) of this underrated and, in some quarters, barely known artist."