Laguna Art Museum Seeks Collection That Got Away
William Wendt's "Spring in the Canyon," 1929, oil on canvas. Private Collection. The refrain, "out with the old and in with the new," is usually reserved for New Year's Eve or serial marriages, but rarely associated with museums. Not so at the Orange County Museum of Art where director Dennis Szakacs is tossing out the old to embrace the new and kicking up a controversy along the way.
What else could art lovers assume after the Los Angeles Times revealed last month that Szakacs had sold 18 California Impressionist paintings under the radar and reportedly under price to a Laguna Beach collector he declines to name and everyone is feverishly trying to uncover?
What's known is that he's someone who champions California art, is reputedly willing to share his collection with the public, and that he got the bargain of a lifetime.
What matters more, according to Jean Stern, director of the Irvine Museum, is not who bought the paintings but why they were sold at a bargain price of $963,000 under a veil of secrecy without giving museums collecting California Impressionism such as the Irvine, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and the Laguna Art Museum a chance to bid. "Museums hold art in trust for the public. The paintings really belong to the people of Laguna Beach," Stern said. "They were bequeathed to the Laguna Art Museum in the 1930s and'40s when it was still a tightly controlled organization and the artists were still alive then," he said.
Unlike some who suggested otherwise, Stern contends that the mystery buyer is not a dealer. "Any dealer would welcome publicity since any paintings with this sort of notoriety would fetch a higher price," he said.
Fellow museum directors, usually as loquacious as Trappist monks when it comes to criticizing peers, expressed concern over the secrecy surrounding the sale. Hugh Davies, director of San Diego's Museum of Contemporary Art, fretted over eroding civility and called Szakacs' move "uncollegial," yet concedes that mu- seums should deaccession (sell, trade or auction off) works no longer relevant to their mission.
Szakacs refused to comment when asked to respond.
Reaction in Laguna Beach has been mixed, with Laguna Art Museum director Bolton Colburn and members of the governing board regretting another lost opportunity to bid for the works lost after an aborted 1996 merger with the Newport museum.
Artist Marlo Bartels says the sale does not pass the smell test. His wife Cathy has started a letter writing campaign, asking state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to investigate the transaction. "There is a moral component to all this. Museums are responsible to the public and not just about business," she said.
Colburn says he was unaware the 18 paintings had been sold until May, when the Laguna museum's registrar Janet Blake asked her OCMA counterpart for the loan of Clarence Hinkle's "Woman in a Hammock" and was told that the piece was no longer in the collection, but had been sold to a private collector. Inquiries about William Wendt's "Spring in the Canyon" got the same answer.
"My initial reaction was one of disbelief," said Colburn, expressing confidence museum supporters would rally to buy the cache or a part. "Had we made appeals, we could have raised the money. That is still our intent," said board president Lou Rohl. "We would love to approach the buyer and see if he would repatriate the pieces into our collection."
The Laguna museum apparently did not act forcefully enough when a glimmer of an opportunity surfaced to bring some of the 18 home.
At an informal dinner with Szakacs earlier this year, Mark Bergendahl, the Laguna museum's chairman of collections and fellow board member Greg Salmeri, asked about plans for the California Impressionists, given that the Newport museum wanted to narrow its collection toward post 1950s and contemporary works.
Bergendahl recounted via email: "….A few days later, I received a phone call from Dennis wherein he stated that he was intrigued by our discussion the other evening and asked that I contact Bolton Colburn to inquire if there would be interest in the three of us to meet for coffee or lunch to informally discuss a possible trade for contemporary works held in the LAM collection. When I called Bolton about this, he stated that he was not particularly interested in a trade for works between the two museums. Rather Bolton stated that a better alternative might be for OCMA to consider giving the California Impressionist works to LAM or that OCMA might accommodate a long term loan of the works whereby LAM could be responsible for their care and maintenance."
He wrote that he spoke with Szakacs a week later, intending to follow up on his conversation with Colburn. It was then he heard that Szakacs had other plans for the California Impressionists and that there was no longer a need to meet. Bergendahl never learned those plans and the matter was dropped.
Calling the talks informal and OCMA's approach oblique, Colburn said: "Dennis had broached the idea of trading some work with our collections chair. What Dennis was suggesting was not a deal we wanted to pursue, but we were thinking of ways of getting pieces back."
Advisory board member Peter Blake says that this situation shows how there must be stronger deaccession guidelines and better communication between museums. "Much of this is attributable to faulty communication between two individuals who basically like each other, and in this age of easy electronic communication this should have never happened," he said.
Laguna Beach art dealer Ray Redfern, who specializes in California Impressionism, is adamant the paintings should have never been sold. Given the chance, he would have bought the package. "There are some quality works and also some c-rated ones. I would have dispersed the lesser ones and kept the best ones together," he said. He also suggests that while the paintings were sold below market, that market is shaky just now. "In good times, a (Granville) Redmond would fetch at least $420,000, but these are not good times," he said. He attributes the sniping among dealers over the price as jealousy and cautions that lately some private collectors have been selling off works at auction.
Redfern predicts the sale could erode donor confidence "I have given a lot of paintings to museums in the past, but now I would think twice," he said.
Ten of the painting are on display at the Nevada Museum of Art in an exhibition titled "Open Air: Impressions of the California Landscape" until Nov. 29. Highlights of curator of exhibitions Ann Wolfe's selections include Anna Althea Hill's "Lure of the Road," 1916, Edgar Payne's "Sierra Slopes," 1925 and a 1920 Untitled (Seascape), Marion Kavanagh Wachtel's "High Sierra," and Granville Redmond's prized "Silver and Gold," 1918.
