THE BURGEONING OF THE LA BREA GALLERY SCENE

For those heading north on La Brea Avenue from the Santa Monica Freeway, a simple green sign announces “County Museums.” It ought to add “approaching L.A.’s most happening gallery scene.”

The strip of La Brea Avenue, roughly between 2nd Street and Beverly Boulevard, has blossomed with contemporary art galleries in the last five years. Those in the art community believe the flurry of activity will escalate now that the County Museum of Art, about a mile away, has opened its Robert O. Anderson Building for 20th-Century art.

Jan Baum, who said she opened the first gallery on La Brea in 1981, estimated that there are about 20 galleries on La Brea and three on (intersecting) Beverly Boulevard now. “And every dealer will tell you that--especially during the last year--there’s been a tremendous increase in people looking at art,” Baum said. “The Anderson will just stimulate even further growth.”

Howard N. Fox, the museum’s new curator of contemporary art, has been watching La Brea Avenue burgeon since 1980, when downtown was talked about as the upcoming arena for art.

“In 1980 I remember thinking La Brea was nothing but used-car places and vacuum cleaner repair shops,” recalled Fox, who visited Los Angeles several times before moving here from Washington last year. “Then two years ago I began to see a dramatic change, and the bud of downtown didn’t seem to be flowering with the same kind of compulsive interest I’d heard about.

“I’m not a real estate developer, but I’m not sure downtown ever had the right economic mix and residential population to sustain that kind of energy. But around La Brea (an area bordered roughly by La Brea on the east, Robertson Boulevard on the west, Santa Monica Boulevard on the north and Wilshire Boulevard on the south) there’s very fine housing and a strong sense of community. A lot of people in their 30s and early 40s are moving there, buying homes and building their first art collections.”

Add to that, Fox said, other establishments have recently spruced up La Brea and adjacent streets (including Beverly and Wilshire boulevards and Melrose Avenue), such as City Restaurant, the recently renovated Cineplex Odeon Showcase movie theater, clothing boutiques, several art supply stores and frame shops.

“I can sense the vitality around here,” said Fox, who lives in the neighborhood. “Not just from my vantage point at the museum, but as someone interested in the night life, the stores, the services. And I think the Anderson building will bring further liveliness to the immediate area.”

Muriel and Sigmund Wenger opened their Wenger gallery on La Brea last month after showing art in the San Diego area for 23 years. “We felt this area was in the process of revitalization,” said Muriel. “There was space available here, and the same situation existed in SoHo (one of New York’s gallery rows) when it started. It seemed La Brea was going to be like another Soho. The Anderson building can’t be anything but a help to the situation in contemporary art.”

Neil and Alice Ovsey worked downtown for six years before relocating the Ovsey Gallery to La Brea this spring.

“We didn’t stay downtown because business was bad,” Neil Ovsey said, “and we wouldn’t have moved if our building wasn’t being sold. But now that we’ve made the move, we’re sorry we didn’t do it sooner. Some clients who have come to La Brea would never go downtown.” He added: “The greatest importance of the Anderson building and the Museum of Contemporary Art is that they shift national and international attention on to the contemporary art scene in L.A.”

Most of the 11 gallery owners interviewed said several factors motivated a move to La Brea or Beverly, among them the area’s central location, lower rents, easy access for Westside art buyers, ample parking, new restaurants and shops in the area and proximity to the County Museum--specifically the Anderson building. However, most said the new wing wasn’t a primary draw. Except for one.

Bennett Roberts and Richard Heller opened the Richard/Bennett Gallery two months ago after showing art in Santa Barbara and and later in Brentwood.

“We always knew we wanted to be in close proximity to the Anderson and the Museum of Contemporary Art,” Roberts said, “because we feel there’s not enough interplay between dealers and curators here. We waited seven months for this space.”

Only gallery owner Jack Rutberg, who moved to the avenue in 1981, shortly after Jan Baum, sounded a cautionary note about the influx of activity.

“The Anderson can only be good for the area,” Rutberg said. “The only thing that concerns me is the tendency for everyone to rush here where the action is. The phenomenon that took over Melrose pushed out a lot of the fine crafts people, furniture carvers and gilders who were using the space seriously, and replaced them with a flood of fashionable boutiques. It’s stabilizing again there, but I’d hate to see La Brea go through those gyrations.”