A NEAPOLITAN MAKER OF EXPRESSIONIST IMAGES

“Francesco Clemente,” opening Tuesday at the Museum of Comtemporary Art, is the first of four traveling shows in the yearlong exhibit, “Individuals: A Selected History of Contemporary Art, 1945-1986.” The survey of about 80 works by Italian artist Clemente will be shown at MOCA’s Temporary Contemporary site.

Clemente, born in Naples in 1952, works in an Expressionist figurative style; thematically, he explores the transformation between male and female, human and animal.

Yet “Clemente’s work somehow transcends interpretation or characterization,” explained Ann Goldstein, project director for the exhibition, “because it is so full of analogies and associations. His paintings are veiled with images, images that often reappear in various works.

“Clemente calls his work ideograms in costume,” Goldstein continued. “An ideogram is a notion that comes from Chinese calligraphy, where for instance, you see wood as a representation of a chair--it’s image by association.

“He is a major figure in contemporary art today, and his work is associated with the art of the new Expressionists, the transavant-garde artists whose work is more culturally oriented, involving allegiance to allegory and myth as a more emotionally based, Expressionistic type of work.

“I think the exhibit will engender an association with other artists in the ‘Individuals’ show, those associated with the transavant-garde such as Julian Schnabel, Charles Garabedian and Eric Fischl. But you can go beyond that too and see association with other artists whose works are not directly related to this style.”

“Francesco Clemente” runs through March 29.

NEW ACQUISITIONS: While the County Museum of Art--with its new Anderson Building--has assured itself a shiny spot on the contemporary art scene, the institution quietly continues to strengthen its other collections.

More than 20 artworks from around the world from the 11th to the 19th centuries have recently been acquired by the institution. Here’s what’s been added:

--”An Artist’s Studio” (1864), by American painter John Ferguson Weir, depicts in realistic detail the cozy mid-Victorian workplace of the artist’s father, a professor of drawing.

--”The Loss of the Schooner John F. Spence” (1833), by Thomas Birch, is the first marine painting to enter the museum’s holdings. The dramatic sea rescue scene was commissioned by a survivor of the debacle.

--Fifteen prints by the 19th-Century American expatriate artist James Abbott McNeil Whistler, which brings the museum’s holdings to 148 Whistler etchings.

--”The Fall of the Giants” (1641-47), a woodcut by Italian printmaker Bartolomeo Coriolano, considered to be the artist’s masterpiece.

--A hall chair (circa, 1850) of the 19th-Century American Gothic Revival style, enters the museum’s decorative arts collection. The back of the chair is intricately carved to resemble a Gothic window.

--A white marble sculpture representing the Indian goddess of wisdom and knowledge, Sarasvati. An inscription at the graceful artwork’s base proclaims the dedication of the goddess in a Jain temple in the 11th Century.

--A 13th-Century stone sculpture of the Indian sun god Surya and rare ivory fragments from South India, dating from the 11th Century.

While the Frederick R. Weisman collection continues its search for a Southern California home, a 60-piece selection from the Los Angeles-based collection of modern and contemporary art will tour the United States beginning March 1. The 16-month tour, which does not include Los Angeles, follows a year’s travel in Europe and Asia.

The exhibition offers a cross section of international post-World War II art. It is drawn from the Weisman Foundation collection, one of three Weisman collections (the other two are corporate and private) that make up a multimillion-dollar cache. It features works by both emerging and established artists including John Chamberlain, Christo, Red Grooms, David Hockney, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.

The Baltimore Museum of Art will host the exhibition from March 1 to April 19, after which time it will travel to venues in Philadelphia, Texas, Alabama, Florida and Colorado.

Meanwhile, Henry Hopkins, director of all three Weisman collections, continues to search for a permanent home for the artworks.

(Last November, Weisman, head of Mid-Atlantic Toyota, decided not to turn the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills into a museum for his artworks. Though the Beverly Hills City Council had voted last February to lease the historic edifice to Weisman, in November he decided to look elsewhere after some council members and residents had voiced continued resistance to the plan.)

“We are examining at least 15 proposals (to house the collection) made by agencies in Southern California,” Hopkins said recently. “The Mayor of West Hollywood has called. We’re talking to UCLA, USC and the City of Long Beach.

“We’ve also had proposals from the San Diego Museum of Modern Art, the Baltimore Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art,” Hopkins said, adding, “It is our intention to keep the collection in Los Angeles.”

Hopkins said he also has been exploring areas in Santa Monica, Hollywood and “the Melrose area” for a home for the collection, but that a decision will not be made for at least nine months.

The Santa Monica Arts Commission has received $8,000 to help purchase an artwork by an “atomic artist” for a planned “peace park.”

Film and television writer/director/producer Theodore Flicker (co-creator of the “Barney Miller” TV series), gave the commission the funds for an outdoor sculpture by Tony Price, a Santa Fe, N.M. sculptor, for its art in public places program.

Pending city council approval, the commission is hoping to install the sculpture in Santa Monica’s Palisades Park late this year, said Henry Korn, commission executive director.

Price creates sculptures from metal scraps and other found objects he collects from weekly trips to New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, a United States government science research laboratory, Korn said.

Dr. Franklin D. Murphy, retired Times Mirror board chairman, has joined the board of trustees of New York’s Storm King Art Center.

The art center exhibits 20th-Century sculpture in a 350-acre outdoor museum in the Hudson River Valley.