MUSEUMS’ FUND CAMPAIGN

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have launched a $35-million fund-raising campaign designed to “maintain current levels of artistic excellence and provide a firm foundation for future growth.”

The Campaign for the Fine Arts Museums is the first program of its kind at the museums. Already, $25.2 million has been pledged.

Of the $35-million goal, the museums are seeking $21.5 million in endowment funds, with income on $7 million to be used for art acquisitions and income on $14.5 million to support such services and activities as staff resources, conservation, special exhibitions, publications and education and public programs. In addition, the museums are seeking $10 million for annual support, at the level of $2 million per year, and $3.5 million for building projects.

The need for increased endowment, according to a statement released by the museums, stems from curtailed government funding, expanding programs and escalating prices in the art market. The campaign will conclude in June, 1989.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.

ART TOUR: The Pasadena Arts Council will sponsor the city’s first self-guided art gallery and artists studio tour next Sunday.

“Pasadena Artists & Galleries I” will wind its way through two galleries and four artists’ studios from 2-5 p.m.

“We’re starting small on this event,” says Jay Belloli, a member of the arts council board and director of the defunct Baxter Art Gallery at Caltech. “The idea is that if it works out as we hope, it will be something done on a regular basis--that’s why the Roman numeral. This has never been done before; we just wanted to see how it went and take it from there.”

Galleries along the tour route are Cityscape Associates, which features photographs, and the Lizardi/Harp Gallery, which exhibits contemporary art. Artists’ studios belong to George Baker, Philip Cornelius, Joe Mugnaini and Nathaniel Bustion Jr.

To register for the tour, send $10 to the Pasadena Arts Council, 116 The Plaza Pasadena, Pasadena 91101. Maps and further information will be sent. Reservations close Wednesday. Refreshments will be served during the tour. Information: (818) 795-0825.

ACQUISITIONS: The Palm Springs Desert Museum recently purchased a metal collage by veteran Los Angeles-based artist Tony Berlant, whose works are on view at the Municipal Art Gallery.

“SoHo 12” (1986) depicts an abstract urban landscape--Berlant’s view of New York City’s visual art district. The work is made from several pieces of colorful discarded tin attached to plywood panels with steel brads.

GRANTS: Awarding its first California grant, the Los Angeles-based Lannan Foundation has given Santa Barbara’s University Art Museum $12,000 to support a traveling exhibition of works by American painter Terry Winters.

Winters, according to the museum, belongs to a new group of American artists generating a resurgence of traditional painting that deals with contemporary issues, as opposed to the conceptual and rational concerns of the 1960s and 1970s. “Terry Winters: Painting and Drawing” will premiere at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in July, 1987, travel to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in September and conclude at the Santa Barbara museum in February, 1988.

“Winters is a little beyond emerging status,” says Bonnie Clearwater, director of art programs for the Lannan Foundation, “but his work is really only known in certain regions of the country, primarily New York.”

Phyllis Plous, University Art Museum curator, has organized the exhibition, the first museum survey of Winters’ work. The museum will also publish an exhibition catalogue in association with the University of Washington Press. Funding for the exhibit has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Barry and Gail Berkus of Santa Barbara.

The Lannan Foundation, still formulating its grant programs, will announce guidelines for those programs later this spring, says Clearwater. The foundation, which is expected to focus its funding in the field of contemporary art, is required to spend 5% of its $100-million endowment annually. It awarded its first grant to New York’s Museum of Modern Art last fall.

NEW FEES: The County of Los Angeles has instituted new admission fees for the County Museum of Art. Beginning Wednesday, admission to view permanent collection galleries will be $3 for adults, $1.50 for senior citizens and students with ID, and 75 cents for children 5-12. Museum members and children under 5 will be admitted free. Admission will remain free for all visitors on the second Tuesday of each month. A new joint admission to visit both the County Museum and the George C. Page Museum will be $4.50 for adults, $2.25 for senior citizens and students with IDs, and $1 for children 5-12. Admission to special exhibitions at the County Museum will vary.