Art Center Has Designs on Big Funds

The Art Center College of Design, increasingly gaining stature as a world leader in design education, officially unveiled its $25-million campaign for endowment and operations the other evening at a black-tie dinner on its artistic hillside campus overlooking the Pasadena Rose Bowl.

It was a smiling affair: Already $10 million has come from leadership grants, according to trustees chairman Kyhl Smeby, including grants of $1 million to establish the General Motors Computer Graphics Laboratory, $1 million from Toyota Motor Corp. to endow a lecture series and scholarships, and $1 million from the Fairchild Foundation for endowment.

Art Center President David R. Brown and Warren B. Williamson, a partner at Crowell, Weedon & Co., are co-chairing the campaign, planning $20 million for endowment (to fund scholarships and educational programs). It’s the center’s first public fund-raising campaign, and it called for the elegance of the candlelight evening Brown’s wife, Judy, hosted with Rococco’s assist.

Keynote speaker was Times reporter John Dreyfuss, who attended with his wife, Katherine.

New trustee Bradford Hall and his wife, Kelsey, were in the spotlight along with Alyce Williamson, who has successfully launched the Art Center 100 support group (which is being invited to the June lectures by Robert L. Green on Chanel, Cecil Beaton, Elsie de Wolfe and Adrian). Contemporary art collector Robert Rowan, and a big crowd known for tastefulness, like Peggy Phelps, Harry Montgomery, Barbara Royce, Chris Madison, George Hale, attended.

PROMENADE: Lunching at Trumps, Clarice Ellis, Georgianna Erskine, Edie Frere and Burks Hamner were discussing their first-time-out benefit for Friends of Vielles Maisons Francaises’ Los Angeles Chapter. It’s a $55 “very private” Promenade on Melrose Place, a fund-raising walking tour, June 6, when galleries--Cache, Galerie Marumo, John Nelson, La Maison Francaise & Cote Jardin, Rose Tarlow and Quatrain--will open just for them between 3 and 5 p.m. The super-extra will be the accompanying reception extending into early evening at l’Ermitage on La Cienega Boulevard.

Friends is a nonprofit corporation encouraging development of cultural exchanges between the United States and France.

SPRING TRA-LA: Three silk rosebuds on miniature invitations in pink boxes call for a celebration luncheon Wednesday by the Center Theatre Group Volunteers. They’ll be honoring the dynamic duo Lucie Arnaz and Laurence Luckinbill, who star in “Social Security” at the Ahmanson at the Music Center.