County Museum’s Edo Gala a Success

It sprinkled on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Edo Gala, but few seemed to mind. After all, said one guest, rain on such an occasion means good luck in Japan.

The black-tie dinner was a fund-raiser and preview for the Pavilion for Japanese Art, the museum’s new free-standing building for the exhibition and study of Japanese paintings and sculpture.

About 650 guests were treated to a sneak preview of the building, designed by the late Bruce Goff with working drawings developed by associate Bart Prince. Most of the installations won’t be completed until the official opening in September, so for this occasion a Japanese tea ceremony stood in for Japanese sculptures.

Flower Arrangements

A pair of six-fold screens titled “Irises” was in place, along with dramatic Japanese flower arrangements representing different schools of design.

Another collection yet to be installed is a group of Edo-period (1615-1868) Shin’enkan screens and scrolls, a gift from art collectors Etsuko and Joe Price, who also contributed $5 million to the construction. Joe Price gushed that the pavilion was “the greatest absolute space created by man.”

Etsuko Price, dressed in a kimono, waxed enthusiastic about Angelenos’ reaction to the new building. “They are accepting,” she said, grinning. “They are so open-minded. I always believed that if you give a chance to Americans, they will understand so quickly.”

The cocktail hour-and-a-half included performances of traditional Japanese music, classical dance, and thunderous Kinari Taiko drummers. Sushi chefs urged reluctant guests to eat eel as the crowd began to dodge the first light raindrops.

Among the guests were Toshio Nagamura, chairman of the board of California First Bank and a museum trustee who was instrumental in raising money for the pavilion; Disney chairman Michael Eisner and his wife, Jane; gala chairwoman Lois Howard; former U.S. Ambassador to Japan James Hodgson and wife, Marie; and art donors Howard Lee, Felix and Helen Juda, Yvonne Lenart and Frederick Weisman. Proceeds from the gala tickets ($250 and $500 each) will help purchase the two Iris screens.

Robert Singer, the museum’s curator of Japanese art, stood by the sushi bar and noted that the pavilion was “an unusual building. There were some who had trouble understanding it. But when you see it on the inside you see what it does for the art.”

The lack of controversy about its architecture “has something to say about Los Angeles,” Singer said. “You couldn’t have this building next to the (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in New York or the (Fine Arts Museums) in San Francisco and get away with it.”

Guests toasted the occasion with sake after Japanese Consul General Hiromoto Seki and museum director Earl A. Powell III performed the ceremonial breaking of the sake cask. Attention was then turned to dinner, as Americans gamely tried their hand at chopsticks, while the Japanese ate with knives and forks.