Hoag Acquires Graves’ Artwork

Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach has acquired a mixed-media sculpture by renowned American artist Nancy Graves for the lobby of the Patricia and George Hoag Cancer Center, opening in spring, 1990, at the corner of Superior Avenue and Newport Boulevard.

“Laciniform,” an 8 1/2-foot-tall balancing act of brightly colored linear metal elements, is the gift of an anonymous donor. The hospital will not reveal the purchase price of the 1988 piece.

The hospital’s 15-member sculpture committee--including Paul Schimmel, Newport Harbor Art Museum curator; Melinda Wortz, UC Irvine Fine Arts Gallery director; Orange County art collectors and hospital staff--had chosen Graves from among such diverse European and American artists as Richard Deacon, Tony Cragg, Janis Kounellis, Tom Holland, Mark di Suvero, Alan Saret, DeWain Valentine, Isamu Noguchi, George Rickey and James Surls.

Graves, 48, works in New York. Her prominence dates back to the late 1960s when she began working with such then-exotic sculptural materials as polyurethane and burlap to make images of camels that seemed at once abstract and realistic. Often alluding to forms found in nature, her art is concerned with issues of perception as well as the notion of art’s magical, ritualistic dimension.

For the three-story, 65,000 square-foot outpatient center, hospital spokeswoman Lauri Pelissero said, the task was to find a work of art that people receiving chemotherapy and other treatments could respond to positively--”not too aesthetically challenging but still a major piece.”