A Museum Grows in Westwood : Other Private Museums: A Report on Art Houses Collectors Have Built

“Another boutique museum,” indignant art reporters scoffed last year when Armand Hammer announced a plan to build a private museum for his art collection instead of giving it to the County Museum of Art.

Newsworthy as Hammer’s decision was, the move was also part of an international trend toward private museums--and away from supporting public institutions.

Advertising magnates Charles and Doris Saatchi have a private showcase in London, and German chocolate king Peter Ludwig presides over the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.

In the United States, Dominique de Menil, whose family made a fortune from Schlumberger oil-field services, in 1987 launched the Menil Collection in Houston; Washington collectors Wilhemina and Wallace Holladay in 1981 established the National Museum of Women in the Arts at the nation’s capital; Illinois manufacturer Daniel Terra, who formerly had a museum in Evanston, in 1987 opened the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago.

Not far behind, Southern California had a short but weighty list of wealthy collectors who had plans--or rumored plans--for private art museums at the time of Hammer’s announcement.

On the top of the list, retired industrialist Norton Simon had announced an “agreement in principle” to give his stellar collection of predominantly European and Asian art to UCLA. In return, the university was to maintain his present museum in Pasadena and build a new museum on or near the Westwood campus.

Frederick R. Weisman, chief of Mid-Atlantic Toyota, had hoped to house his foundation’s collection of contemporary art at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, but those plans fell through late in 1986. In the wake of that disappointment, he was examining other options--including UCLA.

Eli Broad, head of Kaufman and Broad, a housing and financial services company, was renovating a building in Santa Monica for his rapidly growing collection of vanguard contemporary art.

Developer Edward Broida, who had scrapped plans for opening a private museum in New York, was rumored to be considering a Los Angeles showcase.

(In addition, television producer Douglas Cramer had installed a first-rate collection of contemporary art in his Santa Ynez Valley ranch home in what some observers thought was a suspiciously museum-like setting, but Cramer recently emphasized that he does not have a museum and has “no aspirations for one.”)

What has happened to all those projects during the last year? Only one of them, the Eli Broad Family Foundation’s new home, has come to fruition. And, according to Broad, the foundation is not a museum but a lending library and study center.

The strictly private facility, which loans works of art to museums and university galleries and admits scholars by appointment, opened early last December in a former telephone switching station at 3355 Barnard Way. Broad told The Times at the opening that he did not intend the Santa Monica facility to be a permanent monument and that he would eventually give his collection to one or more museums.

Simon’s resignation from his museum last week revived speculation about the fate of his collection, but sources close to the museum indicate that, for the present, operations will continue as usual under the direction of Simon’s wife, actress Jennifer Jones Simon.

Negotiations with UCLA reportedly fell through on June 3, 1987, only four months after the university announced Simon’s plans for his collection, but the breakdown wasn’t confirmed until a year later.

In a surprising move last summer, Simon loaned large displays of contemporary art to the County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art. That development suggested that Simon might donate his contemporary art (which he acquired when he took over the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art), but officials from all three institutions have declined to comment.

Weisman has stopped searching for a home for his foundation collection, according to publicist Robin Green. The foundation’s focus and budget have shifted from buildings to “scholarly projects,” Green said. An official announcement of the Weisman foundation’s new direction and program plans may come in a month.

“Art and Architecture,” the first in a projected series of Weisman-sponsored workshops, was held Jan. 21-22 in a Santa Monica hotel. A concurrent UCLA exhibition of the Weisman foundation collection renewed speculation that the works might end up at the university, but foundation spokesmen firmly deny that possibility.

Broida could not be reached for comment, but an associate said he has no plans for a museum in Los Angeles.