McManus Upbeat Despite Resigning as Laguna Curator

Michael McManus sounded upbeat Monday about resigning his chief curatorial post at the Laguna Art Museum.

“The curatorial department has been reorganized and I’ve been released,” he said. “I’ve accepted and endorsed it. I’m optimistic about my own situation. It’s all to the good.”

McManus said his departure, announced over the weekend, is “something that happens when the director of an organization changes and new people are running it.”

McManus was hired in the fall of 1987 by then-director William Otton, who resigned to assume the directorship of the Art Institute of Southern California. Charles Desmarais took over as director in September of 1988.

“Michael is the first person with whom I’ve had a real discussion about leaving,” Desmarais said Monday. “I think it stands to reason, given a change in leadership in a small museum like this, that there would be substantial changes over time. On the one hand, you like stability, but I’m not totally unaware of wanting to have a new team that’s sort of my team.

“I think it is fair to say that Michael and I had different approaches to some things. But what I feel really good about is that we’ve come up with an amicable arrangement. A real signal of that is that Michael is going to be working with a new contract (as a consultant) to finish up some projects.”

McManus’s departure leaves the department in the hands of Bolton Colburn, curator of collections, and Susan Anderson, assistant curator.

Anderson, hired by Desmarais, holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Southern California. She previously worked as a curatorial intern in the art galleries of the Claremont Colleges and has curated an exhibition on California Regionalism for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Desmarais said the new chief curator will be chosen “to complement (the background of) the assistant curator--somebody with post-World War I American scholarship, publications and exhibitions.”

There may be more money in store for the new curator, Desmarais said, noting: “I intend to pay whatever I have to pay to get the best.” McManus was being paid $26,000 a year.

Desmarais added that a national search for a new curator will probably take longer than the 2 months that McManus will remain as a consultant, but that McManus’ departure “probably will not affect the programming significantly.”

McManus, 36, is an art critic with a master’s degree from UC San Diego in critical theory and 19th- and 20th-Century art history. He said he will be looking for a position in an art institution--either as a teacher or curator--or as a college instructor in literature.

McManus is the museum’s third curator to have left in a period of less than 4 years.

Robert McDonald, now director of the De Saisset Museum in Santa Clara, was hired by Otton in July, 1984, and fired by him in June, 1985.

Michael McGee was hired as programs coordinator (a position involving both education and curatorial duties) in January, 1985, and left in September, 1987, to become chief curator of the Modern Museum of Art in Santa Ana, a position he left last year.

Besides McManus, six other full-time employees--four of whom were secretaries--have left the museum since Desmarais became director, most of them citing personal reasons.