High Hopes : ‘Spirit of Growth’ Promises a Bright Future for the Long Beach Museum of Art, Says New Director

Harold B. Nelson had a smile on his face.

He was seated at the folding table temporarily serving as his desk in the bare sunlit office. On the table lay a pair of scissors and a catalogue of office products. Directly opposite him, a large picture window afforded a breezy view of the Pacific Ocean lined with palm trees.

“I love this place,” said Nelson, a crisp, neatly dressed, balding 41-year-old, gazing wistfully out the window. “It’s a very diverse community and I find that diversity challenging and appealing.”

It was Nelson’s first day as the new executive director of the Long Beach Museum of Art. But already he was framing a vision of the institution’s future as bright as that of the ocean framed by the window. “There’s a spirit of growth, newness and exploration,” he said. “Back East, it’s more the status quo. Here there’s a feeling of positive energy, enthusiasm, support and a desire to grow.”

All of which has come not a moment too soon, other museum officials say.

Nelson takes the helm of the 34-year-old museum at a particularly critical time. Housed since the 1950s by the sea in a quaint brick building that was once the home of a wealthy philanthropist, the institution spent its first 30 years as a municipal facility financed entirely by the city. In 1985 the museum declared its independence, coming under the management of the private, nonprofit Long Beach Museum of Art Foundation. At the time, the city agreed to continue its support of $357,000 annually at least until 1990, at which time the situation will be reviewed.

Board Resigned

But the transition has not been smooth.

Last year, scores of patrons were angered when museum officials restructured the institution’s bookstore to make it more profitable and terminated the store’s popular long-time manager. Later, the museum council’s six-member board of directors--a group of volunteers responsible for membership and attendance--resigned en masse to protest the institution’s handling of a summer concert series. And a much-discussed plan to move the facility to more spacious quarters downtown collapsed after it became apparent that neither the city nor the museum was in a position to pay for the move.

One result of the tumult was the sudden resignation last August of Nelson’s predecessor, Stephen Garrett, after four years as director. The former head of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Garrett had been criticized, among other things, for lacking fortitude to manage by “overt control” rather than by consensus.

Other results can be seen in statistics. From a peak of about 1,200 in early 1988, museum membership is expected to drop to about 950 by the end of this month, in part, according to spokesman Jon Moynes, because of disillusionment with management and in part due to what he calls a “cleansing” of the membership roster to eliminate those who are no longer paying dues. While membership is still about 20% above what it was in 1985, Moynes said, most museum officials would like to see it grow.

Revenue at a Plateau

And for the past several years, officials say, the museum’s annual revenue--including the portion contributed by the city--has hovered at about $800,000, unable to fulfill early predictions that it would quickly break $1 million.

“We have a plateau to get over,” said Linda McCullough, president of the museum foundation’s board of directors. “We need to go on to a new level.”

When Garrett was hired in 1984, she said, the museum was primarily concerned with improving its image, a task that was largely accomplished by the former director’s association with the Getty museum. In the intervening years, she said, “we have established ourselves as a respectable place and I don’t think we’re worried about that anymore. What we need now is more community support.”

Museum officials hope that Nelson--whose annual salary, according to McCullough, is about $50,000--will help generate that support.

They say that Nelson, as the former chief administrator for exhibitions of the American Federation of Arts in New York and the San Francisco-based Art Museum Assn. of America, has considerable experience in putting together art shows that attract people and in writing grant requests that attract money. As a native Easterner, they say, he has a unique perspective on what makes the West Coast special.

“I think he’s wonderful,” Moynes said. “He’s very personable, he’s interested in what we do and he will make a serious attempt to play from our strengths.”

One of those strengths, according to Nelson, is the city’s growing diversity of ethnic cultures. To make the museum more relevant to them, he said, he intends to mount a greater diversity of exhibitions reflective of those cultures and likely to be of interest to blacks, Latinos, Asians and others.

Committed to Outreach

“It’s imperative that all museums break down their ivory tower orientation and reach out to these new communities,” Nelson said. “I am committed to having the museum reach out to the sectors of the community it has never reached out to in the past.”

In addition, Nelson said, he plans to increase the institution’s visibility through greater community involvement, enhance membership through targeted mailings and an improved brochure, and build a stronger financial base through improved marketing techniques aimed at the local business community.

While a move by the museum to a larger facility is still a possibility, Nelson said, he intends to put such plans on a back burner while systematically exploring other options such as expanding the present site.

“This is a wonderful, wonderful spot we have here,” he said. “There’s an intimacy in the gallery spaces that’s unusual in a museum. For the immediate future, we should build on what we have and think about the long term in a slow and deliberate way.”

Concept of Leadership

Nelson said he is a strong team builder who believes in management through inspiration. “The staff needs true leadership,” he said with characteristic self-confidence, “something they haven’t had in the past. They need someone to promote teamwork, and my style of management is that of a team leader.”

During his first day on the job last week, however, the new executive director spent a lot of time just soaking up the sunny environment in his office. A native of Rhode Island, Nelson, who is single, spent four years in San Francisco before returning to New York in 1987. “I missed California immediately,” said the museum director, who is an avid backpacker and bicyclist.

It was from atop a bicycle during a 10-day pedaling trip from San Francisco to San Diego, in fact, that he first viewed Long Beach in 1987. “I thought it was a beautiful place,” Nelson recalls.

And the museum? “Didn’t even notice it,” the director now admits. “I went wheeling right on by.”