Breathtaking Bequest

True connoisseurship requires a passion and firmness of purpose that often seem to crowd out other virtues, particularly generosity. But that is only one of the things that makes last week’s gift to the Museum of Contemporary Art of 18 works from the superb collection of the late Rita and Taft Schreiber such a landmark event in Los Angeles’ cultural history.

In today’s hyper-inflated art market the value of the bequest, which was made by Mrs. Schreiber before she died earlier this year, has been put at $60 million. But the most remarkable thing about it is the aesthetic value of the art itself. The Schreiber collection has been widely praised by art professionals for its discerning discipline. It includes superior, historically important paintings by Jackson Pollack, Piet Mondrian and Arshile Gorky.

Jack Cowart, curator of 20th-Century art at the National Gallery, said the 18 paintings and pieces of sculpture form “a stellar group with a breathtaking level of achievement by each artist.” They were amassed, Cowart said, “by great, passionate and acute collectors who . . . exercised a fabulous process of choice and connoisseurship.”

And, because the Schreibers’ breadth of spirit matched the clarity of their eye, we all are in their debt.