Ebria Feinblatt; First LACMA Drawing Curator

Ebria Feinblatt, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s first curator of prints and drawings who came to that position in 1947 when artworks vied with stuffed tigers for space at the old museum in Exposition Park, died Friday at her home in Los Angeles.

She was 77 and had been suffering from cancer. She retired in 1985 after overseeing a nationally recognized accumulation of 25,000 prints and drawings from the humblest of beginnings.

Born in Los Angeles, Miss Feinblatt attended the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. She returned to Los Angeles to do postgraduate work at UCLA and was enticed to the old museum by William R. Valentiner, its sometimes director.

She started the print department as one of only three curators at the Exposition Park facility. “There were two others,” she recalled on the eve of her retirement. “One for decorative arts and one for modern. I did everything else--antiques, paintings, publications, radio shows.”

Except for a short leave for a Fulbright scholarship, Miss Feinblatt remained at her post for the next 38 years, concentrating on what developed into a wealth of German Expressionism and contemporary art.

In her honor, 94 prints and drawings acquired during her tenure and selected for their range and quality were exhibited in the weeks after her retirement.

She is survived by a brother, Ronn. A memorial service is pending at the museum.