Auction Raises $55,000 for Homeless

Fifty-five thousand dollars is hardly spare change, but that was the amount raised to benefit the Family Assistance Program when the group held its third annual “Spare Change” art auction at Loew’s Santa Monica Beach Hotel.

The sum topped last year’s record of $43,000, according to the group’s Patricia Shelhamer.

The evening began Thursday with a buffet, provided by more than 20 Westside restaurants, which served up everything from soft shell crabs to nouvelle pizzas to chocolate desserts. Serious buyers bypassed the culinary distractions, preferring to check out the almost 200 pieces of art.

“Since last year, we’ve got a feeling for what people like, which are the better pieces,” said gallery owner Michael Schwartz, who supplied many of the paintings, lithographs, serigraphs, and pieces of sculpture on the auction block.

Schwartz donated 20% of the proceeds from the auction to the Family Assistance Program, which provides help for homeless families. It resulted in a win-win position for the charity, the gallery, and the thrifty who were getting Chagalls, Picassos, and Toulouse-Lautrecs for bargain-basement prices. Other artists, including Andre Miripolsky, donated their work.

If there was one glitch in the evening, it was a plethora of celebrity no-shows. Though it didn’t matter to enthusiastic bidders, who were taking away objets d’art at better than wholesale prices, the lack of star turnout sent a pack of disgruntled paparazzi out of the hotel grumbling. Their only targets for the night had been “Facts of Life” star Nancy Mckeon, along with Bob Vila, former host of the PBS home repair show “This Old House”--who was in the hotel for other business, but spent 15 minutes watching the proceedings from a nearby balcony.