Graves Work Not Going to Hospital After All : Philanthropy: The donors have placed ‘Laciniform’ instead in Newport Harbor Art Museum, where they believe patrons have more access to it.

A sculpture by noted American artist Nancy Graves that was supposed to have been donated to the Patricia and George Hoag Cancer Center in Newport Beach is now at Newport Harbor Art Museum--apparently because the donors changed their minds about where they wanted it.

“Laciniform,” an 8 1/2-foot-tall 1988 work made of brightly colored metal elements, was selected three years ago by a committee of arts professionals, collectors and hospital representatives.

The committee included Paul Schimmel, former chief curator at Newport Harbor, and Charles Hester of Corona del Mar. Hester had purchased the sculpture for an undisclosed sum.

But according to a statement issued by the museum last week, Hester and his wife, Nora, decided to give it to the Newport Beach museum because they felt art patrons would have greater access to it there. Neither they nor a hospital spokesperson could be reached for comment.

“Laciniform” currently is on view in the museum lobby, but museum staff members hope to display the piece outdoors in the future, provided it can be given weatherproof treatment, according to a museum spokeswoman.

Graves, 50, lives in New York and is also a painter, printmaker, filmmaker and set designer whose work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and numerous other museums.

Her work was shown at Newport Harbor in 1985 in the exhibition “Six in Bronze.”

She probably is best known for the life-size “camel” sculptures--made of polyurethane, burlap, paint and animal skins, supported on wooden frameworks--that brought her to prominence in the late ‘60s.

A frequent traveler to far-off places, Graves has longstanding interests in anthropology, archeology and the ritualistic aspect of art.

During the past decade she has been working chiefly in enameled metal. Her other sculpture commissions include outdoor pieces at Crocker Center in Los Angeles and United Missouri Bank in Kansas City.