Art Museum Backers Get Their Just Deserts in Palm Springs
Ask Jack Shea about the value of his contemporary art collection, and the past president of the Newport Harbor Art Museum will smile, blush, clear his throat and tell you he doesn’t buy art for market value. Or to impress.
“It’s just something I enjoy,” he said Saturday night in his Palm Springs home.
And you believe him.
But anybody with a dab of knowledge about blue-chip collections can tell you that Shea, with his Frank Stella, his Morris Louis, his Richard Diebenkorn, his Ellsworth Kelly and his Robert Rauschenberg and more, owns a stash worth millions.
Art amassed by Shea and fare assembled by Le Vallauris was on the menu for “Desert Delights” an intimate repast staged for Newport Harbor Art Museum supporters over the weekend.
It isn’t every day that Orange County arts society has a fund-raising date with the desert. But the opportunity to cruise the Shea collection and dine alfresco near “Stone Haus” by English sculptor Tony Cragg had art lovers booking hotel and air reservations to attend.
“We wouldn’t have missed it,” said Charles Hester, who came by private plane with his wife, Nora.
After enjoying cocktails in a living room where vast art pieces adorned the walls (Harran III by Frank Stella, for example, is 10 feet by 20 feet), Marion Shea stood before guests tinkling a dinner bell.
“Welcome,” said the hostess, who wore a Giorgio Armani wrap-dress bought in Rome. “It’s lovely to have you here. And I know what will make you happy--a house tour by Jack.”
Perfect. Guests couldn’t wait to walk with Jack Shea through his stone-and-glass home to learn about an Andy Warhol here, an Isamu Noguchi there, a Donald Judd here, a Helen Frankenthaler there. A mobile by Alexander Caulder and a sculpture by George Segal were among works in the entry.
“I love him,” said Marion Shea, taking a moment to sit on a park bench beside the life-size man sculpted by Segal. “He seems so real to our dogs that they lay toys at his feet.”
Part of Shea’s stunning collection was in New York. Two works by Ad Reinhardt are on display at the Museum of Modern Art. “A Reinhardt retrospective is being held there,” Jack Shea explained. Too bad. They missed the artiest of parties.
Among guests: museum director Michael Botwinick and his wife, Harriet; Phillip Quarre; Frank Caput and his wife, Susan Porter Caput; Vicky and Mike Gering; Robert and Peggy Sprague; Wally Wolf with Gypsy Pulliam; Jerry and Maralou Harrington; Molly and Leon Lyon; Barbara and Tom Peckenpaugh; Jane Hurndall, and Judy Lawson.
Incognito: Actress/author Evelyn Keyes wasn’t about to let guests see the shiner she wore at last week’s meeting of Round Table West at the Balboa Bay Club. So she hid her baby-grays under shades when she spoke about her new book, “I’ll Think About That Tomorrow.”
“I walked into a lamppost in New York last week,” explained the actress who played Scarlett O’Hara’s younger sister in “Gone With the Wind.”
During lunch, Keyes--Hepburn-esque in tailored slacks and jacket--confided that Vivien Leigh was the most brilliant performer she has ever known.
“When I wasn’t working on the set, I’d stand around and watch her,” Keyes said. “They would hand her pages and she would learn them immediately, become instant -Scarlett.
“Larry (Laurence Olivier) was there with her. They were so much in love. They were living together, and seeing that changed my life. I’d just come out of the South, where you waited until you got married to be together. When I saw the two most beautiful people in the world living like that, I said to myself, ‘ Oh, I see. ‘ They changed my perspective.”
Keyes went on to marry and divorce Charles Vidor, John Huston and Artie Shaw.
Mag-Brag: Don’t miss this month’s copy of Architectural Digest, the international magazine that is the last word in interior design. Beginning on page 130, you’ll find a drop-dead spread on the Napa Valley idyll--Meadowbrook Farm--that belongs to San Juan Capistrano developer Ron Birtcher and his wife, Joanne. Why Napa? Ron Birtcher fell head-over-heels for the color of the farm’s vineyards, he says. As luck would have it, the golds and ruby-reds that caught his eye were the result of some dread disease. Birtcher bought the farm anyway.
Social Scoops: Placido Domingo’s wife, Marta, will be with him at the “Gold Rush Gala” on June 5 at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel. The black-tie affair (we hear the committee will sport ankle-length gowns) will follow Domingo’s first appearance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Domingo flew to California from Madrid on Wednesday night. . . . Invitations are in the mail for “A Celebration Under the Stars” tribute to Carl and Margaret Karcher at the Disneyland Hotel on July 17. Special guests will be Bob and Dolores Hope. Les Brown and His Band of Renown will play for dancing. Everybody who is anybody will be there. . . . Julie Budd, star with George Burns of a Nov. 19 benefit at the Performing Arts Center on behalf of Children’s Hospital of Orange County, plans to stop by the hospital next week. Seems the singer wants to understand something about Orange County’s only hospital for children. Benefit tickets are priced from $50 to $1,000 (the latter includes dinner at the Center Club before the show and dessert afterward.) Call (714) 532-8690 for information. . . .
