Back in the Saddle of the Fall Oaks Classic
Omelets stuffed with golden caviar and ice cream sundaes topped with crushed cookies were among delectables at a “traditional hunt breakfast” hosted by Joan Irvine Smith on Sunday.
That’s “hunt” as in horses jumping over fences--the sport of choice at Smith’s estate in San Juan Capistrano. While guests of Smith and her mother, Athalie Clarke, hunted for nourishment at bounteous buffets, some of the nation’s top equestrians and their mounts competed for prize money in excess of $100,000.
The Fall Oaks Classic, completely underwritten by Smith and Clarke, drew more than 1,000 guests and raised an estimated $90,000 for the UC Irvine College of Medicine.
The money will be used for the planned Center for the Health Sciences, which is to include five interlinked institutes for the study of cancer, genetics, geriatrics, neurosciences and the cardiovascular system.
Maria del Carmen Calvo and her husband, Dr. Walter Henry, dean of UCI’s College of Medicine, were co-hosts of the benefit with Smith and Clarke.
Among guests were Floss Schumacher, in a jockey cap with a rose in the brim, Peggy Goldwater Clay, Donna Howard and Marilyn Nielsen.
Artist and author Francoise Gilot--who gained instant celebrity at the age of 23 when she became Pablo Picasso’s paramour--addressed a gathering of about 100 Laguna Art Museum patrons at the Center Club on Thursday night.
Gilot, now in her 60s, came to the private club in Costa Mesa from the La Jolla home she shares with her husband, Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine. Though her name is linked in history with those of internationally famous men, Gilot did not come to bathe in their limelight.
A widely collected painter in her own right and author of several books--including “Life With Picasso” and “Matisse and Picasso: A Friendship in Art”--Gilot made clear her intellectual and artistic independence.
Describing her career as a chronology of stylistic shifts in her artwork, she dubbed 1946-54 “The Picasso Years.”
“We had an artistic dialogue . . . of contrast and of agreement,” she said. “It was not exactly easy to work in the same studio as Picasso. I was 40 years younger than he was. He had most of his masterpieces behind him (while) my work was in front of me.
“If I had not been already formed as an artist, I would not have been able to work,” she said.
Guests paid $150 each for dinner and Gilot’s half-hour speech, which concluded with a question-and-answer period.
Questions ranged from the personal (more on Picasso, please) to art history. How does Gilot compare the art of contemporary living artists to the “modern art” of Picasso and Matisse’s day?
“I am not here as a judge, I am here as an artist,” she said. “The public and the artist do not see things the same way. The public is usually a little behind. It takes usually 30 years for an artist to be understood.”
Through the years, she said, art dealers have asked her: “Why don’t you do again today what you did so well yesterday?”
“There is no point in repeating the same things endlessly,” she said.
