It’s Not a Pretty Picture at LACMA : First, Staff Cutbacks; Now, a Chief Curator Is Suing the Management

Wounded by budgetary cutbacks and bleeding internally from staff reductions, the County Museum of Art has suffered another damaging blow to its once vigorous image. A messy lawsuit filed by one of its chief curators has made already low staff morale sink even deeper, and the museum’s administration is facing sharp criticism from the art world for mistreating a longtime staple of the local and international arts community.

Speaking for the first time publicly of the lawsuit that his attorney filed March 16 in Los Angeles Superior Court, longtime curator Maurice Tuchman is accusing museum officials of waging a campaign to force his resignation, while the museum maintains that recent changes in his status are the result of fiscal problems and an effort to expand its collection and exhibition program.

The suit, filed against museum director Michael Shapiro and the Museum Associates, LACMA’s private support group, charges that Tuchman was unjustifiably terminated from his employment as senior curator of 20th-Century art on March 12, when he was appointed head of the newly created department of 20th-Century drawings. The complaint also alleges that the county’s recent elimination of its senior curator classification is a ploy designed by Shapiro to push Tuchman out of the museum.

“This is a demotion and a vicious slap in the face,” Tuchman said. “The museum has been my whole life for more than 28 years.” Tuchman, a county civil service employee, is suing for reinstatement to his former position and for damages in an amount that has yet to be determined.

Shapiro, who became director of LACMA in October, has denied that Tuchman’s new assignment is a demotion, but he declined to comment on the suit. The museum has released a statement about the suit, saying: “We believe our position will be fully vindicated and that claims such as this are more properly addressed through the civil service process.” (Such grievances are heard by the county’s Civil Service Commission.)

Daniel N. Belin, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees, said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the merits of the case, but such lawsuits tend to be disruptive for all concerned. “In my experience, cases like this are costly not only in dollar terms but in emotional energy. It’s too bad for all parties--for the museum, for Michael and for Maurice,” he said.

Tuchman, 56, is a high-profile figure in international art circles who came to Los Angeles in 1964 as founding curator of the museum’s 19th- and 20th-Century art department. As the museum grew, he relinquished 19th-Century art to other curators, but continuously served as chief of the 20th-Century art department. During his tenure the department has produced such major traveling exhibitions as “The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1930: New Perspectives,” “The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985,” “David Hockney: A Retrospective” and “Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art.”

Many of Tuchman’s colleagues outside the museum have expressed dismay over the lawsuit. “I’ve had occasion to work with Maurice Tuchman frequently over the last decade,” said Selma Holo, director of USC’s art galleries and museum studies program. “He has taken on a number of my graduate students and has always treated them with generosity and largeness of spirit. I can only hope that this situation will be resolved with the same generosity to him that he has displayed to my students.”

“This is a most unfortunate way to handle someone who has been a major cultural contributor to Southern California and beyond,” said Walter Hopps, founding director of the Menil Collection in Houston and former director of the Pasadena Art Museum. “He has conspicuously cultivated international interest in the museum’s 20th-Century department and he has opened a lot of doors to the fine work that Stephanie Barron has done.” (Barron, a LACMA curator, was recently appointed acting head of the department.)

“I think this is a deeply unfortunate way to wind up someone’s career,” Hopps said. “It sends a message to staff who are still there and to potential staff members who see how they are likely to be treated when times are difficult. What everyone can hide behind is the economy . . . but there may be veiled agendas.”

Shapiro has characterized Tuchman’s new position as “an opportunity to serve the museum” by developing the drawings collection and exhibition program. But in making the appointment, the director informed Tuchman that he would be given a new office, in a former kitchen in the Ahmanson Building, far removed from other curators’ offices. Construction is currently under way.

Attempting to put a positive spin on the conflict, art dealer Margo Leavin said that forming a collection of contemporary drawings, which are relatively affordable, is an extraordinarily good idea for LACMA. “It’s a great position for someone to take advantage of with fresh energy and new support,” she said of Tuchman’s unwanted assignment.

*

In mid-January, Tuchman was informed that the county had eliminated its job classification of senior curator in a countywide budget squeeze, thereby reducing him and the museum’s two other senior curators, Pratapaditya Pal and Victor Carlson, to the level of curators. They were allowed to keep their titles as a formality, but their salaries were cut. The Museum Associates is currently making up the difference for all three (about $800 a month for Tuchman), but the supplements can be altered or stopped at any time.

(About half of LACMA’s budget comes from the county and roughly half of its employees are employed through civil service. This is not unusual, according to the latest issue of the “National Museum Survey,” published in 1989 by the American Assn. of Museums. Of the 8,167 museums surveyed, 41.4% are governed by public authorities.)

Tuchman’s 16-page complaint charges that there is no just cause for eliminating his former position or transferring him to another department. The purpose of Tuchman’s new appointment, according to the suit, is “to embarrass and humiliate him by placing him in a position significantly less important to the museum and less prestigious than the one he has occupied for many years” and “to make it more difficult for him to perform his duties by removing him from a position for which he was and is eminently well-qualified and to place him in a position for which he is less qualified; and to pressure (him) into resigning.”

The trouble apparently began at a Dec. 4 meeting between Shapiro and Tuchman, and escalated with the curator’s written response.

“You asked me if I had considered early retirement from service to the County of Los Angeles,” Tuchman wrote to Shapiro on Dec. 17, recounting their meeting. “I replied that I had no intention of retiring at present, as I regard myself to be at the height of my intellectual and professional abilities and thus more capable than ever in my 28 years at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to be of service to the institution.”

Tuchman further alleged in the letter that Shapiro told Tuchman he was going to be removed from the museum one way or another, and demanded a letter of resignation by Dec. 17 so that Shapiro could present it to the county Board of Supervisors by Jan. 15.

According to Tuchman’s letter, Shapiro’s only explanation of why he was being forced out was that the director wanted to work directly with collectors and that he had “a problem” with the administration of Tuchman’s department, but he never explained the nature of the problem.

“I take offense at this implied threat, and I reject it as completely inappropriate,” Tuchman wrote. “You have provided no ‘just cause’ for my dismissal. Consequently I intend to continue to serve the museum as I have and to fulfill the professional responsibilities associated with my employment.”

The following week, Shapiro wrote a pointed response: “While I am clearly not satisfied with your job performance, and I so informed you in some detail during our meeting, that does not mean that I intend to dismiss you for just cause at this time. I does mean, however, that I will review your job performance on a regular basis and provide you with appropriate counseling.”

The director also chastised Tuchman for circulating his letter to museum board members and for meeting with curators to discuss the situation. “This type of public airing of private personnel issues is highly unacceptable behavior,” Shapiro wrote. “In the totality of these circumstances, I view your December 17, 1992 letter as having the potential for seriously undermining the interests and the welfare of the entire museum community. This cannot and will not be tolerated. Accordingly, this letter constitutes an official reprimand to you for such conduct. Please be advised that any repetition of this type of behavior may result in more serious disciplinary action.”

Tuchman, in turn, challenged Shapiro’s reprimand and defended his record, as well as his responsibility to inform his colleagues about the situation.

*

Tuchman said in an interview that Shapiro had never informed him of any dissatisfaction with his performance until he declined early retirement. The suit charges that Shapiro has recently undertaken “a campaign of harassment and intimidation” against the curator either to fabricate a fictitious record of misdeeds to justify termination of Tuchman’s employment or to force his resignation. Examples of alleged “false accusations,” “insulting memos” and “unwarranted ‘official reprimands’ ” are attached to the complaint.

Among the memos are charges that Tuchman did not provide adequate supervision for the current installation of William Paley’s collection and that on Feb. 16 he did not carry out his responsibilities as a courier for an artwork traveling to the museum from Spain. Several sources at the museum who declined to be quoted have dismissed these charges as trivial or groundless. Tuchman likens the allegations to “jaywalking tickets.”

“It is beneath my dignity to respond to these charges--although of course I will, in an appropriate tribunal.”

Tuchman’s attorney and accountant, Douglas Venturelli, in February met with LACMA Deputy Director Ronald B. Bratton in an attempt to resolve differences. But on March 12 when Tuchman was abruptly reassigned to the drawings department, with no prior warning or discussion, he asked Los Angeles attorney Hillel Chodos to take the case.

The lawsuit has become a hot topic of conversation in the art world. Inside the museum, where economic woes have taken a toll on morale, many staff members privately regret the affair and say that it has been handled crudely. “Maurice has flaws, as we all do, but no one should be treated like that and shipped off to Siberia,” said one staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“If nothing else, I don’t know how the museum can justify the expense of turning a kitchen into an office for Maurice when he already has an office and there are plenty of empty desks around the museum after all the staff cutbacks,” said another.

Meanwhile, until the case is resolved, Tuchman’s position at the museum is unclear. In response to a query about how he should proceed with scheduled projects in the 20th-Century art department, Shapiro has sent him a memo instructing him to work with Barron. As for his new assignment, Tuchman said: “I challenge it. I don’t accept it and I think it is illegal. I’m certainly not going to the prison cell they are getting ready for me.”