Honoring the Changing Culture of American Indians

It’s a big year for the Natural History Museum at Exposition Park. Not only is it celebrating its 80th anniversary, but last Thursday it opened the $4.3-million Times Mirror Hall of Native American Cultures.

Three hundred guests at the opening reception toured the two-level, 10,000-square-foot hall with its innovative exhibits, including a replica of a prehistoric Pueblo cliff dwelling cast at Mesa Verde, an 1890s Zuni room depicting a bead-maker drilling turquoise and a facade of a Greene and Greene home showing the owner unpacking a basket collection.

The crowd stuffed itself on hominy stew with lamb, Hopi chicken tamales, and jicama and nopales salad, staged by Rococo Catering on buffets with sunflower centerpieces. The Los Angeles Inter-Tribal Dance Troupe entertained.

American Indians living in Los Angeles represent numerous North American tribes and constitute the largest urban American Indian population in the United States. Thus, exhibit designer Jean-Jacques Andre and Margaret Hardin, the museum’s head of anthropology, intend to celebrate the changing culture of modern American Indians in the museum. Says Hardin, “It is a living hall.”

During cocktails, Times Mirror Chairman and CEO Robert F. Erburu paid tribute to former Times Publisher and former Times Mirror Chairman Otis Chandler for becoming intrigued with the concept of the hall and helping to implement support for the project.

The Times Mirror Co. contributed $1.5 million of the cost, said museum director Craig Black (who wore a Hermes tie printed with Hopi kachinas). Other major contributors at the event were Tally and Bill Mingst, Cindy and Joe Connolly, Bill and Eileen Zimmerman, Bob and Linda Attiyeh, and Betty and Tom Reddin.

Rosalie Romero, attending with her mother, Grace Romero, from the Chumash Reservation in Santa Ynez, identified Chumash artifacts in the show. She is among the many American Indians who were consulted on exhibits.

The comprehensive collection of artworks, “Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art: 1965-1985,” was created by the American Federation of Arts and recently awarded to the museum over 20 others. It will be displayed on a rotating basis in the new hall.

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MIDSUMMER DREAM: Co-Chairs Eileen Read and Boyd S. Smith looked at the sky at 7 a.m. Saturday, glowered at the rain and made the decision to move the Arabella Ball from its setting in the Shakespearean Garden at the Huntington Library to the indoor Friends Hall. But, with florist Jacob Maarse devoting all day to concocting tall arrangements, the ambience was transformed into “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The final scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was enacted alfresco by ShakeSpeare Et Cetera under a rather petulant sky, while 400 cocktailed and admired the Huntington’s magnificent trees and flowers.

Lots of underwriting from Nelson Holdo of Asanti Fine Jewellers and J.D. Hornberger of JDH and Co. and a $20,000 gift from Roger Engemann will enable the Junior Fellows to contribute $95,000 to the Huntington’s educational programs for schoolchildren.

Committee members there were Katie Darnell, Jan Thompson, Susan McManigal, Hilary Clark. More in the crowd were Tory and Jonathan Howe, Fred and Katie Williamson, Brad and Jane Auerbach, Molly Munger and Stephen English, Charles Reed, John Hotchkis and Courtney Tunney, Sarah and Robert Ketterer, Terry and Debbi Lanni, Gordon Pashigan, Nancy Baxter, Beverly Standing and the Huntington’s senior crowd--Nadine and Bob Skotheim, Nancy Munger, Alice and Joe Coulombe (he’s a new Huntington Overseer), William Moffett and Mary Lou and George Boone.

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PAST PERFECT: Mayfield Senior School dedicated its new Sister Mary Wilfred Gymnasium and the William R. and Virginia Hayden Library and Science Building with blessings and sprinkles of holy water from Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles.

The lineup of Stan and Marcia Hayden’s handsome family--Katie, Bill, Maggie and David--was impressive. Prominent in the crowd were sisters-in-law Betty Strub and Mary Louise Crowe. It was the latter’s parents who bought and donated the Eagle Estate to Mayfield for its campus. The main building is called Strub Hall.

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ESCALATION: Joan Irvine Smith and her mother, Athalie R. Clarke, had invitations out for the eighth Oaks Classic and the Grand Prix Luncheon and Jumping Classic in San Juan Capistrano before Clarke’s death in May. Smith carried on Sunday at the party benefiting the National Water Research Institute. Sponsor Hermes and supporters of the Irvine Museum circulated at the event, which Smith and her mother have built into a major equestrian, art and social gala . . . .

Novices to line dancing hitched up their blue jeans for The Group’s “Big Wild West Shindig” Saturday at the Beach Club in Santa Monica. Cee Cee Morgan taught two-step and line dancing. Group President Sue Keane and Anne Sweel, Miriam Wyan, Donna Tainter, Nancy Dowey, Missy Stuart, Nadine Gerns and Marge Karney worked up a nice profit for the scholarship program at Otis School of Art and Design.