Laguna Art Museum Dismisses Director : Art: President says ‘we’re just ready for a change.’ Charles Desmarais says he and the board had been in discussion about realigning his duties, but the firing was a ‘complete shock.’

Charles Desmarais, who boosted the stature of the Laguna Art Museum in his six years as its director, was dismissed Tuesday by the museum board whose president called for “more energy to be put in administration.”

Desmarais said the news “came as a complete shock.”

“I’d dispute any statement that somehow I was doing exhibitions and not running the museum,” Desmarais said. “I’ve never, ever set aside my responsibility for (any) aspect of the museum.”

Under Desmarais, the museum has mounted several acclaimed exhibits, including a custom car show last summer that was one of the most popular in the institution’s 75-year history. Last year the museum also received its largest grant ever, $1 million from the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation.

Desmarais cited other improvements in the museum’s financial status during his tenure, including development of an endowment now totaling $1.8 million and grants of more than $1 million from the National Endowment for the Arts. (The museum’s operating budget at the end of last year was about $1.4 million.)

Desmarais nonetheless acknowledged that his relationship with the board had been cooling, and that the board had been talking about realigning his duties--”which I was willing to do. My attorney and I expected we’d be concluding (that arrangement) a week ago Friday.”

“Instead, I got a letter saying I was terminated,” along with a check for a “substantial severance.”

In a prepared statement, the board said Desmarais “left his position” after he and the board failed to work out “differences in management philosophies.” Board President Teri Kennady subsequently confirmed that the museum had exercised a contractual option to “terminate (Desmarais) without cause.”

Asked to specify the nature of the differences between the board and Desmarais, she said, “We just need more help and energy to be put in administration.”

Asked if she thought he had been spending too much time curating and not enough administering, Kennady said no. “We’re just ready for a change,” she said.

Michael Botwinick, director of the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Orange County’s other prominent visual arts institution, said Tuesday that he was “deeply surprised by the news” and that he thinks Desmarais “has done an extraordinary job.” Exhibitions staged under Desmarais have “brought the museum great steps forward,” Botwinick said, measuring the museum’s growth as “extraordinary.”

But Botwinick noted that disagreements between museum boards and their directors are not uncommon. “Museum directors are maybe like football coaches.”

Kennady said Desmarais “has been a visionary director for this museum and has enhanced its reputation tremendously. But this is a new time and he and the museum have different needs.”

The museum’s curator of exhibitions, Susan M. Anderson, has been appointed acting director and a search committee has been formed to replace Desmarais, Kennady said.

Among the shows presented under Desmarais’ guidance were last year’s “Kustom Kulture,” the car show that drew more than 17,000 visitors; the critically praised “Proof: Los Angeles Art and the Photograph,” which Desmarais curated; and “I Thought California Would Be Different,” a show of works, all acquired by the museum, by young contemporary artists.

Some of these exhibits, such as “Kustom Kulture,” traveled to other museums in the country, helping to shape an improved profile for the Laguna museum, which only a few years ago had a reputation for far more mainstream exhibits.

Before joining the Laguna museum in 1988, Desmarais, a 44-year-old New York native, was director of the California Museum of Photography in Riverside for seven years. Before that, he was a curator at the Friends of Photography in Carmel, and director of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Times correspondent Mark Chalon Smith contributed to this story.