Talks Resume for Merger of O.C. Museums

Serious discussions have resumed to merge two of Orange County’s oldest and most prominent art museums into what some characterize as a “world-class” institution--possibly located in the South Coast Metro center as a visual arts equivalent to the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

This time, the catalyst for combining the Laguna Art Museum and Newport Harbor Art Museum into what might be called the Orange County Museum of Art has been the rise of Laguna trustee Gilbert LeVasseur. A private investor with experience in corporate mergers, he now serves as board president.

A recently formed committee of three board members from each museum has been “meeting monthly and talking on the phone daily,” LeVasseur said Thursday.

James V. Selna, Newport Harbor’s board president, said he could not comment.

A merger of the museums has been discussed on and off since 1989, with proponents arguing that a single, high-profile entity would find it easier to garner ever-diminishing funds from private and public sources, and could keep administrative costs down.

In September, after another round of talks had stalled, the board elected LeVasseur president. Soon after he took over, he said Thursday, he “requested that [the Newport Harbor board] have one individual who represents its vision of its museum meet with me.”

Newport sent trustee Charles D. Martin, general partner of the Newport Beach venture capital firm Enterprise Partners. Shortly after the two started meeting, they were joined by two more board members from each museum to explore the issues involved in a possible merger of the museums under one director.

Martin could not be reached.

One source close to the Laguna museum said that in past years, Newport Harbor trustees “wanted us to absorb all their problems. So it took a guy from each institution experienced with mergers to see if there was a mutually beneficial reason for doing this and how it would actually work.”

The 78-year-old Laguna Art Museum, which occupies both an ocean-front location in Laguna Beach and a storefront in the South Coast Plaza mall, focuses on historical and contemporary art of California. The 35-year-old Newport Harbor Art Museum, in Fashion Island, specializes in post-war California art. The annual budget of each is about $1 million.

Sources close to the institutions, who only would speak on conditions of anonymity, said the new museum would have a more general focus, enabling it to show major traveling exhibitions of the works of famous artists. Some supporters also anticipate being able to attract, according to one, “some really great private collections in Orange County.” No particular collection was specified by the sources.

“Many communities have one great institution in visual arts and one in performing arts,” LeVasseur said. “That’s what we think should be the case in Orange County.”

Together with the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, the Newport Harbor and Laguna museums are the leading exhibiting institutions in Orange County. Among the distinguished artists represented by Newport Harbor’s collection of paintings, sculpture, photography, drawing, prints and mixed media works are Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Irwin, Vija Celmins, Joe Goode, Ed Ruscha, Bill Viola and Edward Kienholz.

During the 1980s, under then-chief curator Paul Schimmel and assistant curator Anne Ayres, the museum gained national acclaim for exhibitions on Abstract Expressionist painting, conceptual artist Chris Burden and the Los Angeles version of Pop art. Newport Harbor’s most prominent supporter is Irvine Co. chairman Donald L. Bren, who also serves on the board.

The Laguna Art Museum also collects works in all media--by such well-known contemporary artists as Kienholz, Craig Kauffman, John Altoon and George Herms--but its holdings extend further into California’s past, with plein-air paintings by Guy Rose, Edgar Payne, Alson Clark and others.

Under the directorship of Charles Desmarais, who left in 1994, the Laguna museum also gained national prominence, for exhibitions he curated on media artist Ilene Segalove and Los Angeles photography.

While no details of the plan to merge have been worked out--and most sources say the necessary authorization of both boards is unlikely to occur before the end of the month at the soonest--certain ideas have been widely discussed.

If the boards approve the merger, a long-range planning committee would be formed and a feasibility study would be undertaken. Both museums would need to erase their debts--each is now about $100,000 in the red--for the merger to proceed, sources said.

LeVasseur said the Laguna museum will erase its deficit through donations (he would not say from whom) and earned income.

Another agreed-upon issue, he continued, is that the Laguna Art Museum would not be the site of the new institution because it is too small, cannot be expanded (situated on a corner, it abuts a restaurant) and has no parking facilities. The future of the museum’s satellite gallery in South Coast Plaza remains an open question.

Long-range ideas include locating the new museum in the South Coast Metro area, which would offer freeway accessibility and substantial parking. In the short term, possibilities include moving into Newport Harbor’s current location, which is due to be expanded.

In November, Newport Harbor announced a $6-million, five-year capital campaign to remodel the present location and expand into an adjacent building vacated last year by the Newport Beach Public Library.

Many issues remain to be resolved, including the definition of a museum mission, the naming of a director, the status of the museums’ present staffs and the composition of the new museum’s board.

Michael Botwinick has been director of the Newport Harbor museum since 1991. Botwinick has said his five-year contract, which expires this month, will be extended for another year.

The current Laguna museum director is Naomi Vine, who started there last March. The length of her contract has not been made public.

LeVasseur would not discuss whether Botwinick and Vine are being considered to direct a combined museum or if the boards intend to form a search committee to consider other candidates.

A new museum could face financial competition from the Performing Arts Center, which is studying the feasibility of an expansion pegged at $105 million.

“If these issues we are now confronting are resolved, it’s very likely this vote [to consolidate] will happen, it’s just a question of when,” LeVasseur said.

At least one Newport Harbor source cautions that there is “no solid idea” about the physical location of the new museum, its staff, programming and finances.

In addition to LeVasseur and Martin, the members of the organizing committee are former Newport Harbor board president Thomas H. Nielsen, longtime Newport Harbor trustee Carl Neisser, and Laguna Art Museum trustees Ellen R. Marshall and C. Thomas Nulty.