Sound Beginnings : Nascent OCMA Aims for Ambitious Exhibits to Complement Financial Success

When the Orange County Museum of Art marks its first anniversary on Saturday, it can celebrate without reservation its financial strength and mushrooming attendance. It still has a way to go, though, toward reaching its artistic goals, arts observers and museum officials say.

“Our record of accomplishment is truly extraordinary,” said board President Charles D. Martin. However, atop the priority list, he said, is “an ambition to [increase] the number of shows this institution organizes and dramatically improve their caliber and scholarly nature.”

Indeed, OCMA’s exhibition programming has drawn mixed reviews in a year of impressive fiscal growth. The private, nonprofit institution’s current budget of $2.7 million is well more than double that of the Newport Harbor Art Museum, which merged with the Laguna Art Museum in the summer of 1996 to create OCMA. (The Laguna museum later broke off to operate independently, though it continues to share the 3,800-piece permanent collection it had amassed over 78 years.)

The museum, which closed for six months for a major expansion of the Newport Harbor site, is operating with a $455,000 surplus; Newport Harbor’s was $136,000. And, through large donations and aggressive fund-raising, its endowment skyrocketed from almost nothing to $5.5 million, Martin said.

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Further, OCMA’s first-year attendance totaled 65,391, nearly quadrupling Newport Harbor’s tally in its last full year of operation, and membership jumped by almost 40%, to 1,843. According to museum officials, OCMA also saw a 25% increase in its docent roster and roughly twice the number, about 30,000, of students involved in its educational programs. Attendance at lectures quadrupled.

“This community now has more than ever to see, to think about and to do,” said chief curator Bruce Guenther, who came seven years ago to the Newport Harbor, which was founded in 1962 by 13 county art patrons. “That was the goal.”

The economic success can be partly attributed to greater confidence in the museum’s fiscal management, officials say, and its growing popularity stems largely from OCMA’s focus on pre-World War II art, which appeals to a wider audience. Because Orange County residents often lack the cultural acumen of denizens in such urban centers as Los Angeles, with its plethora of museums and galleries, the Newport Harbor’s emphasis on cutting-edge art “turned a lot of people off,” Martin said.

“We’re meeting a need that I think is latent in our community,” he said during a recent interview at the museum, which is nestled on a quiet street within walking distance of Fashion Island Newport Beach and its surrounding ocean-view office buildings.

Grace Emery, one of the institution’s new members, said midway through a Sunday afternoon sweep of the galleries that she likes its balance of older and newer art.

“Their exhibits are extraordinarily good,” said the Santa Ana lawyer. “I seem to get more out of the visit.”

The museum’s continuous display of permanent collection works, which paints a tableau of California art from the late 19th century to the present, also gets high marks.

“I was very touched when I went through the permanent collection galleries and saw the realization of a cumulative vision that my predecessors and I had had,” said Paul Schimmel, who served as the Newport Harbor’s chief curator in the ‘80s before leaving for the same post at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art.

But many art lovers bemoan OCMA’s heavy reliance on shows that originate elsewhere (four during 1997) and the dearth of internally curated exhibits, the sort by which a museum distinguishes itself. In the ‘80s, the Newport Harbor earned national acclaim for its venturesome, scholarly exhibits.

OCMA “is taking a lot of marquee-name shows,” said Cal State Fullerton assistant art professor Mike McGee. “I’d like to see a balance with exhibits that are reinterpreting [traditional art] or giving some new insights into works that maybe haven’t been seen very much.”

Said Schimmel: “I think with the new facility, they have an opportunity to refocus on the traditions of original scholarship and forward-thinking programming.”

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Conceding that some of the criticism is “absolutely valid,” Martin said the museum’s artistic shortcomings must be viewed in context.

In the aftermath of the contentious merger, a newly configured staff, which united most of the two museums’ employees and volunteer groups, had to invent a single administration, all the while organizing, storing and finally exhibiting the newly combined collections and works from other institutions.

“We had to walk before we can run,” Martin said.

Despite the administrative burden, OCMA staged 17 shows at either its main site or its South Coast Plaza satellite last year, a heavy workload by any measure, and particularly for a single curator (Guenther) assisted only by a part-time administrative staffer, Martin said.

A curator typically requires from one to four years to put together one major exhibition, plus the money to do it, said Martin, a venture capitalist by profession. The Newport Harbor ran deep annual deficits for several years before the merger talks began, he noted. “And the loaned shows we’ve got have been really good shows, right on point with our mission,” Martin added.

In the next several years, the museum will mount two more biennial exhibits showcasing up-and-coming L.A. artists, said Guenther, and this June it will reinstate a Newport Harbor series that introduced emerging contemporary artists through small solo shows.

A search launched in the fall for a second curator with expertise in American art has been prolonged by the museum’s busy agenda, Martin said. Officials expect to make the hire soon.

Other plans include strengthening the museum’s sense of identity and drawing new visitors, members and other supporters from the county’s northern and southern regions; the bulk of current supporters live in the coastal cities.

Toward that end, membership drives have been expanded geographically, and the museum plans to publish a refined mission statement articulating its aim to “become the advocate for the visual arts in Orange County” and reiterating OCMA’s focus on California art, Martin said.

The Laguna Art Museum has the same focus, but officials from the two institutions believe there’s room for both. “The more research and scholarship done in the area,” said Laguna museum Director Bolton Colburn, “the better.”

OCMA trustees also plan by the end of the year to decide whether to build a bigger facility at a site closer to the county’s midsection. Martin, who has agreed to serve a second term as board chairman pending approval in a spring election, favors the move, despite the possible challenge of raising at least $60 million for the project at the same time the Orange County Performing Arts Center may be seeking donors for a second, $75-million concert hall.

Some trustees believe the museum can extend its reach without a new, freeway-close home.

“I think we can certainly take major steps in that direction,” said board vice chairman James V. Selna, “as we already have. The decision to select the name [Orange County Museum of Art] in and of itself sent a message that we’re here for the entire county.”

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Before and After

Since its metamorphosis a year ago from the Newport Harbor Art Museum to the Orange County Museum of Art, the Newport Beach institution has shown a marked increase in attendance, membership and financial strength. Contributions to its permanent collection totaled 100 works worth $700,000.

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OCMA NHAM Annual operating budget $2.7 million $1.1 million* Operating surplus $455,000 $136,000* Endowment $5.5 million Almost nothing Attendance 65,391 17,300 Membership 1,843 1,250

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* 1995, last full year of operation

Source: Orange County Museum of Art

Show by Show

The Orange County Museum of Art’s main inaugural exhibit drew the most visitors during the past year; attendance at other shows in 1997 suggests a preference for traditional themes and well-known artists. Attendance by exhibit, in order of popularity:

* “Joe Goode” (inaugural show)

Dates: Jan. 25-March 13

Attendance: 19,903

* “Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape, 1922-1932”

Dates: Oct. 25-Dec. 28

Attendance: 17,471

* “Still Life: The Object in American Art, 1915-1995, Selections From the Metropolitan Museum of Art”

Dates: June 21-Aug. 17

Attendance: 13,906

* 1997 Biennial (work by younger contemporary artists)

Dates: April 19-June 8

Attendance: 8,367

* “Vatican Corridor: A Non-Specific Autobiography” (artist-made tables and table wear for “Feast on Art” auction)

Dates: Aug. 23-Sept. 21

Attendance: 5,744

Source: Orange County Museum of Art