Museum Chief Will Leave a Legacy of Growth, Acclaim

As the Ventura County Museum of History & Art prepares to replace its retiring director, it can look back on Ed Robings’ tenure as the most successful decade in its 86-year history.

The museum’s budget and staff both nearly doubled--to $600,000 a year and eight full-time positions.

With extensive gallery renovations and substantial additions to its art collection made in the last few years, the museum--located across the street from the San Buenaventura Mission--offers much more to its 70,000 annual visitors.

And a string of commendations for the museum and its staff reflect the institution’s growing stature.

“I’ve lived in and directed museums in several cities around the country, and the Ventura County Museum of History & Art is one of the finest county museums I’ve ever seen,” said Mark Hunt, director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley. Hunt is a board member of the California Assn. of Museums.

The Ventura museum’s single largest improvement was a three-year, $175,000 renovation of its main gallery, which features the “Ventura County in the New West” exhibit.

The 5,000-square-foot hall, which reopened in 1997, now has an inviting look, with multilevel displays and floor-to-ceiling murals, along with a new focus.

The gallery’s emphasis shifted from county leaders and politicians to ordinary citizens, ranging from Ventura’s Chinatown residents of the late 1800s to members of the Fillmore Citrus Assn. Mexican Band in the early 1900s.

In May, the museum reopened a smaller gallery, where it features Ojai sculptor George Stuart’s Historical Figures with new fiber-optic lighting and larger, completely enclosed glass cases. Sculpted figurines of Louis XIV, Elizabeth I and 193 others can now be displayed in greater numbers without being exposed to damaging heat and ultraviolet light.

The collection of work by local artists also has grown significantly since 1994, as evidenced in the current exhibit, “Celebrating Ventura County Artists: Selections From the Museum’s Art Collection.”

A significant addition to the collection came four years ago when the Bank of A. Levy was swallowed up in a merger and the president donated 79 works from the bank’s collection.

A $1-million trust established 10 years ago with money from an estate bequeathed to the museum has enabled curator Tim Schiffer to buy many more pieces.

Robings assumed the helm of the museum in 1989, one year after retiring as president of Oxnard College. His successes have not gone unnoticed.

The “Ventura County in the New West” exhibit earned an award from the American Assn. for State and Local History. The American Assn. of Museums lauded librarian Charles Johnson for his 1994 article on local Japanese residents for the Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly. And last month, the California Assn. of Museums honored Robings for his leadership and innovation.

“I think Ed and the museum are very highly thought of in California, and particularly here in Southern California, where people have had the opportunity to meet and work with them and also to see the museum,” Hunt said.

The museum started in 1913 as a room in the Ventura County Courthouse, now the City Hall building. It was packed with several hundred artifacts collected by a Ventura doctor, mostly in exchange for his services. The museum suffered a huge setback in 1978, when Proposition 13 so curbed the county’s income that it was forced to stop paying its bills. But increased donations of time and money allowed it to recover and eventually prosper.

“It’s hard, but we have a very loyal membership and fabulous volunteers,” Schiffer said.

Museum officials already have raised $400,000 to build an off-site center to display 2,000 farm implements, most of which are now stored in various barns throughout the county. They are working out an agreement with the Hansen Agricultural Learning Center to open the satellite branch at Faulkner Farm in Santa Paula.

Administrators would like to add a gallery for a permanent display of the art collection, Schiffer said. They also want to expand the library and storage areas and add a small auditorium.

“In the next few years, I think that there will be a capital campaign to raise the money for all these good things,” predicted Robings, adding that it would be the biggest fund-raising effort in the museum’s history.

After his Sept. 30 departure, Robings, 70, plans to work from his Oxnard home to promote cultural tourism, act as an educational consultant to local schools and do some writing.