Nortons Raise Giving to an Art Form

Peter Norton, a computer software magnate, and his wife, Eileen, have continued to support Southern California art and recently gave works worth more than $3 million from their collection to 29 institutions in the United States and England.

Recipients included the venerable Tate Gallery in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as smaller, regional museums, including the Laguna Art Museum and the Orange County Museum of Art.

The Orange County Museum of Art also has a portion of its Norton gift on view. Works donated by the collectors, 13 of the 70 pieces, can be seen as part of the “Lasting Legacies” exhibition that continues through May 14.

The museum is planning to show the entire gift but has not scheduled a special exhibit for this year.

The gift to the Laguna Art Museum is remarkable not only for its size but for its cohesiveness--a thematic collection focusing on young Southern California artists who came into their own in the early 1990s with edgy, often humorous work, using mixed material and ready-made objects to create comments on the relationship between art and commerce.

“This is the first large philanthropic support from the tech industry, and the Nortons are establishing a new tradition,” said Bolton Colburn, chief curator at the Laguna Art Museum.

Artists whose works are part of the gift include Kim Abeles, Chris Finley, Joyce Lightbody, Manuel Ocampo, and Jody Zellen.