A rare show for a reclusive artist

The UCLA Hammer Museum has a coup on its exhibition lineup for next fall. “Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective” -- co-organized with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, but scheduled to debut in Los Angeles (Oct. 7, 2003 to Jan. 12, 2004) -- is the first major exhibition in more than 30 years to survey this famously reclusive artist’s work. Bontecou rose to prominence in the 1960s with abstract steel and canvas sculptures, but withdrew in the early ‘70s when her new, figurative work confounded critics and collectors.

The show was organized by Hammer director Ann Philbin and the Chicago museum’s chief curator, Elizabeth A.T. Smith, in cooperation with Bontecou, who will lend works that have never been exhibited. What’s more, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which usually organizes its own exhibitions, has booked the show for Aug. 18 to Nov. 8, 2004, following its Chicago appearance, Feb. 23 to May 24, 2004.

Bontecou’s reemergence began in 1994 with a small exhibition of her 1960s work at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, organized by Smith when she was a curator there. Smith failed to enlist Bontecou’s help with that show and proceeded on her own. But, at the invitation of an old friend, the Rhode Island-born artist went to see the show and approved of Smith’s efforts. The upcoming retrospective will feature about 75 drawings and 50 sculptures, including major new pieces, Smith says.

-- Suzanne Muchnic