Bowers Museum gets state funds

The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana will get a $4-million chunk of state bond money to help it build a new wing to house revolving collections from the British Museum in London, Gov. Gray Davis has announced. An opening is targeted for 2005.

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido said Tuesday that the city will use the grant as a cornerstone for raising the additional $6 million needed to build the addition, which would also house exhibits from other museums around the world.

“This is huge,” Pulido said. “It gives us a strong vote of confidence and a lot of momentum” to go after the private and public donations needed to complete the project. He said he hopes the rest of the money can be raised within a year.

The city-owned Bowers, he added, is “getting very close” to a final agreement with the British Museum that would allow it to mount shows from the collection of the fabled London institution on a revolving basis, with a new exhibit every nine months.

The British Museum’s traveling “Egyptian Treasures” exhibit was a big hit at the Bowers in 2000 and gave rise to talks about an ongoing partnership between the London and Santa Ana institutions. Pulido says the Bowers partnership figures to “generate money for them and for us.”

The $4 million comes from Proposition 40, a $2.6-billion bond issue that California’s voters approved in March for parks, cultural and environmental uses. Davis has final say on which projects and communities get the money. A spate of announcements have come during election season, including the Bowers allocation and others for renovating the Griffith Park Observatory and grants to museums in Long Beach, Oakland, San Jose and other cities.