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Jamie McCourt and Aileen Getty among new MOCA board trustees

The new trustees announced by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles include Jaime McCourt, left, and Aileen Getty.
The new trustees announced by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles include Jaime McCourt, left, and Aileen Getty.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times, Araya Diaz / Getty Images)
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Former Dodgers President Jamie McCourt and heiress and philanthropist Aileen Getty are among the four new trustees announced Thursday by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Investor and philanthropist Andrew Nikou and art collector Chara Schreyer also joined MOCA’s board of trustees.

“They each have a commitment and passion for civic and culture engagement that is inspiring,” MOCA Director Philippe Vergne said in the announcement. “As a group, they represent well how we are continuing to establish the museum’s national and international footprint.”

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McCourt, whose ex-husband Frank McCourt sold the Dodgers in 2012 for more than $2 billion, serves on the board of trustees and finance committee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is also on the board of directors for the Centre Pompidou Foundation in France.

Getty, the granddaughter of J. Paul Getty, lives in L.A. and is an advocate for AIDS causes and the homeless.

Nikou’s private equity firm, OpenGate Capital, is active in the U.S., Western Europe and Latin America.

Schreyer, who has been included on the Artnews Top 200 Art Collectors list, owns works by Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Ed Ruscha, among others.

“Civic, aesthetic, and savvy, these are our new board members,” Vergne said.

The additions raise the number of MOCA board members to 54, the most it has had in a decade, the museum said. The new trustees follow a string of infrastructural and curatorial changes instituted by Vergne, who took his post in March 2014, after the museum had been on the brink of financial collapse.

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All of the museum’s artist trustees -- John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Catherine Opie and Ruscha -- resigned in 2012 over conflicts with then-director Jeffrey Deitch. All but Ruscha rejoined the board shortly after Vergne took his post. Painter Mark Grotjahn also joined the board, signaling a rebuilding of trust from the artists’ community.

The MOCA board added four members, including acclaimed L.A. artist Mark Bradford, in October. Legislative and public policy strategist Heather Podesta was among the newcomers, as was entrepreneur and art collector Cathy Vedovi and banking executive and philanthropist Christopher Walker.

Chief curator Helen Molesworth joined the staff in September. In January she hired L.A. native Lanka Tattersall, who came from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, as assistant curator.

MOCA’s endowment is significantly up, from a low of about $5 million in 2008 to about $100 million, the museum said.

Twitter: @debvankin

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