Hilbert Museum partners with Pageant of the Masters to tell a story of California art
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When Diane Challis Davy, director of the Pageant of the Masters, was first invited to tour the Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange last year, she was struck by the many images she knew would be a fit for Laguna Beach’s famed living picture show.
Mark Hilbert, who co-founded the museum with his late wife Janet, walked Challis Davy through the museum personally and sent her home with art books to look through. She came across a painting in one of those books that she knew had to be included in the Pageant.
“Mark gave me some of his beautiful books and I took them home and right away, I knew that ‘Monday at the Crab Cooker’ was perfect for a Pageant tableau,” said Challis Davy.
The work by local artist Bradford J. Salamon depicted three men having dinner at the iconic Newport Beach restaurant. Challis Davy knew the scene inside the popular seafood eatery fit well with the 2025 Pageant of the Masters theme, “Gold Coast: Treasures of California,” which is intended to be a tour of some of the most notable works of art on view at California’s coastal museums.
Unbeknownst to Challis Davy, she had just selected a piece that documents the beginnings of the Hilbert Museum itself.
“I chose it before Bradford told me he is [one of the men] in the picture, Mr. Hilbert is painted in the picture and Gordon McClelland is in the picture,” said Challis Davy.
On Monday nights the three art lovers would get together over a fish dinner and discuss the idea of opening a museum that could display the collection amassed by Mark Hilbert and his late wife, Janet.
“We would just get together and talk about art until we were deaf,” Hilbert said.
The meeting of the minds was the first imagining of the Hilbert Museum as it stands today and Salamon said he recognized history was being made.
“I felt privileged to be watching the soup being made with Mark and Gordon and the idea of a museum,” said Salamon. “As we kept going every Monday and talking, I realized I was really dealing with people who could pull this off, I was dealing with a visionary who is going to do this; and I thought I should document it.”
Salamon joined Challis Davy, Hilbert and Hilbert Museum director Mary Platt on the evening of June 4 in a panel discussion at the museum discussing the painting and other works selected from the Hilbert Collection that will be featured in this year’s pageant.
The Pageant of the Masters has been a tradition at Laguna Beach’s Festival of Arts since 1932, when a few living pictures were presented as the “Spirit of the Masters Pageant.”
“It grew over the years,” said Challis Davy. “Thanks to a fellow by the name of Roy Ropp, who was a builder in town and a painter. He is considered the father of the pageant because he gave us our name, Pageant of the Masters.“
Ropp used his expertise to add painted backdrops on a larger stage and incorporated music and narration in the show. He is also responsible for introducing “The Last Supper,” as the finale, a tradition that continues today.
Each year the show follows at theme, such as last year’s “À La Mode: The Art of Fashion,” which put the spotlight on popular styles of dress in various periods. Challis Davy works closely with her team to find the right works of art to present that best represent the theme.
“Proportion of overall canvas to figure is very important to us and how the figures are aligned,” said Challis Davy. “We are going to take this two dimensional painting and we are going to turn it back into 3D, so it’s all about the proportions.”
Challis Davy said she also keeps an eye out for works with meaningful narratives, something the Hilbert Museum prides itself on.
“We specialize in what we call California narrative art, which is art that tells a story, ” Platt said of the Hilbert. “You can also call it representational art or figurative art. It certainly has people in it, or the work of people. You might see a boat, or a pier or ranch or road.”
In addition to “Monday at the Crab Cooker,” the pageant has also selected Phil Dike’s “Afternoon at Diver’s Cove,” Lee Blair’s “Mary by the Sea,” and another of Salamon’s oil works, “Seal Beach Nighthawks,” which depicts a cold night at a seaside corn dog shack.
The Millard Sheets mosaic “Pleasures Along the Beach,” which is the crown jewel of the expanded Hilbert Museum and was relocated from a Home Savings & Loan building in Santa Monica, will also be featured in the pageant along with a third Salamon painting, commissioned by the pageant.
Since the segment on Salamon will include the Crab Cooker and the corn dog stand, Davy was hoping to include a third work that depicted a restaurant or bar.
“I thought there is got to be a third one and I look and looked and I couldn’t find one that was suitable for our stage, so I thought ‘OK, let’s take a leap of faith and let’s commission an artwork’ and that painting is now in the Festival of Arts’ permanent collection.”
Salamon was given a choice of painting the landmark Sandpiper lounge in Laguna Beach — affectionately called the “Dirty Bird” by locals — the Swallows Inn or the Marine Room Tavern on Ocean Avenue in Downtown Laguna Beach. The artist went with the Marine Room, painting a scene of patrons at the bar and in front of the fireplace.
“I put different little Easter eggs in there regarding art history; on the far left there is “Folies-Bergère” by Monet, there is Winslow Homer’s “Breezing Up,” which they have done at the pageant for many years,” Salamon pointed during the panel discussion.
There is also a small cat peeking out from behind a bar stool, a reference to the “McSorley’s Cats” by John Sloan, and a balloon dog on one patron’s hat, a nod to Jeff Koons.
“These were all little things that I thought would be fun to put in,” Salamon said.
Mark Hilbert will also get in on the fun this summer, joining the cast of volunteers at the pageant on “Hilbert Museum Night at the Pageant” on July 9 to play himself in the “Monday at the Crab Cooker” painting.
“We are not going to ask him to shave for this but he will have to be subjected to the make up application process,” Davy said.
The 2025 Pageant of the Masters opens July 5 and recipients of the Hilbert Museum e-newsletter will receive a 20% ticket discount. For more information on the 2025 Festival of the Arts and Pageant of the Masters, visit foapom.com. For details on the Hilbert Museum exhibitions and the five works selected from the Hilbert Museum collection go to hilbertmuseum.org.
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