Los Angeles County Museum of Art

On the second floor of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art you can follow the development of American - especially South Californian - art of the last three decades; pop art and minimalism are particularly well represented. Also displayed here are works by contemporary potters and glass-blowers, as well as sculptures and new modern acquisitions. Works by retrospective contemporary artists such as Frank Stella, David Hockney, Robert Longo as well as other special exhibitions are to be found in the five galleries on the ground floor. In the basement of this building are the offices and workshops of the museum's custodians.

Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are mainly textiles from Iraq, Iran and Turkey and can be seen in galleries 305 and 306. Costumes and textiles from various countries and epochs (307) complete this tour.

The Bing Center in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art houses a large auditorium, the Plaza Café and libraries which are accessible to the public only by prior arrangement.

The Costumes and Textiles collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art contains 55,000 exhibits from around the world. The objects represent more than one hundred cultures and two thousand years of human creativity in the textile arts.

The Decorative Arts collections contain silver and metalwork, ceramics (including pottery and porcelain), glass, and woodwork (mostly furniture). The three principal areas, European, American, and modern and contemporary, which range in date from the medieval period (about 1200) to the present day.

Art from the 20th century is housed in the two upper floors of the Anderson Building of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, whilst the ground floor is used for temporary exhibitions. European works of art from 1900 to 1950 are displayed in galleries 307-311, including works belonging to such art schools as expressionism, cubism, Russian avant-garde, German expressionism, dadaism and surrealism. The German expressionists are well represented: Nolde, Meidner, Barlach, Schmidt-Rottluff, Kollwitz, Pechstein, Kirchner and Heckel. Schwitters holds a special place among the dadaists. Of those Americans who pay homage to abstract expressionism, works by Stuart Davis, Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, Willem de Kooning, James Pollock and Frank Stella, to mention only the most important, are represented (galleries 312-14).

Also with two floors, the Ahmanson Building of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has the most space for exhibits, having galleries placed around an atrium. Many art forms are represented - from the antiquarian to the 19th century - and require maximum concentration from the visitor. Chinese and Korean art and Asiatic lacquer-work are to be found in the basement. On the ground floor you will find British decorative art (gallery 102A), British painting and sculpture (105), the unique Gilbert collections of Italian late Renaissance mosaics and large silver items (103 and 104), American painting, sculpture and decorative art from the 18th and 19th c. (106-113), African and South Sea art (114) and pre-Columbian art (115).

First floor

On the first floor the tour begins with Egyptian art (201) and then continues with ancient western Asiatic art, including five reliefs from the second millennium BC. from the palace of King Ashurnasir II in Nimrod, Assyria (201A). Then follows a newly-installed gallery of Iranian art, two 16th century carpets being outstanding. Antique glass from various countries and civilizations is on show in galleries 203 and 219, Greek and Roman sculptures in gallery 205. Medieval and Renaissance art (205-208) and European paintings and sculptures from later epochs (210-217) are without doubt the main sections of the museum. Outstanding examples from this collection are pictures by Rembrandt ("The Raising of Lazarus" and "Man in a Black Hat"), Rubens ("Adoration of the Shepherds"), Frans Hals ("Portrait of a Man"), Fra Bartolommeo ("The Holy Family"), Canaletto, Georges de la Tour ("Magdalene with the Smoking Flame", one of the four representations of Mary Magdalene by the Frenchmaster) and one of St Andreas by El Greco. Of the German masters, Dürer, Hans Baldung (known as Grien), Lucas Cranach the elder, Riemenschneider and Schongauer are represented. There is also a good collection of works by French impressionists.

Second floor

The second floor is devoted exclusively to Asiatic and Near Eastern art. The tour begins with Indian sculptures from the first millennium, mainly of sandstone, bronze and gilded bronze, and a representation of the dancing god Shiva dating from the 10th century (301). Works of art from southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Tibet are to be found in galleries 302 and 303; many - including 15th century Indian water-colors (304) - come from the collection by Frau Nasil Heeremaneck, who supported the museum in the seventies.

The collection of Indian and Southeast Asian art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art includes more than 5,000 exhibits which date from the third century BC. The decorative art collection includes early writing cabinets, Christian ivory carvings from Goa, fine metalware, jewelry and enamel work, and Mughal jades and glassware.

The building of the Japanese Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art resulted from a gift. A collector was prepared to give the museum 300 screens and scrolls from the Edo period (17th century) and as the museum did not have sufficient space for its now extended Japanese exhibits it was decided to build a special room for them. The collector Joe D. Price had originally chosen the architect Goff to build the pavilion on his land in Oklahoma. However, Goff subsequently favored housing the collection in a museum. His design was amended by another architect only to the extent that the building had to conform to the earthquake requirements and other building regulations laid down by Los Angeles. The roofs were supported by cables fixed to the curved beams, reminding one of Japanese gateways. The transparent walls are obviously meant to imitate Japanese shoji (paper screens). The curved interior of the pavilion contains cascades and pools.

The building consists of two parts: in one can be found prints, a Netsuke collection, ceramics, kimonos and sculptures, which were already in the museum's possession but only a part of which could be displayed. The second wing is fitted with ramps; this is where the screens and scrolls from the Price collection are displayed. As there is not sufficient room for everything, it is planned to alternate the exhibits.

Building plans

Extensions to the museum are still not complete. The next projects are a library, a small lecture hall, and possibly a home for the decorative arts. In Hancock Park in which the museum stands there is sufficient space for such developments.

Hammer Building

In the two-story Hammer Building only the upper floor is devoted to art. It contains a part of the important collection by the oil-industrialist Armand Hammer. Originally intended as a gift, it is today actually on loan, as Hammer fell out with the museum and is now thinking of building his own museum to house his whole art collection. On this floor, in addition to the Hammer Collection, are sketches, prints and photographs in three galleries. On the ground floor are offices and in the basement the museum shop and a gallery for special exhibitions.

The Prints and Drawings collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art contains the Robert Gore Rifkind Collection of works by German expressionists.

The Robert O. Anderson Building, erected as recently as 1986, has a new façade in the Babylonian style and provides adequate room for its important 20th century art collection, including works from Europe and the USA.

Not until September 1988 was an unusual pavilion opened for the large stocks of Japanese art; from an architectural point of view this is without doubt the boldest undertaking this continually expanding museum has made. Its creator was the architect Bruce Goff, who died while the building work was going on.

Subsidy

The museum is maintained by the county, not by the city; the individual buildings were financed by donations from private patrons. The cost of the Anderson Building, for example, amounted to 35 million dollars, and that of the Japanese Pavilion 12.5 million. The other buildings which date from the beginnings of the museum bear the names of their chief sponsors: Howard Ahmanson, Armand Hammer and Leo S Bing.