While the Orange County Museum of Art and UC Irvine’s new Institute and Museum of California Art are making headlines with ambitious construction projects, Chapman University is growing its art museum, too.
The Insider recently touted the exhibition of Disney artist Mary Blair at Chapman’s Hilbert Museum of California Art as “well worth a visit.” Editor at Large Rick Reiff not only seconds the recommendation, he notes there’s now another must-see exhibit at the Hilbert: “Los Angeles Area Scene Paintings,” a look at urbanization in more than 70 works, including paintings by noted midcentury artists such as Millard Sheets, Emil Kosa Jr., Dorothy Sklar and Rex Brandt.
The Blair exhibit ends on Dec. 28; Los Angeles continues through May 2.
Best time to tour this free museum? Thursdays at 11 a.m., when the passionate and insightful guide is benefactor Mark Hilbert himself.
The museum opened in a former garage/warehouse just off the main campus in 2016 with more than 200 paintings worth $7 million donated by Hilbert and his wife, Janet.
They’ve given another $1 million worth of art to the museum annually. Hilbert says his entire collection numbers in the “thousands…enough to do exhibits for the next 50 years and never duplicate one.”
The collection’s growth marks a big reason for plans to nearly triple the size of the Hilbert Museum by 2023, to 21,700 square feet.
The Hilberts tell the Business Journal they will be kicking in $3 million toward the construction of the expanded museum along North Atchison Street.
And the Hilberts are making sure the public won’t miss the expanded facility: The exterior will feature a colorful 40-foot-long beach-scene mural by Millard Sheets—valued at over $1 million—which since 1969 had graced a Santa Monica building slated for demolition.
It is one in a series of iconic murals that Sheets created for Home Savings and Loan branches throughout California and beyond.
Hilbert purchased the mosaic and had it carefully disassembled and put away for safe-keeping. Which leads to the question, where does Hilbert store so much art?
“I’m in real estate, I have plenty of space,” he quips.
Ed Thorp, a legend in Las Vegas and on Wall Street, and mentor to Bill Gross, now lives on at the school where he was a founding professor of mathematics—University of California-Irvine.
The author of “Beat the Dealer,” ranked No. 3 on Amazon in blackjack even more than 50 years after its publication, donated his papers to UCI. The school responded with a recent event that included an hour-long conversation before an audience of 200.
Among those in attendance was Bernard Russo, an emeritus professor who with Thorp co-founded the UCI math department in 1965.
Our Rick Reiff made a (video) appearance as well—Thorpe’s 2017 appearance on Inside OC was featured prominently at the event.
Besides Thorpe’s wife, Catherine, and other family members, other friends at the event included Rutan & Tucker Partner Thomas Salinger, USA Water Polo CEO Christopher Ramsey, Leisure Capital CEO Marr Leisure and UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman.
To see the exhibition on Thorp, visit the UCI Library. Our Peter J. Brennan notes it’s well worth the visit, too.
