msn.com
"Exciting Contemporary Artists From Southern California"
Hilbert Museum Debuts New Space
By Anastacia Grenda • 11mo
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/hilbert-museum-debuts-new-space/ar-BB1iAC0v
The reimagined Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University is “a storytelling museum,” according to donor and founder Mark Hilbert. The narrative it presents is rich in characters and plotlines, and written in ink and oils, acrylics, and watercolors. On Feb. 23, you can see the story unfold when the museum opens after a three-year renovation that expanded the space from 7,500 to 22,000 square feet.

“There are so many little gems of storytelling; it gets you excited,” says Hilbert, as he admires Frank Ashley’s painting “The Barefoot ’60s: Enrico’s San Francisco” in December. “The stories are about the artists as well as what’s in the paintings.”

Those artists include Mary Blair—renowned Disney illustrator and designer who Hilbert said was one of the greatest artists to come out of California—and Henrietta Berk, a Bay Area Figurative painter in the 1950s and ’60s whose bold and saturated oils have been rediscovered in recent years. There are famous names—David Hockney, Wayne Thiebaud, Millard Sheets—as well as exciting contemporary artists from Southern California such as Mark Jacobucci and Danny Galieote.

The works offer diverse worlds to explore. Beatnik cafes and old Hollywood, bridges and freeway overpasses, jazz clubs and pastoral landscapes. There’s even a piece that tells the story of the museum itself: a Bradford Salamon painting that depicts Mark Hilbert, Salamon, and Gordon McClelland (an influential Orange County curator and author) discussing initial plans for the museum at the Crab Cooker restaurant.

He’s not in every painting, but the museum tells Hilbert’s story, too. He and his wife, Janet, began collecting art in 1992. “Early on, a gallerist told us to train our eye for quality by going to Europe and seeing the masters,” he says. “We’ve gone on 250 museum visits there. Each time, my wife picks her favorites, I pick mine, and we compare notes. And it was my wife’s idea to focus on storytelling. One day, I brought home a landscape and asked what she thought. She said it was beautiful, but that it needed a story.”

Those decades of immersive art collecting have led to a museum unlike any other, says Mary Platt, director of the museum. “Mark Hilbert has one of the great eyes, and that’s a rare talent.”

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but the new exterior of the Hilbert Museum gives you a good idea of the treasures that await inside.

Establishing the Setting

“Pleasures Along the Beach” is a 40-foot by 16-foot Millard Sheets mosaic installed above the Janet Hilbert Courtyard that connects the museum’s two buildings. Made of Murano glass, the mosaic was salvaged from a former Home Savings Bank building in Santa Monica and painstakingly restored. Passing under the mosaic, visitors enter the courtyard, with its native gardens and California live oak tree, crowned by a floating, sculptural structure that frames the view of the sky as if it’s also a work of art. The architectural design of the museum’s buildings, created by the firm Johnston Marklee, references the industrial history of the Hilbert’s Cypress Street Barrio location while adding a simple, contemporary sensibility.

The North Wing houses selections from the permanent collection of more than 5,000 works. Arranged mostly chronologically, the exhibit walks visitors through a history of California art from the late 1800s to today, with a notable focus on the California Scene paintings the museum is known for. The North Wing also has the Burra Family Community Room, which will be the site of lectures, classes, and other events.

The South Wing is home to the main entrance, the Gordon McClelland Library of research materials, spaces for special exhibits, and an attached cafe. There are 26 galleries, with nine special shows slated for the opening. These include exhibits focused on Millard Sheets, Norman Rockwell, Mary Blair, and Emigdio Vasquez, as well as pieces from the permanent collection’s Navajo Eye Dazzler rugs and vintage radios. (Hilbert collects the latter as a nod to the time he worked in his parents’ Pasadena appliance store putting price tags on their radios.)

Hilbert and Platt say the museum is designed to be visitor friendly. The galleries are intimate but not cramped, suffused with natural light from large windows overlooking outdoor patios. The front desk is lower than normal to make visitors feel welcome, and there are knowledgeable docents available to answer questions and lead tours. The museum’s location is easily accessible by car or train, and the shops and restaurants of the circle in Orange’s Old Towne are within walking distance. Families are encouraged to visit—children can go on scavenger hunts to spot items in paintings—as are Chapman students. Admission and parking are free.

It’s that passion to share this art with the community that ties all these narrative threads together. “Opening this museum is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Platt says.

HILBERT MUSEUM
167 N. Atchison St., Orange
714-516-5880
hilbertmuseum.org
Admission free, advance online reservations recommended

© Provided by Orange Coast Magazine