At LACMA: Masterpieces Come, Masterpieces Go

At LACMA: Masterpieces Come, Masterpieces Go

Now that the Getty scandal has jumped onto the front page of the New York Times and even appeared in the TV news, it's very tempting to continue to stay the course and cover the story. But I'll leave it, for the time being, to the investigative reporters and concentrate instead on the masterpieces of European art that are currently being shown and sold at LACMA.

Now at LACMA, we have a unique opportunity to study several dozen paintings by Camille Pissarro and Paul Cezanne. This new exhibition focuses on the twenty-year friendship and collaboration between the much-older Pissarro and his young prot-g-, C-zanne. From 1865 to 1885, the two often worked side by side on landscapes and still lifes, with often identical compositions. The resulting paintings, however, more often than not, look like distant cousins. Pissarro, comfortably set in his ways, makes irresistibly charming paintings, capturing leisurely afternoons in the countryside. His short, tiny brushstrokes flutter like the wings of a hummingbird, forming a pleasing, colorful mosaic that's simply impossible to resist. With Cezanne, it's quite a different matter.

Sotheby's auction in New York, yielding the museum $13 million. The best of the lot---a Modigliani portrait---went for $4.9 million. LACMA officials are saying that they'll use these funds to buy new, spectacular artworks but cannot yet reveal the details. And, indeed, it had better be something remarkable to justify the selling of so many good artworks belonging to the museum for so long. For example, the Modigliani portrait came to LACMA in 1951 from William Wyler, famous Hollywood director of Ben Hur, Roman Holiday and Funny Girl, to name just a few. LACMA loaned this portrait on numerous occasions to museum exhibitions in Boston and New York, Paris and Tokyo, Washington and Ottawa. But somehow it was not good enough to keep it here in L.A. I can't wait to learn what LACMA's new purchase is going to be, and to see if the sacrifices justify the end.