The fate of Norton Simon's art collection is the most brightly burning issue in Southern California's art scene. Will his $750-million collection of European and Asian art stay in Pasadena in the building that bears his name? Will the museum merge with the J. Paul Getty Museum? Will Simon donate the collection to other museums? Or will he sell the whole thing in the art auction of the century?

All of these possibilities flare up at one time or another, ignited by Simon himself or by yet another rumor. A consummate businessman with a quixotic personality, Simon wouldn't be Simon if he weren't negotiating with someone somewhere. He has been courted by dozens of museums and several cities during 35 years of collecting, and he has dashed the hopes of as many suitors.

In recent years, his close ties to the J. Paul Getty Museum and a short-lived offer in 1987 to donate his collection to UCLA have fueled speculation that Simon--who is 83 and disabled by a neurological disorder called Guillain Barre--is seeking another museum to take charge of his vast collection. Meanwhile, a wildly escalating art market has sparked fear that Simon might decide to cash in at auction. Roughly valued at $750 million, his collection of about 12,000 artworks might bring close to $1 billion if shrewdly marketed at a peak moment.

The stakes are enormous for Los Angeles, which has lost great collections in the past and is only now shaping up as what is seriously considered a "world-class art center." Simon's collection represents more than 2,000 years of European and Asian art, while boasting such masterpieces as Raphael's "Madonna and Child With a Book," Lucas Cranach's "Adam" and "Eve," Francisco de Zurbaran's "Still Life With Lemons, Oranges and a Rose" and Rembrandt van Rijn's "Portrait of the Artist's Son, Titus."

Among the collection's strengths are distinguished paintings by pre-Renaissance and Renaissance artists, Old Masters, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists; an extensive assembly of South Asian sculpture; monumental bronzes by Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore; bronze \o7 modeles \f7 of ballet dancers and related works on paper by Edgar Degas; major suites of prints by Rembrandt, Francisco Goya and Pablo Picasso, and the Galka Scheyer collection of art by the Blue Four group.