Broad Art Foundation

The spanking new Broad Contemporary Art Museum is now open at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, featuring a yearlong display of mostly borrowed paintings, sculptures and photographs. Meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown has just opened "Collecting Collections: Highlights From the Permanent Collection," a show that fills the building until mid-May. Is something a bit odd here? Let's see if I've got this straight. One major L.A.

Usually, Eli Broad's trajectory as an art collector is traced to mentoring by the late Taft Schreiber. Broad himself has talked admiringly of what he learned about art from the MCA Inc. executive (and Ronald Reagan's former Hollywood agent), whose small but extraordinary trove of works by Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Alberto Giacometti and 10 others was a magnanimous 1989 gift to the Museum of Contemporary Art from the estate of Schreiber's widow, Rita. Still, another, even more celebrated name in the annals of Los Angeles art collecting ought not to be discounted, even if the influence was perhaps more indirect.

The architectural design that Eli Broad is scheduled to reveal Thursday in a news conference at Walt Disney Concert Hall wraps the museum housing his contemporary art collection in a porous honeycomb. The billionaire collector and philanthropist hopes the $130-million building will help bring about his vision of downtown L.A. as a bustling urban hive of culture and street life. The three-story museum will be known simply as the Broad, although the Broad Art Foundation is its formal name.

The architectural design that Eli Broad is scheduled to reveal Thursday in a news conference at Walt Disney Concert Hall wraps the museum housing his contemporary art collection in a porous honeycomb. The billionaire collector and philanthropist hopes the $130-million building will help bring about his vision of downtown L.A. as a bustling urban hive of culture and street life. The three-story museum will be known simply as the Broad, although the Broad Art Foundation is its formal name.

A battle for a 1954 Sam Francis painting at Christie's International's contemporary-art auction in New York on Wednesday has landed in the courts. Gregory Callimanopulos, a shipping magnate and collector, said in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court that Christie's improperly reopened bidding for the painting, "Grey," after his $3 million telephone bid was accepted by the auctioneer. The suit claims that Christie's later sold the painting, with a hammer price of $3.2 million, to Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation, funded by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad.

I suspected that you were under orders to always cite Eli Broad as a "philanthropist," but now I'm certain ["A Peek at Eli Broad's L.A. Cache," Dec. 3]. Broad is worth about $5 billion. How did he get that impressive amount? By overcharging home buyers. If Broad had decided to stop piling up money when he was worth a mere $200 million, he could have played the "philanthropist" and given thousands of home buyers a new home for $25,000 or less. But instead Broad will contribute to the foreclosures that have just begun.

IN its largest and most important single acquisition to date, the Broad Art Foundation has purchased 570 works by the late German artist Joseph Beuys, an influential thinker and socially conscious force in avant-garde 20th century art. The acquisition comprises a nearly complete collection of the artist's "multiples" -- groups of mostly three-dimensional works produced in more than one edition to make them widely available. These works are regarded as the essence of his production.

WHO knows what artworks Eli Broad will lend to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the opening of the $50-million building he will erect there? No one, including Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation. LACMA's new showplace, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, isn't expected to open until late 2007, and plans for the inaugural exhibition are in development, Heyler says. But the list of contenders grew considerably in 2005.

Art collector and philanthropist Eli Broad has nearly doubled the size of the museum he intends to build on the Westside for his 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, and the cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are vying to be its home. He will also create a $200-million endowment that would generate $12 million a year to operate the privately run, nonprofit institution. The only bigger single cash donation to the arts in Southern California history would be J. Paul Getty's initial $700-million 1976 bequest to establish the J. Paul Getty Trust -- $2.65 billion in today's dollars.

ELI BROAD'S got a secret. The billionaire philanthropist and businessman may be the most public of America's private art collectors. He sits up front at auctions and makes no secret of his purchases. A major exhibition from his contemporary art collections, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, went on the road from 2001 to 2003. Hundreds of other Broad-owned works pop up every year at museums and university galleries across the country.

Eli Broad told city and county officials this week he would pay $7.7 million for a 99-year lease on public land in downtown Los Angeles where he can build an art museum, winning over a public opponent of his plan and signaling in the strongest terms yet that he has decided against putting the museum in Santa Monica. Broad persuaded Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the only public official on record opposing his previous request to lease it for a token dollar a year.

It's a familiar recipe for urban revitalization in downtown Los Angeles. Start with a nondescript parking lot in a strategically important location. Propose replacing it with a new building by an acclaimed architect. Repeat as often as politically or financially feasible. That was the plan for the first phase of the ambitious but now stalled Grand Avenue project, which called for a mixed-use complex by Frank Gehry to replace a parking structure across the avenue from Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The Santa Monica City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on an "agreement in principle" that could hasten Eli Broad's plan to create a museum next to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium to house his 2,000-piece contemporary art collection. City Manager P. Lamont Ewell has recommended approval of the preliminary pact, which spells out both sides' basic obligations but doesn't constitute a final go-ahead. That would have to await reviews of the final design of the $40- to $60-million building and its environmental impact on the surrounding Civic Center area.

Art collector and philanthropist Eli Broad has nearly doubled the size of the museum he intends to build on the Westside for his 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, and the cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are vying to be its home. He will also create a $200-million endowment that would generate $12 million a year to operate the privately run, nonprofit institution. The only bigger single cash donation to the arts in Southern California history would be J. Paul Getty's initial $700-million 1976 bequest to establish the J. Paul Getty Trust -- $2.65 billion in today's dollars.

William Powhida has an agenda. Many of them, actually. He wants to be a great artist. He wants to be rich and famous. And he wants to remain an earnest outsider, averse to selling out. You can read what he believes, what he laments and what he desperately craves in the painted lists and letters in his savagely funny show at Charlie James. Accept capitalism, he advises fellow artists in a litany of strategic sales tips. "Maintain a vague political subtext." "Lie about your age. Stay thirty."

A battle for a 1954 Sam Francis painting at Christie's International's contemporary-art auction in New York on Wednesday has landed in the courts. Gregory Callimanopulos, a shipping magnate and collector, said in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court that Christie's improperly reopened bidding for the painting, "Grey," after his $3 million telephone bid was accepted by the auctioneer. The suit claims that Christie's later sold the painting, with a hammer price of $3.2 million, to Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation, funded by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad.

Eli Broad told city and county officials this week he would pay $7.7 million for a 99-year lease on public land in downtown Los Angeles where he can build an art museum, winning over a public opponent of his plan and signaling in the strongest terms yet that he has decided against putting the museum in Santa Monica. Broad persuaded Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the only public official on record opposing his previous request to lease it for a token dollar a year.

A new headquarters that philanthropist Eli Broad aims to build for his Broad Art Foundation would include a 25,000-square-foot museum for exhibiting his collection, the foundation's director said Wednesday -- a space about half as large as the $56-million Broad Contemporary Art Museum that opened nine months ago at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

A new headquarters that philanthropist Eli Broad aims to build for his Broad Art Foundation would include a 25,000-square-foot museum for exhibiting his collection, the foundation's director said Wednesday -- a space about half as large as the $56-million Broad Contemporary Art Museum that opened nine months ago at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The spanking new Broad Contemporary Art Museum is now open at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, featuring a yearlong display of mostly borrowed paintings, sculptures and photographs. Meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown has just opened "Collecting Collections: Highlights From the Permanent Collection," a show that fills the building until mid-May. Is something a bit odd here? Let's see if I've got this straight. One major L.A.