Earl A Powell

The opening today of four newly painted and reinstalled galleries at the County Museum of Art makes all the artworks look like brand-new acquisitions, but one painting is the real thing. "St. Ignatius Loyola's Vision of Christ and God the Father at La Storta," an Italian Baroque altarpiece by Domenichino, is a recent gift of the Ahmanson Foundation. The glowing devotional painting, depicting a saint at a spellbound moment, goes on view today in the museum's 17th-Century gallery. As a matter of policy, the museum does not disclose prices of new acquisitions, but the Domenichino is a rare and beautiful work that many institutions would like to have, according to Philip Conisbee, curator of European paintings and sculpture.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art pulled out all the stops Wednesday night at a black-tie gala saluting the opening of "Masters of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism." Known in art circles (and on museum banners) simply as the Annenberg Collection, the 54 paintings, watercolors and drawings are critically acknowledged as one of the finest privately owned collections of its kind.

Meals on Wheels, Los Angeles, received a $325,000 check from the Wolfgang Puck Charitable Foundation. The donation represents proceeds from the eighth annual American Wine and Food Festival, held on Universal Studios' Western set on Sept. 15. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and the Board of Supervisors presented a commendation to Puck on Dec. 18 honoring his fund-raising efforts on behalf of Meals on Wheels. Since the festival began in 1983, Puck has helped to raise nearly $1.

Paul Mellon, a renowned philanthropist who donated hundreds of works of art to the National Gallery of Art and other museums, has died at the age of 91. Mellon, also a well-known breeder of thoroughbred racehorses, died Monday at his 400-acre farm in Upperville, Va. Since 1964, Mellon and his wife had given 913 works of art to the gallery, by artists including Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.

A rare exhibition of masterpieces from Soviet art collections will be displayed next year in Washington and Los Angeles under the new Soviet-American cultural pact signed at the Geneva summit, American industrialist Armand Hammer announced Friday.

"I think we're a hit!" declared Ilene Susan Fort, associate curator of American Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She was referring to the impressive opening-night turnout for the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition Tuesday, which drew about 2,000 O'Keeffe admirers into the Hammer galleries for the only West Coast showing of her work. Guests dressed in warm black tie and furs to brave the elements as they wandered through the open courtyard for the buffet dinner reception.

The County Museum of Art announced the purchase today of a private collection of ancient sculpture from west Mexico that makes it the leading U.S. repository for such art, according to museum Director Earl A. Powell III. The trove is a legendary holding of 235 ceramic sculptures and vessels amassed by Proctor Stafford, a museum trustee and collector noted for possessing a keen eye for artistic quality in primitive art.

From perhaps the world's smallest kite to acrobatics by Tokyo firefighters, a once-in-a-lifetime view of Japan goes on display Sunday, back to the age before Americans opened the country to the outside world nearly 150 years ago. It is an exhibit called "Edo--Art in Japan 1615-1868." Tokyo was known as Edo in the 17th century, when it had a million inhabitants and was the world's largest city, said Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art. Artists created paintings and prints like Katushika Hokusai's "Great Wave."

Forty-two years after Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Boy in Fancy Dress," or "Titus," made a highly publicized appearance in Washington, D.C., the painting will return to the National Gallery of Art to launch a series of loan exchanges with the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The portrait -- which landed on the cover of Time magazine and was exhibited at the gallery in 1965, after Simon purchased it in a fiercely contested bidding war -- will be on view in the nation's capital from May 11 to Sept.

When Charles Sheeler first stood before a Cubist painting by Pablo Picasso, he felt that "an indelible line had been drawn between the past and the future." The year was 1908, the place was Paris, and Sheeler, a 25-year-old native of Philadelphia, was inspired to create a distinctly American kind of Cubism, linked to the straight lines and hard edges of American industry. French Cubists distorted the shape of objects and the space they appeared in.