Norton Simon, the Man and His Museum

The multimillionaire eccentric industrialist from California built one of the best collections in the nation.

I’ m still bicoastal these days. Two of my recent stories concerned museums along the Acela corridor that are jumping through the looking glass. There’s so much narcissism and grandiose thinking, and talk about whining! At the Baltimore Museum of Art, the director wants radical change. He wants to make his lovely, distinguished museum anew, “from scratch,” so that it looks and feels more like Baltimore, the most screwed-up city in America, as the murder capital and having a local government we can correctly call unhinged. He’s a big-vision guy.

In New York, the Met’s dreams are more prosaic. Its grubby, grabby leaders are selling dime-store art to balance the budget. With $4 billion, they’re crying poor. The first Christie’s auction hawking Met art finally went live. I suppose I’m not surprised that the mediocrities who rule the Met are selling crappy things that the museum has never shown. Their biggest value is their Met provenance. Over time, the gang that can’t raise money and can’t cut its bloated budget hopes to reap $5 million, I hear, from sales running this fall and next spring. They’re selling the Met’s cachet while trashing its renown as the gold standard in museum practices.

Will a Met “apples for sale” stand be next? At least amid all those hotdog carts, the Met would be encouraging people to eat fruit.

So time to go back to California. I still have three or four stories to cover from my summer trip to Los Angeles. I went to the Norton Simon Museum when I was in Pasadena in July. It’s a most unusual place. Norton Simon (1907–1993) had tons of money and an eye for quality I’d call divine.

“Mercurial” best describes the self-made multimillionaire, as does “despotic,” “manipulative,” and “egomaniacal.” He was a ferocious, hungry, but discerning shark. I’m not going to focus on Simon too much since he’s a very big personality. He got rich as a manufacturer of canned food and vegetables. He started buying art in 1954, buying a small Renoir, and by the mid 1960s he was known in the art market as a man with capacity, passion, and taste.

Dealers in French Post-Impressionism and, later, Old Masters knew to offer him only the very best things. Simon was a collector connoisseur. He had no advisers. He did, though, work with dozens of art historians and dealers over the years who found him demanding, sometimes insufferable, but brilliant and inspirational. There are lots of rich, amazing collectors. I’d rank him, in his era, with Stephen Clark, Walter Annenberg, Paul Mellon, and John and Dominique de Menil.

He’s been dead for nearly 30 years, and my story’s about the art he collected and the museum. Suzanne Muchnic, an arts writer for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a very good biography of Simon about 20 years ago. That’s the book to understand the man.

The art at the museum is more than a feast. It’s a bacchanal, and a gourmet one on every level. Over 25 years, Simon bought the best. The museum has 11,000 objects in almost all media and is famous for French Post-Impressionism and Old Masters. Degas is an example of Simon’s taste: idiosyncratic, instinctive, and fearless. He’s a tough artist, really an artist’s and an intellectual’s artist. Women Ironing was an early purchase. It isn’t conventionally beautiful. Simon liked the palette, structure, and modern feel. Degas’s pastels of ballet dancers are dreamy, but Simon didn’t immediately go for pretty.

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Picasso is Degas’s natural heir and, aside from Goya, Simon’s biggest haul, number-wise. Picasso’s uneven, though Degas never is, but Simon, again, bought the best, from Woman with a Guitar, a 1913 Cubist painting, to the weird, wonderful Head of a Woman, a 1971 pastel.

Picasso and Goya, as I said, are two of Simon’s greatest interests in the sheer number of works and, like Degas, difficult, complex artists. That they’re Spanish might be surprising. Simon bought lots of Old Masters. There’s an early Raphael Madonna that’s very easy on the eyes and a Rembrandt self-portrait and Portrait of a Boy, another Rembrandt and possibly, in Simon’s eyes, his triumph.

All of his Old Masters are good, but his attraction to Spanish Old Masters came late. Spanish art is eccentric, and I think that appealed to Simon. Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Rose, from 1633 by Francisco Zurbarán, is enigmatic, even spooky. Simon bought three Zurbarán saints. I think he saw in Zurbarán what he saw in Degas: exacting craftsmanship, serious, cryptic subjects, and, very likely, a niche market where he could get more bang for the buck. Simon spent tens of millions of dollars on art but was conscious of cost, even obsessed with it. Yes, there are some pretty Impressionists, and he liked Fragonard, but artists like Zurbarán, Goya, and Degas put lots of collectors off.

I think most great paintings collectors love the texture of paint. Murillo, I know, is not for everyone, but as a master of color and glazes, he’s got few peers. St. Thomas of Villanueva Giving Alms, from the late 1660s, is Murillo at his most vaporous. Van Gogh’s Mulberry Trees, from late 1889, is a triumph of viscosity.

Simon’s taste for Old Masters came toward the end of his collecting days, but Degas is the most classicizing of the Post-Impressionists, Picasso constantly referenced the Old Masters, and Goya was, arguably, the last of the towering Old Masters. Manet’s Rag Picker, from the late 1860s, is his tribute to Velázquez and one of the museum’s star attractions.

I can’t argue with the arrangement of art. It’s standard, mostly chronological and by school. There’s a stunning little gallery for Degas with dark lighting and a deep-blue wall color. I’d make the feeling cushier with Oriental carpets and sofas in the bigger galleries, but my lodestar is the Clark Art Institute, where I was a curator. The two places are similar, though, I admit, Simon was a far more adventurous collector. Sterling Clark had a too-great weakness for pictures of pretty, dainty women and thought Picasso and Matisse were psychotic. They did share a love of Degas, however, though Clark went for ballerinas.

The museum isn’t in the center of Pasadena or even in charming, boutique Old Pasadena but on its own, by the 134 freeway, in a neighborhood of car dealerships. Culturally, it stands alone. “Not one of the boys” is the way Simon described himself. The museum building is handsome enough and supremely functional. It’s got everything a museum needs and little peripheral or irrelevant ornamentation. Simon always lived in nice but undistinguished homes, not showplaces, and so goeth his museum.

The building’s secondhand. It was the Pasadena Art Museum for years, the only game in town for modern art. It’s a late-’60s building with a curvilinear façade covered in dark tile. Also in the late ’60s, Simon, once a mover and shaker at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, fell out with the board and director. He was among the first mega-donors and maestro collectors that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art alienated. A natural pirate, Simon took his money and art elsewhere — to the Pasadena museum, which he took over when it ran into financial problems. In 1975, the Norton Simon Museum opened.

In 1995, Frank Gehry gave the place a massive overhaul. It’s got a lovely, big tropical garden in back with good sculptures and pleasant fountains. Inside, there’s a central courtyard and a big main gallery. A wing on either side starts with small galleries and processes to a big gallery. The art on the main level is almost entirely European.

When Simon took control of the Pasadena Art Museum, the deal came with a good collection of pre-war art and post-war Modernists, mostly Constructivists and German Expressionists and so-so contemporary art. Some of these things are on display, awkwardly, since they’re not of the same quality as the art that Simon bought. Simon’s distinguished collection of South Asian art fills big downstairs galleries.

The museum doesn’t do big, traveling loan shows, and I once faulted it for this. When I was a curator at the Clark, I thought the Norton Simon was similar to the Clark in that both started as private collections of a man with a strong, idiosyncratic vision, and both collections were based on French art. And both collectors were rich as all get-out. All true. So, I thought, the Norton Simon should do big, traveling loan shows as the Clark did. That it didn’t do this seemed lazy, provincial, or, worse, solipsistic.

I was wrong. As it happens, staying off the treadmill isn’t always a bad idea. The Norton Simon’s privileging its permanent collection, which is a great good. All museums used to do this as a point of pride and a sacred trust, believing that the heart of the museum is its collection. The Norton Simon has four small spaces mostly used for small, focused, and exquisite shows of works in paper from its collection. I saw a Goya show when I was there. The museum owns Goya’s working proofs for many of his etchings. These are the final, unique, hand-colored proofs just before Goya said, “Print it.” It’s not doing blockbusters. Good for them.

The museum rarely lends, and when it does, it gets a reciprocal loan of the same quality as whatever it’s sending. It has an art exchange deal with the National Gallery and the Frick, too. About ten years ago, the museum sent five paintings to the Frick for one of its small exhibitions, getting lots of publicity and Ingres’s Portrait of Comtesse d’Haussonville as a swap.

Most museums once operated this way. It’s hard to believe this, now that almost all museums try to be relevant, the way a high-school geek struggles to be popular. It’s a relief to be in a place like the Norton Simon where change comes only at the edges. That said, how do you celebrate and foreground the collection, remain a temple to the founder, soothe frequent visitors with familiar, old faves, and seem fresh, not static?

This isn’t a criticism of the museum, which I like a lot. I was surprised at myself, in fact. I loved seeing wonderful things by Degas, the Rembrandt of the young boy, and the Spanish paintings. The place isn’t stale by any means. It’s static. Since I visit museums for a living, and almost all change things around and constantly have new things on view, I’m sensitive to places that stay the same. Even to me, that now seems old-fashioned, and not in a good way, though it’s not bad, either. As standpat a conservative as I am in most things, I do like shaking things up. I’ll propose an experiment or two.

The museum’s staff is small, which is fine. There’s no annual report. It doesn’t have a strategic plan. There’s a membership program that, I’m sure, has lots of subscribers. It’s in Pasadena, a flush place, and it’s a great museum. It’s small enough that people feel it’s theirs. Its finances aren’t transparent since the museum and Simon’s personal foundations, though separate, overlap in places. There’s nothing bad about this. Aside from memberships, it doesn’t actively raise money. The Norton Simon accepts art as gifts but doesn’t buy art.

I suggest the museum at least do an annual report with opulent photography and a description of what it’s done. It’s a historical record, people like reading it, and a page on finances is something every not-for-profit arts organization should provide. There’s an admissions charge — $15 — but a generous set of exemptions makes it seem reasonable.

Right now, the South Asian art is downstairs. It’s mostly sculpture and jaw-dropping. Simon dove deep in collecting art from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia after he married the actress Jennifer Jones in 1971. The art and culture of India were her special interests. Again, he bought only the best.

Simon was not warm and fuzzy about laws prohibiting the export of antiquities. Among his many art-buying brouhahas involved a high-profile lawsuit brought by the Indian government to recover the bronze Lord of the Dance from a.d. 950. Simon eventually returned it after litigation that was painful for all, but not until the Indians promised never to contest any of his other acquisitions.

I don’t care how many elegant or refined touches a museum applies. Basement exhibition space is almost always bad space. Gussy it up, pack it with happy art, bring in puppies and kittens. It’s still a downer. Simon’s world-class Buddhas, Suparshvanathas, and Ambikas, fat, angular, reposing, and reaching, deserve better.

For a year, I’d bring them upstairs. Arrange them in places of pride with high ceilings. Give them space. Signal that they’re precious and grand. Give Pasadena, still a bit of a white-bread town, a jolt. I don’t think in terms of “forcing” people to do anything. Rather, the curators could be encouraged to give this material a new, fresh interpretation. Visitors will appreciate this. Everyone will learn something. New people will come. Hire the Chandigarh Bhangra Club to perform at the opening. Hollywood’s half an hour away. So provincial. Go Bollywood!

I can assure everyone of this: No one will die. And it’s only temporary, or as temporary as the museum makes it. A more daring idea, which might kill a few curmudgeons and render mossbacks dumb, is mixing South Asian and Spanish and Italian religious art. Call it ecumenical. Hell, call it dazzling.

I’d stick the Modernist things downstairs for a bit. No one will miss them. Visitors on the way to the loo can stop for a quick look.

Somehow I think that the museum will do none of the above. That said, keeping things more or less the same really isn’t an option today. Norton Simon would likely agree.

The museum was involved in a decade-long Holocaust restitution case surrounding Lucas Cranach’s Adam and Eve, two paintings once owned by the Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker and acquired by Simon in 1971. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the new Nazi government compelled Goudstikker to forfeit his collection, including the Cranachs, in exchange for an exit visa for him and his family.

The pictures were sold to Hermann Göring and, immediately after the war, restituted to the Dutch government. Goudstikker’s widow sought and won restitution for some of the dealer’s 1,000-object inventory, but she didn’t push for the Cranachs, her daughter-in-law said, because she couldn’t afford the restitution fees. In 1966, the Dutch settled another restitution claim filed by an exiled Russian aristocrat who contended that his family once owned the Cranachs but lost them to the Bolsheviks. Goudstikker’s heir claimed that sale was illegal since the Bolsheviks did indeed once confiscate the Cranachs — but from a church, not the aristocrat’s family.

In 2018, Goudstikker’s heir lost when a federal appeals court refused to second-guess the Dutch government’s determination that it had properly restituted the Cranachs in 1966. The Supreme Court wouldn’t hear an appeal, ending the case. The Cranachs are probably $50 million pictures, so the stakes were high. To me, it shows that World War II restitution claims are sometimes murky. The museum played hardball in true Norton Simon fashion.

It’s really difficult to say who was right.

Jennifer Jones Simon was very much involved in the museum until her death in 2009 and chaired the board for years. In her day, the small board was very much her enterprise, with many members coming from the ranks of Hollywood. Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and Billy Wilder were on the board. I met Carol Burnett at an opening there a few years ago. I think she was a trustee, too. I suspect that the board is more a group of friends than anything else. Meetings are probably not heavy or contentious.

The museum’s curatorial presence is low-profile. A chunk of the leadership staff are keepers of the flame and not career museum types. There’s nothing wrong with that. The museum’s not really a scholarly place. It ably serves the public’s edification. I’m happy to report that the Norton Simon Museum isn’t trying to save Pasadena, save souls, or save the whales. It knows it’s a premier art museum and sticks with a mission consistent with what it is.

I don’t think the museum is even wedded to staying in Pasadena. The City of Pasadena owns the land, with the museum leasing it until 2050. Simon had no connection to Pasadena. His business, Hunt Foods, was in Fullerton, Calif. At the end of his life, Simon was negotiating with UCLA to move his collection there.

The museum doesn’t even own most of the art. It belongs to two foundations Simon established and funded. Simon was always looking to make a deal. At this point, though, the museum has been where it is for nearly 50 years. It’s a local treasure, as it should be. It’s one of the greatest small museums in the country.