William Randolph Hearst, the owner of a vast media empire in the early decade of the 20th century, was an unstoppable collector—of newspapers, art, animals and interesting guests. He collected for pleasure and relished living among his treasures.
His residences, like the Hearst Castle at San Simeon, were not museums, but cozy homes filled to the brim with tapestries and armor, sculpture and furnishings, ancient vases and medieval and Renaissance goldwork. The quantity and the crowded commingling of these objects prompted some modern commentators to see Hearst as an indiscriminate accumulator.
The Hearst the Collector exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art—whose encyclopedic holdings are founded on some 900 objects donated by Hearst at the end of his life—seeks to demonstrate that he made his acquisitions with discernment.
Among the masterpieces on show—brought from museums around the world, for the Depression had forced Hearst to liquidate many of his assets—are Canova’s exquisite marble Venus, van Dyck’s lushly painted portrait of Queen Henrietta, and a stunning early 16th-century mother-of-pearl casket created in Portuguese India (Gujarat) and mounted in a silver-guilt frame by Pierre Mangot, goldsmith to Francis I, king of France.
The exhibition spotlights—quite literally—exceptional artworks from Hearst’s diverse homes: tapestries, armor, metalwork, sculptures, paintings by Boucher, Copley, Fragonard, Lotto, and Reynolds, and other outstanding pieces. But the overall feel could not be farther from how Hearst himself experienced his possessions.
The stark modernist installation conceived by David Hundley, who has worked for Gucci, Ralph Lauren, and Lexus, takes the grandeur of Hearst’s residences and strips them of opulence. Placed against stark grey walls, the works are isolated and strongly lit, producing an effect of cold glimmering jewels.
One admires and appreciates individual objects, but loses sight of the man who loved and lived with them. For Hearst, who personally directed the purchase and placement of his artworks, they were living denizens of his homes.
The exhibit runs through February 1, 2009 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. For more information call 323-857-6000, or visit www.lacma.org
