Newport arts panel endorses late artists’ paintings for city collection
Two watercolor paintings by late husband-and-wife artists Rex Brandt and Joan Irving Brandt are a step closer to being displayed in the Newport Beach Central Library.
The Newport Beach Arts Commission voted unanimously Thursday to accept “Northwest Gale Newport Jetty” by Rex Brandt and “Pirate’s Cove From High” by Joan Irving Brandt into the city’s collection.
The library board of trustees will vote on placement of the paintings at a later meeting. The City Council will have final say.
The majority of the Brandts’ subject matter was derived from the area around their home in Corona del Mar. Rex Brandt helped found the Newport Harbor Art Museum and designed the city seal. Joan Irving Brandt served on the Arts Commission in the 1960s.
Gene Crain and his wife, Diane Dixon Crain, offered to donate both paintings from their collection for display at the Central Library.
Crain — a lawyer and an art connoisseur with more than 1,400 pieces in his collection — asked that the paintings be shown in the library, along with a commemorative plaque with a statement of recognition for the Brandts’ daughter and son-in-law, Joan Brandt Scarboro and Clark Scarboro, according to a city staff report.
Crain considers the Rex Brandt painting to be one of the artist’s most exceptional pieces, commission Vice Chairwoman Arlene Greer said during Thursday’s meeting.
“Both of these were at the height of their careers,” she said.
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‘Seagulls in Flight’ repairs
The Arts Commission also voted unanimously to spend $4,450 to restore “Seagulls in Flight,” a sculpture outside the Corona del Mar Library.
The sculpture was donated to the city in 1960 in memory of Molly McClintock, who was killed in a car crash shortly after graduating from Newport Harbor High School.
Over the years, weather and other factors have caused the sculpture to become chipped and cracked, said Tim Hetherton, library director.
“The statue has not been cared for properly, and we need to address that,” he said.
Repairs will begin immediately, Hetherton said.