B.W. COOK -- The crowd

Art appreciation and collecting in Orange County are growing and

emerging. Over the last decade, Orange County and in particular the

Newport art community -- in conjunction with the Orange County Museum of

Art, The Laguna Museum of Art, Bowers Museum, The Art Institute, and

other fine organizations dedicated to the visual realm -- are gaining

prestige on a regional and even national level for collections and

concerns relative to the world of fine art.

Further, the social world has collided with the cultural, providing in

some instances a more intellectual and erudite strata on which local

patrons may sip champagne and tell war stories.

Art is good for Orange County.

One of the more impressive local art gatherings was last week, when the

Pacific Art Foundation of Newport Beach held its fourth “American Visual

Arts Achievement” award dinner. The evening honored a couple long

associated with art in our region -- Margarita and David Steinmetz.

Chaired by Chuck Fry and Patricia Houston -- with a committee that

included Geoffrey Beaumont, Connie Belda, Richard Bonadio, Gerald Buck,

Mary Ann Emett, Bill Ficker, Elizabeth Hargreaves, Charles Hurst,

Geoffrey Le Plastrier, John Meindl, Elyse Caraco Miller, Maggi Owens, Pam

Riley and Amy Vieth -- produced a very warm and special evening at the

Pacific Club, Newport Beach.

David Steinmetz began collecting modern and contemporary art in the early

1960s, while he was a Pasadena resident. By the 1970s, Steinmetz had

migrated to Corona del Mar and become a Newport Harbor Art Museum board

member, eventually serving as board president in 1974.

Under his tenure, land was secured from the Irvine Co. and a building

campaign created to build a real museum. The investment of such early

labor on the part of Steinmetz and others would lead to the museum we

know as The Orange County Museum of Art.

Steinmetz would meet his wife Margarita in 1979, and together the

handsome couple would participate in many avenues supporting the visual

arts.

They are founders of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and

they also support the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. David Steinmetz

is a trustee emeritus of the Orange County Museum of Art and serves on

the long-range planning, collection and finance committees.

At the visual arts awards evening, the fine dinner that began with potato

pancakes and smoked salmon, followed by filet mignon with wild mushroom

risotto was another form of art. Patrons such as Toni Alexander, Molly

and Leon Lyon, Twyla and Chuck Martin and Josephine McLain came to honor

the Steinmetz family and to promote art in Orange County.

Naomi Vine, the museum’s director, spoke to the gathering, joining Ben

Deane and Leon Lyon with additional comments on the state of art in the

region. Leon Lyon’s son, Curt, a prominent, locally based video producer,

screened a video presentation prior to the award announcements.

The evening was underwritten by Barbara and Tad Danz, Stefanie and

Geoffrey Le Plastrier, The Pacific Club and Traditional Jewelers, among

others.

On Monday, the Pacific Art Foundation will hold a reception in

conjunction with the opening of an exhibit of more than 50 works by the

internationally renowned artist Alexander Mohr, which will be on view at

the Pacific Club through Spring 2000. ----

* B.W. COOK’s column appears every Thursday and Saturday.