In 1994, legendary Los Angeles art collector Frederick R. Weisman died, leaving the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation under the direction of his wife and former Getty Museum conservator Billie Milam.
Today the Foundation’s main Holmby Hills house, annex pavilion, and surrounding gardens are accessible to the public (by appointment only) on guided tours. The foundation also organizes curated exhibitions of its collection at institutions around the world.
Here is a discussion on the Weisman Foundation and its place in the broader arts community that took place between the director and Coagula at Cal State LA in August. The occasion was a reception for Back to Basics, a survey of some contemporary art from the foundation. This was the third recent collaboration between the Foundation and Cal State LA’s Ronald H. Silverman Fine Art Gallery following We Are LA in 2022 and Pop Art in 2019, all organized by the gallery’s director Mika Cho.
MAT GLEASON for Coagula:
Where do we begin?
BILLIE MILAM WEISMAN:
Let me tell you a little bit about the history of the foundation. Fred (Frederick R. Weisman) started the foundation in the mid ‘80s. He always felt that when you’re so fortunate, you need to share. And he used to walk me through the house at night and say, “Aren’t we lucky? Aren’t we fortunate?” and then he would say ‘But we need to share.’ I said, ‘Even the master bedroom?’ He said, ‘Oh yes!’ It’s true. And I am a very private person but it’s interesting because his enthusiasm was contagious. You couldn’t help but want to do the same thing. I mean, to this day, I pull things off my own walls to bring them to exhibitions. But the only difference now is it’s a one way street. I pull something off my wall. It’s empty. If the foundation pulls something off the wall, I take one of my pieces and put it there. Got it?
COAGULA:
Yes, you can’t have any benefit. Self-benefit with a foundation is a no-no. Has exposing the highlights of the collection to Cal State LA been personally rewarding? Have there been highlights in your partnership here?
BMW:
Oh, working with (CSLA Gallery Director) Mika Cho, I would say, is one of the best relationships I’ve had with a museum director in any of the institutions we’ve shown with. Wow. She’s a dynamo. She’s, you know, willing to be helpful. She adds information. She’s great. I mean, we get along fabulous.
COAGULA:
The three shows (Pop Art, 2019… We Are LA, 2022… Back to Basics, 2024) you have presented here at Cal State LA, I noticed that they really are exuberant celebrations of color. Do you put a lot of your taste into the foundation or is it just that you want to have more colorful works for these exhibits?
BMW:
You know what’s interesting? Fred and I basically were the same when it came to these things. He loved color, I love color. And most things we agreed on. Occasionally he would want to buy something that was really quirky. And he said, “You know, if you can’t live with it, I’ll take it to the office.” And I said, “Thank you!” Haha. But very seldom. I mean, usually we would go around the gallery in a different direction and we would go at the same time (she points in the air as if to a particular artwork) like that and I’d say, done deal. And it sure was.
COAGULA:
The person most associated with the most rigorous lean art is Donald Judd and the Donald Judd in this exhibition it’s as bright and colorful as anything in the show. So I just found that fascinating. So related to that would be, does the Foundation own any of Robert Ryman’s work? (Ryman was the Modernist painter who famously only used white paint)
BMW:
No, we don’t. But it’s interesting because years back we did a black and white show and I thought “Do we even have black and white painting?” And sure enough, we did. And the other thing somebody said “Do you collect photography?” And I said, “No, no, we don’t.” And I went back and looked… 100 pieces in the collection!
COAGULA:
I know at least one of your de Kooning paintings is black and white, it is one of my favorite paintings in the foundation’s collection.
BMW:
Oh yes, thank you.
COAGULA:
Can you walk us through what storing the work not on display takes? What percentage of the collection is lent to museums at any given time, like here at Cal State LA, other institutions and what the conservation needs are?
BMW:
So what we do is anywhere from two to possibly four exhibitions a year. And even if the exhibition has the same name as it did at another location, it’s not the same show. I try to curate them not only according to the space, but also according to the community. So there’s hooks to draw people in, and also the artworks have to speak to each other. And if the formation of the gallery doesn’t allow the pieces to speak to each other, I change them so they do speak.
COAGULA:
Wow. Okay, so you’re really hands on.
BMW:
Absolutely.
COAGULA:
What about conservation for the works in the collection?
BMW:
You may not know my background, but I was head of sculpture conservation at LACMA and I was at the Getty also. I finished graduate school at UCLA in art history, and then I stumbled into LACMA in the conservation department. Then the head of Harvard wanted me to come and be an intern. So I took a leave of absence from the museum and did an internship at Harvard in sculpture conservation. From that, I think I had a feel for installation and the importance of the installation. And so, yeah, my brain is just constantly working in this area.
COAGULA:
Are Rauschenbergs notorious for conservation? Would you say that he’s one of the more difficult artists to maintain?
BMW:
Actually, for us, I would say some of the most difficult are outdoor sculpture.
COAGULA:
Because they get weathered?
BMW:
One of the things I did quite a bit of work on was outdoor bronzes. Even though you think of bronze as being hardy and able to take anything, well, they’re patinated with chemicals and with the environment. I mean, even though we have a mild environment in California… but you have sprinklers, you have smog. Even the ocean air can harm them. People don’t realize it, but the oils in your hand if you touch it.
COAGULA:
Wow.
BMW:
Yeah, you really can see fingerprints that etched their way into the patina.
COAGULA:
Have you ever commissioned an artist?
BMW:
Yes, actually, for Fred’s last birthday, I commissioned the artist who did the Warhol-like portraits of us. They were here (on display at Cal State L.A.) in the first show. I commissioned them to do Fred’s daughter, who is mentally disabled. The entire family had been portrayed by Warhol, and Warhol had passed away. The portrait was actually for her birthday, so she would feel special. And she did. Fred loved it.
COAGULA:
Did you commission any other artwork for Fred?
BMW:
Yes, for his last birthday, I commissioned a painting taken after Matisse’s Red Studio, called Things We Left Behind. We selected several things from the house, and the artist, Bo Bradford, put them into an artwork. It’s a sentimental piece, not one of the most iconic in the collection, but very sentimental.
COAGULA:
The Weisman collection does have a modernist core. Is there a secret to staying current with the art? The art world isn’t modernist right now. How do you stay on course, or do you? Are there compromises to the Modernist vibe? Is it your aesthetic?
BMW:
What’s happened is we have a different budget than we had when Fred was living. His business was extremely profitable. And so he spent a lot of the funds on philanthropy, giving to medical institutions, institutions for mental disability, and art. And he felt that art was a great communicator. It transcended language differences and communication differences and all that. But after he passed, we have limited funds. We have to work off of our endowment and the interest off of it. And so I have very limited funds to buy art. So it’s usually emerging artists. I can’t afford to go back and purchase something (in the Modernist canon) we’ve missed, but I’m still content with what we’re able to buy with the young artists. There’s a lot of talent and seeing new creations and it’s beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
COAGULA:
Are you focusing exclusively on emerging artists now?
BMW:
Yes, we are focusing on emerging artists now.
COAGULA:
Do you ever pursue, if there is a bargain to be had on something you want, an artist who’s passed?
BMW:
It’s interesting because I used to go to every auction, and I hate auctions. I think they’re so vulgar. You know, “I want this one, I want that one,” raising the paddle. And I would often hide behind posts or whatever because I think it’s vulgar. But I did buy some of the pieces in the collection that way. Like, I got the John McCracken at auction. Beautiful. Pepto-Bismol pink. And I bought Ron Davis. We had Ron Davis, but I bought some wonderful pieces at auction. I was able to afford them because those New Yorkers at the time could have cared less about those pieces. Now the market’s through the roof.
COAGULA:
If I’m not mistaken, you’re the only private foundation that has two Clyfford Stills. Is that right? Have you ever been to the Clyfford Still Museum?
BMW:
You know, I have not, but I know the Clyfford Still daughters. They’ve been very generous in knowledge and sharing things with me. We had lent our large one in the entryway to the Hirshhorn for an exhibition, and it turned into a complete nightmare. What happened was the stretcher bar, because it’s so big, the piece shifted in transportation. And so it was a close call. It wasn’t damaged, we were able to get it back. But after that, we decided not to lend that ever again. And so the daughters decided they were never going to lend any Clyfford Stills again because they said it was dangerous. And I said, no, no, no, don’t do that. I mean, you should lend them, but of course, you should have a conservator look at them first and there may be occasions when you should deny lending. When I was at LACMA, they wanted to lend an Ellsworth Kelly, which was canvases with, um, I guess wooden dowels. Well, I denied the loan. Well, Kelly wanted it in the show, so they followed his wishes and then it was in conservation for about ten years.
COAGULA:
Mark Rothko said he didn’t want lighting on his art. No spots, no floods. And you have a Rothko in one room. I know it’s in the room with the black and white de Kooning. It’s above a chair. And the docents will always turn the light off and say, nobody else can do this. Does any other institution do that? Have you seen anybody else doing that with their Rothkos? Because not only is that how it’s supposed to be and how Rothko intended it to be, I must say, when the docent turns off the light, it just… I was like “it worked. It really worked!”
BMW:
One thing, though, that we did violate on that, Rothko wanted them hung low to the floor, not above a flower chintz sofa (laughing). But it’s interesting because when Fred broke rules, the artists would say, “Typical Fred.” and laugh. So, I mean, he was so charming he could get by with altering things a little bit. Like the Kenny Price ceramics in the library. They belong in a curio cabinet, but it was okay with Ken to send them there.
COAGULA:
It’s 2024, look to the year 2074. Fifty years from now, what does the Weisman Foundation look like? Is it still in the Holmby Hills? What are the long-term plans?
BMW:
We’ve done everything we can possibly do to ensure that it will still go on. Financially, we’ve had financial advisers who have advised us on what we can spend in order to maintain this in perpetuity. We don’t know that it will go on that long, but that was Fred’s wish, so we’re doing our best to do that. And as for the house and annex, as we call it, the Frank Israel building next to it, they’re to remain the same. The other collection which we have in storage, we’re to continue to do exhibitions like Fred was so philanthropic and wanting to share, bringing art to communities that may not have the advantage of being exposed to it. And not everyone has the opportunity to go downtown. I’ll tell you, for me, coming from, you know, around UCLA, to get over to Cal State L.A., this is a big schlep. And so if you can have something down the street, you know, you might be caught by surprise and develop an interest, and it would enhance your life. So our goal is to continue to bring art to communities that may or may not have the opportunity to see this type of art.
Tours of the Foundation are available free of charge Monday thru Friday by appointment only 310 277 5321
tours@weismanfoundation.org
