Museum Won’t Renew Hammer’s Board Term

Trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art said they decided not to renew industrialist Armand Hammer’s term on their board because he changed his mind about donating his art collection to the museum and was focusing on plans for his own museum.

Hammer has served on the county museum board for the last 20 years. But trustees agreed last week to allow his current term to expire June 30.

“He’s not coming to meetings,” board President Daniel N. Belin said. “He has abandoned his commitment to make the gift of his collection.”

“Obviously his energies at this point are directed to his own museum,” said Richard E. Sherwood, a member of the board’s executive committee and chairman of the nominating committee.

Sherwood was referring to a private facility Hammer plans to build in Westwood.

Belin and Sherwood said Hammer has not attended a board meeting or museum function since his abrupt announcement in January, 1988, that he would establish his own museum for his Old Master and Impressionist paintings, his collection of lithographs and other works by 19th-Century French satirist Honore Daumier and a Leonard da Vinci manuscript.

Hammer said at the time that he withdrew his plans to give the art to the county museum because he did not want the collection displayed in galleries named for other donors. Museum officials said Hammer made untenable demands that would isolate his collection from the rest of the museum.

Belin and Sherwood said they had not heard from Hammer about the board’s decision to formally sever ties.

Neither Hammer nor a spokesman for his Occidental Petroleum Corp. could be reached for comment Sunday.

Hammer’s ties to the county museum had been strong until the recent disagreements. One of the museum complex buildings is named for Hammer and his wife, Frances. Five major paintings, including a Rembrandt, a Rubens and a Modigliani, were donated by the oil magnate. He was instrumental in arranging an exhibition of Impressionist and modern paintings from the Soviet Union, Belin said.

Infrequent Appearances

Hammer never made frequent appearances at board meetings. But he did attend when he wanted to discuss something specific, Sherwood said.

Even after Hammer decided to go ahead with his own museum, he told Belin that he hoped the two institutions could sometimes work together.

“I told him that if he had any specific ideas, he should present them,” Belin said. “He hasn’t done that.”

Hammer also had talked of helping to bring another major exhibit from the Soviet Union to the county museum, Belin said.

“I have not heard from him about that,” he added.