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Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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Overview

Museum Associates, doing business as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is a visual arts museum that offers a collection of Japanese arts, modern and contemporary arts, paintings, photography, textiles, as well as Islamic arts. It also manages a library and organizes film and music events. In addition, the museum provides online retail of books, apparels, paintings, and multimedia products through its website. LACMA is based in Los Angeles, California.

Museum Associates, doing business as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is a visual arts museum that offers a collection of Japanese arts, modern and contemporary arts, paintings, photography, textiles, as well as Islamic arts. It also manages a library and organizes film and music events. In addition, the museum provides online retail of books, apparels, paintings, and multimedia products through its website. LACMA is based in Los Angeles, California.

History

Early years

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art was established as a museum in 1961. Prior to this, LACMA was part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, founded in 1910 in Exposition Park near the University of Southern California. Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr., Anna Bing Arnold and Bart Lytton were the first principal patrons of the museum. Ahmanson made the lead donation of $2 million, convincing the museum board that sufficient funds could be raised to establish the new museum. In 1965 the museum moved to a new Wilshire Boulevard complex as an independent, art-focused institution, the largest new museum to be built in the United States after the National Gallery of Art.

William Pereira Buildings

The museum, built in a style similar to Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Music Center, consisted of three buildings: the Ahmanson Building, the Bing Center, and the Lytton Gallery (renamed the Frances and Armand Hammer Building in 1968). The board selected LA architect William Pereira over the directors' recommendation of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the buildings.[8] According to a 1965 Los Angeles Times story, the total cost of the three buildings was $11.5 million. Construction began in 1963, and was undertaken by the Del E. Webb Corporation. Construction was completed in early 1965.[10] At the time, the Los Angeles Music Center and LACMA were concurrent large civic projects which vied for attention and donors in Los Angeles. When the museum opened, the buildings were surrounded by reflecting pools, but they were filled in and covered over when tar from the adjacent La Brea Tar Pits began seeping in.

Address: 5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036, United States
Tickets: $0–25 · lacma.org
Director: Michael Govan
Founded: 1910
Architect: William Pereira

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