Newport Appoints a Curator : Museum: Filling a long-vacant position, Bruce Guenther, who worked at facilities in Chicago and Seattle, begins his new job Dec. 1.

NEWPORT BEACH —  After 17 months without a chief curator, Newport Harbor Art Museum has named former Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art curator Bruce Guenther to the post, Newport Harbor officials said Thursday. His appointment is effective Dec. 1.

Guenther, 43, was chief curator since 1987 at the Chicago museum, the same facility that hired Newport Harbor museum director Kevin E. Consey away in 1989. Guenther, who reported to Consey, left that job in August “to pursue independent curatorial interests,” according to one published report. Previously he had spent eight years as contemporary art curator of the Seattle Art Museum.

Guenther replaces Paul Schimmel, who left Newport Harbor in April, 1990, to become chief curator of Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art. Schimmel, who knows Guenther and was familiar with his curatorial work in Chicago and Seattle, said the reputation of Newport Harbor, known internationally for its exhibits of modern and contemporary art, “will not only continue, but be enhanced and furthered by (Guenther’s) presence.”

“I’m really glad that Newport has finished their search and come up with somebody who has been a member of the curatorial world for an extensive period of time,” Schimmel said. “I understand he works very well with collectors and members of the community.”

Until Consey’s post was filled in January by Michael Botwinick, Newport Harbor had long been without either a director or a chief curator.

The lengthy vacancies drew severe criticism from a California Arts Council grant advisory panel last year. They were cited as part of the reason the council slashed the museum’s annual grant from $60,000 in 1989 to $19,000 last year. This year the museum was awarded $20,895.

“This fills in our family, so to speak,” museum board president Joan Frances Beall said Thursday. “We weren’t complete without a curator.”

Newport Harbor officials would not disclose Guenther’s salary.

Consey told the Chicago Tribune in August that Guenther left the Chicago museum “to pursue independent curatorial projects and his writing on the international contemporary art world.” Newport Harbor officials did not elaborate.

Guenther, scheduled to arrive at the museum from Chicago on Thursday to meet Newport Harbor’s full board, was not available for comment. Neither was Botwinick, who lived and worked in Chicago before moving to Orange County this summer, or Consey.

In 1988 and ‘89, Guenther was one of two acting directors at the Chicago museum, which is among the country’s oldest facilities devoted to contemporary art. At Newport Harbor, he inherits an exhibition schedule that is already booked through September, 1992.

He holds a bachelor of science degree in painting and drawing from Southern Oregon College in Ashland, Ore. The Seattle museum’s contemporary art curator from 1979 to 1989, he organized nearly 90 exhibits and was active in architectural planning of a new building for the museum, designed by renowned architect Robert Venturi, according to the Newport Harbor museum.

Beall said that by early next year the museum hopes to reactivate a long-dormant, multimillion-dollar drive to build and endow a new, expanded building.

“His superlative track record in the areas of exhibition development and publications, his broad understanding of museum management and fund-raising issues, and his experience in the planning of museum facilities will all be of significant benefit to the museum,” Botwinick said in a statement.