Crowds Flock to Opening of Art Museum

Like a human zoom lens, Scott Lindsey slowly walked away, then toward, then away from the lushly colored abstracts. He didn’t want to rush through Saturday’s grand opening of the Orange County Museum of Art.

“I love it,” said Lindsey, a Chapman University graduate student. “Orange County is not necessarily known for its liberal support of the arts. This is a celebration of the arts.”

He was among some 5,000 people at a frenetic, daylong open house featuring children’s hands-on art workshops, face painting, watercolor demonstrations, art videos and gallery tours.

The Orange County Museum of Art is housed at the expanded, renovated Newport Harbor Art Museum near Fashion Island. It was created through last year’s hotly contested merger of the Laguna and the Newport Harbor art museums.

The dispute over the consolidation continues in lawsuits, acrimony and political maneuvering, though the factions are working to settle the matter.

On Saturday, however, the focus was on the opening, which drew a larger-than-expected crowd that meandered through spacious, white-walled galleries.

“It’s terrific,” said Roberta Miller, gazing through the 60-foot-tall glass wall in the museum’s cavernous entryway. The expanded lobby, built with funds from Pacific Mutual Foundation, is the only physical addition to the site, though remodeling doubled the gallery space.

Next door, the Museum Education Center, occupying the vacated Newport Beach Public Library building, houses two hands-on art studios, a classroom, a 108-seat auditorium, storage and offices.

A lack of space prevented the former Newport museum, founded 35 years ago, from staying open all year. It was closed for weeks at a time while exhibits were installed. And it never had enough room to simultaneously display the art it owns and the art it exhibits temporarily.

But after the $1.8-million renovation, which expanded the site’s gallery space to 15,800 square feet, the museum will be open year-round. It will offer temporary exhibits along with a continuous display of works from its 6,000-piece permanent collection of California art, which provides a historical sweep from the 19th century to today.