Huntington Lands Archives of Eve Babitz, Eloise Klein Healy, Gloria Stuart
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| Eve Babitz's diary, June 2-7, 1975. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. (c) The Huntington |
The Huntington Library has announced the acquisition of the archives of writer/scenester/muse Eve Babitz; L.A.'s first Poet Laureate Eloise Klein Healy; and actor/artist Gloria Stuart Sheekman. Babitz has been typecast as the woman who played nude chess with Marcel Duchamp (who was fully clothed) at his 1963 Pasadena Museum retrospective. Her archive includes manuscripts, correspondence, address books, and date books as well as photographs, drawings, and collages.
Likewise Gloria Stuart [Sheekman] is invariably identified with her late-in-life, Oscar-nominated performance in Titanic, but she had both an acting career and an art career spanning seven decades. Two of her paintings are in LACMA's collection.
Comments
Stuart's Watts Tower I is charming. I definitely could live with it.
I'm always amazed at the hidden skills and expertise of various people out there. I've seen bits of "America's Got Talent" type programs, and what people are capable of blows me away. It's why certain VIPs who end up famous and well recognized may not necessarily have a lot more talent than other folks do. They are also able to play the game better than others. Or they've defied the odds better than other people have done.
Too bad your efforts didn't pay off.
I do think the Govan-Zumthor Museum of Art will be a big hit with various looky-loos. But the logistics, academic seriousness and budget of the museum are going to be thrashed and pummeled well into the future.
Thank goodness there's at least the Getty and Huntington.
Watts Towers with Kite was on view at LACMA in the American Art galleries up until they were emptied for the demolishing of what was called the Art of the Americas Building (and good riddance! Wilshire Boulevard has been looking much better without that pomo monstrosity).