UC Irvine Museum Gets $$$ and a New Name

Oskar Fischinger, Triangles/Blue Triangles, 1949. Buck Collection at UCI Institute and Museum of California Art

UC Irvine’s long-planned art museum moved closer to reality with the announcement of an undisclosed financial gift from Jack and Shanaz Langson. The museum is to be called the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (LIMCA? The Langson?) A location is expected to be announced in spring 2022. The new museum will house the two large collections donated in the mid 2010s: the Irvine Museum's trove of California Impressionism (assembled by Joan Irvine Smith) and the Gerald E. Buck collection of California Modernism

Jack Langson is a real estate developer, president of the Newport Beach-based Investment Building Group. His name is already on one of UC Irvine's libraries.

This is welcome news, as an art museum for UCI Irvine has been stuck in the planning stages since 1962. The fact that they're not saying how much the Langsons donated ("at the couple's request") makes it hard to say much more than that. It remains unclear whether the museum is now a slam-dunk, or whether this is just the first step in a long fund-raising road (and they're already used the naming opportunity). It's also unclear how ambitious the new museum will be. Back in 2018 the university was envisioning a 100,000 sf facility with 45,000 sf of exhibition space: nearly the size of the Broad. A California architect was expected to be named by 2019 (didn't happen).

(The Fischinger at top of post is featured in "The Resonant Surface: Movement, Image, and Sound in California Painting," through Feb. 12, 2022, at the UCI museum's interim location, 18881 Von Karman Ave.,  Suite 100, Irvine.)

Comments

Anonymous said…
The “Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art at the University of California, Irvine” just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Anonymous said…
Great to see a art institutions proliferating in OC, but the name is really silly.

Here's a better one where they can honor the donor but get to the point : "Langston Museum of California Art"
Anonymous said…
I have trouble with anything named after this couple after they stole my home from underneath me and kicked myself and my children out onto the street after 17 years of ownership. Apparently they didn’t care that an innocent spouse going through a divorce, was pay for two businessman‘s bad business deal. I currently rent an apartment.