Mark Hilbert, an avid art collector and co-founder of Chapman University’s Hilbert Museum of California Art, is fascinated by everyday life, making it the central theme of the artwork he exhibits.
That interest in the everyday storytelling is exactly what resonated with Diane Challis Davy, longtime director of the famed Pageant of the Master, the annual summer show in Laguna Beach that recreates artwork as tableau vivants, or living pictures.
Challis Davy is incorporating five of the Hilbert-collected paintings in the pageant’s show this summer, themed “Gold Coast: Treasures of California,” which opened over the weekend.
The show is set up as a road trip through storied California museums and also includes pieces from the nearby Laguna Art Museum, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, the Arden Helena Modjeska Historic House and Gardens in Modjeska Canyon, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and the UC Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art. Dana Point’s Waterman’s Plaza is also referenced.
Along with paintings, the pageant’s living pictures recreate sculptures and other masterpieces.
With this show, Challis Davy said she hopes patrons will take inspiration this summer and visit some of the featured places.
“We are bombarded by images and images on screen and even reproductions, but it is a very different experience to stand in front of a painting and see the brushstrokes and see how the painting has aged,” Challis Davy said. “You get a connection with the artists being present and seeing the art up close.”
On Wednesday, July 9, in a first-time-ever for the pageant, Hilbert, a Newport Beach resident, will appear as himself in one of his own collected pieces: Bradford J. Salamon’s oil painting, “Monday at the Crab Cooker.” The painting catches a moment at the iconic Balboa Peninsula restaurant, where Hilbert, Salamon and artist Gordon McClelland discuss plans for the future museum.
The pageant and the Hilbert Museum announced their collaboration earlier this summer during an event at the Orange space where Challis Davy and Hilbert spoke about their passions for getting people to appreciate and enjoy great California art.
A major factor of the Hilbert Museum’s public appeal, he said, was an idea from his late wife, Janet Hilbert, that its collection features artwork that tells the story of everyday life.
“It was my wife’s idea to have people in the painting,” he said. “‘When people are in the painting, ‘It’s more interesting,’ she said.”
And now becoming part of the story, “is pretty cool,” he said. “It’s a rare thing for a person to pose in the painting as themselves.”
“It will be fun, they’re going to be putting makeup on me, I’ve never had makeup applied,” he added. “It’s going to be a lot of laughs. It will be an indelible memory for the rest of my life.”
Challis Davy, who picked the Crab Cooker painting without knowing it was Hilbert in it, said her idea to collaborate with the Hilbert started more than a year ago when she saw social media posts from the couple about the art collections they owned and loaned out to museums for exhibit. So, when Challis Davy learned of an invitation from Hilbert, she jumped at it.
“He gave me a personal tour, as he’s famous for,” she said, referring to the regular Thursday tours Hilbert conducts at the Orange museum. “What really connected with me was the fact that he collects the work of artists I was very familiar with. Artists like Phil Dike and Roger Koontz, some of whom my dad showed at his gallery here in Laguna. I just loved seeing he had purchased and put in this permanent collection, all these works I was familiar with. It really resonated with me.”
Challis Davy said she selected the five pieces to fit into this year’s theme. Once she realized “Monday at the Crab Cooker” depicted Hilbert, she said she loved it even more for the way it fit into the “storytelling theme.”
“It’s kind of like showing the beginning of the saga of the creation of the museum,” she said.
Hilbert, who founded the museum in 2016, said he can still recall sitting with his two friends and talking about the museum. A waitress snapped the photo that Salamon later used to paint the image.
Challis Davy selected two other local Orange County scenes that appear in Act II; they are also Salamon oils.
“Seal Beach Nighthawks,” an oil painting of people at a beach concession stand, coincidentally also in the Hilbert collection, and “Marine Room,” which captures a scene from the Laguna Beach tavern.
The last painting was created for the show.
“I thought there are these two cool local OC hangouts and I need to have a third,” Challis Davy said. “That’s when we decided we’d ask Bradford if he’d like to paint a third piece having to do with a bar or restaurant. I gave him a choice: it could be the Swallows Inn, the Sandpiper or the Marine Room.”
Challis Davy had to convince the Festival of Arts to commission the piece and it is now on exhibit on the festival grounds. The huge 74-inch painting has a tremendous amount of detail and is a shout-out to the historic Ocean Avenue bar, famous for not selling food.
Salamon had until March to finish the piece so the pageant staff could start working on its set. Challis Davy said that there have only been five art pieces commissioned and shown in the show.
“Theatrically speaking, when you’re doing comedy or skits or things, the magic number is three,” she explained. “To cap off the story, I needed a painting that was really fun. Bradford came up with the whole composition himself. He did a detailed drawing and he went off and painted it without any interference from us. And came up with this great canvas.”
Beyond the novelty of his appearance in the living picture, Hilbert said he is flattered that his museum is included among other notable, longtime institutions, especially the Norton Simon Museum, a favorite of he and his wife. The museum celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
The pageant includes a bronze “Little Dancer” by Edgar Degas and two of the artist’s pastels, “Dancers in Pink” and “Dancers in the Wings,” from the museum’s collection.
Challis Davy said it doesn’t surprise her that the Hilberts admired the Pasadena museum.
“Norton Simon, his collection is very personal,” she said. “He had a passion for Degas. Hilbert has a passion for Southern California art, storytelling, and works of art with people. That’s why it’s such a good fit for Pageant of Masters because we focus on storytelling, and it’s all about artworks with people, so it’s a perfect fit.”
The Pageant of the Masters runs through Aug. 29; get more information and tickets at foapom.com.