XPost: alt.los-angeles, alt.home.repair, alt.politics.republicans
XPost: alt.politics.democrats, sac.politics
The shock is beginning to wear off and the costs are being counted. The
largest of the L.A. fires have been vanquished by firefighters — and rain
— after a month. Mom's photo is gone, the portrait of the kids is only a memory, and you don't even want to think about the Andy Warhols.
Ah, yes, the Andy Warhols. It's bad enough that the family manse is dust sitting on a lot in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, or Pasadena, but America
and the world may forever be deprived of enjoying some of the finest works
of art.
Private art collections worth billions of dollars went up in smoke when
the fire hydrants went dry in Pacific Palisades. Entire bodies of work by musicians were lost in their home studios. Original charts by famous
composers were incinerated.
Here are the losses so far reported by collectors and artists living in
the fire areas. You can bet many more are unreported and perhaps will
remain so. And, Hunter Biden's art-for-access works don't even move the
needle. Many of the reported losses were uninsured due to the outrageous insurance system in California, made worse by the so-called insurance commissioner.
Art News reported that fine arts insurance specialist Simon de Burgh
Codrington believes “This is going to be substantial and possibly one of
the most impactful art losses ever in America," and is expected “to be
much more impactful than [Hurricane] Sandy was to the art world.”
This assessment was made just three days after the fires started. The
world is beginning to count the cost.
Art collector Ron Rivlin owned 30 Andy Warhol pieces.
Rivlin reports a total of 200 pieces were burned up in the fire, including works by street artist Keith Haring and painter Damien Hirst.
Larry Schoenberg, who ran Belmont Music from his Palisades home, lost
digital files and 100,000 scores, many by his father, Arnold Schoenberg.
The modernist composer died in 1951 and though his original manuscript
scores are in a vault in Vienna, photos, notes, letters, books, and
memorabilia were lost in the fire.
Fast Company reported that sculpture artist and Altadena gallery owner
Brad Eberhard lost everything in the fire, including "50 and 70 of his own sculptures as well as about two dozen pieces of art from his friends and colleagues."
“Every half hour I remember another thing gone,” said Eberhard.
Hip hop producer and DJ Otis Lee Jackson, Jr., known as Madlib, lost
"decades of music," including all of his digital music files, in the fire
and has established a fund to buy necessities for himself and his family
as they start over.
Watercolorist Kim McCarthy lost her entire collection as well as art by sculptor Roger Herman.
McCarty also lost works by avant-garde artist Pippa Garner that she kept
in her Malibu home.
Forbes reported that in a "tragic turn of fate, the personal library of novelist and art critic Gary Indiana was incinerated the day after the collection was moved to Altadena, where the Eaton fire struck." The former Village Voice art critic died in October.
The Getty Museum, which has withstood at least two major fires in recent
years, has set up the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund with the goal of getting $12 million in donations to provide relief to artists.
Homes where art was created in L.A. were burned to the ground. The house
where the Doors penned "Light My Fire" was incinerated.
Author Steven Pressfield, who wrote the books "The Legend of Bagger Vance"
and "The War of Art," announced that he'd lost "his sanctuary" where he'd written those books.
And then there are the architectural works of art such as The Zane Grey
House, which burned down in Altadena. The Zorthian Ranch was immolated
nearby. The ranch was a 48-acre spread that Forbes reports was an artist sanctuary. It hosted people from Bob Dylan, Charlie Parker, and Andy
Warhol to quantum physicist Richard Feynman.
Exclusively for our VIPs: L.A. Mayor Karen Bass (Which Rhymes With — You
Know) Just Confirmed the Fears of Palisades Fire Victims
The losses are still being calculated but they're into the billions of
dollars, according to art experts. There's a chance we may never know
about some of the works lost in the fires. As the L.A. Conservancy's
Adrian Scott Fine concluded, "It is a mass erasure of heritage."
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/02/04/how-much-art-went-up-in- smoke-in-the-la-fires-billions-n4936642
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)