An upcoming audit will shape the Long Beach Museum of Art’s future, and possibly shed some light on two long-lost paintings by the Russian master

JAWLENSKY: GONE MISSING?

Buried in the city’s 2006 audit of the Long Beach Museum of Art, there’s this sentence, a brief one —and boring (“Discussion with Foundation staff and review of documentation related to the loss of two pieces of artwork indicate that . . . ”)—that opened the door on a scandal: the disappearance from the museum’s collection of two small paintings by the Russian expressionist Alexej Jawlensky.

But the audit came out in February of that year, in the very Long Beach City Council meeting that featured the abrupt resignation of Second District Councilman Dan Baker over a separate matter. And suddenly the audit—and its revelation of missing art—seemed to fade away.

A second audit arrives as soon as next month, and it could clear up the Jawlensky mystery—and explain why the museum hasn’t made better progress paying down the $3.1 million it owes the city for backing construction of its gorgeous new gallery eight years ago.

“The key is the bond that’s going to be due in September 2009, and how did we get in this situation and how was money spent,” says City Manager Pat West. “Those are some of our questions, as well as how we’re handling our art.”

The museum’s difficulties are numerous. The city still seems curious why in recent years LBMA spent on operating expenses $670,000 earmarked for construction bond debt; and it wants to learn more about the November 2006 dismissal of longtime museum director Harold B. “Hal” Nelson, fired unexpectedly by the Foundation board that runs the museum.

“The location is practically the best location in Long Beach. It’s almost incredible that anything could fail in that location,” says Chris Giaco, who ran the museum store from 2000 to 2006 and witnessed the institution’s underachievement. “They’ve done a pretty good job of coming right to the precipice of that.”

It’s unclear where the two little Jawlenskys came from, though they may have been part of the Milton Wichner Collection of modern German art donated to the museum 29 years ago—and it is equally uncertain when and where they went. Next to fire or vandalism, theft is perhaps a museum’s worst public relations nightmare.

Also, though the paintings went missing the better part of 10 years ago, their disappearance wasn’t immediately discovered, and the insurance company didn’t pay off until 2007. Their identities, too, have remained a secret—no one whom I interviewed for this story could recall the name of either work.

“The easiest explanation is usually the right one, and I think the easiest explanation is that they just got tossed,” says Martin Betz, the museum’s former director of exhibitions, who estimates the paintings’ value at $350,000 each. “They were still working on the museum at the time. They could have been in a crate that got thrown out in all the construction debris.”

West, too, uses the word “lost” when discussing the Jawlenskys. And he questions whether the insurance company gave the museum what the paintings were worth when it finally paid off last year. The museum’s 2006 audit pointed out that, due to “prohibitive” costs, museum works hadn’t been appraised since 1999.

“I’m not sure the payment adequately reflected the value on those,” West says. “Probably the window of opportunity is lost. And when you’re dealing with art, was it appraised properly? Was the claim turned in at the appropriate time? I’m just expecting everyone did everything they were supposed to have done at the time.”

Or maybe not. In his 2006 audit, then-City Auditor Gary Burroughs raised questions about the museum’s methods of art storage, how often its works are appraised, and especially how often and how well its collection is inventoried.

West says he’s impressed with the fundraising work of the museum’s new director Ron Nelson (no relation), an insider who was previously president of the Foundation board. (Nelson did not respond to several telephone calls requesting comment.) Olivia Maiser, director of communications for current City Auditor Laura Doud, says the museum has made significant progress improving its art storage and inventory skills.

But no one seems to know, or want to say much about the missing Jawlenskys —despite a reported investigation when their absence was realized. A California Public Records Act request by The District Weekly for information on the paintings is still pending.

Not too long before they vanished, the paintings had been loaned out for a Jawlensky exhibition in Paris—possibly even for a second European show after that—and some people at the time wondered if they returned from the Continent.

“I was there when they came back. We picked them up at the airport,” Betz says, noting that the paintings also traveled with a trusted courier. “They went by security van back to LA, back to the storage. And then after that, who knows?”

It’s possible, Betz says, the paintings could have been stolen from storage, but he’s inclined to believe they simply disappeared during construction of the museum’s new gallery. Storage had always been scarce at the museum, the Craftsman-style 1912 Elizabeth Milbank Anderson house and carriage house. The new gallery was designed to include storage for a significant portion of the museum’s holdings. Betz says that parts of the collection began being moved into the new storage as soon as it was prepared—maybe even before it was ready.

“At that time they were inventoried again,” says Betz, who left LBMA in 2002 to run a museum in Hawaii. He says the FBI visited him there to discuss the Jawlenskys, and he offered another possible explanation for their disappearance. “Some people think there was a Getty intern working there. You weren’t supposed to let anybody in there. He might have left a door open and someone walked in the back.”

The size of the Jawlenskys—Betz estimates one measured 4-inches-by-6 inches, the other 8-inches-by-11 inches—didn’t help their survival, either. According to Betz and other sources familiar with the museum’s loss, the Lilliputian artworks weren’t even missed until some time after the exhibitions director left in 2002. “The museum tried to keep it secret for a while,” Betz says. “That’s typical. You want to make sure you cover all your bases. You call Interpol and there they are sitting on the shelf. That would be embarrassing.”

The disappearance of the Jawlenskys is an artistic and monetary loss. As city officials struggle to handle the museum’s debt problem, they know one way to do that would be to sell some of its art. West says that the museum could lose its accreditation if certain Foundation-owned artworks were sold, but that other city-owned pieces aren’t subject to the same regulations.

“We as a municipal entity have to look at every possible option, as opposed to paying this out of the general fund or reducing some other city services to pay for this,” says West, noting that the museum Foundation might balk at reducing the museum’s estimated 2,000-piece collection, valued in excess of $10 million, according to the 2006 audit. Fortunately—if that word can be used—if they do still exist, the two missing Jawlenskys would also be exceedingly difficult to sell anywhere outside a museum.

“As soon as they show up on the market they’ll be busted,” Betz says. “If they came to auction—Christie’s, Sotheby’s—they would be pulled immediately.”

After all these years, that may be a big “if.”

Tags: alexei jawlensky, city auditor, Long Beach, long beach museum of art