Museum donates photographs to Festival of Arts

The Laguna Art Museum has donated a set of photographs by Paul Outerbridge to the Festival of Arts.

According to a joint news release from LAM and Festival officials, Outerbridge (1896-1958) took the four photographs during the period of 1950 and 1955. His pictures all had to do with Laguna Beach's two most famous annual summertime shows: the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters.

"How wonderful on our 80th anniversary to receive this addition to our permanent art collection which furthers the documentation of the Festival's history," said Festival of Arts President Fred Sattler.

The Festival has embarked on a program to take stock of and catalog its extensive collection, which it has accumulated through art pieces and mementos that came out of past festivals, pageants or through private donations.

One of the photos by Outerbridge — who showed at the Festivals of '49, '50, '55 and '57 — is a portrait of artist and Festival of Arts founder Roy Ropp in his studio, the release said. Works by Outerbridge, who died in Laguna Beach, have been displayed in fine photography exhibits at Royal Photographic Society in London, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution and the Getty.

The three other photographs were of three posed pictures at the Pageant of the Masters. LAM Executive Director Malcolm Warner identified the subjects of the three living subjects — or "tableaux vivants" — as "Diana the Huntress," a sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington from 1922; "The Departure of Lot and His Family from Sodom," by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1613-15; and "The Annunciation by Hans Memling," 1465-75. The Rubens is in the collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and the Memling is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"The Festival is appreciative of Malcolm Warner, Janet Blake [LAM's curator of collections] and the Laguna Art Museum Board of Trustees for the collaborative spirit in which this gift was made," Festival of Arts Vice President Tom Lamb, a Laguna Beach-based photographer, said in a prepared statement. "These photographs by Paul Outerbridge represent a connective union on many levels and reinforces the historic bond between our organizations."

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Nonprofit recognized for its Laguna outreach efforts

The Festival of Arts Foundation has granted $2,000 to ART4KIDS Inc. in Newport Beach for its outreach efforts in Laguna Beach.