Traveling Collector: An Art Oasis
December 2007
"Anyone who hasn’t been to Palm Desert in 10 years is going to be surprised by the current gallery scene," says Melissa Morgan-Nauert, founder of Modern Masters Fine Art gallery, or MMFA as locals call it. Up until the early 1990s Palm Desert’s art scene consisted mainly of kitsch, of coyotes howling at the moon and such, but things changed in 1992 when Leisa Austin and her husband, David, opened Imago Galleries, originally in downtown Palm Springs, and began representing major American artists, with an emphasis on important contemporary California artists such as Ed Ruscha, Robert Graham, Ed Moses and William Wegman."David and I were fortunate when we opened to have the support of so many Palm Springs Art Museum patrons," recalls Leisa. "We were also fortunate in the artists who gambled on the desert with us, many of whom we still represent today. Back then, if you were a serious art collector but living in the desert, you bought your art in New York or Chicago. That’s no longer true. Now there are any number of good galleries available to serious collectors."
Most, but not all, of those galleries are sprinkled along Palm Desert’s El Paseo, a chic shopping district 30 minutes east of Palm Springs, chockablock with stylish boutiques and expensive jewelry stores, that is often referred to as the "Rodeo Drive of the Desert." That’s where, in 1994, the Austins moved Imago into a rather modest space, though they’ve since built a dramatic 18,000-square-foot gallery just off El Paseo; its most prominent feature is a massive Dale Chihuly glass sculpture, visable from the street, that hangs suspended in a glassed-enclosed corner of the gallery.
Another important addition to Palm Desert was when Barrie Mowatt, an established gallery owner in Vancouver with a global reputation for showcasing contemporary artists such as Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova, Robert Indiana, Frank Stella, Robert Motherwell and Tom Wesselmann opened a second Buschlen Mowatt gallery in Palm Desert six years ago.
"The desert is a young market, on the cusp of becoming a significant cultural center on par with places like Palm Beach," says Mowatt. "And when you realize that 22 percent of America’s wealth resides in Southern California, and a good percentage of that resides in the desert, you understand why the fine art scene is exploding here."
With Imago and Buschlen Mowatt acting as bookends, the art scene truly began to blossom. The presence of these galleries was one of the reasons Morgan-Nauert decided to open MMFA several years ago. The 5,000-square-foot gallery originally sold mostly lithographs and works on paper by artists like Marc Chagall and Joan Miró, but it shifted gears this year to focus on contemporary realism with exhibitions by Dan Griggs and Michael Sokolis, as well as such abstract artists as Gabriel Rivera and Andy Moses.
"We’ve noticed a shift in the art scene," says Morgan. "The Palm Springs Art Museum, which has a very strong new director in Steven Nash, has been an engine for bringing a change towards contemporary artists."Down the street from MMFA is The Hart Gallery, which represents contemporary European artists. Works by German abstract painter Thomas Ritter are on show through December. "The biggest thing that has changed in the desert is that people have gotten more sophisticated about art," says Christian Hohmann, Hart Gallery’s director. "When we first got here five years ago, clients would invite us to their homes to advise them on buying art and what they already had was just awful. But that’s largely because there just wasn’t much choice locally. Now everything has changed. And no matter what your tastes in art, you’ll find a good selection in any number of galleries."
Like most of the other prominent Palm Desert art dealers, Thom Gianetto of Edenhurst Gallery arrived about five years ago after owning a gallery for more than 15 years in West Hollywood. A frequent visitor to the area, Gianetto says he noticed the art scene picking up about seven years ago. "It became more serious and the exhibitions were of a higher caliber. It’s obvious that a lot of traveling collectors were establishing second homes in the desert and they were looking for the sort of art you could find in Boca Raton or South Miami. I think the galleries have responded to that."
The South Beach connection seems to extend to several hotels in the desert, as well. For instance, the Kor Hotel Group, owners of the Art Deco masterpiece The Tides in Miami, recently opened up the Viceroy Palm Springs, a sleek boutique hotel whose design reflects the Hollywood Regency style popular during the desert’s original glamour era, when Hollywood stars like Clark Gable and Joan Crawford stayed here. It’s also the center of the new desert art scene. Once a month, the hotel hosts an art event—usually a preview for an upcoming gallery show. Also exhibiting a South Beach flair is the Parker Palm Springs, a funky, eclectic property loved by those who love all things moderne.
While there are plenty of galleries to explore while visiting the Palm Springs area, do not overlook the recently renovated Palm Springs Art Museum. Nash scrapped a somewhat frumpy fall exhibition in favor of an iconic 1996 video-sound installation by Bill Viola called "The Crossing," which can be seen through December 23. From February 15 to May 4, 2008, the museum will exhibit 150 photographs by master photographer Julius Shulman of houses by renowned desert architects like Richard Neutra, Albert Frey and William Cody. The museum also has an excellent permanent collection of contemporary paintings and sculptures, as well as Western and Native American art and a new glass gallery. "A lot of exciting things are happening out in the desert this season," says Katherine Hough, the museum’s chief curator. "We have a fabulous exhibition of 20th-century American and European sculpture, called "Picasso to Moore: Modern Sculpture from the Weiner Collection," which will be up all year, and a wonderful show of works by the significant glass artists of our time. It’s all part of an important facelift we’ve just completed to provide better viewing of our exhibits."
David Lansing, the author of Fodor’s Escape to the American Desert, writes on architecture and interior design for the Los Angeles Times and other publications.
Buschlen Mowatt Galleries
760.837.9668 buschlenmowatt.com
Edenhurst Gallery
760.346.7900 edenhurstgallery.com
The Hart Gallery
760.346.4243 hartgallery.com
Heather James Art & Antiquities
760.346.8926 heatherjames.com
Imago Galleries
760.776.9890 imagogalleries.com
Modern Masters Fine Art
760.341.1056 modernmastersfineart.com
Palm Springs Art Museum
760.325.7186 psmuseum.org
Parker Palm Springs
760.770.5000 theparkerpalmsprings.com
Viceroy Palm Springs
760.320.4117 viceroypalmsprings.com