Hammer Museum

For The Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska, see The Hammer Museum

The Hammer Museum in Westwood, California

The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, operated by UCLA. It contains a small collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. The museum holds over 7500 works by French satirist Honore Daumier, the largest collection outside of Paris. In recent years, the Hammer has become well known for its collection of contemporary art works on paper.

The museum was founded by Armand Hammer, the late CEO of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation as a venue to exhibit his extensive art collection. Mr. Hammer died 15 days after the museum opened to the public in November 1990. Mr. Hammer was a Los Angeles County Museum of Art board member for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1968, and during this time had pledged his extensive collection to the museum. To LACMA's surprise, Hammer instead founded his own museum, built adjacent to Occidental's headquarters and designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes.

In 1994, the Hammer Museum made headlines by selling Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester to Microsoft founder Bill Gates for $30.8 million. The Codex Leicester was one of Mr. Hammer's proudest acquisitions, one which he unsuccessfully tried to have renamed as the Codex Hammer. Most museums have collection guidelines for deaccessing art, which require profits from sales to be used for future acquisitions. The Hammer Museum sold the 72 page scientific notebook to fund the museum's exhibitions and programs.

In 1994, UCLA assumed management of the Hammer Museum, with the Armand Hammer Foundation retained some control, including a "reversionary clause" which gave the foundation rights to reclaim the art collection and some of the endowment funds. The museum had long desired to eliminate these clauses.

On January 19, 2007 the Hammer Museum and the Armand Hammer Foundation agreed to dissolve their relationship, dividing the remaining 195 objects which founded the museum; the foundation retaining 92 paintings valued at $55 million, while the museum retaining 103 objects, valued at $250 million.

External links

• UCLA Hammer Museum website

References

• Reynolds, Christopher, Hugh Hart. "The Da Vinci codex versus the museum code", Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 2007-01-15. Retrieved on 2007-01-15. 
• Muchnic, Suzanne. "Hammer divided yet strong", Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 2007-01-19. Retrieved on 2007-01-19. 
• Knight, Christopher. "The Hammer cleanup", Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 2007-01-22. Retrieved on 2007-01-22. 

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