Los Angeles artists, collectors reel from wildfires

As the Los Angeles area begins the formidable task of rebuilding after the most destructive wildfires in its history, the city’s artists and art collectors are mourning what could amount to billions of dollars in irreplaceable art that went up in flames.

The wildfires have altogether destroyed more than 13,000 structures, with many among those located in the affluent Palisades neighborhood — home to many priceless art collections — and the town of Altadena, which was home to a flourishing artist community.

Some of those art collectors likely lost many of their acquisitions as the fires burned out of control for weeks, while local artists have watched as their studios and homes burned, destroying their work and jeopardizing their livelihoods.

“There’s part of me that’s numb or in shock,” said Brad Eberhard, an artist who ran Altadena’s Alto Beta gallery, which also housed his own studio. Both burned down in the EatonFire. “Every half hour I remember another thing gone.”

Alto Beta, a 550-square-foot (51-sq-meter) space in an Altadena shopping center, hosted exhibits focused on artists who had not had a showing in Los Angeles in the past three years.

Eberhard lost between 50 and 70 of his own sculptures as well as about two dozen pieces of art from his friends and colleagues.

When he returned to visit the gallery, “all I recognized was an aluminum door frame,” he said.

Just days before the gallery burned down, Alto Beta had opened a show called “Quiver” exhibiting paintings from Mary Anna Pomonis, a Los Angeles-based artist. Pomonis described the work in the show as female-centered paintings rooted in devotional imagery.

“It felt like it was an appropriately dramatic response to work that I felt dealt on that scale of an epic narrative,” she said.

Many in the Los Angeles area have heard the fates of their homes but have been unable to return to see what’s left, as tens of thousands of Angelenos remain under evacuation orders.

Kim McCarty, a watercolor painter and owner of the Michael’s Santa Monica restaurant with her husband, lost her home to the Palisades fire. Like many, she has not been able to return to assess the damage in person.

Through their restaurant, which opened in 1979, the McCartys became acquainted with local artists and housed many pieces in their Malibu home from friends such as Roger Herman, a German-born artist who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Pippa Garner, an American artist who died in Los Angeles in December.

“(I’m) sad to lose that all because it’s such a loving thing,” said McCarty, who added she was not able to salvage any of her own artwork before she was forced to evacuate.

Experts have estimated that the LA wildfires could be the most expensive disaster in U.S. history. AccuWeather has estimated at least $250 billion in losses due to the fires, although that figure could still change.

It is too early to estimate much of the losses that are art-related, but there were perhaps “billions” of dollars worth of fine art in properties in affected areas, said Christopher Wise, vice president at Risk Strategies, an insurance broker and risk management consultancy.

“If you take a look at the size of the areas that are under threat or have burned, the scale of it really is staggering,” he said.

Still, Wise cautioned that the amount of losses remains unclear, as many collectors have yet to return to their homes.

Despite the uncertainty created by the wildfires, the organizers of Frieze Los Angeles made the decision last week to go ahead with the international art fair, scheduled for late February.

Frieze, which also holds annual fairs in London, New York and Seoul, has presented the Los Angeles edition since 2019, elevating the city’s status as an art capital. The fair attracts galleries and collectors from around the world, especially those from the U.S. West Coast.

“Since the fair’s founding six years ago, Frieze has been proud to support and be part of this vibrant community,” said a Frieze spokesperson. “The challenges the city is currently facing only strengthen our commitment to work alongside the community to rebuild and recover together.”

Frieze Los Angeles, in conjunction with several smaller art fairs, aims to send a message to the local art community by going forward despite the fires, said Marc Selwyn, the owner of Marc Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angeles.

“I think it’s important that people know that LA is open for business and art is something that can be a boost for people in these kinds of times,” the gallery owner said.

The world-famous Getty Museum, which survived the fires, led several major art organizations in standing up a $12 million LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund, which is set to provide emergency relief to artists and others who work in the arts.

If there is a silver lining to be found in the disaster it may lie in how the Los Angeles artistic community has pulled together to help one another, said Eberhard. He has already been able to find homes in other galleries for most of the shows that Alto Beta was set to exhibit this year.

“I didn’t know that the artist community was this caring. I really didn’t, because artists are notoriously, and accurately, independent, self-reliant, like little islands,” he said. (Reuters)