Page 60 - 2019 Travel Guide to California

MUSEUMS & ART
BY LAURIE WEED
A Thriving Scene
The Left Coast pays tribute to art, science and culture
NORTON SIMON
MUSEUM
The Norton Simon Museum in
Pasadena contains 12,000 objects
ranging from Renaissance
paintings and Impressionist
works to 2500 years of Asian
sculpture, above.
Whether you prefer to ogle modern art or
antiquities, Ice Age fossils or space shuttles,
the Golden State’s wealth of world-class
museums awaits. With more than 1,000
museums of all sizes across the state,
there’s a lifetime of fine art, science, history
and culture to explore, as well as weird and
wonderful collections for every imaginable
niche-interest, from Star Wars memorabilia
to the legends of Bigfoot. While it’s impos-
sible to do them all justice here, we’ve
attempted to highlight the best of the best.
The Arts
Visiting LA? It’s easy to spend hours in the
West’s largest art museum, the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art (LACMA). Down-
town, the Museum of Contemporary Art
(MoCA) and Geffen Contemporary show-
case the best in 20th- and 21st-century
painting, sculpture and conceptual art. The
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA LA), for-
merly the Santa Monica Museum of Art, is
now housed downtown to great acclaim.
The renowned Getty Museum includes
both the modern Getty Center in the Brent-
wood district and the Getty Villa in Malibu,
which focuses on Greek and Roman clas-
sical art. Pasadena’s Norton Simon displays
European and Modern artists amid a serene
sculpture garden. In nearby San Marino,
The Huntington features an impressive
VISIT PASADENA. OPPOSITE: CITYPASS
58 2019 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA