HOPKINS AT GREYSTONE: HE’S ALONG FOR THE RIDE

Henry T. Hopkins has an answer for people who ask how he could abandon the security of directing the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for the turbulence of orchestrating Frederick R. Weisman’s art enterprises in Los Angeles.

“I know what I’m getting into,” said the distinguished museum director during a brief trip to Los Angeles. “Some people who have worked with Fred don’t see his peripatetic nature in the best light, but I chose this for myself. I believe that we’re going to do some very interesting and exciting things. And I’m here to go along with the ride.

“I had reached a point in my career when I would either stay in San Francisco another eight years or so, or see if there was one more thing in me. At the age of 58, I feel freer to do this than I might have when I was 45. As I get into it, if it doesn’t work, I just won’t worry about it,” he said.

On Nov. 3, when he officially takes over as director of the Frederick R. Weisman Collection (formerly called the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation of Art), Hopkins will preside over a mushrooming art collection, to be headquartered at the Greystone mansion in Beverly Hills. Though still bogged down in environmental impact studies, the project is expected to transform the historic Doheny estate into an elegant showcase for modern and contemporary art.

Hopkins has spent his entire art career in the West, resigning a curatorial post at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to direct the Fort Worth Museum in 1968 and going on to San Francisco in 1974. When he moves back to Los Angeles he will not only return to the city where his career began but to the employ of a hyperactive private collector who--unbeknownst to Hopkins--first paid his salary at the County Museum of Art. Since those days in the early ‘60s, when Weisman and his former wife, Marcia, began collecting and supporting museums, Weisman has acquired a reputation for buying art like Imelda Marcos once bought shoes.

On his world-wide travels, the multimillionaire head of Mid-Atlantic Toyota has scooped up everything from stellar examples of the most highly revered modern art to the latest splashes of East Village youth. To the consternation of his critics, he is fond of mixing up the whole melange and sprinkling it with kitsch or--as Hopkins puts it--with things he “clearly sees as just plain fun.”

“The quality of the collection is entirely a question of where you’re coming from,” Hopkins said. “Fred Weisman--with his money and knowledge and connections--unquestionably could build a finite collection of the finest work produced after World War II, based on his Stills and De Koonings. That simply isn’t his interest. People wonder why he puts a beautiful Jasper Johns next to something unknown, but that’s what he believes in--taking it on to the next step.

“Clearly he derives his greatest pleasure from constantly adding to his collection at the contemporary end of the spectrum, buying the untried and the untested. He does what so many museums would like to do but never do, either because of lack of funds or lack of courage,” Hopkins said. “It’s a risky business. I can say candidly that a number of things in the collections are not of my aesthetic interest, but the experimental nature is what makes it exciting.”

Weisman’s “increasingly eclectic” taste “only reflects what’s going on in the art world,” Hopkins continued. “When he bought the De Koonings and Stills, everyone had a clear idea of what contemporary art was. Now, when we have fought for and won a broader range of what is acceptable, Fred plays the full gamut. I’ve not yet had my first combative discussion about his taste and mine, but it will come as we move along with parallel philosophies but different visions.”

Meanwhile, Hopkins must figure out what to do with such unwieldy wonders as room-size pieces by Red Grooms, Jonathan Borofsky and Edward Kienholz, all recently purchased by Weisman. “When you are with a museum, you just ignore a (life-size) Red Grooms bus because you can’t cope with it, but once you have it, you have to cope with it. We may end up with a public warehouse in Santa Monica,” he said.

If the flood of artworks constantly flowing through Weisman’s West Los Angeles home has temporarily stunned the veteran museum director, he has at least ordered the responsiblities of his new job into “three phases.” The first is not Greystone mansion, as might be expected, but an active program of international traveling exhibitions from Weisman’s collections. Currently, about 100 contemporary works are touring the Orient, another 100 are in Europe and a third group is being readied for a journey throughout the United States.

Weisman buys art internationally and has developed a traveling exhibition program as an extension of his business interests. “Initially I didn’t realize what a compelling part of Fred this exhibition program is. It really is primary,” Hopkins said.

“The reason comes down to a very basic idealism, an almost naive idealism, that art can communicate at a level where language sometimes can’t. He believes that sharing art objects builds a bond in the creative community that ultimately impacts better understanding of cultures. You hear that kind of thing mouthed often, but it is remarkable to retain that kind of wonder and belief after a long business career at Fred’s age of 73.”

Characteristically, Hopkins said, “Fred’s hope is that it will go on forever, that there will always be new places that will want to see the collection, that it will always stay fresh and new things will be added to it, so it will have a constantly changing quality. He really does not like it when things are in storage.”

The second phase of Hopkins’ responsibility is guiding the restoration and conversion of Greystone mansion into a museum. After much discussion, the Beverly Hills City Council in February finally granted Weisman permission to lease the city-owned property for $1 a year for 55 years. In return, he has promised to pay $1.5 million annually for operation costs and to put $6 million-$8 million into restoring the badly abused building.

Ever optimistic, Hopkins said the project is “coming along well” and that the final environmental impact report will be available soon. “The neighborhood concerns are what you would expect them to be, and I think we can intelligently and honestly answer them,” he said.

Questioned about his vision of the estate, he answered, “I don’t see Greystone as a museum at all. The house (whose displays will be drawn from Weisman’s foundation, company and private collections) will not be hung with any intention of surveying 20th-Century art or even the contemporary period. I hope it will be a place where the 98% of people who usually don’t come into contact with contemporary art can walk in and see how it is lived with.” The 18 acres of surrounding grounds will be a “lovely presentation area,” offering “vast sweeps and intimate areas” for a varied selection of sculpture.

“I’d say that 20 years from now Greystone will be a fantastic visual experience, upgraded over time, object by object,” Hopkins speculated. “And if I had to take bets on the collection, I’d say that it will continue to play the front of the line.”

Phase three--the foundation’s grant giving activities--is a continuation of Weisman’s established practice of helping artists (such as aiding architect Frank Gehry with his original house and painter Clyfford Still with the purchase of his Maryland farm), according to Hopkins. Grants may be established for a visiting artists program. Another possibility, high on Hopkins’ list, is “a publication that would deal intelligently with the international art scene.”

Hopkins will reintroduce himself to Los Angeles during the first of a Weisman-sponsored lecture series, at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 8, at the Beverly Hills Library. Admission to his talk on the contemporary art scene is free. Call (213) 277-5321 for required reservations.