Quick Takes: Laguna Art chief to leave

Bolton Colburn is leaving the Laguna Art Museum after 24 years — including the last 14 as its director.

His resignation, effective May 13, is voluntary, Colburn and Robert Hayden III, president of the museum’s board, said Monday, and reflects no internal friction at the seaside institution that’s devoted to California art.

Colburn, 57, began his museum career in the early 1980s at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (now the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego). He now aims to pursue “ideas I’d like to accomplish in the sphere of visual art” that he didn’t want to divulge.

Hayden said the board will hire a search consultant to help it find a new director, with no deadline set to fill the job.

—Mike Boehm

Winfrey to host Freedom Riders

Oprah Winfrey is marking the 50th anniversary of the first Freedom Ride.

Harpo Productions says 178 former Freedom Riders will be on Wednesday’s episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in one of the largest gatherings of Freedom Riders since 1961. The riders peacefully opposed 1960s racial segregation of the South.

Winfrey said she owes “a deep debt of gratitude” to the Freedom Riders, because her life “would be different were it not for them.”

—Associated Press

Longer tenure for ‘Judge Judy’

Television’s “Judge Judy” is keeping her hand firmly on the gavel through 2015.

Judy Sheindlin signed a new multiyear deal to stay with the long-running syndicated program that last season ranked No. 1 in daytime, CBS Television Distribution said Monday.

“I am thrilled with the opportunity to continue this exciting second career,” Sheindlin, 68, said in a statement.

A former judge in New York, the tart-tongued Sheindlin presides over small-claims cases on her program, which is in its 15th season.

“Judge Judy” had been renewed until 2013 before

the new agreement was reached.

The deal comes as Oprah Winfrey prepares to wrap up her talk show after 25 years, leaving Sheindlin and other daytime stars to jockey for position. Winfrey’s cable channel, OWN, launched in January.

—Associated Press

Auction houses face big season

Buoyed by record results amid a dramatic art market recovery and an increasingly global clientele, Christie’s and Sotheby’s are gearing up for spring auctions with nearly $1 billion of art for sale.

Last year proved one of the best with Christie’s posting a record $5 billion in sales and Sotheby’s making $774 million in revenue — six times more than 2009 and its second highest ever.

What has changed is the ascendance of the contemporary and postwar sector, which has nipped at and sometimes eclipsed the once indomitable Impressionist and modern arena.

New collectors from Russia, Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore, Qatar and South America have also upped the ante, flush with cash and ready to create instant collections.

—Reuters

Finally

Book deal: Melissa Leo, who won an Academy Award this year for her performance in “The Fighter,” is working on a memoir that Simon & Schuster plans to release in 2013.

Helping hand: Charlie Sheen said he would donate $20,000 in profit and donations from a San Francisco show to the Giants fan who was severely beaten outside Dodger Stadium. The former star of “Two and a Half Men” also said he wants to organize a relief event for tornado victims in Alabama.

Free concert: The Black Eyed Peas will hold a free concert in New York City’s Central Park on June 9.