MALIBU, CA.-The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University is pleased to present The Eclectic Eye: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, on view from July 30 to October 2, 2005. Drawn from the collection begun by Frederick Weisman and continued by Billie Milam Weisman, this exhibition of over 40 works offers an overview of the major artists and art movements over the last four decades. As a special feature of this exhibition, one gallery will be devoted to Ed Ruscha to celebrate his recent exhibition representing the United States in the 2005 Venice Biennial. This exhibition also marks the publication of a book by the same title, featuring over 85 highlights of contemporary art from the Weisman Art Foundation.

THE ECLECTIC EYE—POP AND AFTER - Frederick Weisman believed that art should be integrated into everyday life. He collected art that was visually stimulating and intellectually challenging. He was particularly fond of Pop Art, with its bold imagery and witty commentary on our contemporary culture. This exhibition features a number of vintage examples of the movement’s heyday in the 1960s, including an entire set of Andy Warhol’s 10 Marilyn Monroe silk screens, as well as works by James Rosenquist and Christo. The current exhibition demonstrates the wide range of Weisman’s interests, which covered the major movements of postwar art and includes examples of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Post-Painterly Abstraction, and Photo-realism, as well as many more recent developments.

FOCUS ON RUSCHA - A highlight of this exhibition is one gallery devoted to the art of Los Angeles Pop artist Ed Ruscha. This special “exhibition within an exhibition” was organized to commemorate Ruscha’s participation in the 2005 Venice Biennial in Italy. He was chosen as the sole artist to represent the United States—the first time a California artist was so honored. On view are a dozen major works, including four of Ruscha’s seminal panoramic landscape paintings of the early 1980s.

Ruscha’s panoramic landscapes, most measuring up to 13 feet long, offer a quintessential Pop perspective on the open space of the American West as well as on the wide-screen format of American cinema. The exhibition also includes other quintessential Ruscha word-image paintings, such as The End (1983), Atmospheric Trash (1985), and Malibu Sliding Glass Doors (1976). Frederick Weisman was an important patron and a personal friend of the artist. In the mid-1980s, Weisman commissioned Ruscha to paint the exterior of the corporate jet. Ruscha’s friend and colleague, Joe Goode, painted the interior. This work, no longer extant, is documented in a video and two small-scale models on view.

COLLECTORS AND PATRONS - Starting in the 1950s, Frederick and Marcia Simon Weisman gathered a remarkable collection of masterpieces of modern and contemporary American and European art. They demonstrated exemplary daring by acquiring examples of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art long before these movements earned widespread recognition. During Frederick Weisman’s lifetime, the collection was acclaimed as one of the most important private collections of modern art in the United States. Now under the direction of Billie Milam Weisman, the Foundation has continued to collect work by new and young artists, fulfilling Weisman’s desire to leave a living legacy to the public.

Not only collectors, the Weismans were extremely influential in the development of Los Angeles as a significant art center. Frederick Weisman, while on the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from 1985-1994, pressed for collecting more contemporary art. Always eager to share his enthusiasm with the public, he would frequently purchase pieces to donate to museums across the map.