Hammer Museum - History

History

The museum was founded by Armand Hammer, the late CEO of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, as a venue to exhibit his extensive art collection. Hammer died 15 days after the museum opened to the public in November 1990. Hammer was a Los Angeles County Museum of Art board member for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1968, and during this time had pledged his extensive collection to the museum. Upset by the museum's plans to display his paintings in galleries that are part of the Frances and Armand Hammer Wing but named for other donors, Hammer withdrew from a non-binding agreement with LACMA to transfer his paintings and instead founded his own museum, built adjacent to Occidental's headquarters and designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. At the same time, art collector Norton Simon announced plans to give his prized collection to nearby UCLA, to be housed in a museum two blocks from the Hammer.

The 79,000-square-foot (7,300 m2), three-story building was built for $60 million and the original endowment fund was $38 million. Hammer persuaded Occidental to fund the entire cost on the grounds that the museum would improve the company's prestige. The inclusion of luxuries caused the projected museum cost to balloon to more than $78.4 million from an originally announced total of $30 million to $50 million. Occidental shareholders sued for waste of corporate assets, leading to settlement limiting construction and endowment costs. The building's façade of horizontally striped Carrara marble screens the museum and its interior courtyard from public view. The courtyard itself, lined by wide arcades and terraces, is a rectangle broken into two off-center sections.