After reopening in February 2024 following a $12 million expansion, Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University doubled its visitors to 60,000.
Museum benefactor and local collector Mark Hilbert told the Business Journal he now has his sights set on logging 100,000 annual visitors within two years at the 22,000-square-foot museum, which has grown to 26 galleries featuring collections that document the history, people and places of California.
His efforts include setting up an education department to reach out and encourage nearby schools to bring students, educators and parents to the museum, and installing more signage around the city of Orange.
“All these activities we hope will continue to push up our visitor numbers,” Hilbert said.
Another strategy is in motion as the museum’s collection takes center stage at another OC arts institution – Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, where volunteers are dressed and styled to recreate different paintings and sculptures live on stage.
The Hilbert Museum partnered with the long-running theatrical production for this year’s theme of California art, the style of painting that inspired Hilbert’s growing collection valued at around $25 million, according to Hilbert.
The entry into the Laguna Beach show occurred after Hilbert gave Pageant Director Diane Challis Davy a personal tour of the museum last year.
“It was a day I will never forget, as it brought back memories of my father’s art gallery, Challis Galleries, in Laguna Beach,” Davy said in a statement. “So many of the artists represented in the Hilbert’s collection were people I knew and admired in the 1960s through the 80s.”
The two struck up a conversation about collaborating, which led to Hilbert becoming a sponsor of this year’s pageant with five pieces on display.
“If we had had just one painting in this wonderful thing, one painting, I would have been totally thrilled, but to have five, I’m totally blown away,” Hilbert told the Business Journal.
The five artworks appear alongside several pieces from fellow California institutions such as Bowers Museum, the Norton Simon Museum and Hearst Castle.
The art collector went a step further and eventually joined the show’s volunteers onstage on July 9 in a painting by artist Bradford Salamon called “Monday at the Crab Cooker.” The oil on canvas features Hilbert, Salamon and another artist Gordon McClelland at the Newport Beach seafood eatery, which also has a second location in Tustin.
“The three of us guys used to walk and talk art every Monday night. So, this night, we went to The Crab Cooker and were talking about the new museum,” Hilbert recalled. “And then all of a sudden Bradford says, ‘Hey, let’s call the waitress to take our picture.’”
Salamon surprised Hilbert with the painting, which now hangs at the museum in Orange.
This year’s pageant production, “Gold Coast: Treasures of California,” runs through Aug. 29.
The evening, dubbed “Hilbert Night at the Pageant,” was dedicated to his wife Janet Hilbert, who passed away in December. The couple founded the museum in 2016.
Mark and Janet began collecting California Scene paintings in 1992 to decorate their home in Palm Springs.
“I found our first California Scene painting at a consignment shop in Palm Springs that had a complete assortment of California watercolors,” Mark states on the museum’s website. “It was love at first sight.”