New Orange County Museum of Art Debuts with Significant Support from South Coast Plaza and its Owners

Why the Orange County Museum of Art’s key donor stuck it out

For most of us, the opening of the Orange County Museum of Art’s sleek new home on Saturday, Oct. 8, is going to mean a place to see world-class exhibitions or attend a lecture. It’s going to mean somewhere fun and stimulating to hang out before taking in the symphony at the neighboring concert hall, a play at the South Coast Repertory Theater, or the ballet – or maybe Hamilton? – at the Segerstrom Hall. And for the hundreds of local donors and volunteers who have supported the museum in its many incarnations  – not to mention artists from near and far – it’s going to mean the gratification of seeing this museum in a permanent location after no less than 60 years of bouncing from locale to locale around the county. (Who remembers when it was across from the Crab Cooker? For a time at Fashion Island?)For Anton Segerstrom, it’s going to mean something more.For this partner of South Coast Plaza, OCMA’s largest single donor and a longtime trustee, the museum’s opening means nothing less than the end of his 16-year personal quest to see this permanent location built in Costa Mesa, the fruition of an $8 million gift from him and his wife, Jennifer, from their personal fortunes, and the fulfillment of their years of fundraising many more millions.

“You know, there are some people who start museums or get involved in them because they have huge art collections, but I don’t think that’s the case here,” says Sue Henger, 83, of Irvine. As a young mother looking for a way to get out of the house and learn more about art, she began volunteering at the forerunner of OCMA, the Balboa Arts Pavilion, in 1969. Henger, who has known Anton Segerstrom since he was a child, would go on to become the museum’s registrar in the ’80s as well as an art book editor.“Anton believes in what the museum can be for people. This was something he could really get behind,” she says. “What other reason would he, would they, have for putting all this into it? I believe he is following in his father’s footsteps.”

His father being the late Henry Segerstom – real estate tycoon, founding partner of South Coast Plaza and arts philanthropist lauded as a visionary who saw the necessity of investing in the arts in Orange County.“My father told me something years ago, that all great civilizations have a cultural component,” says Anton Segerstrom. “It was the impetus for the creation of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. With the idea that this could remain a suburban community or it could rise to a different level. Without that cultural component, it could only reach a certain level.”It was the Segerstrom family and South Coast Plaza partners, not only Henry, who donated the land for the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, including the parcel where the new OCMA sits. As the Newport Beach Independent once observed, “Florence had the Medici family. Orange County has the Segerstroms.”

While Segerstrom’s father was drawn to the performing arts – “When he was in Santa Ana High School, he was an outgoing sort and loved plays, so his gravitational pull was always more toward the performing arts,” says Segerstrom – it was his mother, Yvonne de Chavigny Segerstrom, who loved the visual arts. She was a successful artist in her own right, whose work would eventually be exhibited in Paris, Venice, Italy and Los Angeles.But before all that, she was a docent at this little museum where her then husband was on the board.“You’ve heard of the 13 women?” Segerstrom asks, referring to the baker’s dozen of determined ladies who started the museum back in 1962. “I refer to my mother as the 14th, or maybe the 15th, woman. She was friends with all the ladies.”Segerstrom knows exactly when art first made an impression on him: It was 1965 and he was 7 years old. His mother took him to an exhibition called “Especially for Children” at the museum, curated by Laguna Beach resident Sterling Holloway – beloved character actor of the screen and stage who also gave voice to Winnie the Pooh. (Henger remembers the exhibition too: Adults couldn’t come unless they brought their children along, and the entrance to the museum was made small so moms and dads had to crouch down to kid-level.)“I remember things like a wall where you would put your hands through and feel a sculpture without seeing it. And then you’d come around the wall and you’d see the sculpture,” recalls Segerstrom. “It was very playful and really creative, and it really, really engaged you.”His arts education under his mother’s influence only deepened as the years went by.“I remember her taking me to Los Angeles to an Andy Warhol show – that made a big impression on me,” he says. “In her later years, she was a supporter of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And we took a lot of trips around the world, including Cuba, to see art exhibitions. So for me, it’s just been a continual evolution and learning arc, which is a pleasure.”

That personal connection to the power of art might help explain what motivated Segerstrom to say yes in 2006 when board chair Tim Weiss and Dennis Szakacs, then museum director, approached him to help create a fund to pay for an architectural search and all of the future museum’s development. Various architectural plans had gone bust over the years…funds had suddenly dwindled…the way forward just wasn’t clear.“ For Jennifer and me, we had to make a substantial financial contribution, and I really had to reflect on that,” he says. “But we were at a point where if a new museum was going to be built, somebody had to step up.”And step up he did, becoming the largest among four heavyweight donors who included Weiss, PIMCO co-founder Jim Muzzy and James B. Pick.Segerstrom and Jennifer haven’t let up for 16 years. “We have not allowed ourselves the luxury of doubting,” he says. “We’ve always believed in it.” Well, OK, he does grant that things got tough after September of 2019.“After we broke ground, then the pandemic hit. In the middle of the pandemic, our director Todd Smith tendered his resignation (heading to a North Carolina museum). We were under construction. We were in the middle of a capital campaign. There were uprisings in the streets, people were locked down … you know, a few things,” he says with a wry laugh. “So that really challenged all of us to be creative. But look at where we are now.”

Over the decades, there have been many important museum supporters in Orange County, notes famed arts curator Paul Schimmel – though perhaps best known for leading the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, he curated groundbreaking exhibitions in the ’80s at Newport Harbor Art Museum, another early incarnation of what has become OCMA, including the renowned series “California Biennial,” revived for the new museum’s opening. He notes Irvine Co. billionaire Donald Bren and Leon and Molly Lyon are among those who gave substantial contributions to the museum’s collections.

“There has always been a certain cosmopolitan sector in Orange County that has been very involved,” Schimmel says.Yet, Segerstrom’s role in the success of today’s new museum is central, he says.“Anton really deserved credit for his perseverance, for holding the vision begun by the family. In every generation, there is always one game changer. He is it.”Teri Kennady, museum trustee and longtime president of the Visionaries, an auxiliary group supporting the museum’s educational and outreach programs, echoes Schimmel.“There were others in the community who had a vision and who collected art and were exposed to culture. Whether it was early California art to contemporary art, there were people with eyes open and a willingness to experience something new,” Kennedy says.  “But it started with the Segerstroms. When you think back on the history of the bean fields they owned, and what early California was like … honestly, it was a vision. And it hasn’t stopped. We owe a lot to them.”

The opening of OCMA this week closes a chapter on a long and winding journey. So, for all this talk of “vision,” what does Segerstrom see now?“It’s a brand new facility, a beautiful building. We’ve accomplished that,” he says. “Now it’s about programming and engagement, really using it to its highest purpose. That’s something that doesn’t end. This is just at the beginning.”He believes having this world-class museum in a central spot like the Segerstrom Center for the Arts surrounded by other world-class programs in theater, music and dance is “an opportunity to expose the community to new ideas, to challenging ideas. And for most people, it’s a growth opportunity,” he says.He says he is particularly excited about “the educational component. We’re going to have a great outreach to the local schools because that really nourishes the community.”Perhaps Segerstrom is thinking back to his own experience as a kid. Perhaps that’s why he and Jennifer had one more contribution to make when it came to the museum’s front-facing Avenue of the Arts Gallery, which is full of windows, inviting people in and leading them to experience all the art and ideas that await inside. The gallery is named in memory of Yvonne de C Segerstrom, the mother and artist who led her son to love the visual arts, now welcoming visitors to do the same.

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