L.A. Museums' Collections Grow Despite Poor Economy

The writer was William J. Zeile of Arlington, Va., whose great-uncle co-founded a San Francisco furniture shop with Arthur and Lucia Mathews in 1906, in response to the earthquake that devastated the city. The firm mainly produced custom furnishings for offices and residences. But for close friends and family, the Mathewses made extraordinary carved and painted pieces that merge the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement with the classicism of the American Renaissance, and that's what Kaplan coveted.

LACMA has a major holding of Arts and Crafts material, thanks to collector Max Palevsky and his wife, Jodie Evans. But a landscape by Arthur Mathews — promised by Nancy Daly, former LACMA board of trustees chairman, and given to the museum last year — was the museum's only example of the Mathewses' work.

To Kaplan's amazement, Zeile wrote: "I noticed from the LACMA Web site that your museum recently received as a promised gift a landscape painting by Arthur Mathews. I am writing to inquire whether the museum would be interested in receiving as a gift other works of art connected with Arthur and Lucia Mathews, specifically some pieces of Arts & Crafts furniture that will soon come into my possession from my late father's estate."

Kaplan says she immediately called Zeile and "made a beeline" to the family home in South Pasadena with fellow curator Thomas Michie. Given their choice, they selected seven wood pieces: an elaborately painted chest, a table with a drawer, a large candelabrum that stands on the floor, two covered jars and a pair of candlesticks.

"Other than Max Palevsky's gifts," she says, "this is the best gift to come in my eight years here. The Mathewses are the most important Arts and Crafts furniture designers in Northern California. Now, all of a sudden, we not only have an example, we have some depth." The entire group of Mathews material will go on view June 14.