Freeman House by Julius Shulman, 1953 (Getty Research Institute Los Angeles)
In exposing one distressing historic architecture world mystery, The Los Angeles Times might have just solved a second one.
As we read The Times’ story about the unreported theft of significant decorative objects from a Los Angeles warehouse, we were reminded of a lingering question regarding the curatorship of Greene & Greene’s Gamble House, a landmark that is jointly managed in a partnership between the University of Southern California and the City of Pasadena.
Below are several news stories and events, all related to significant Los Angeles County architectural landmarks with links to USC.
February 3, 2019 – Based on an investigation sparked by an anonymous tip, The Los Angeles Times reveals that priceless Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler furniture and artifacts were stolen from a USC warehouse circa 2012, but that no police reports were ever filed.
June 7, 2018 – Chicago auction house Wright sells a single textile block from the USC-owned, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Samuel Freeman House, an artifact with poor provenance, for $5000. Weeks later, “The Times received an anonymous email describing the warehouse theft. The author also included a link to the auction and wrote that even if the sale was not connected to the theft, it was troubling. How could the tile have fallen into private hands when its ownership had passed directly from the Freemans to USC, the writer asked.”
August 10, 2018 – It is announced that Gamble House curator Ted Bosley intends to depart at the end of the year after 28 years over “differences of approach between himself and USC School of Architecture leaders over the future of the Craftsman icon.” No explanation of the differences of approach is given, leaving lovers of Greene & Greene’s great residential commission concerned, especially in light of the recent series of serious administrative scandals at USC.
We can’t help but wonder if recently departed Gamble House curator Ted Bosley is the anonymous tipster who alerted The Los Angeles Times to the USC warehouse theft, and if he lost his university position because the administrators who covered up the theft learned that he blew the whistle.
The community deserves to know the truth—about the warehouse theft, about any other losses of significant historical material in USC’s care, and about exactly how USC intends to do things differently at the Gamble House. It would be very sad if a dedicated professional was dismissed for doing the right thing, when USC would not. For while USC is charged with the responsibility of maintaining these landmark properties, they actually belong to you.
Kim,
I read with interest your piece on the Freeman House objects that went missing. Thanks for writing about this. Just FYI, I was not the person who tipped off the LA Times.
Ted Bosley
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Ted.
This story is reminding me that the next time we are in LA, we really should make a day trip to Pasadena to tour the Gamble House. For fans of the Arts & Crafts movement, are there other highlights in the area you’d recommend visiting?
There is a collection of Greene & Greene furnishings and artifacts on view at The Huntington, and if your schedule coincides with ours, you can get on the twice-yearly Lowdown on Downtown tour to visit Ernest Batchelder’s Dutch Chocolate Shop, or explore it virtually here on the blog.
I think they should look for the furniture in Max Nikias’ living room.
I Was active in Greene and Greene restorations from the 1970’s till early 2000. A LARGE number of artifacts that were donated by private individuals to the Gamble house via Randall Mackinson ended up evaporated to the mists or sold at Auction as “The property of a Gentleman”. Usually the Gentleman was Ron Chitwood, Randalls Paramor. Whenever anyone took note of what was missing and reported it to USC, they were disappeared and quietly defamed in the preservation community by USC. I do not know who took the objects, but I do know James Nash of CBS News interviewed me extensively about USC’s mismanagement of the Gamble House, and that was sometime around 2014.
What a heartbreak that must have been for you. It seems like USC’s poor stewardship of heritage objects and buildings was a warning of a deeper rot, which has caused such harm to the University and wider community. Hope the objects are in loving hands, at least. Maybe one day they’ll come back to the Gamble.
Thank you Kim, and Steven, for your observations. I worked for Randell Makinson as Associate Director of the Gamble House for two and a half years prior to his retirement in 1992. I became director that year, and served in that role for another 26 years, until leaving USC in 2018. I then was then hired as a consultant to form a new non-profit–the Gamble House Conservancy–to detach management of the house from USC. I was then hired as Executive Director of the new non-profit, retiring in 2021. The separation of the Gamble House from USC has been successful by all accounts, the house no longer being at the potential mercy of an unsympathetic USC dean. As for Randell Makinson, he loved Greene & Greene objects, removing many from houses that were set to be demolished (the Libby house demolition of 1968 springs to mind), or from houses otherwise compromised, or in unsympathetic hands. At first this was probably motivated by pure preservation impulse. Then, articles and books were written about the Greenes, by Randell and others, especially in the mid to late 1970s, and the objects gained great value as a result. The rape of the Blacker house in the mid-1980s was the most public scandal related to the rise in Greene & Greene object values at the time. Objects were bought by celebrities, values rose further, and a curator in the field soon faced moral hazards. It may have been unclear, even to Randell, whether he was curator, collector or dealer, or all of the above at the same time. Precisely for this reason, the American Alliance of Museums developed a Code of Ethics in the late 1970s, which says, in essence, that museum personnel should not collect and/or deal in objects that naturally fall in their own area of curatorial responsibility. The auction of the Makinson collection of G&G objects in 2004 was a grim event that laid bare the need for the AAM’s Code of Ethics. It’s important to note, though, that none of the auctioned objects were originally designed for the Gamble House. They were Greene & Greene objects designed for other clients that left their original houses over the years for various reasons, undoubtedly some reasons rightly frowned upon today. They were purchased, thankfully, by buyers who deeply appreciate what they have, and many have been made available for public exhibition.
Fascinating, thank you for the insights.