Sunday's Column - Vincent Price

A Work  by Arnold Meskes

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that the late actor Vincent Price was an art collector, but I had no idea how far he had taken it.  In 1951 at age 40, he was asked to give a speech  to the East Los Angeles Community College, and afterwards he realized that there were no art museums in this unincorporated part of the city.  He therefore began to donate pieces from his own collection and by 1957 a building was erected to display the works.

His interest in art was very diverse, and there is a collection of early Colombian art, the cataloguing and display of which director Karen Rapp is overseeing.

The Museum has over 9,000 artifacts, although not all of these are on show or belonged to the actor.

Vincent Price died in 1993 at the age of 83 - he was an avid smoker!

I took my grandson, Evan along with me and he enjoyed looking at some of the work of students which is on show.

Considering the lack of other places to view art in this area, a visit to the Vincent Prince Art Museum is well worth the effort.

Their Web site is: http://www.vincentpricemuseum.org/

You can read the entire column at www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels