Sunday' Column - Norton Simon

King and Queen by Henry Moore

Viewers in one of the many galleries

Millionaires are currently getting a bad rap with the Wall Street protesters.  However some of them, apart from providing jobs and inventing things, do provide other benefits to society.  Take for instance Norton Simon.  He was a 50's, 60's and 70's man.  His empire included Max Factor, Avis, Canada Dry and McCall's Publishing.  He was immensely rich and he became a huge collector of art. 
His collection was so large that when he died in 1993, it had to be housed in a museum just to cope with the size of it.  It is impossible to see everything in a few visits.  This was my second trip to the place, located in Pasadena, and once again I took Evan along with me.
Like the last time, we spent a lot of time looking at the Impressionists but then we went out into the garden.  Simon liked sculpture and he amassed a lot at that too.  Above is a piece by Henry Moore the great English sculptor.  It was originally designed to sit on his native Yorkshire hillsides, but there have been some half-dozen made since, and they are now all over the world.  To read the entire column go to www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels