The transformation of the Museum’s building and Sculpture Garden in the 1990s catalyzed a period of growth within the institution. Seeking wider community engagement, Museum leadership significantly increased the institution’s hours and offerings. In 2001, the theater was refurbished by Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates, Inc., providing a venue for film screenings, lectures and performances. At the same time, curators, scholars and conservators began collaborating to produce catalogues documenting the collections’ areas of strength. The Museum also joined Pasadena Unified School District’s My Masterpieces program, providing Museum tours to fifth-grade students throughout the city. This year, the Exterior Improvement Project will beautify the grounds and increase safety, accessibility and sustainability in the building’s entryway and Sculpture Garden. Undertaken in celebration of the 50th anniversary, these enhancements reaffirm the Museum’s commitment to the collections and to its community of patrons for years to come.
1998
Longtime Los Angeles Times art writer Suzanne Muchnic publishes her biography Odd Man In: Norton Simon and the Pursuit of Culture.
1999
As part of a collaborative program across Pasadena, Radical Past: Highlights from the Collection and Archives of the Pasadena Art Museum commemorates the contributions of the Pasadena Art Museum to the Los Angeles contemporary arts scene.
2000
To inaugurate the refurbished theater, the Museum premieres The Art of Norton Simon. Directed by Davis Guggenheim and supported by the Norton Simon Art Foundation, this film details Simon’s life and legacy as a collector.
2001
The Universe: Creation, Constellations and the Cosmos explores how artists across the globe have visualized spiritual connections beyond our world.
2006
The Collectible Moment: Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum presents the first comprehensive survey of the Museum’s photography collection.
2007
As part of the Museum’s inaugural Loan Exchange Program, Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Boy (1655–60), formerly known as Titus, travels to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for a special installation. The program brings extraordinary works of art to Pasadena, while sharing paintings from the Norton Simon collections with museums across the United States and Europe.
2007
Between 2007 and 2024, the Museum significantly improves the seismic stability of the sculpture collection by installing new pedestals equipped with base isolators.
2008
The Museum enters into a partnership with the Getty Museum’s Paintings Conservation Department for the technical analysis and treatment of select works from the Norton Simon collections, including paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán, Rembrandt, Édouard Manet and more.
2010
Authored by former senior curator Sara Campbell Abdo, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best details the history of Simon’s collecting career.
2011
As part of the Getty’s inaugural Pacific Standard Time initiative, Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California and its accompanying catalogue chart the revival of printmaking in Los Angeles in the 1960s.
2014
The Museum hosts its inaugural Garden Party with art-making activities, live music and plein air drawing.
2017
Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California showcases the life and career of Galka Scheyer, the impresario dealer responsible for the art phenomenon of the “Blue Four”—Lyonel Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky, Paul Klee and Vassily Kandinsky.
2022
Picasso Ingres: Face to Face joins Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Madame Moitessier (1856) from the National Gallery, London, with the painting it inspired, Pablo Picasso’s Woman with a Book (1932) from the Norton Simon collections.
2023
In 2023, the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation celebrates the centennial of Kelly’s birth by donating several preparatory studies for White over Blue (1967), a painting held in the collections. On the same occasion, printmaking studio Gemini G.E.L. gifts five lithographs by the artist. These donations greatly enhance the Museum’s collection of two paintings, three drawings and 62 lithographs by the artist.