“It’s hard to live to be 62 and lose your whole life in one night”. Diana Thateran artist known for her nature-inspired film and light installations, lost decades of work in the fire that struck Altadena, reports the New York Times.
The work she was doing to reopen the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2026 also went up in smoke.
Same drama for Alec Eganknown in particular for his paintings of interior scenes, or even Camilla Taylorcreator of prints, drawings and sculptures in metal, ceramic and glass. The latter cries “more than 20 years of artistic creation”.
“Insurance cannot replace that”
The multimedia artist Kathryn Andrews lost his home and entire art collection in Pacific Palisades. She had purchased works but also others that she had exchanged with other artists. “It’s just really sad to lose that. Insurance can’t replace that.”
If the list of works which have disappeared has not been communicated, the New York Times reminds that “some of Los Angeles’ wealthiest collectors are concentrated in the city’s west side, which includes Pacific Palisades”.
Questioned by the specialized media ARTnewsSimon de Burgh Codrington, director of the insurance company Risk Strategies, assures that it is “one of the largest art losses ever recorded in the United States”.
Rembrandts, Van Gogh and Monets protected
There is still some good news. The famous Getty Museum overlooking Los Angeles was designed so that its priceless art collections are safe from flames.
The museum is located in an area affected by an evacuation order but its 125,000 pieces – including Rembrandts, Van Gogh and Monet – and some 1.4 million documents did not have to move. “The staff, collections and buildings are safe”wrote the museum on “the threat is still there”.
-Built like “a beautiful fortress”, le Getty a “was built to accommodate valuable items and protect them from fires, earthquakes, and beyond any reach”explained its communications manager in 2019, when the establishment was already threatened by flames.
First barrier against fire: the building is covered with some 300,000 blocks of travertine, a limestone rock that resists flames. Its structure is also made of concrete and steel bars, unlike most Californian buildings – buildings included – whose walls are often simple wooden panels fixed on pillars. Finally, its roofs are covered with crushed stone to prevent embers carried by the wind from creating a hearth there.
A system to prevent smoke from entering
In his gardens, where fire-resistant succulents and cacti were favored, a tight network of pipes runs through the basement, connected to a water tank of almost four million liters.
Activating sprinklers to moisten the ground, as was the case in 2019, can help prevent embers from settling there.
Inside the museum, the ventilation system can also be switched to a closed circuit -on the same principle as ventilating a car to recycle the air in the cabin- which prevents smoke from entering the rooms and damaging the collections.
And if flames ever break out between its walls, its galleries could be separated from each other and sealed by a system of double doors, similar to the watertight compartments of a submarine.
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