[photo credit: Norton Simon Museum]
The Norton Simon Museum’s monthly Free First Friday opens the galleries and the recently renovated Sculpture Garden from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at no charge. No reservations are needed. The June date falls during the final weeks of “Dear Little Friend: Impressions of Galka Scheyer,” on view since February 20, a focus exhibition drawn from the archive of the German-born art dealer who brought the Blue Four — Lyonel Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky, Paul Klee and Vassily Kandinsky — to American audiences beginning in 1924. It closes July 20.
The exhibition, organized by curator Gloria Williams Sander, features portraits of Scheyer given to her by artists including Jawlensky, Maynard Dixon, Peter Krasnow and Beatrice Wood, alongside correspondence and ephemera from her years promoting modern art in California.
Scheyer settled in California in 1925, and her collection was transferred to the Pasadena Art Institute the Norton Simon’s predecessor after her death in 1945. The transfer, completed in 1953, gave the institution what would become a cornerstone of its holdings. The exhibition title comes from the salutation Feininger used in his letters to Scheyer.
“The portraits, artworks, and letters on display are more than artifacts; they are tokens of gratitude from a community that responded to her vision with enduring friendship,” Sander said.
Beyond the Scheyer galleries, visitors on June 5 will find a campus that has changed noticeably over the past year. The museum completed a multimillion-dollar exterior renovation during its 50th anniversary in 2025, restoring the building’s Heath-tile facade and refreshing the Sculpture Garden, which reopened in November with new pathways and landscaping framing works by Henry Moore, Auguste Rodin and Barbara Hepworth.
A guided “Norton Simon, the Collector” tour is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. on June 5, included with admission. The museum’s permanent collection of more than 12,000 objects spans European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century and South and Southeast Asian art spanning 2,000 years. About 1,000 works are on view at any given time.
The museum is at 411 W. Colorado Blvd., on the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevards. Parking is free. Pasadena Transit lines 10 and 33 stop in front of the building, as does Metro bus line 180. The nearest Metro Rail station is Memorial Park on the A Line, at 125 E. Holly St. The last entry on Fridays for visitors without advance tickets is 6:15 p.m.; the Garden Café, operated by the Patina Restaurant Group, and the museum store close at 6:45 p.m. Audio tours can be accessed on personal mobile devices; visitors should bring their own headphones. Regular admission on other days is $20 for adults and $15 for seniors; members, students with I.D. and visitors 18 and under are always admitted free. Information: nortonsimon.org or (626) 449-6840.
Photographer Edward Weston once called Scheyer “the ideal ‘go-between’ for the artist and his public.” More than seven decades after her archive crossed town to Pasadena, the door is still open and on the first Friday of each month, admission is free.
