LA has a lot of great museums. Don't sleep on Norton Simon, Pasadena’s art gem

There’s a reason L.A. has so many art masterpieces in various museums: the region had a lot of industrialists and bankers in the 20th century who used some of their wealth to build large art collections.

The Norton Simon is a prime example.

“The quality of the collection is unmatched, and I think we feel really proud of the really serene, spacious environment that we provide for looking at art,” said  Emily Talbot, vice president of collections and chief curator at the museum.

Keep up with LAist.

If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.

Subscribe

In 1975, industrialist Norton Simon took over the critically acclaimed but financially troubled Pasadena Art Museum. Simon spent decades building a food production empire, starting with a small juice processing plant in Fullerton to running the Hunt-Wesson Foods conglomerate.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It was moved to this new location on the museum property in 2025.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

He was fascinated by art and artists and used the drive that made him successful in business to buy and collect art. You’ll see paintings by Rembrandt, key works by Auguste Rodin on the museum’s grounds (including the Thinker), as well as paintings by abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, and centuries-old sculptures from India and Cambodia.

The Norton Simon Museum's art collection includes sculptures from Cambodia and other south Asian countries.

(

Elon Schoenholz

/

Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

)

The museum currently displays about 1,000 pieces from the blended Pasadena Art Museum and Simon collections. In total it has 12,000 objects, ranging from masters like Rembrandt and Picasso to contemporary art by Ed Ruscha and Sam Francis.

For its 50th anniversary this year, the museum spent $15 million to rebuild and renovate its gardens and its signature façade, which faces Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena and puts it in the middle of worldwide TV coverage of the Rose Parade each year.

For those who get slightly overwhelmed at grander museums like the Getty or LACMA, the more people-scaled Norton Simon is a great option. If you're heading there, here are some highlights recommended by the museum staff you shouldn't miss:

The long-lost Degas

Start with the newest acquisition by the museum, a roughly 1-foot-tall bronze sculpture by Edgar Degas titled "Arabesque over the right leg, left arm in front."

The bronze sculpture is the most recent acquisition by the Norton Simon Museum.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

/

LAist

)

Simon loved and collected Edgar Degas’ late 19th century sculptures of dancers. But as much as he tried, and as much money as he had, his collection was incomplete.

“In 1977, Norton Simon bought an almost complete set of sculptures by Edgar Degas,” Talbot said. “It was missing just two, and we have been looking for those two sculptures ever since.”

Last year, the staff finally found one of them. It’s the first work of art the museum has purchased in 18 years.

It’s a sort of sculptural sketch, Talbot said, created by Degas to understand a dancer’s poses before making the final work. It has the rough surfaces of the original clay and wax the artist used ahead of casting the bronze.

“These sculptures really give you a sense of the artist's mind, how he thought about process, what he thought was interesting about the body and movement, and that's really captured in these casts,” Talbot said.

Degas painted, made prints and sculpted. His pastel drawings are sublime. And this sculpture makes the Norton Simon one of the top places in the world to see Degas’ dancer sculptures.

The two faces of Picasso

A visit to the museum will put you face to face with a master work by Pablo Picasso. It’s a 4 foot by 3 foot painting called "Woman with a Book."

Woman with a Book by Pablo Picasso on display at the Norton Simon Museum.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

It’s thought to be inspired, Talbot said, by a 19th century painting, "Madame Moitessier," by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Madame Moitessier by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

(

Courtesy National Gallery

)

“Picasso used that composition, which also depicted a woman seated in an armchair. But he sort of updated it for the modern moment, using these very bright colors and also kind of drawing your attention to a somewhat more sensual representation of the subject,” Talbot said.

A few years ago, the Norton Simon borrowed that Ingres painting from the National Gallery in London and displayed the two paintings side by side.

Woman with a Book by Pablo Picasso at the Norton Simon Museum.

(

Elon Schoenholz

/

Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

)

This Picasso, she said, is a good illustration of one of the artist’s most repeated quotes: that “good artists copy, great artists steal.” He not only used another painter's composition; he also embraced another artist's color choices.

“In this particular painting, we have a palette that was really inspired by his friend Henri Matisse,” Talbot said, referring to the strong red and blue, and soft pastel shades.

An epic chess match. Your move!

When you walk into the museum entrance, you'll see a chess set under plexiglass. It’s an 1850 chess set made of wood and ivory that Simon bought in India during his honeymoon with actor Jennifer Jones.

Chess Set made circa 1850 in India with ivory pieces, and wood board inlaid with ivory. It's the first piece of south Asian art purchased by industrialist Norton Simon.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

“ This is depicting the Indian version of the game, so one thing that visitors might notice is that there are camels and elephants instead of rooks and bishops,” Talbot said.

Aspiring and current chess masters will have fun with how the board is set up. It’s arranged in move No. 12 in an epic chess game played in 1855 by a Bengali player and a Scottish chess master.

This was Simon’s first South Asian art purchase. The floodgates opened after this. His collection went on to include sculptures and paintings from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, Laos and other countries.