UC Irvine recently completed its acquisition of the Orange County Museum of Art, adding the building in Costa Mesa to the university and solving a longstanding desire for exhibition space. The museum is now called UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art.
The merger gives the university stewardship of OCMA’s 53,000-square-foot building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis, which opened at a cost of $98 million in 2022. UC Irvine operates the museum without having to build its own new structure.
The deal gives the university vast opportunity to display the major art collections it owns. In 2017, UC Irvine received the Gerald E. Buck Collection – roughly 3,200 works by California artists, including Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, Ed Ruscha and Ruth Asawa. Buck spent decades assembling what curators have called one of the most comprehensive private collections of California modern art, but many pieces remained in storage or out of public view.
UC Irvine also holds the 1,200-piece Irvine Museum Collection, gifted in 2016. Combined with OCMA’s 4,500 works, the university now oversees more than 9,000 artworks. The Buck Collection will be displayed at the Costa Mesa site.
“UC Irvine is committed to ensuring that the region benefits from a world-class art museum that enriches the cultural fabric of Orange County, advances groundbreaking scholarship, nurtures the next generation of creators and thinkers and inspires curiosity and connection across diverse audiences,” Chancellor Howard Gillman says.
The UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art operates from two locations. UC Irvine’s existing space on Von Karman Avenue in Irvine continues with exhibitions and K-12 education programs, which serve about 5,000 students annually.
The university plans shuttle service between its campus and both museum sites for students, faculty and staff. OCMA staff became UC Irvine employees as part of the transition. The university is conducting a national search for an executive director to lead the newly combined institution.
The Costa Mesa location is open Wednesday through Sunday. The Irvine location is open Tuesday through Saturday. Both are free.
