Private Passions, Public Legacies: William Andrews Clark Jr. and the Making of Los Angeles

Join us for a special event commemorating the Clark Library’s centennial and exploring the remarkable life of its founder, William Andrews Clark Jr.

The event begins with the opening of the exhibition Private Passions, Public Legacies: William Andrews Clark Jr. and the Making of Los Angeles, curated by the staff of the Clark Library, to be followed by a talk by Liz Brown, author of Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire (Penguin, 2021), who will discuss the history of the library’s founder. The afternoon concludes with an outdoor reception as the library remains open for exhibition viewing.

• 3:30 PM – Doors open
• 3:45-4:15 PM – Welcome remarks and overview of exhibition by Head Librarian Derek Christian Quezada Meneses
• 4:15-5:15 PM – Presentation on William Andrews Clark Jr. by Liz Brown and Q & A
• 5:15–6:30 PM – Reception in Outdoor Reading Room, exhibition viewing

Welcome remarks, the exhibition overview, and Liz Brown’s presentation will be livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube channel and available to watch after the event for a limited time.

Private Passions, Public Legacies: William Andrews Clark Jr. and the Making of Los Angeles

Kicking off the centennial celebration of UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, this exhibition explores the remarkable role of its founder, William Andrews Clark Jr., in shaping the cultural landscape of Los Angeles.

Drawing principally upon the collections of the Clark Library, Private Passions, Public Legacies places Clark within the extraordinary network of artists, printers, musicians, architects, collectors, society figures, civic leaders, wives, lovers, and friends who surrounded him. Together, these relationships reveal a city whose cultural identity did not emerge through growth and circumstance alone, but was deliberately constructed through philanthropy, patronage, collecting, scholarship, and institution building.

The exhibition follows Clark from his private world of books, music, clubs, gardens, and collecting into the public institutions and cultural networks that grew from those interests. It considers his role in the founding of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the development of the city’s musical life; Los Angeles’s distinctive traditions of fine printing and the book arts; the social and cultural networks that connected collectors and philanthropists across the city; Clark’s interests in astronomy and scientific inquiry; and the architecture and landscape of the estate he created around his library.

A century after the Clark Library was completed, the exhibition asks how private passions become public legacies—and how one comparatively little-known figure helped shape the cultural ambitions of modern Los Angeles.

The Clark is delighted and honored to welcome Liz Brown, author of Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire (Penguin, 2021), to present a talk as part of the exhibition opening that highlights William Andrews Clark Jr.’s role as a major—but often overlooked—figure in L.A.’s cultural development, and the ways his story continues today. Doheny, Huntington, Getty—these names are well known in the landscape and the lore of Los Angeles. But what about William Andrews Clark Jr.? His legacy continues with the Clark Library, of course, but also the LA Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl, Pershing Square, and Hollywood Forever Cemetery. And yet, few know his name or his connection to these landmarks. Clark remains a shadowy figure—as he was in his own era. A child of the Gilded Age, heir to a copper dynasty, Clark was an aspiring violinist, ardent bibliophile, and powerful philanthropist with a secret gay life. The story of Will Clark is also a story about LA, from its expansive boom in the 1920s to the bust and constriction of the 1930s. Clark’s later years resembled something of a real-life noir, the kind of plot that his fellow bibliophile and clubman Raymond Chandler might have written. Join us for this fascinating lecture about forgotten LA history, hidden gay lives, the legacy of an American dynasty, and the limits of self-invention—even in LA.

Liz Brown is the author of Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire. Her writing has appeared in Bookforum, London Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Book Review, Slate, T Magazine, and elsewhere. www.lizbrown.la

This event is free to attend with advance registration and will be held in-person at the Clark Library. Seating is limited at the Clark Library; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits. Registration is not required to watch the livestreamed portion of the event.

Image caption: Clark (William Andrews, Jr.) and William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Records, 1878-2022 (Clarkive. Pre-1934). The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Photo courtesy of Liz Brown.