The Honarkar Foundation for Arts & Culture’s gallery brings new life to a building with a storied past.
By Stefanee Freedman
Situated downtown on Broadway Street, a small building with a red tile roof and off-white masonry has long garnered attention. Plenty of people have stopped for a selfie in front of the ornate door. And a lack of windows offering a glimpse inside has surely caused many passersby to wonder what lay within its walls.
Formerly a storage vault for an extensive art collection—with a long list of uses before that, including a post office in the 1940s—the unique-looking building at 298 Broadway St. was opened up and transformed into a 4,200-square-foot, museum-quality art gallery late last year. The Honarkar Foundation for Arts & Culture plans to feature a rotating series of curated exhibitions, primarily highlighting Southern California artists, both established and emerging, in addition to presenting diverse programming from film screenings to performances and discursive events such as panel discussions and artist talks.
Mohammad “Mo” Honarkar along with his daughters, Nikki Honarkar Bostwick and Hasty Honarkar, established the foundation in 2019 to support local cultural organizations and nonprofits. That year, Mo Honarkar was also invited for an exclusive tour of the Buck art collection in the building at 298 Broadway St. Seeing its potential, the foundation decided to buy the structure when it went up for sale in 2023.
“We laid the groundwork for the foundation back in 2019, so we are incredibly excited to witness our vision materialize in this iconic building,” Honarkar Bostwick says. “Our goal is to establish an inviting and all-encompassing environment where art serves as a bridge for conversation, discovery and community involvement. Having grown up in Laguna and now raising my own family here, this endeavor is our heartfelt gesture of gratitude to the community we hold dear and testament to the legacy we aspire to leave behind.”
But before its latest iteration, if you peel back the layers of its past, the property had an extensive history.
A Rich History
The Mediterranean revival-style building with tiled gable roof was used as a post office starting in the early 1940s. The structure changed ownership several times after being disbanded by the U.S. Postal Service in the mid-1950s.
The property saw many businesses go through its doors in the following years. In the 1980s, a Jewish Community Center was among the many organizations to grace the space. In the early 2000s, the structure was purchased by art collector Gerald Buck and then converted into a gallery known as Buck Fine Arts.
“It is a very strongly constructed building that essentially served as a vault for storage of a portion of the Buck art collection,” says Laguna Beach Historical Society board member Eric Jessen. “You’ll notice the steps up to the front door. That’s by design to situate the building above the prevailing downtown flood plain.”
Following Buck’s death in 2013, his estate’s trust donated the Buck art collection—more than 3,200 pieces of art—to UC Irvine, announced in 2017. Those works span from the 1880s to the early 2000s, including many representing California plein air painting as well as modern and contemporary California art. The collection includes works by Richard Diebenkorn, Ruth Asawa, Roger Kuntz, Wayne Thiebaud, Helen Lundeberg and many others.
“Gerald and Benta Buck were friends of mine,” Jessen says. “… The Buck collection has been merged with The Irvine Museum collection and will be … [exhibited] on the UCI campus in the Langson Institute & Museum of California Art.”
During the most recent sale of the Laguna building, the rest of the Buck collection still housed in the structure was transferred to an off-site storage facility, where the works will be kept when not on display at Langson IMCA’s interim location or on loan to other museums. UCI plans to build a permanent museum space on campus focused on California art to serve as a cultural asset and research center for the university and the rest of the region. According to a university spokesman, the museum is reaching out across campus to engage faculty in ways that may lead to new research as well as expanded, enriched or interdisciplinary academic programs predicated on artmaking that is quintessentially Californian.
A New Vision
Meanwhile, the building at 298 Broadway St. is writing the next chapter of its history. The Honarkar Foundation’s goal for the new cultural art space is to host rotating art exhibitions every two to three months.
“The foundation aims to actively engage the community through museum-quality exhibitions that showcase modern and contemporary art from Southern California,” says foundation Director and Acting Curator Genevieve Williams. “The significance lies in the building now being used as an exhibition space, accessible to the public for the first time. Our mission also includes providing a platform for artists who may not have other opportunities to exhibit in Laguna Beach.”
Longtime local artist Jorg Dubin was the first to display pieces at the foundation’s gallery. Dubin has lived and worked in Laguna since the 1970s and currently doesn’t have a gallery representing him. Other exhibitions have included “Innocence Lost, Freedom Fading,” showcasing works by Laguna sculptor Gerard Basil, and “A Survey of Works” from the 1960s to 2000s by painter and sculptor Tony DeLap, a pioneer artist of abstractionism, minimalism and “op” or optical art, who died in 2019 in Corona del Mar. The most recent show featured select pieces from the 1970s to 2000s by Joe Goode, a pop artist known for his “Milk Bottle” series, which set photorealistic depictions of milk bottles against minimalistic backgrounds, and “Torn Cloud” paintings, a series of canvases with sections that were cut out and layered for a mix of texture, light and shadow.
In August, a dual exhibition will celebrate two prominent Laguna Beach figures: established artist Andrew Myers, known for his “screw art”—3D sculptural reliefs made with painted screws drilled into a wood board—and emerging talent Denise Di Novi, a renowned film and TV director/producer who began painting in 2020 after her husband died and during the pandemic lockdown; art became an outlet to process her grief and has since become a key part of her healing journey. Both exhibits will run from Aug. 6 to Sept. 14 with a reception featuring both artists from 4-6 p.m. Aug. 10.
Then, opening Oct. 15, the gallery will present its most ambitious exhibition of the year: a historic showcase of art from the California Light and Space movement. “This exhibition will feature an extraordinary collection of works by renowned luminaries such as James Turrell, Helen Pashgian, Robert Irwin, Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Mary Corse, Laddie John Dill [and] De Wain Valentine, among others, celebrating the profound impact and enduring legacy of this influential movement,” Williams says.
In addition to exhibits, she says, “We are invested in public programming that includes performances and collaborating with other local nonprofits to ensure that the space is accessible and beneficial to the community.”
The gallery held an opera performance by nonprofit group Pacific Vocal Series earlier this year. Williams is currently talking with another local nonprofit, Laguna Beach Live, about the possibility of collaborating to present ongoing music performances in the gallery space. Laguna Beach Live currently organizes the annual Laguna Beach Music Festival and presents live music at Laguna Art Museum.
“The Honarkar family has lived in Laguna for decades and love this community,” Williams says. “I think when Mo stepped into this building, he saw an opportunity to give back in a really unique way. … It really is just such a beautiful space. It is an incredible thing that the family is doing by making it available to Laguna.”
