The Beat Goes On

The Los Angeles collection of William Escalera and Francisco George focuses on the contemporary art scene.

- John O'hern

William Escalera and Francisco George have their fingers on the pulse of contemporary art in Los Angeles. Francisco is a docent at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and William is a member and former chair of the museum’s Modern and Contemporary Art Council, which supports acquisitions for LACMA’s modern and dontemporary art departments. Both are members of LACMA’s collectors’ group Art Here and Now (AHAN): Studio Forum, which arranges visits to artist studios and acquires works for the museum’s collection.

The couple has also been jurors of the Los Angeles Art Association’s annual Out There exhibitions, celebrating the LGBT experience, at the association’s Gallery 825.

William began collecting decorative art reproductions when he was a boy and would go to Bullock’s Department Store—“but I was more interested in the architecture” of the art deco masterpiece, he recalls.

“I decorated my own room and when I moved into an apartment I bought colorful posters. A collector friend told me, ‘You have to go to Venice’ and she took me there,” William continues. That was the beginning of his interest in contemporary art, collecting then-unknowns such as Chuck Arnoldi, Laddie John Dill and Joe Goode. He and Francisco, who have been together for 10 years, continue to collect artists just emerging on the scene. “We go to look at emerging artists not yet quite famous,” he says.