The University of California, Irvine has officially completed its acquisition of the Orange County Museum of Art, marking a significant milestone in the region's cultural landscape. The museum will now operate under the new name UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, reflecting the generous support of university patrons Jack and Shanaz Langson.
The university now oversees the museum's impressive 54,000-square-foot, $98 million building, which was designed by renowned architect Thom Mayne of the firm Morphosis and inaugurated in 2022. Along with the state-of-the-art facility, UC Irvine has also acquired the museum's extensive permanent collection, which includes more than 9,000 objects spanning various artistic periods and styles.
Under the new arrangement, the museum will expand its offerings to include works from the university's Gerald E. Buck Collection and the Irvine Museum Collection. The former Orange County Museum of Art is strategically located approximately six miles north of UC Irvine's main campus, creating an accessible cultural corridor for the university community.
To bridge the physical distance between the campus and the museum, the university operates the 9,000-square-foot Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute – Museum of California Art, housed in an office building roughly halfway between the two locations. Officials have announced plans for a shuttle service that will provide convenient transportation for students, faculty, and staff traveling between the art spaces and the main campus.
The transition has been carefully planned to ensure continuity of operations and programming. All former museum staff members have been integrated as UC Irvine employees, and the institution has committed to maintaining all scheduled programming through 2026 as the merger process unfolds. However, the university is currently conducting a search for a new executive director to replace Heidi Zuckerman, who will conclude her tenure when her contract expires in December after serving nearly five years in the role.
"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," stated Howard Gillman, the university's chancellor.
The acquisition represents the culmination of nearly a decade-long vision for UC Irvine to establish a proper university museum capable of housing its extensive art collections. News of the possible takeover first emerged last June, coinciding with the announcement of Zuckerman's planned departure. The university's motivation stems from its need to adequately display significant collections it has acquired over the years, including early Californian art pieces obtained in 2016 when the Irvine Museum dissolved, and a substantial collection of more than 3,000 works assembled by real estate developer Gerald Buck, which the university acquired following his death in 2013.
This type of university-museum merger has successful precedents in Southern California. In 2013, the financially struggling Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena merged with the University of Southern California, allowing the institution to close for more than a year to undergo extensive renovation and retrofit of its historic 1929 building, which was designed to resemble a traditional Chinese palace. Similarly, the continued existence of the Hammer Museum resulted from a crucial merger – when the museum's founder, Armand Hammer, died in 1990 shortly after its opening, the institution's future became uncertain until the University of California, Los Angeles stepped in to take over operations in 1994.
The UC Irvine takeover represents a growing trend of universities partnering with or acquiring art museums to ensure their long-term viability while expanding educational and cultural opportunities for students and the broader community.
