HAMMER MUSEUM TO GAIN INDEPENDENCE

After six years of negotiations, the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is about to declare its independence from one of its governing bodies, the Hammer Foundation, which over the years has accused the museum of being in breach of its founding agreement, reports the New York Times‘ Carol Vogel. Since its inception in 1989, the museum has had to operate under certain restrictions imposed by the foundation and its founder, Armand Hammer, the Occidental Petroleum chairman and owner of the Hammer Galleries in New York, who died in 1990. “This is a happy ending to a very difficult situation,” said Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer since 1999.