Encore for fine art

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Sept. 1, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

Just three months after Steve Wynn sold the Bellagio hotel-casino, taking $200 million in fine art with him, the resort's new owner, MGM MIRAGE, is opening a new gallery of world-class art.

The 26 modern artworks on display starting today at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art include paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Edward Hopper, among others.

Wynn opened the original gallery at Bellagio in 1998 on the strength of his private collection. It marked the first time works by such masters as Claude Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso could be viewed by the public in Las Vegas. About 1,500 visitors viewed the art every day, said Kathy Clewell, director of the art gallery.

"We're starting a new chapter in Bellagio, and in life," Clewell said. "We're bringing fine art of the highest quality to the residents and visitors. We're continuing what Bellagio began with."

The art collection is just one piece of a cultural renaissance now under way in Las Vegas, curators say.

"I don't think people realize we're in the middle of significant changes," said Matthew Hileman, assistant director at Bellagio's art gallery and a recent transplant from Pennsylvania.

"The three tenors were at Mandalay Bay last year. Art galleries are springing up in the casinos. The Venetian is talking with the Guggenheim. And architecturally, they're putting up buildings that are going to be around forever," Hileman said.

Securing a selection of works from the Phillips Collection for the Bellagio's new fine arts gallery is part of that rebirth, Hileman said.

Established in 1921 by Philadelphian Duncan Phillips, maternal grandson of steel magnates, the Washington, D.C.-based collection has the distinction of being the first American museum dedicated to modern art. The Museum of Modern Art in New York opened less than a year later, in 1922, said Thora Colot, the resort's director of marketing.

The 26 new selections from the Phillips Collection span 350 years, from El Greco's "The Repentant St. Peter" (circa 1600) to a bust by Alberto Giacometti completed in 1960.

"Phillips believed very strongly in the healing power of color," said Colot, in reference to the jarringly bright palettes that dominate the display.

The Phillips collection includes 2,400 works of art, Colot said.

The new gallery hopes to build on the momentum generated by Wynn's collection, Hileman said.

Tickets for the show, which runs through March 4, are $12 for nonresidents and $10 for Nevadans.