Gallery a labor of love for medical expert

Friday, Dec. 7, 2001 | 9:48 a.m.

Shark cartilage, used in the treatment of cancer, made William Lane rich and famous in the early 1990s.

Lane, founder of Lane Labs in Allendale, N.J., says he read a study released by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., in 1983 extolling the benefits of shark cartilage, and began producing and promoting the alternative medicine.

"I saw it as a way of rebuilding my fortune," said Lane, who has a doctorate in nutrition and is one of the world's most famous proponents of nontraditional medical treatments.

Today the 79-year-old titan of natural medicine still travels the world searching for natural treatments to such pernicious diseases as cancer and AIDS, but he has expanded his search to include art and antiquities.

"I love to collect things if they're pretty," Lane said during a recent visit to Las Vegas. "I don't care if it has a name that says 'Rembrandt' -- if I don't like it I'm not going to buy it. But if I find it attractive and it has the name 'Joe Schmo' on it, I may buy it."

Lane was in town for the grand opening of Sculptures, Antiquities and Art, a gallery at 4230 S. Decatur Blvd. that he created, where he can show and sell some of the works he has discovered during his journeys around the world.

He said his home in Daytona Beach, Fla., was becoming cramped for space, so he decided he would sell some of the items. And what better place to sell things that are thousands of years old than in Las Vegas, where anything older than 10 years is practically considered an antique or historical landmark?

The gallery more resembles a museum than a place to shop for Christmas or to fill an empty nook in a mansion. Many of the items on display were created hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.

Lane pointed to a 2,500-year-old bronze rhino, which he said was appraised at $1 million. He paid $20,000. The rhino was created as a wine cask.

There is a 2,800-year-old dragon-like monster; a horse-drawn carriage that contains a gold Buddha estimated to be 2,770 years old; and dozens of other pieces of art ranging from hundreds to thousands of years old.

Most of the items were found in such places as China, Japan, Bangkok and Vietnam.

"We found, in Vietnam, this marble mountain," Lane said. "These artists there can make anything from marble, even a full-sized marble elephant -- which you need a 20-ton crane to lift, but it's beautiful."

He didn't buy the elephant, but he bought lots of other items.

"This collection here represents less than a year of collecting," Lane said. "We have made so many connections that the antiquities now are coming to us. We don't have to go looking for them."

Why did Lane decide to put his gallery in Las Vegas, rather than on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., or some other location that might be considered more exclusive?

"(Las Vegas) is the fastest-growing city in the United States," Lane said. "You get all these visitors here from all over the world."

Gallery director Paula Lugee has expanded upon Lane's plan to sell antiquities, hoping to create a venue for artists to display their work.

"I've always wanted to have an art gallery," Lugee said. "When I was raising my four boys there were times when we had art on the walls and flowers in the flower bed, and no furniture."

Lugee grew up in Eastern Tennessee. Although she loved art, she got a degree in business administration and spent years managing offices for doctors and dentists.

Lugee met Lane at a medical convention about 10 years ago in New Orleans and discovered their mutual interest in natural medicine and art.

When Lane decided to open a gallery, he hired Lugee to manage it.

Lugee moved to Las Vegas from Phoenix, found a building, signed a lease and then ran into a wall.

She said the process for getting licensed to do business took several months, much longer than she anticipated.

"If we had known it was going to take that long we wouldn't have come to Las Vegas," Lugee said.

Then, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred.

"When that happened we thought about not going ahead with it, but now we are glad than we did. We are going gangbusters," Lugee said.

It is Lugee's job to blend Lane's eclectic taste in beauty and her own desire to establish a venue for artists.

"We will have a couple of artists whose work will always be on display at the gallery, and others whose work will come and go," Lugee said. "I would like the gallery to become a home for local artists."

Lugee said two of the artists who will always be welcome at the gallery are from Southern California -- 74-year-old Violet Parkhurst, one of the world's most highly acclaimed seascape artists, and 60-year-old Gary Schwebs, who is just beginning to make a name for himself in the art world.

Parkhurst, who has two galleries in San Pedro, Calif., showed her artistic talent as a child growing up in Vermont. However, before pursuing her career is a painter she was a world traveler, an adventuress and a journalist.

When she finally settled down to paint, she became a sensation. Among those who collect her paintings are presidents such as Gerald Ford and George Bush, and celebrities such as actresses Shirley Jones and Stephanie Powers.

Her seascapes have been exhibited at museums around the world, including the Louvre in Paris and the Prado in Madrid, Spain.

"I'm thrilled to have an exhibit in Las Vegas," Parkhurst said. "The (Lane) gallery is wonderful. There are two or three major art galleries in Las Vegas, but there are so many artists in their stables that they (the artists) don't get the full attention they deserve. The galleries change the paintings every two or three weeks."

Parkhurst was one of the first artists to recognize the talent of Schwebs, whose work she recently began displaying at her own galleries.

"He is a great talent," she said.

Schwebs, who was born and raised in Los Angeles and still lives there, didn't realize he had artistic talent until he was 27 years old. At the time of the discovery he was a graphic engineer working as a supervisor for a computer company.

"I'd never even been to a museum, or an art gallery," Schewbs said. "A young kid was working for me who was going to art school and he kept bringing in paintings and telling me I ought to try it.

"I had never even drawn a stick man before, but one day he brought in some old paints, a canvas and brushes and said to just try it."

He took the supplies home and, for his toddler daughter, painted Dumbo the elephant from the Walt Disney cartoon. He ran out of oilpaint half-way through and used house paint to complete it.

His first effort inspired him.

"I got lost in painting. All the troubles and the hassles of work just left," he said.

Schewbs has been a passionate painter almost ever since, but he didn't begin doing it full time until five years ago.

The self-taught artist used to concentrate on producing still lifes and works similar to such masters as Rembrandt, but in the past year he has begun painting a series he calls "The Ladies of Venice," vivid oil paintings of women who dress in masks and colorful costumes for the annual carnival in Venice, Italy.

While Schewbs' contemporary work may seem out of place in a gallary full of thousand-year-old statues, perhaps "The Ladies of Venice" will live into antiquity.

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