Header Graphic
Mrs. Molly Lyon
Mother of Bruce, '66,  Linda, '68, and Curt
 
 
Molly Lyon, 74; Patron of the Arts in Orange County and Liberal Activist
 
BY JIA-RUI CHONG
FEB. 4, 2003 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
 
Molly Lyon, a patron of the arts and an outspoken liberal in conservative Orange County, has died. She was 74.
 
Lyon, one of the founders of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and a board member of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, died Sunday of complications from lung cancer in her Newport Beach home.
 
Born in British Columbia, Lyon plunged into politics in 1964, six years after she moved to Orange County. Angry that a black minister was barred from buying a house in Fullerton, Lyon joined the Fair Housing campaign and continued to campaign for liberal causes -- and encourage others to join her.
 
“I don’t think it would be overstating it to say that Molly was the heart and soul of the women’s rights movement in Orange County,” said Jon Dunn, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Orange and San Bernardino Counties.
 
One of Lyon’s most successful ideas, the “Great American Write-In,” will celebrate its 18th year in March. The one-day event at UC Irvine, which is organized by the advocacy group Women For: Orange County, generates 1,500 letters on issues from civil rights to environmental conservation.
 
Friends praised Lyon’s political tact and passion, which often clashed with conservatives in Orange County -- and with her husband, Leon, a Republican.
 
Molly and Leon Lyon agreed on art, however, favoring post-World War II California painters. They actively supported the Orange County Art Museum and other cultural organizations.
 
With her love of art and liberal ideals, Lyon also actively supported artists who in the early 1990s were denied grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for producing works that violated “general standards of decency.” In 1992, Lyon helped underwrite an exhibit of one of those banned performance artists, Karen Finley, at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
 
“The thing I like about giving money is that it’s an extension of how I feel politically about freedom of speech and [reproductive] choice. And access to ideas,” Lyon said when the exhibit opened. “I have a mission to change our society. I want us to live up to the legacy that was started when this country was born -- the democracy that we talk about, that we give lip service to.”
 
Besides her husband of 55 years, Lyon is survived by her sons, Bruce of Santa Barbara and Curt of Newport Beach; daughter Linda Othenin-Girard of Los Angeles; and six grandchildren.
 
A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Monday at the Orange County Museum of Art. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Molly Lyon Fund, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties.

Add Comment

There are currently no comments.

Add Comment

 
ART : Portrait of ‘NEA Four’ Supporter
 
BY CATHY CURTIS
JUNE 8, 1992 12 AM PT
 
 
You might not expect to see your neighbor’s name listed as a financial underwriter of work by one of the “NEA Four.” The four performance artists sued the National Endowment for the Arts for denying them grants because their work was judged unacceptable according to “general standards of decency,” a phrase added to the grant application after pressure by conservative groups.
 
Then again, your neighbor may not be Molly Lyon.
 
Lyon, who lives in Newport Beach, is the only patron from Orange County of “Memento Mori,” a two-part installation by New Yorker/NEA Four member Karen Finley that opened Sunday and continues through Aug. 23 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
 
The piece--previously shown at the Kitchen in New York and in Newcastle, England--is an emotional and deeply personal work about AIDS, public expressions of grief, violence toward women, and women’s fight for control of their own bodies. The piece combines Finley’s rhythmic, incantatory texts, which she has written by hand on the walls, with tableaux of objects and live performers.
 
Littered with dead leaves, “The Women’s Room” contains ladylike vanity tables with piercingly cynical messages written in lipstick on the mirrors; a bird in a cage covered with wire coat hangers, and a live woman in a robe, silent and alone on a double bed. In “The Memorial Room,” a “hope chest” filled with sand serves as a receptacle for the fleeting inscription of names of the dead; murmuring performers play sick people in beds and friends who have come to visit them.
 
Lyon, a slim, vibrant woman of 64--and no relation to William Lyon, chairman of the very conservative Orange County Performing Arts Center--is a passionate supporter of liberal causes. When a visitor arrived at her home recently, she exclaimed that she had just been sorting through the day’s stack of mail and wished she could afford to send money to all the organizations that send appeals.
 
Relaxing on the peach-colored couch in her spacious living room, hung with low-key paintings by such disparate artists as Carlos Almaraz, Sam Francis and Lauren Lesko, Lyon admitted that her previous acquaintance with Finley’s career had been limited to reading about her work. She has never seen any of Finley’s performances.
 
But “when the whole NEA thing exploded,” Lyon said, “my liberal heart was hurt because it was another sign of censorship. I think we’re all victims of this kind of abuse, this kind of censorship. I don’t know why (art) frightens people.
 
“The reason art has never flourished in totalitarian governments is that artists are compelled to serve a political idea. Well, the whole point of creativity is for you to be free to express yourself in any way. That’s why I love art of all kinds. I read a lot. I love music. It excites me to hear and see somebody’s idea out there.”
 
Lyon wrote a check to support “Memento Mori” after she heard about its fund-raising campaign from her daughter-in-law, Christine Lyon, who lives in Los Angeles and also is a supporter of the exhibit.
 
“She’s very political, like I am,” Molly said, “so we do a lot of stuff together.” She described her own donation as “small, compared to a lot of others” and won’t divulge the amount. (Exhibition support from individuals ranged from several hundred to several thousand dollars, according to a museum spokeswoman.)
 
“The thing I like about giving money,” Lyon said, “is that it’s an extension of how I feel politically about freedom of speech and (reproductive) choice. And access to ideas. I have a mission to change our society. I want us to live up to the legacy that was started when this country was born--the democracy that we talk about, that we give lip service to.
 
“I see it being eroded by a small group. I call it the tyranny of the few. And I think if you believe in free access (to ideas) and the Constitution and democracy, you have to fight for it. You can’t just sit back and say ‘we have it and it’s here.’ It’s constantly being attacked.”
 
Tuesday night, at a party for Finley in Santa Monica at museum trustee Peter Norton’s home, Lyon saw the artist for the first time.
 
Finley, who received her master of fine arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, is best known for her one-woman performances (including “We Keep Our Victims Ready,” which she staged at UCLA last fall). She also has written and directed plays, cut several offbeat records, published a collection of her writings (“Shock Treatments”) and exhibited her paintings, drawings and constructions in New York and other cities.
 
“I certainly had a preconceived notion of what she would look like,” Lyon said. “I thought she’d be dressed really bizarrely, you know. . . . (But) she is a very attractive young woman. She could be my daughter.”
 
At the party, Lyon said, Finley read a piece she had written in response to the NEA affair. “It was so personal. I was so moved. The thing that was so great was that her voice, when she talks, is very soft, and then she takes on this persona. I’ve never been to a seance . . . but that’s what it reminded me of. From this beautiful, gentle young woman came this voice out of the depths! I get goose bumps just talking about it. It’s incredible.”
 
Lyon figures her “initial reason” for supporting Finley was “probably political.” Because of the feminist content of her work? Because of Finley’s battle with the NEA? “All of the above--and the fact that she’s a woman. I mean, I was working for women to get elected (in last week’s primary election). That’s really what I want.
 
“So that was part of it, but then when I heard her performance, I thought, ‘Well, good! This is the other good reason.’ ”
 
How would Lyon have felt if she hadn’t liked “Memento Mori”?
 
 
“I can’t imagine that would have happened, because I’ve read so much about (Finley) and I’m pretty shock-proof. Usually, sexually explicit things don’t bother me as long as nobody’s hurting anybody. The things that upset people about certain explicit materials don’t upset me. What upsets me, what offends me, is inhumanity to each other--violence and war! I find those things are obscene.”
 
Lyon likes the idea that Finley’s installation is a work of art that cannot be purchased. “Art is bigger than something you just hang on the wall. It’s bigger than . . . the prestige thing. Art is life. It’s talking about life in all its aspects. Karen Finley’s kind of art has a message and a substance that I think is important.
 
“I think one way to stay young and vital is to be open and not be judgmental. Contemporary art does that, for both Leon (her husband) and me. . . . You know, my whole raison d’etre is to know more about life, the society I live in, myself and my relation to it. Art like Karen Finley’s does that in a very profound way.”
 
Leon and Molly Lyon have lived nearly 23 of their 45 years as husband and wife in Newport Beach. After their three children left home, Molly says, “I did the usual Newport Beach matron stuff. I belonged to a lot of cultural (organizations) and went to fashion shows and played tennis. I was involved in (the Newport Harbor Art Museum, where Leon is a trustee) on various levels as a volunteer. And I liked it, I thought it was great.
 
“Well, that got stale after a while. Then I decided that when I wasn’t traveling with Leon or being with my family . . . I would spend my time being politically active. I’m a devout feminist. That started when I got involved peripherally with the Equal Rights Amendment (in the ‘70s) and naively thought that it was going to pass. Here we are in this rich and wonderful democracy, and in many areas of society, women are not equal. I guess that’s when I looked at society and my life a different way.”
 
Lyon, who belongs to the Orange County chapter of Women For says she is especially interested in legislation supporting aid for children born into poverty.
 
Other art projects to which the Lyons have contributed include Ray Hein’s 1970 “Water Wall” sculpture on the Cal State Fullerton campus (the couple donated funds for the copper and bronze used in the piece) and Lita Albuquerque’s 1986 environmental work “Legend” at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.
 
“I’ve never been able to knit or sew or paint,” Molly says. “I’m a good cook, so I create that way. But I decided at some point down the line that I could live my life creatively.” It struck her that “the way you approach life and other people, and what you do with your time and money” was the key to making a difference in the world.
 
So how much do the Lyons wind up spending on philanthropy in a given year? “I guess we could take some pretty good trips if we didn’t give to arts and politics,” she answered. They still travel frequently, but she said she sometimes decides not to spend money on something, in order to use it for a good cause.
 
One expensive habit the Lyons gave up was buying art.
 
“At some point,” she said, “the walls get filled up. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting older. I have lost my acquisitiveness. I really don’t feel the need to own anything. I get joy out of going to museums . . . but I don’t have this burning desire (to buy) when I see a work of art. . . .
 
“There isn’t much in the house that I couldn’t part with. Oh, there are some small sentimental things. But I’m not attached to things. I’m attached to people and to ideas.”
 
--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---
 
The first sentence of the 6th paragraph of this story is in error.
 
Rather than: “Lyon, a slim, vibrant woman of 64--and no relation to William Lyon, chairman of the very conservative Orange County Performing Arts Center--is a passionate supporter of liberal causes,” it should have read “Lyon, a slim, vibrant woman of 64--sister-in-law of William Lyon, a major Orange County philanthropist--is a passionate supporter of liberal causes.”
 
--- END NOTE ---