In the spring of 2012, Orange County developer Gerald Buck attended a seminar at Laguna Art Museum. Discussion topics that day included the Getty Foundation’s 2011-12 “Pacific Standard Time” (PST) art initiative, involving more than 100 Southland museums and galleries, focusing on the Southern California postwar art scene. As the audience joined in the dialogue, the self-effacing Buck remarked that he had toured dozens of PST exhibitions during the previous six months.

Few attendees at the seminar that Sunday afternoon knew that Buck had been quietly amassing what later came to be known as the Gerald E. Buck Collection, considered by art curators and dealers as the most comprehensive private collection of modern California art ever assembled.