Audrey Irmas, a longtime donor to Los Angeles art museums and Jewish causes, will sell a large 1968 “blackboard” painting by Cy Twombly that she's owned since 1990 and use $30 million of the predicted auction proceeds of more than $60 million to help build a new events center at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown.
The 55,000 square-foot Audrey Irmas Pavilion will be designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, the firm led by noted Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.
New York-based firm members Shohei Shigematsu and Jason Long will be the project’s “design team,” according to a Tuesday announcement by the temple, which is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles.