Events leading up to the late November...

Events leading up to the late November opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art go public on Saturday when a silent auction of contemporary artworks opens at the Margo Leavin Gallery and Gemini G.E.L. in West Hollywood. About 150 prominent artists are represented in the sale, which will benefit the museum.

The works by Claes Oldenburg, Nancy Graves, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Therrien, Vija Celmins and a host of others were donated by collectors and artists. Some of the artists have agreed to donate the entire proceeds of their sales to the museum, while others will receive 50% of the sale price.

“We will have $650,000 worth of art,� said Margo Leavin, who has been a major force in organizing the silent auction and soliciting work from across the country. “I want to clear $400,000 and I think we can do it.�

Leavin’s gallery, at 817 N. Hilldale Ave., will show paintings and sculpture, while Gemini, 8365 Melrose Ave., will exhibit prints. Both galleries will be open Saturday and next Sunday, noon to 6 p.m., and May 12 and 13, noon to 8 p.m. Final bids must be placed before 8 p.m. on May 13.

Along with works to be auctioned silently, the two exhibitions will include a preview of pieces to be sold at an auction during a gala benefit, on May 16 at the downtown museum. That event offers cocktails, dinner and dancing at $250 per person. A separate raffle at the May 16 gala will deliver an “instant art library� to the holder of the winning $5 ticket. Art books in the library have been donated by Abbeville, Abrams and Hudson Hills Press.

A 17th-Century painting stolen from the French national collection about 35 years ago has been discovered in the M. H. de Young Museum in San Francisco and will be returned to France. “Erminia and the Vafrino Tending the Wounded Tancred� by Roman artist Pier Francesco Mola was part of the collection at the Elysee Palace in the early 1950s when it disappeared.

The Mola was authenticated after two years of investigation by a curator from the Louvre. Certifying the “Tancred� was troublesome because records described it as oval in shape, whereas the picture in San Francisco was rectangular, but experts discovered that it had been framed with an oval mask to match companion pictures. In recognition of the discovery of the work, France will send the companion painting to San Francisco and both will be displayed through the summer before being returned to France.

The painting was acquired by the museum from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation of New York in 1961. Foundation officials instrumental in the sale have died, so questions about the transaction are likely to remain unanswered.

A small exhibition of works by Romare Bearden, at the Brockman Gallery (through May 31), gives a rare West Coast exposure to art by a leading Afro-American chronicler of black experience.

According to Brockman director Alonzo Davis, the show consists of watercolors, collages, monoprints, lithographs and serigraphs from such series as “Prevalence of Ritual,� “Jazz,� “Storyville� and “Mecklenburg County.�

Bearden, 71, has worked most of his life on the East Coast in a style he devised by combining painting with collage of African mask images and contemporary black documentary photographs.

Among his works based on black experience in America, the “Mecklenburg County� series, done in the late 1970s, represents a journey back to Bearden’s childhood experiences in North Carolina. These works reflect moments of personal significance and acknowledge the universal importance of memories.

Brockman Gallery, 4334 Degnan Blvd., is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 3 to 7 p.m.; (213) 294-3766.

“Combined Influences,� at the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, presents photographic works focusing on multiple or layered imagery. The show, opening Friday through June 6, contains works by Drex Brooks, Jerry Burchfield, Rick McEwen, Lorie Novak and John Schlesinger.

All the artists mix images to suggest layered meanings and multiple implications. Colorado resident Drex Brooks uses a Polaroid police camera to combine frames from educational film strips. Jerry Burchfield creates color tableaux by superimposing television news broadcasts on still life settings. New York artist John Schlesinger photographs scenes from movie screens in overlapping multiple exposures, creating new contexts from symbols that reflect the values of our society.

The center at 814 S. Spring St. is open Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; (213) 623-9410.

The seventh annual Venice Art Walk on June 1 will include a tour of more than 40 Venice and Santa Monica artists’ studios, galleries and unique homes, generally unavailable to the public.

A first this year is a historical tour of the canals, architectural sites of unusual interest and murals of Venice.

Studios of artists living in out-of-the-way parts of Santa Monica are on the itinerary of a special “docent tour� led by Southern California art professionals.

An exhibition/silent auction will again feature more than 200 works by noted artists; other objects of aesthetic interest will be added to the auction.

Sandra Mendelsohn Rubin is the creator of this year’s Venice Art Walk poster; she is a past winner of the County Museum of Art’s New Talent Award.

The Art Walk begins at noon at Westminster School, 1010 W. Washington Blvd. in Venice. A tax-deductible contribution of $25 is required for admission. The day will close with a gala dinner honoring Sister Marie Madeleine and Sister Mildred Irwin of Saint John’s Hospital.

Last year’s event netted $212,000 for the work of the Venice Family Clinic, which offers free medical care for low-income people, the unemployed and the homeless of Venice.

Information: (213) 392-8630.