Tijuana Strip Clubs: Art collector a major donor to San Diego museums
… The Walbridges made a difference in a huge way for the public at large,” said Derrick Cartwright, former director of the San Diego Museum of Art. “She was a really elegant, very petite person with immensely strong ideas about art and what made art important.”
In addition to collecting works from Amedeo Modigliani and Andrew Wyeth, she also collected works from many San Diego artists, Cartwright said. “She liked the idea that she could support local artists.”
Cartwright, who kept in touch with Mrs. Walbridge after she left San Diego, recalled visiting her in Pittsburgh and walking through the Carnegie Museum with her.
“We’re walking and then I see these large-scale photographs of strippers and poles by Philip-Lorca diCorcia,” Cartwright said. “I’m thinking, here I am with a 90-year-old lady who is going to be shocked. But she said she was proud to live in a city willing to show this kind of cutting-edge art.”