Lyricist Hal David loves collecting artists' unfinished studies

Hal David is no stranger to artistic imperfection. The Oscar- and Grammy-award-winning lyricist - think ``Alfie,'' think ``Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head,'' think ``What the World Needs Now'' - says art is inevitably a compromise with reality. "You sit down to do whatever it is that you do, writing a column, writing a story, writing a lyric - to get it to be as perfect as you know it could be is not easy," the 82-year-old songwriter said in a telephone interview from a Portland hotel. "In my work, it's rare. So many times I have come close. I may have written a couple things I feel I couldn't have done better" - and here he mentioned "Alfie."

``But there are so many other lyrics I know I could have done better but I didn't know how. Time marches on, and you have to get on to the next things.''

David and his wife, Eunice, were in Oregon recently for the Portland Art Museum opening of "The Eunice and Hal David Collection of 19th and 20th Century Works on Paper," which is at the museum through July 25. Their private collection of 60 drawings spans the two centuries and includes studies and sketches as well as finished works by an array of well-known artists: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Georgia O'Keeffe, Winslow Homer, Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro and Edgar Degas.

David said he loves the drawings - especially the unfinished studies - because he can see the hand of the artist at work, creating. "The whole process of work, of how I create whatever I do, to me is really more fun and more enjoyable than the whole finished work," he said. "The process always fascinates me, particularly in the collection we have here, works on paper. Some are finished, but most of them are studies that became works." David paints a bit himself and said he'd like to go to art school "when I retire, whenever that is."

He once met one of the artists whose work he's collected, Willem de Kooning, when both shared the same New York lawyer. "We had lunch together," David said. "He was the most ingratiating guy. I was just amazed at how much he knew about everything, including music and songs and my work. I was very flattered."

The David collection has been promised to the UCLA Hammer Museum, which organized the exhibit. Its stop in Portland came about after the Davids met Portland Art Museum Director John Buchanan and his wife, Lucy, at a cocktail party at the Bel Air, Calif., home of Iris Cantor, who is owner of the largest private collection of Auguste Rodin art in the world. "We immediately fell in love with them," Eunice David said of the Buchanans. "So we were thrilled when they requested to have the exhibit." The Davids, who have been married 16 years, previously collected Native American art, which they donated to the UCLA Medical Center.

They began buying works on paper together about 10 years ago when they bought a nude by Pierre Bonnard. They never buy anything they don't agree on, and they never buy anything they don't like. "We didn't think it was going to be a collection," said Eunice David. "We just bought some things we liked and stuck them up on the wall. We never thought in terms of value. And we still don't think of it that way. It's just pieces of art that we love."

"Buy what you love," Hal David agreed. "And don't buy what you don't love, even though it may seem a financially wise thing to do. Buy only what you love."

May 9, 2004