Arts/Culture Director Leon Kaplan to retire Arts/Culture Director Leon Kaplan to retire (April 23, 2004)

Architect of Palo Alto 'Renaissance' to step aside in July after 24 years heading city division
Leon Kaplan, who spearheaded a revival of interest in city arts and cultural programs for nearly a quarter century, announced Thursday that he will retire July 23.

On July 25, he expects to head his Lexus east toward Sugarland, a suburb of Houston, Texas, that closely matches the demographics of Palo Alto, with the notable exception of having far worse weather and far lower housing costs. Kaplan's wife, Theresa, is from the area.

Kaplan took over the Division of Arts and Culture in 1980 from prior director Alan Longacre, a well-regarded director whose tenure was embattled by controversy over his lightning-rod proposal (during post-Proposition 13 years) to spin off the Community Theater and Children's Theater into stand-alone nonprofit organizations -- ultimately rejected.

Kaplan had been assistant director of the Arkansas Arts Center for nine years prior to moving to Palo Alto. He was educated at California State University, Los Angeles and the Harvard University Institute in Arts Administration. Early in his career he rose to the rank of captain in the U.S. Air Force, service as a Tital II Missile Combat Crew Commander.

He served on numerous regional arts agencies and on the Midpeninsula Cable Access Corporation board, which he chaired in 1993-94, and is a member of the Palo Alto Education Foundation Advisory Board.

Kaplan, 61, said he will miss his many friends in Palo Alto, and hasn't decided what activities he may take up next -- except he doubts he'll be drawn into heading up another arts-and-culture program. He said he may do some writing and perhaps "do something with my hands, such as building." He once had been a film critic for the Arkansa Educational Television Network.

Kaplan said two efforts were particularly meaningful to him, from a lengthy list of programs and projects in which he has been involved.

One is the outdoor art area of the Byxbee Park in the Palo Alto baylands. Kaplan convinced the City Council in the late 1990s to hire an artist to work alongside the landscape architect assigned to convert the former landfill area to an open-area park, resulting in low-key art reflecting the history and pastoral environment of the site. It was one of the first such teamwork efforts for a park in the nation, he said.

The other is a program called Cultural Kaleidoscope, developed in the early 1990s as a complement to a three-city program to reduce crime in the East Bayshore community. "I had a different idea -- to use art as a positive social force," Kaplan recalled. He worked with East Palo Alto leaders -- particularly Councilwoman Myrtle Walker -- in creating a program to bring youngsters from the two communities together. The program still exists.

Kaplan also established the city's first partnership between public and private interests for the $1 million rehabilitation of the Children's Theater. He also established the artist studios at the Cubberley Community Center, which prevented high commercial rents from driving local artists out of town.

He initiated the city's Brown Bag concert series and was responsible for the acquisition of 149 two-dimensional works of art and 19 sculptures.

He also served as the city's emergency coordinator during the 1989 earthquake and the 1998 flood.

Kaplan sold his home in Palo Alto more than a year ago in a divorce-sale and has already purchased a new home in Sugarland. He has five children -- three grown and two younger children from his recent marriage -- and three grandchildren. He said all his grown children have moved out of the area due largely to the high cost of housing in Palo Alto -- a factor in his own decision to relocate.

Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be e-mailed at jthorwaldson@paweekly.com

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