Nancy MacNeil Daly Riordan ~ children’s rights activist ~ who died last year, was New Jersey born but came out to LA with her husband at the time, Robert A. Daly ~ a CBS and then Warner Bros executive ~ where she went on to become one of Los Angeles’ most prominent activists on behalf of abused and neglected children. She also was a longtime art collector who focused on decorative arts and paintings — with an emphasis on the California aesthetic and early 20th-century design. Today, after a preview April 16-18, Bonhams & Butterfields auctioned 105 works from Nancy’s estate estimated to be up to $1.4 million altogether, according to Joseph Francaviglia, director of Bonhams trusts and estates.

Philanthropies:

• 1980 ~ Founded United Friends of the Children ~ aids and supports children in foster care, providing them with the opportunity to graduate from high school, attend and graduate from college. The organization also helps foster children get a job, find housing and have a support system that moves them gradually towards independence.
• 1989, Daly was appointed to the nonpartisan President’s Commission on Children, which recommended federal government policy reforms.
• 1984 ~ Daly successfully lobbied for the creation of what is now the county Department of Children and Family Services and served on its advisory commission until 1999
• 2002 ~ Board member ~ LACMA ~ Los Angeles County Museum of Art, elected board chair in 2005.
• 2003 ~ Co-chaired, with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, a committee to oversee the spending of tobacco tax funds to help provide preschool for all 4-year-olds in the county.
• Board member ~ W.M. Keck Foundation
• Board member ~ Los Angeles Opera
• Board affiliation ~ The Riordan Foundation
• Board affiliation ~ USC Center for Communications Policy
• Helped established ~ the Los Angeles County Children & Family Services Commission
• Helped established ~ the Los Angeles County Family Preservation Program
• Helped established ~ the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council
• Helped established ~ the Los Angeles City Commission on Children, Youth and Their Families
• Helped established ~ the Getty House Foundation
• Worked with three Presidential Administrations on policy issues relating to foster care, adoption and technology.
• Helped pass legislation in California to increase funding for health and mental health services for emancipated foster youth.
• Co-chaired the Los Angeles County First Five Commission’s Universal PreSchool Planning Committee which resulted in the commitment of $600 million over the next five years to create universal preschool for all four-year-olds in Los Angeles.
• Daly helped found the Children’s Action Network, which uses the power of the entertainment community to increase awareness about children’s issues. The Children’s Action Network works to find homes for the more than 114,000 children in the United States foster care system who are waiting for an adoptive family.

Nancy Daly’s estate is mixed in with Bonhams & Butterfields’ big Spring auction of California and Western Paintings and Sculpture which featured a wide variety of important California, Western, Society of Six, Hawaiian scenes and Plein Air works by established American artists including Joseph Kleitsch, Franz Bischoff, Edgar Payne, Granville Redmond and William Wendt as well as early, rare to market works by William Hahn, Thomas Moran and Thomas Hill.

But a selection of Nancy’s works are considered the highlight of the show …

Highlights from the Daly Estate in the 20th Century Decorative Arts auction included: a Tiffany Studios Favrile glass and bronze Lotus lamp, 1899-1918, sold for $85,400 (the top lot of the sale); a set of ten Tiffany & Co sterling and turquoise Mayan style figural salt and pepper shakers, 1907-1938, sold for $48,800 and a Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre covered vase designed by Daisy Makeig-Jones titled Demon Tree of the Ghostly Wood, 1915-1931, sold for $36,600.

Highlights from the Daly Estate in the California and Western Paintings and Sculpture auction included: Joseph Kleitsch’s Woman in a garden sewing sold for $230,000 (the top lot of the sale); William Wendt’s Houses in the mountains (resort), 1926 sold for $115,900 and Franz Arthur Bischoff’s Roses in a blue vase on a table with a mirror sold for $91,500.

- Bonhams & Butterfields, Hufffington Post, Junior League of Los Angeles