Management: The Corporate Cezanne

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The Simons go out rarely, usually avoid the cocktail-party circuit. They enjoy visits from their two sons, Donald, 28, a University of Southern California graduate student, and Robert, 26, head of Hunt's vegetable procurement division, and their three grandchildren. They travel frequently, last week returned from a ten-day trip to Florence and Rome, where they soaked up art and opera and ate canelloni and Florentine steaks. At home, they prefer to entertain in small groups, mostly drawn from art and education circles, that make for lively conversation. Jean Fowles and her husband Edward at tended one meal, and Mrs. Fowles recalls: "They have all of the various Hunt products in different silver containers, and Norton said to Edward, 'Won't you have some catsup?' Edward said, 'Indeed not, I wouldn't spoil good food with that stuff.' Simon's wife laughed and said: That's why I've never learned to cook. Norton always pours catsup over everything.' " Later, Edward Fowles added: "But then, how would he have bought our Giorgione without the catsup?"

No Master Plan. Through his world of Van Goghs and vegetables, Simon, at 58, moves always with an "anything happen?" frenzy and a vigor that both irritates and impresses those around him. Even Aide Jack Clumeck says: "I cannot imagine spending seven days a week with this fellow. After a threeor four-day trip with him, I have to take a few days off. He is just that intense and probing." As a man of a reflective nature, however, Norton Simon knows that neither activity—nor acquisitiveness—are ends in themselves. "He is not interested in leaving a huge fortune," says U.C.L.A.'s Murphy. "He thinks each generation should take care of its own. He has extracted his wealth from society and he intends to give it back."

To give back his art, Simon has established his Norton Simon Foundation, which buys works of art and lends them out for public showings without charge. Some 25% of the exhibits in the Los Angeles County Museum are from the foundation, and the museum hopes eventually to get most of Simon's collection. As for that other collection, the string of companies that Simon has bought into, there is as yet no master plan. Simon says that an objective "is being worked out. It is going to be something complex. We are struggling with the definition." Translated, that means that Hunt is going to keep on growing, that Norton Simon will continue to cast his acquisitive eye on companies as well as on paintings—and that what comes of it all will be, in its own way, as rare and distinctive in the world of business as a Titus is in the world of art.