Tricia Guest

TH 350

Project 2 – J. Paul Getty Museum

Exterior Conditions

My daughter, Kelly, and I went to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 10, 1999 from about 1:00 to 4:00 PM. I wanted to stay later, but I had a show opening that evening in Palmdale. We decided that we, as a family, would go in the near future. I want to live there.

I drove and it took about an hour and 20 minutes from Palmdale to the Getty Center. When we first arrived, we parked in a parking lot away from the museum and took the shuttle. I will never do that again. The shuttle company was very nice as a whole, but for my daughter and myself, and the fee to park the car, the total bill was $15.00 – very different from $5.00 per car in the museum parking lots, and no entrance fee to get into the Center.

The weather was very nice, although a bit hot. It was crowded, but not overly so. The crowds were nice and companionable – several people talked to us about the weather, the artwork and the venue.

My daughter was very exited with the tram and it was interesting, moving up the hill at a steady ten miles an hour (top speed), but it was a hot day and, apparently, the tram didn’t have any circulation or air conditioning. Or if it did, it wasn’t working. By the time our tram arrived at the top of the hill, people were complaining about the heat. But it was a very nice ride up, with the trees and the flowers and the view of Los Angeles. The next time I go, it’ll be in fall or winter.

As we walked into the Arrival Plaza and then into the Museum Entrance itself, I think we were able to get our first glimpse of how magnificent the Center really was. Coming into the museum was entrancing, with the circular glass above and metal and travertine below and around. While we were waiting for the Architecture Tour to begin, Kelly and I walked around, looking at the views. After the tour (see below), Kelly and I saw several different exhibits, including the Antiquities, the Manuscripts, the Decorative Arts, some of the paintings and some of the sculpture. After that, we toured the gardens briefly and then we had to go. We are very anxious to visit again and see some of the things we missed.

The Architecture Tour

Our docent for the tour was Elvia Fernandez, a very nice woman from New York and we were able to get on the 1:30 PM tour. It was quite hot, as I said, and my daughter and I used the umbrellas, as Elvia said we should. I have lived in this area for a long time, and my ex-husband worked for the Getty contractors as an electrician, but I heard quite a bit more information this time.

Apparently, what the Getty Trust wanted for this museum, was a large portion of land, near public transportation and near their other assets – most of them in Los Angeles and Malibu. The Getty Center opened December 16, 1997, after having cost one billion dollars and had land totaling one million square feet. The Antiquities Collection is being housed in the West Wing, but as soon as the Malibu Museum, known as the Getty Villa, is renovated, that part of the collection will move back to the Villa. The Getty Center has two office buildings, a theatre, a café and a restaurant, and the museum itself is house in six buildings.

The initial problem for the Getty Museum was the local zoning. The Trust wanted it in the area that was zoned for single-family homes. It required a special permit and the approval of the neighbors. After two years, the Getty Center was approved. They could not have dump trucks on the premises; no parking on the street. They were not to remove anything from the premises – no dirt – nothing. They brought in over 8,000 trees. They could not, and still cannot, have amplified music or lights at night that shine into or over the neighborhood homes. The hours that the museum is open are restricted.

The neighbors were also very particular on the color of the buildings – it had to blend in with the surrounding ecology. Apparently Richard Meier, the architect, only worked in white. So the neighbors had to approve the color of the stone or paint. Everything is either porcelain on steel or aluminum, or stone. The stone that we see most often is travertine, smooth and polished, smooth and rough. This is the same stone, from the same quarry, that was used to build the coliseum. It has fossils in it that my daughter and I found fascinating. We saw leaves and sponges imprinted in the rock. Our docent told us that there were salamanders and bird bones in it, but, although we looked, we couldn’t see them. All the dimensions of the buildings, whether stone, window or wall are 30" X 30" or multiples of that number, to give it unity.

As we walked into the Arrival Plaza and then into the Museum Entrance itself, I think we were able to get our first glimpse of how magnificent the Center really was. Coming into the museum was entrancing, with the circular glass above and metal and travertine below and around. While we were waiting for the Architecture Tour to begin, Kelly and I walked around, looking at the views. After the tour (see above), Kelly and I saw several different exhibits, including the Antiquities, the Manuscripts, the Decorative Arts, some of the paintings and some of the sculpture. After that, we toured the gardens briefly and then we had to go. We are very anxious to visit again and see some of the things we missed.

The Collections

We first started in the North Pavilion being, as it was, the first stop in a timeline of art. I really liked the way the art was arranged before 1600 in the North Pavilion, art from 1600 – 1800 in the East and South Pavilions, and after 1800 in the West Pavilion. The only question I had was why the Ancient Art was housed in the West Pavilion with the art after 1800, and not in the North Pavilion. Maybe they didn’t have enough room.

So we started in the North Pavilion. Some of the pieces we liked in the North Pavilion were the Bust of a Young Man by Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacoisi (nickname Antico) with the silver eyes; the Renaissance footed bowl (Coppa) in chalcedony and the silver and gold ewer and basin by Abraham I. Pfleger. We also liked the manuscripts, although I was disappointed to find not one example of Irish manuscript art. I am very interested in Irish art of any kind, since I’m for the most part Irish and have relatives that came from County Cork, Ireland. Several manuscripts, however, looked like they copied some forms from the Irish Book of Kells, such as the French Sacramentary in D from the eleventh century with its gold knots and the Italian Breviary from 1153 with its multi-colored designs. However, I am not versed enough in art to know if this was a common thing at those times or not. On the upper level we saw many paintings we enjoyed, but nothing we drooled over.

We then went through to the East Pavilion to look at sculpture. I especially liked Venus by Joseph Nollekens and Antonio Canova’s Apollo. (My daughter giggled as the nude state of these statues. It’s never too early to learn!) We saw drawings by Albrecht Durer (Stag Beetle from 1505) and my daughter loved this one.

On this upper level we again saw many paintings we enjoyed. My daughter liked anything with horses in it, especially The Piebald Horse by Paulus Potter. Although we enjoyed these paintings, I was really anxious to get to the South and West Pavilions to see the Impressionist paintings.

Finally we were in the South Pavilion! This was my favorite place (other than the gardens). We loved the pink Rococo silk of the pair of armchairs from France; the Charles Voisin blue wall clock with the monkey (my daughter, again) and the pink silk bed attributed to Jacques-Jean-Baptiste Tilliard. Upstairs we saw Gericault’s Portrait Study of the black man in the blue coat – what a haunting portrait. And my favorites: Renoir’s La Promenade, Degas’ Waiting (I think they were in this building – I forgot to get exact dates and my notes, at this point, were all mixed up.) and Liotard’s Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven Years of Age – she looks like my six year-old daughter, Danica.

In the West Pavilion I liked Vincenzo Gemito’s Medusa plate of silver. We also liked the Mira calligraphiae monumenta. Up on the painting level we saw Edvard Munch’s Starry Night (I have always liked this painting) and Vincent van Gogh’s Irises from 1889.

At this point, we were running out of time, so we skipped everything else, although I really wanted to look at the photography, and went straight down to the Ancient Art. I loved this exhibit. When I was growing up my parents had copies of a lot of the statues and pottery, so I felt right at home. Kelly was not, however. She thought a lot of the art looked dingy and old. She said, "Gross!" to the fallen doe being attacked by two griffins (Greek, late 4^th century B. C.), but she did perk up when we came to jewelry and the Roman cameo glass – she loves blue. I loved all of these, but I want the Greek wreath with the blue and green glass inlays and glass beads.

We ended our day out in the Central Garden, created by Robert Irwin. We had been told by our docent that the garden was essentially a work-in-progress, never alike, always changing with the seasons. We zigzagged down the path where water went from boulders to small river rocks, producing different sounds as we went on. I don’t know any of the plants used, but it was all lovely. The six large steel "trees" supporting the bougainvilleas (ah, one I know) were fun and the maze was beautiful. Azaleas bloomed there. We never reached the South Promontory where the cactus garden was. I’m sorry, I see enough cacti where I live out in the Antelope Valley.

So, that ended our day and we had to run back home. The shuttle lost a little of its glamour as we waited to go back to the parking lot. A lot of people were waiting and were cross and tired, pushing and shoving to get on the shuttle first. What a difference from the drive out, but it was the end of the day and we were all a little tired and hot.

History of the J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM

After hearing about J. Paul Getty and the Getty Trust, I was very anxious to find out more about Getty himself and his holdings.

J. Paul Getty was born in Minneapolis, Minn. In 1892, son to George F. Getty, who was already wealthy, having been a successful attorney before he entered the oil business in 1903. J. Paul ("Paul") was an only child and his father wanted him to enter the family oil business, so from the time he was sixteen he worked summers in the Oklahoma oil fields. After attending University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, Paul went to Oxford University and studied economics and political science. He graduated in 1912 and traveled for a time, going to museums the world over.

In 1916, Getty had his first producing oil well and became a millionaire in his own right at the age of twenty-three. Following the Depression, Getty, who had always been interested in art, decided to begin collecting, as this was a time when art was very inexpensive. In 1931, he purchased his first art object – a landscape by Dutch artist Jan van Goyen – for about $1,100.00. For the next twenty-two years, Getty continued to collect art and, in the 1950’s, began donating works of art from his collection to various museums and colleges. Later, one of his colleagues, Norris Bramlett, persuaded him to establish a museum in his own name. Getty had purchased a ranch in Los Angeles and he decided to place his museum there. A trust was formed in 1953 to authorize the creation of a "museum, gallery of art and library" and stated the purpose of the trust as "the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge." (The J. Paul Getty Museum, Handbook of the Collections)

The J. Paul Getty Museum opened in 1954. Getty thought that "fine art is the finest investment" and "few human activities provide an individual with a greater sense of personal gratification that the assembling of a collection of art objects that appeal to him and that he feels have a true and lasting beauty."

With his museum expanding, he felt the need to expand with it and gradually he developed the idea of a major art museum where he could leave his collected art as a gift to the people of Los Angeles. He said, "There were other, and for me, overriding considerations. It was my intent that the collections should be completely open to the public, free from all charges be they for admission or even for parking automobiles. Nothing of this sort could be insured if the museum were under the control of the city, state or even the Federal government." (The J. Paul Getty Museum, Handbook of the Collections) So, ground was broken for the new J. Paul Getty Museum in December 1970 and after three years of intense work, opened its doors to the public in 1974.

At his death, J. Paul Getty, in June of 1976, bequeathed four million shares of Getty Oil stock worth about $700 million dollars to his museum, leaving it up to his trustees to decide how the legacy should be used. In 1981, Harold M. Williams was appointed Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and to be President and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Williams and the Trust now moved to set up other organizations to work with the museum to best realize Getty’s goals. These were the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities (now the Getty Research Institute), a center for advanced scholarship with a library of a million volumes and a photo archive of two million images, along with uncounted numbers of unpublished letters and manuscripts; the Getty Conservation Institute, dedicated to applied science, training, documentation, and field projects throughout the world; the Getty Art History Information Program (now Getty Information Institute), providing greater access to art and humanities information and setting international standards for research and education through the use of computer technology; the Getty Center for Education in the Arts (now Getty Education Institute for the Arts), devoted to advancing the improvement and integration of visual arts education in primary and secondary schools in this country; and the Getty Grant Program, which supports a range of projects and publications across the entire spectrum of the Getty Trust’s interests. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Handbook of the Collections)

Now, the Getty Trust wanted to expand its collection and make the Getty Villa a branch of a new museum facility. The trustees envisioned a complex similar to a university campus where all the Getty organizations would be gathered together. In 1983, a 750-acre parcel in the Santa Monica Mountains was purchased. In 1983, John Walsh, a paintings curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston became the director of the Getty Center. Walsh was also a university professor. In October 1984, after a lengthy process, Richard Meier of New York was named project architect. Construction began in 1989 after six years of planning. In December 16, 1997, the Getty Center finally opened. " The Museum staff wrote a program that was the basis of Meier’s designs. It called for galleries to draw attention to the works of art and supply excellent light, daylight, whenever possible; a peaceful environment; use of the site and the building plant to induce a receptive frame of mind in visitors; temporary exhibitions galleries of various types and sizes; and a multitude of educational services." (The J. Paul Getty Museum, Handbook of the Collections)

Quotes from J. Paul Getty

No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist.

A man may fail many times but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.