Top 10 Facts about the Getty Museum in California (2024)

The Getty museum opened in 1954 in Getty’s ranch house in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles.

Paul Getty had a collection of valuable art that outgrew his home. This led to another museum opening, the Getty Villa.

The move to the new location happened in 1974. It was a lavish re-designing of the Villa of the Papyri, an ancient Roman home uncovered at Herculaneum.

Therefore, there are two Getty museums, the original and the most recent extension.

In the original one, Getty Museum also known as Getty villa, the collection kept there are displays of art from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.

While the new Getty Centre has pre-20^th century European paintings, drawings, manuscripts, sculptures, decorative arts, and photographs from the beginning of photography to the present day. This museum is located in the Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

Now let us look at the top 10 facts about the Getty Museum in California.

1. The Getty Museum has a collection from the 19^th and 20^th centuries

After the death of Paul Getty death, all his collections were sent to this museum. It had the richest art collection in the world.

It took years of planning to have a museum big enough to accommodate Getty’s collection.

They opened a new museum in the Brentwood neighbourhood in 1997. It became home to Getty’s collection of European paintings, sculptures, drawings, and other decorative art from the middle ages.

The museum is also home to award-winning photographs that date back to the 1800s.

These collections depict the preferences of Mr Getty. He loved art from the renaissance and baroque periods.

They arranged the art in chronological order after decades of displaying them according to themes.

2. The Getty Centre is larger than the Getty Museum

The new museum, Getty Centre, is larger than the original Getty Museum. this complex has six buildings and it was designed by Richard Meier.

Although the Getty Centre was opened in 1997, its planning had started in 1987. The construction took 10 years.

The architect used special limestone from Tivoli, Italy on the cladding and paving of the building. He used more than 300.000 pieces of travertine.

Inside, you will find art from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. There are also outdoor sculptures displayed on terraces and in gardens.

The large Central Garden was designed by Robert Irwin.

3. The Getty Museum is also a research centre

There is a research centre at Getty Museum. it is known as the Getty Research Institute (GRI). The Getty also accommodates the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation.

It conducts research, conservation, grant support and funding as well as have publications.

One can access their well-stocked online library that has over 350 downloadable books and over 165,000 online manuscripts on a variety of topics.

The physical library has more than 1 million volumes of books, periodicals, photographs of art and architecture as well as special collections.

This library is at the Getty Centre. One can only read the books or use the facilities from within the library.

4. There has been controversy over ownership of art at the Getty Museum

Controversy has surrounded the ownership of art in the Museum. the Greek and Italian governments’ have come forth and claimed that some of the artefacts in the collection were looted and should be repatriated.

This led to the return of a few pieces in 2006 to Greece. They returned the stele a marble relief, a gold funerary wreath, and a marble statue.

Then in 2007, the Getty Villa signed an agreement to return 40 looted items to Italy.

Evidence about the stolen art came to light after an expose by journalists, Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. These two had obtained documents from Getty with details of how the items were acquired.

5. Van Gogh’s painting, Irises, is always on display at Getty Musem

One of the most prominent paintings in the Getty Villa is the Irises painted by Van Gogh in 1889.

This particular painting was from Van Gogh’s stay at a mental health facility in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. The irises were from the garden in the asylum.

Van Gogh has painted 130 pieces during his stay here.

Alan Bond, an Australian businessman had bought the painting in 1987 at the record price of $53.9 million.

Unfortunately, Alan could not complete the payment and J. P Getty bought it three years later.

This is one of the most expensive paintings in the world ranked at number 10. It is unfortunate that Van Gogh died poor and considered himself an artistic failure.

6. The Getty Museum had a social media challenge in 2020

Towards the end of 2019 and most part of 2020, there was an acute respiratory disease known as coronavirus. The spread was so fast and fatal that it led to several countries in the world shutting down for quarantine.

Most people were on lockdown ad could not leave the house and all social and public non-essential premises were closed.

The team at Getty museum got inspired by the creativity of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.

They had a challenge that went viral where art lovers recreated their favourite pieces at home, then shared them on social media.

Getty launched theirs too and shared the submitted photos on their website. They used #betweenartandquarantine.

It was a collaboration between the Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Rijksmuseum, and Hermitage museum.

7. Most of the art in the Getty Museum was digitized to kill boredom during quarantine

During the lockdown period, The Getty shared several of their collection on its website. They offered virtual tours to art lovers to kill boredom while at home.

Several of their collection was digitized with accompanying audio and emotional videos shot just before lockdown.

They also produced YouTube videos and podcasts. All one needed to do was browse their website for 100s of videos.

8. The Getty Museum has a beautiful central garden

One other attraction at this museum is the garden. It is 134,000-square-ft and is at the centre.

The garden was designed in 1992 and construction work began in 1996. It was completed a year later.

This garden has a fountain near the restaurant, whose water flows to the garden. The water appears falling in the grotto.

The landscaper placed rocks and boulders of different shapes and sizes in the stream bed to vary the sounds from the flowing water. There are more than 500 plant species in the garden.

9. There are live performances at the Getty Museum

The Getty Villa hosts live performances in its indoor auditorium and its outdoor theatre.

In the Indoor auditorium, they host play-readings like The Trojan Women, Aristophanes’ The Frogs, and Euripides’ Helen.

For Indoor musical performances related to art, they play Musica Angelica, De Organographia, and Songs from the Fifth Age: Sones de México in Concert.

On special occasions, they host a public reading of Homer Iliad at the auditorium.

The Getty Villa also hosts exhibitions outside of its own collections.

There are special education programs for children and a special family forum gallery that involves decorating Greek vases.

10. Goats are hired to go eat grass at Getty Museum

This is an interesting fact about The Getty Villa in Los Angeles. The management hires about 60 goats to eat the brush on its 110 acres. This is their eco-friendly way of curbing wildfires.

These goats are hired every spring to eat brush on the surrounding hills. For backup, they have an underground water tank and helipad are available for firefighter use.