J. Paul Getty Museum

J. Paul Getty Museum, museum and research centre established by oil tycoon J. Paul Getty as a home for his collections of artworks. It comprises two locations in Los Angeles: the Getty Villa and the Getty Center. The former houses a collection of antiquities, while the latter exhibits European art and international photography.

The original museum opened in 1954 and occupied a wing added to Getty’s ranch house in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles. His collections eventually outgrew that location, however, so in 1974 they were moved to a new building nearby. This museum, known as the Getty Villa, was a lavish re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri, an ancient Roman home uncovered at Herculaneum.

1 of 2

2 of 2

On Getty’s death (1976) the museum became the most richly endowed in the world. After years of planning, the Getty Center (commonly called the Getty), a larger, six-building complex designed by Richard Meier in the Brentwood neighbourhood, opened with great publicity in 1997. The museum at the Getty became the home for J. Paul Getty’s collection of European paintings, sculpture, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, and decorative arts from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. It also has international photographs that date from the late 1830s to the present. The collections reflect his preference for paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and for French furniture. The Getty also accommodates the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation.

The Getty Villa was closed for renovation in 1997 and reopened in 2006 with a design by the Boston-based architects Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti. It became home to a research centre and Getty’s collection of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art. In 2018 the collection was reinstalled chronologically after decades of being displayed thematically.

Together, the Getty Center and the Getty Villa receive about two million visitors a year.