I am sure that many of you have heard about the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, but this post is about the less known and in fact less vistied Museum at what is known as the Getty Villa. We were surprized at the fact that was no entrance fee to the Villa, but they do require you to have tickets (which are free and accessable online). I think that they do that in order to limit the amount of people who are on the grounds at any one time.The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Malibu opened on January 28, 2006, after the completion of a major renovation project. As a museum and educational center dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria, the Getty Villa serves a varied audience through exhibitions, conservation, scholarship, research, and public programs. The Villa houses approximately 44,000 works of art from the Museum's extensive collection of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities, of which over 1,200 are on view.
With the two locations, the Getty Villa in Malibu (that my post represents) and the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the J. Paul Getty Museum serves a wide variety of audiences through its expanded range of exhibitions and programming in the visual arts.
The Getty Research Institute exists to bring together all the resources and activities required to advance understanding of the visual arts taken in their widest possible significance.
The Getty Foundation lies in the special collections of original documents and objects from the Renaissance to the present, paralleled by a superb general art library, both of them growing according to the changing needs of researchers.
The international residential scholar program each year brings together some of the best minds from all disciplines, including creative artists, to address and debate themes of particular intellectual urgency.
Publications, both print and electronic, disseminate the work of the Institute and foster innovative research wherever it is found.
The databases the Getty produces is dedicated to the highest standards of completeness, accuracy, and technical sophistication and provides essential resources for researchers, librarians, and museum professionals all over the world.
The Getty also has Cataloging tools, digital collections, and personal assistance ensure the best access to information for our resident and extended communities. Exhibitions, conferences, workshops, and lectures give compelling expression to innovative scholarship and thought.
Each of these functions guides and sustains all the others, an institutional transparency physically embodied in the remarkable circular architecture of their building.
The work of the Research Institute takes its place within the collaborative context of the Getty Center as a whole, which includes the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the international projects and research of the Conservation Institute, and the philanthropic outreach of the Getty Foundation according to the Getty's director Thomas Crow.
The one thing that seemed to blow my mind there was the bust of Caesar that was made at the time Jesus was alive, oh if these artifacts could just speak! I am sure they would have volumes to say.
The grounds were beautiful and very unique. Given the enjoyment of our visit to the Villa, I would suggest that if you are ever close to Malibu and Pacific Palisades, that you plan ahead in order that you can stop by and check this beautiful Villa and its Museum out. As with all of my posts... if you want to see a larger view of the shot, you just have to click on it.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
