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Museum Malpractice As Corporate Crime? the Case of the J. Paul Getty Museum Neil Brodiea and Blythe Bowman Proulxb*

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Museum Malpractice As Corporate Crime? the Case of the J. Paul Getty Museum Neil Brodiea and Blythe Bowman Proulxb* Journal of Crime and Justice, 2014 Vol. 37, No. 3, 399–421, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2013.819785 Museum malpractice as corporate crime? The case of the J. Paul Getty Museum Neil Brodiea and Blythe Bowman Proulxb* aScottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK; bCriminal Justice, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA (Received 19 March 2013; final version received 23 June 2013) Within a corporate criminological framework, this paper examines the antiquities acquisition policies and activities of the J. Paul Getty Museum particularly during the curatorship of Marion True, whose indictment by the Italian government was part of a broader investigation into the trade of illicitly obtained Italian antiquities. Specifically, we employ two theoretical perspectives – that of differential association and anomie – to examine malpractice among Getty officers and suggest that both museum cultures and the psychology of collecting may in fact be criminogenic. In light of such criminological insight, we conclude the paper with suggestions for broad reforms of museum governance. Keywords: corporate crime; antiquities; museum governance; collecting; anomie; differential association Introduction The US art museums’ community was shocked when on 16 November 2005, Marion True appeared before a criminal court in Rome, Italy, to face charges of receiving stolen antiquities, trafficking, and conspiracy to traffic (Lufkin 2005). From 30 April 1986 until 1 October 2005, True had been Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, which was, at the time, the wealthiest collecting institution in the United States with an endowment in the mid 1980s of several billion dollars (Felch and Frammolino 2011, 54). On 13 October 2010, the trial ended without resolution when the limitation period on all charges expired. True, who had been forced to resign from the Getty in 2005 for reasons seemingly unconnected to the case, was left unemployed and protesting that she had been Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 18:27 23 December 2014 neither condemned nor vindicated (Eakin 2010; True 2011). She also complained that she felt she had been singled out unfairly for prosecution, and for the Getty, expressed ‘nothing but the greatest contempt for them in the world’ as its senior staff had very visibly failed to rally to her defense (quoted in Eakin 2010, para 10). The Italian government’s criminal indictment of Marion True was part of a broader investigation into the trade of illicitly obtained Italian antiquities. But was True in fact simply a scapegoat, an accessible and tangible target for the Getty’s broader questionable acquisition practices and governance? In this paper, within a corporate criminological framework, we examine the Getty’s acquisition activities and policies both during and beyond the curatorship of Marion True and suggest that both museum cultures and collecting psychology may be criminogenic. In light of this, we conclude the paper with *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] q 2013 Midwestern Criminal Justice Association 400 N. Brodie and B.B. Proulx several suggestions for regulatory reform that may better address the more fundamental causes of museum malpractice. Background Art museum acquisition of trafficked antiquities was a commonly accepted practice in the twentieth century and perhaps still is.1 The traffic persisted despite accumulating and often graphic evidence of the material damage to archaeological sites and monuments and sociocultural harm it causes (Brodie, Doole, and Watson 2000; Renfrew 2000; Waxman 2008; Manacorda and Chappell 2011). It also survived evolving legal and ethical resistance to museums’ involvement with antiquities trafficking marked by UNESCO’s adoption in 1970 of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, and energetic work by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in highlighting the dangers of unrestricted antiquities collecting.2 Although many archaeologically rich ‘source countries,’ including Italy, have vested undiscovered antiquities into state ownership by means of so-called patrimony laws (in Italy’s case, such legislation was enacted only in 1939), it was convenient for museums to regard their acquisition of antiquities excavated and exported illegally in violation of these foreign patrimony laws as legal and therefore acceptable under US law, and responsible museum officers justified their disregard of foreign laws in the belief that the museum collection and display of what they regarded as important works of art were in the public benefit.3 The idea that US museums might be excepted from the legal constraints of foreign patrimony laws was dispelled in 1979 by the McClain4 decision when a US appellate court affirmed the 1977 conviction5 of several US dealers for conspiring to sell antiquities stolen from Mexico, considered state property under a Mexican patrimony law of 1972, and thus designated by the court as stolen property for the purposes of the National Stolen Property Act (NSPA) (Gerstenblith 2003a, 2009; Urice 2010). On appeal, Mexico’s patrimony law was upheld, the court confirming that the NSPA recognized ownership created by foreign legislation. This recognition of a foreign patrimony law by US federal courts presented a direct challenge to museums, though one that at the time went largely unheeded.6 Figure 1 below, for example, shows that the Getty continued to acquire trafficked antiquities for many years afterwards, and the Getty was not alone: The indictment of Marion True arose out of a larger investigation conducted by the Italian Carabinieri7 into the illicit trade of Italian antiquities. By 2012, this investigation had resulted in the trial and conviction of several Italian nationals including dealers Giacomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina, who between them had been the ultimate source of many Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 18:27 23 December 2014 Getty acquisitions; as well as the indictments of True and of US antiquities dealer Robert Hecht8 (Watson and Todeschini 2007; Isman 2009). Documentary and photographic evidence gathered established that many antiquities acquired from 1970 onwards by several US art museums, including some of their most prized exhibits, had been illegally excavated in Italy and exported, and ultimately caused their deaccession and return. Between 1999 and 2007, the Getty returned 46 pieces (Lee 1999; Getty 2005, 2007), and a further single piece in 2013 shown by its own research to have been looted in the 1970s (Getty 2013). In 2012, it initiated an internal investigation into the provenances of 45,000 pieces in its collection (Felch 2013). As of 2013, the process of discovery and return at other museums was ongoing. Deaccessions and returns caused by the Italian investigations include 13 pieces from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2006 (Boston 2006), 20 pieces from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art also in 2006 (Metropolitan 2006), 15 pieces from the Princeton University Art Museum in 2007 (Princeton 2007), 14 pieces from the Cleveland Journal of Crime and Justice 401 Figure 1. Histogram showing years of accession of objects returned to Italy between 1999 and 2007. Gray horizontal bar marks period of Marion True’s tenure as Curator of Antiquities. Art Museum in 2008 (Cleveland 2008), 5 pieces from the Dallas Museum of Art in 2012 (Dallas 2012) and one piece from the Toledo Museum of Art in 2013 (ICE 2013). Once her trial had ended, True felt free to speak out in her own defense. She pointed to three circumstances which she claimed absolved her from sole responsibility for any potential wrongdoing (True 2008, 2011; Eakin 2010): 1. Although she had been charged with receiving antiquities, she had never personally received or taken possession of a single object that had been held as evidence against her, nor had she profited financially from their acquisition. All the antiquities in question had been acquired for and were the property of the Getty Museum. 2. All antiquities acquired by the Getty during her tenure as Curator of Antiquities had been done so with the approval of the Getty’s Board of Trustees, its CEO, in-house counsel, Director, and Deputy Director. She was not acting in isolation. 3. She had not even been Curator of Antiquities when many of the pieces returned to Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 18:27 23 December 2014 Italy had been acquired. In other words, True wanted it to be known that over a prolonged period of time Getty officers had acted collectively as a corporate body in acquiring trafficked antiquities for the material benefit of the Getty Museum. True’s claims are all factually correct. First, it is a matter of public record that antiquities shown to have been stolen were returned to Italy from the possession of the Getty (Lee 1999; Getty 2005, 2007). Second, there is no evidence to suggest that True was acting as a ‘rogue curator’ (Felch and Frammolino 2011, 218). While potential acquisitions might have been identified by True, any actual decision to acquire was reached collectively, as she herself has stated, and as was recognized internally by some of the trustees in 2002 (Felch and Frammolino 2011, 241, 249). Finally, True was appointed as Curator of Antiquities in 1986, but antiquities subsequently identified as stolen in the Getty’s possession had been acquired over a period of time that stretched back to 1971 (Figure 1). 402 N. Brodie and B.B. Proulx If the factual evidence showed that True was not solely and personally responsible for the Getty’s questionable acquisition practices, why would Italian authorities choose to pursue her with criminal prosecution in 2000? True believed that the Italian prosecutors had singled her out in an attempt to ‘intimidate the entire American art world’ (quoted in Eakin 2010, para 8), and it is a view that enjoys some sympathy among her erstwhile museum colleagues (Felch and Frammolino 2011, 260).
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