The Getty Center: Research, Conservation, and Collections n March 3, 2012, at a meeting sponsored by the Academy at The Getty Center, Fellows James Cuno, President and Chief Executive Of½cer of the J. Paul Getty Trust, and OThomas W. Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute, spoke about the institution’s exhibitions and collections, its global art restoration and conservation efforts, and its research program. The presentations served as the Academy’s 1982nd Stated Meeting. The meeting also featured the of½cial Induction of sixteen previously elected Academy members. The following is an edited transcript of the presentations. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Summer 2012 27 the getty center: research, conservation, and collections and around the world. We are, of course, examine people on arrival or on departure. committed to building collections. Thomas We allow them to make their way as they will talk to you about the Research Insti- wish, all the while providing them with in- tute’s collections, and I will say a few words formed access to different levels of compre- about the Museum’s collections. hension or appreciation of works of art. We have made two recent acquisitions. But we do even more than that. We also The ½rst is a ½fteenth-century Florentine bring exhibitions to the museum to com- drawing, Portrait of a Young Man, from about plement our collections. We are not an en- 1470. The artist is thought to be Piero del cyclopedic museum in the sense of having Pollaiuolo, though this attribution is not cer- representative examples of all the world’s tain. In the virtually life-sized drawing, the cultures under our roof, as the British Mu- subject’s gaze and the fact that his shirt is seum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and buttoned on the wrong side make it a very the Art Institute in Chicago do. Rather, we convincing drawing of someone viewing feature exhibitions from elsewhere, often himself in a mirror. If this is true, then the in connection with a project that we have drawing is not only an early portrait but a undertaken with another program at the very early self-portrait, completed at the museum. The Center’s four programs– dawn of self-awareness, as the Renaissance Research, Conservation, Foundation, and is known. Museum–work together in a collaborative Our second recent acquisition is a paint- process to deepen the impact of the Getty in ing by Edouard Manet. The year it was com- the world. In the case of the exhibition Gods pleted, 1863, was the year Manet emerged as of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Mu- James Cuno a leading innovator in French painting, the seum of Cambodia, the Conservation Insti- James Cuno is President and Chief Executive year he painted Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur tute developed, with others, a conservation Of½cer of the J. Paul Getty Trust. He was elected l’herbe. This particular painting is a portrait laboratory in Cambodia to conserve the a Fellow of the American Academy in 2001 and of a young woman, Madame Brunet. You sculptures. The bene½ts of that work are serves as a member of the Academy’s Commission may think it’s wonderful, and so do we. being shown in our galleries. The Aztec Pan- on the Humanities and Social Sciences. Madame Brunet, however, did not; she re- theon and the Art of Empire, an exhibition jected it. Fortunately, it stayed with Manet at the Getty Villa, explored Aztec monu- The Getty and Its Role in the World and his studio until later in his career, and ul- ment-building in relation to ancient Greek timately came to the Getty. and Roman pantheons. Comparing these thought I would begin by introducing you We have two sites for the Museum, the civilizations, equivalent not in date and time I to the Getty and its range of commit- Getty Center and a site in Malibu, which but in mentality, puts the ancient Mediter- ments here and abroad. Thomas will take houses our ancient Mediterranean collec- ranean world into richer context. The exhi- you more deeply into the programs he di- tion. But we do not just build our collections bition Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons rects within the Getty Research Institute. and present them in our galleries. We also from Sinai was the result of a collaboration The Getty Center, which opened in 1997, in- provide extraordinary settings in which to between the Foundation and the Conserva- cludes the Research Institute, the Museum, see works of art. In this sense, there is a con- tion Institute in Sinai. Their work in the the Conservation Institute, the Foundation, text for seeing art in the Museum, and there monastery where the icons were housed led and the of½ces of the Trust. The Center is is a means for connecting with the world to the generous loan of the icons to the Getty perched high on a hill overlooking Los An- when you are here. We not only build our Museum, presenting a bit more of the world geles, Santa Monica, Marina del Rey, and collections, but we teach from them. We to our visitors in Los Angeles. San Diego (on a clear day). But it is not have the rich responsibility of connecting We don’t just do exhibitions. We also con- meant to be up on a hill, except in the phys- with all our visitors, whether they come with serve works of art that are in our collection ical sense. It is meant to be deeply embedded specialized knowledge or with no knowl- or that come to our collection from else- in the lives of all who come to the hill, or edge, whether it is their ½rst visit or their where in the world. Working with our part- who are reached by the Getty in Los Angeles thirty-½fth. One of the great glories of mu- ner colleagues in Italy or in Eastern Europe, seums is that, unlike universities, we do not for example, we conserve works that then 28 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Summer 2012 grace our galleries for a period of time so that Our work is not just in Europe or with surveying and documenting the current con- we can share the bene½t of our work with European paintings; it’s elsewhere in the ditions of archaeological sites. A geographic our larger public. We engage not only in world, too. It’s not just with moveable ob- information system (gis), written in Arabic applied conservation but in pure scienti½c jects, but includes things that do not move and English, allows you to learn about the research, both in the Museum and in the at all–works in Germany, for example, or sites as well as their present conditions. Be- Conservation Institute. King Tut’s tomb. We collaborate with local cause two of the greatest threats to archaeo- Our work abroad includes a project in conservators not only on the scienti½c analy- logical sites are rapid urban development Ghent, Belgium, where the Foundation has sis but also on the execution of conserva- and looting, the gis allows Jordanian of½- supported the recent renovation, restora- tion. And it is not just in the Mediterranean cials to observe the current state of archae- tion, and conservation of the ½fteenth-cen- world, but in Western China: in Dunhuang, ological sites and monitor changes from day tury Northern European painting The Ghent the Getty has worked with others for to day. They can also use it as a means of Altarpiece. One of the most important paint- decades in the execution of conservation, planning how to protect the site. So when a ings in the history of art, its conservation is the analysis of preventative conservation, highway is developed between one city and part of a program supporting the education of a new generation of conservators working We not only build our collections, but we teach from on panel paintings. Panel paintings were the primary medium for painters in Europe them. We have the rich responsibility of connecting from the later Middle Ages to the earliest part of the Renaissance, and the expertise for with all our visitors, whether they come with special- conserving them was being lost as a genera- ized knowledge or with no knowledge. We allow our tion of conservators was retiring or dying without a new generation taking its place. So visitors to make their way as they wish, all the while the Foundation identi½ed a number of ex- providing them with informed access to different lev- perts in the ½eld, at the Metropolitan Mu- seum, at the Prado Museum, and at the site els of comprehension or appreciation of works of art. in Belgium, among others. It brought these senior conservators together with younger and the site planning to accommodate in- another, it can be designed to go around that conservators to transfer their knowledge to creased tourist interest in the great caves in site rather than through it. The gis is now the next generation, to perpetuate the ability the farthest northwest region of China, lo- available as a website and software that are to conserve panel paintings. As another ex- cated on the Silk Road. If you were a traveler provided for free and can be adopted by ample, a team is working on a Dürer panel leaving China to embark on a journey along other countries. Iraq is currently adopting painting from the Prado’s collections. the Silk Road–into an unfamiliar world, un- the software, and that is but one example.