In Focus: Picturing Landscape
May 22–October 7, 2012
Nature's challenge to photographers is the theme of this second exhibition on landscape in the Getty Museum's In Focus series. Comprising approximately twenty works from the permanent collection, it looks at the various ways that photographers have responded to the test of depicting the breadth and perspective of a natural landscape through a camera lens. From the pre-photographic drawings made with the aid of a camera lucida to more recent advances in digital technology, the exhibition touches on a range of technical and artistic explorations by figures such as John Beasly Greene, Imogen Cunningham, Harry Callahan, and William Garnett.

Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well: Images of Death in the Middle Ages
May 29–August 12, 2012
Throughout the Middle Ages, death and the afterlife were stirring subjects that challenged and inspired the creativity of the artists who illuminated manuscripts. Delightful and disturbing visions of heaven and hell fueled the viewers' imaginations. Books adorned with depictions of God's mercy, saved souls in paradise, and the rewards of the blessed instilled hope, while morbid and sometimes horrific illustrations of funerals, demons, and the punishment of the wicked prompted pious Christians to repent for their sins. At the core of visual devotion stood images of Christ's Passion and crucifixion, promising resurrection and eternal life.

Drama and Devotion: Heemskerck's "Ecce Homo" Altarpiece from Warsaw
June 5, 2012–January 13, 2013
One of the most admired Netherlandish painters of the sixteenth century, Maerten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) worked in an expressive style influenced by his exposure to the work of contemporary Italian painters, particularly Michelangelo. His dramatic Ecce Homo (1544) altarpiece from the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland, on view to the public for the first time following conservation and study at the Getty Museum, offers a rare opportunity to experience a complete triptych by this Renaissance master. The exhibition provides insight into Heemskerck's materials and expedient technique and elaborates on the original location of the altarpiece in Dordrecht. Supported by the Getty Museum Paintings Conservation Council, this event also marks the 150th anniversary of the National Museum. The accompanying catalogue, beautifully illustrated with numerous color images, contains insightful essays on the artist and the creation and conservation of the altarpiece.

Gustav Klimt: The Magic of Line
July 3–September 23, 2012
This retrospective is the first fully dedicated to the drawings of Gustav Klimt (1862—1918), one of the seminal figures in modern art. It explores the stylistic evolution of his drawings as well as their centrality to his artistic enterprise. Indeed, Klimt's paintings cannot be understood without careful consideration of his drawings, which also play a semi-autonomous role in his artistic output. Based upon assiduous study of the human figure, they are characterized by an unsurpassed mastery of line during all phases of his artistic development. This major loan exhibition was organized by the Albertina Museum, Vienna, in association with the J. Paul Getty Museum, to mark the 150th anniversary of Klimt's birth.

Messerschmidt and Modernity
July 24–October 14, 2012
The Vexed Man, acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2008, is one of a group of astonishing "Character Heads" produced by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736–1783), a renowned German sculptor at the Habsburg court in Vienna. Messerschmidt and Modernity examines not only the study of expression and physiognomy during the eighteenthcentury European Enlightenment but also the impact the heads have had on the work of modern and contemporary artists in Austria, Great Britain, and the United States.

The Art of Devotion in the Middle Ages
August 28, 2012–January 27, 2013
Manuscripts and their illuminations played a central role in fostering and expressing the devotion of Christian faithful during the Middle Ages. As the word of God, biblical phrases were introduced by elaborate initial letters; narrative stories about Christ or the saints were pictured in detailed miniatures; and borders brimming with fantastic scenes focused attention on important texts. Drawn entirely from the Getty Museum's collection, this exhibition looks at manuscripts that not only helped medieval viewers celebrate Christian beliefs but also—with their lavish decoration in precious pigments and gold—served as material testaments to the piety of their owners.

The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker and the Institute of Design
September 25, 2012–February 24, 2013
Ray K. Metzker (American, born 1931) is one of the most innovative photographers of the last half-century. Utilizing experimental techniques such as high-contrast printing, multiple exposure, and composite images, he creates photographs that strike a unique balance between formal brilliance, optical innovation, and a deep human regard for the objective world. A graduate of Chicago's Bauhaus-inspired Institute of Design, Metzker studied with renowned photographers Harry Callahan (American, 1912–1999) and Aaron Siskind (American, 1903–1991). An introduction to the climate of intense photographic experimentation fostered by teachers and emulated by students at the school accompanies this overview of Metzker's career. The exhibition, which originated at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), is supplemented by selections from the Getty Museum's permanent collection and other key loans.

Farewell to Surrealism: The Dyn Circle in Mexico
October 2, 2012–February 17, 2013
In the 1940s, an international circle of writers and artists from Europe, Latin America, and North America came together in Mexico City and created the unique journal Dyn. Many of them—including the journal's founder and primary editor, Wolfgang Paalen—had been part of Andre Breton's Parisian surrealist circle in the 1930s, before taking refuge in Mexico during World War II. This group shared a passion for the pre-Columbian past of the Americas, and their immersion in its artifacts transformed their art. Dyn is a record of their ideas and the art they made, an art that had ramifications far beyond Mexico City.

In Focus: Robert Mapplethorpe
October 23, 2012–March 24, 2013
A tastemaker and provocateur, Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946–1989) ranks as one of the great photographers of the second half of the twentieth century. His highly stylized explorations of gender, race, and sexuality became hallmarks of the period and exerted a powerful influence on his contemporaries. Arranged chronologically, this one-gallery exhibition will present works—from his early mixed-media objects to his photographic portraits, nudes, and still lifes—that were jointly acquired in 2011 by the Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, New York City.

Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350
November 13, 2012–February 10, 2013
From 1300 to 1350, Florence witnessed rapid civic and church growth and was home to the revolutionary painter Giotto di Bondone and the iconic literary figure Dante Alighieri. In this 50-year period, which laid the foundation for the Renaissance, accomplished and prolific Florentine panel painters and illuminators developed such genres as devotional art and narrative painting, disseminating new religious and humanist texts composed in the city at this time. In a fresh approach to this material, the exhibition incorporates new findings about artistic techniques and artists' workshops based on conservation research and scientific analysis. This major international loan exhibition reveals a more complex and nuanced picture of the beauty and creativity of artistic production in Florence at the dawn of the Renaissance. The exhibition is organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Untold Stories: Cutting, Collecting, and Transforming Medieval Manuscripts
February 12–April 28, 2013
For hundreds of years, manuscripts have been bought and sold, hidden and displayed, preserved and rearranged, loved and forgotten, cut into pieces, hung on the wall, and glued into albums. At times valued for their beauty, for their religious significance, or simply for the strength of their parchment pages, the manuscripts in this exhibition have been transformed again and again to suit the changing expectations of their various audiences and owners. Drawn from the Getty Museum's permanent collection and including several outside loans, the exhibition reveals the ways in which manuscripts have been refashioned both conceptually and physically and explores the long and eventful history of these books before their entry into the Museum.

Looking East: Rubens's Encounter with Asia
March 5–June 9, 2013
Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most talented and successful artists working in seventeenth-century Europe. During his illustrious career as a court painter and diplomat, Rubens expressed a fascination with exotic costumes and headdresses. With his masterful handling of black chalk and touches of red, Rubens executed a compelling drawing that featured a figure wearing Asian costume—a depiction that has lately been identified as Man in Korean Costume. Now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the drawing is the focal point of an exhibition that explores for the first time what the Flemish artist could have known about Asia in general and Korea in particular.

Japan's Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto
March 26–August 25, 2013
This exhibition presents the work of two photographers whose careers spanned much of the twentieth century, or the Showa Era (1926–1989) as it is known in Japan. Hiroshi Hamaya (1915–1999) and Kansuke Yamamoto (1914–1987) began as teenagers to experiment with various formal approaches and techniques in photography. As their work matured, however, they took very different paths. Through the display of works from Japanese as well as U.S. collections, the exhibition examines two important strains in Japanese photography: the documentary investigation of regional traditions and social issues, represented in the work of Hamaya; and the avant-garde movement that developed in the context of Western surrealism and advanced through the work of Yamamoto. These two trends not only reflect significant, though rarely shown, activity in the history of Japanese photography but also reveal the complexity of modern life in that nation since the Meiji Restoration.

Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990
April 9–July 21, 2013
During the period 1940 to 1990, Los Angeles rapidly evolved into one of the most populous and influential industrial, economic, and creative capitals in the world. This dynamic exhibition provides an engaging view of the region's diverse urban landscape, including its ambitious freeway network, sleek corporate towers, whimsical coffee shops, popular shopping malls, refined steel-and-glass residences, and eclectic cultural institutions. Drawings, photographs, models, films, animations, oral histories, and ephemera illustrate the complex dimensions of L.A.'s rich and often underappreciated built environment, revealing this metropolis's global impact as a vibrant laboratory for cutting-edge design.

In Focus: Ed Ruscha
April 9–September 29, 2013
Photography has played an integral role throughout Ed Ruscha's career, most notably in the modest books he began to self-publish in the early 1960s. In 2011 the Getty Museum acquired a group of photographs related to several of these books. By featuring both iconic and previously unpublished images from this acquisition, this exhibition provides insight into the process by which Ruscha identified subjects for Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963) and Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965), employed a deadpan style to record examples for each, and made subsequent choices to edit the resulting images for presentation in book form.

Gardens of the Renaissance
May 21–August 4, 2013
Whether part of a grandiose villa or an extension of a common kitchen, gardens in the Renaissance were planted and treasured in all reaches of society. Due to their ephemeral nature, most gardens have changed or been lost since the Renaissance, but illuminated manuscripts of the period offer a glimpse into how people at the time pictured, used, and enjoyed these idyllic green spaces. Through a wide range of works drawn from the Getty Museum's permanent collection, this exhibition explores gardens on many levels—from the literary Garden of Love and the biblical Garden of Eden to courtly gardens of the nobility—and reports on the many activities both reputable and scandalous that took place there.

Disegno: Drawing in Europe, 1520–1600
November 13–February 3, 2013
Contorted, elongated forms and dramatic, animated compositions characterized the new artistic style of the late Renaissance period (about 1520–1600). With an overriding concern for grace and virtuosity in the depiction of the human figure, it combined decorative effects with complex—often ambiguous—subject matter, which particularly thrived in courtly environments. This exhibition explores the various radical iterations of the style across Europe, featuring rare Getty Museum drawings by Italian, French, and Netherlandish artists such as Jacopo Pontormo, Giorgio Vasari, Toussaint Dubreuil, and Hendrick Goltzius, together with a selection of works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Current Exhibitions at the Getty Center

Past Exhibitions at the Getty Center

The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection
September 12, 2012–January 7, 2013
Pompeii and the other cities destroyed and paradoxically preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 are usually considered the places where we can best and most directly experience the daily lives of ancient Romans. Rather than presenting these sites as windows on the past, this exhibition explores them as a modern obsession. Over the three hundred years since their discovery in the early 1700s, the Vesuvian sites have functioned as shifting mirrors of the present, inspiring foremost artists—from Piranesi, Fragonard, Ingres, and Alma-Tadema to Duchamp, Dalí, Rothko, and Warhol—to engage with contemporary concerns in diverse media. This international loan exhibition is co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art in association with the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.

Sicily: Between Greece and Rome
April 3–August 19, 2013
Sicily: Between Greece and Rome presents masterpieces of art from ancient Sicily, an island crossroads that forged a distinctive Hellenic identity. Occupying a pivotal position in Mediterranean history, former Greek colonies such as Syracuse, Gela, Akragas, and Selinos emerged as wealthy city-states, where innovation and experimentation flourished. This exhibition celebrates Sicilian culture during the fifth to third centuries B.C., when its art, architecture, theater, poetry, philosophy, and science left an original and enduring stamp on both mainland Greece and Rome. Over 150 objects bear witness to the military and athletic victories, religious and civic rituals, opulent lifestyles, and intellectual attainments that shaped the western Greek world.

Current Exhibitions at the Getty Villa

Past Exhibitions at the Getty Villa