January 2025

John Paul Getty’s legacy is two outstanding museums in Los Angeles in honour of his prolific art collections. And, in the wake of the devastating wildfires, the Getty Foundation is leading the LA Fire Relief Fund for artists who have lost their livelihoods. 

At the time of his death John Paul Getty (1892-1976) was known as the richest man in the world, worth around 25 billion dollars in today’s money. He had made his fortune in the oil fields of America and through a series of clever deals in Saudi Arabia, even learning Arabic to better negotiate the right to drill for oil there. His first shrewd investment of a $10,000 gift from his father in one lucky oil strike had made him a millionaire at 21. 

After a couple of years enjoying the life of a Hollywood playboy, Getty knuckled down to a work ethic that would eventually alienate his family and friends. Notoriously parsimonious, he did his own washing in the hotel suites that doubled as his offices. Despite marrying five times and having five sons, he became an increasingly isolated, eccentric and lonely figure with several of his children and grandchildren suffering extreme physical and mental hardships. 

The Getty Villa

Besides his family tragedies there were extraordinary triumphs, one being the Getty Villa set high beyond the bluffs in Pacific Palisades.The beating sun, warm sea breezes, aromatic plants, and Italian cedar trees all closely mimicking the Mediterranean so beloved by John Paul Getty. Joking that he was the reincarnation of a Roman emperor Getty instructed his architects to recreate the ancient Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, buried under tons of volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in Naples, AD 79.

The Romanesque villa and its two Peristyle courtyards are lined with scores of lofty Corinthian columns, each crowned with the motif of acanthus leaves growing abundantly in four surrounding gardens. Both peristyles enclose long, glittering blue marble pools offering a place of peace and contemplation. Dripping grapevines heavy with fruit and foliage of resplendent colours adorn the shady trellises on either side of the longer outer peristyle. Classical statues grace the walkways running parallel with the smaller pool.

To see the Getty Villa is to catch a glimpse of something unforgettably rare. There is a cleverly recreated section of a Greco-Roman amphitheatre for outdoor theatricals in the Fall. Beyond this are the gardens laden with culinary herbs interspersed with pomegranate, fig, pear, apple and citrus trees. There is bay, boxwood, laurel and plane. Olive groves nestle in the terraces above the gardens. Rows of palm trees mix up the style. In the east garden an exact replica of an important mosaic and shell fountain discovered in Pompeii gushes as delicate aquatic plants wallow under other cascading fountains. 

Despite the astonishing displays of wealth that made one man’s dream manifest, a palpable sorrow pervades the Getty Villa. There is a sense of something replicated, but never truly found. On the Roman roads leading from the villa the polygonal paving stones ache with an unfathomable loneliness. At the museum’s opening in 1974, John Paul Getty was absent because of his chronic fear of flying. Although he was the hawkish overseer of every detail of its construction via photographs, video footage and phone calls, he never would actually see his finished project. When he died two years later his body was flown from Sutton Place, his mansion and HQ in England, to rest amongst the Villa’s splendour.

The Getty Kidnapping

The abduction of his sixteen year old grandson J Paul Getty III in Rome in 1973 had drawn unwelcome media attention to the tycoon.The Italian gang initially demanded £17 million for the boy’s release, but Getty refused saying if he paid even a single penny he would have fourteen more grandchildren kidnapped. The kidnappers responded by severing their captive’s ear and posting it to the patriarch as an incentive. But, a postal strike in Italy delayed the grisly package’s arrival for several weeks.When it finally arrived Getty immediately negotiated a sum in the region of £2 million for his grandson’s release, reputedly paid in larger part by a loan he made to the boy’s father at a 4% repayment.

In all, the teenage Getty’s incarceration had lasted for five months, an ordeal from which he never recovered. Confined to a wheelchair after a drug induced stroke, he died aged 54 in 2011. His father Paul Getty was a recluse and suffering depression at the time of his son’s abduction after his second wife died of an overdose. Spiralling into addiction he made a full recovery after reconnecting with his Catholic faith and devising a strategy to give large sums of the family fortune to good causes - more about that later. Paul’s father John Paul Getty was himself no stranger to grief after losing one son Timothy, who died of a brain tumour age 12, and another son George died of a suspected suicide. He recorded in his diary that his grandson's release was the 'happiest day of my life."

The Getty Centre Museum

Set in the balmy hills of Bel Air, and reached by a four minute ride on a colourful spray painted electric train, is the second of John Paul Getty’s museum masterstrokes. The excited visitors spilling onto the arrival plaza of the Getty Centre are greeted by a panorama of spectacular views and a series of free standing buildings, walkways and terraces entirely clad in Travertine, a creamy coloured fossilised stone mined in Tivoli, an ancient town near Rome. The roughly textured stone tiles hang in various configurations of 30 x 30, marked in places by larger signature stones, some naming the quarry owners. Over time the tiles have weathered almost white under the scorching sun, amplifying the Getty’s strikingly modern appearance.

Inside the north, south, east and west pavilions the galleries follow a traditional design of grand doorways, high ceilings, polished wood floors and red velvet walls. The opulence adds drama to the priceless paintings, sculptures and decorative fine art on show. In awe, I stand stock still in front of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s newly restored Adam and Eve and The Tree of Knowledge. The pale skinned duo illuminating the dark background applied to lime wood are separated into two large portraits - the Tree on each side, the serpent with Eve. Later, I sob in the presence of El Greco’s emotionally intense Christ on the Cross.The skulls and bones littered at His feet signifying the inevitability of all of our lives.

An interesting painting in the Getty’s 19th Century collection is Van Gogh Irises. A reproduction painting displayed alongside it demonstrates how his purple flowers turned blue as the oil paint faded over time. Another wonder is the ethereal watercolour Modern Rome—Campo Vaccino by J. M.W. Turner. So too are the complex blues and greens of Cezanne’s Still Life with Apples, Degas’s stippled, supple nude in After the Bath, and Monet’s shivering Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning.

Outside in the blissful heat, giant stone picture frames draw one’s gaze over Bel Air where the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s stumpy vineyards stripe the verdant hillside. And, in the other direction, Los Angeles Bay glistens beyond four glorious gardens. The central garden complete with a spiral maze made of Azaleas was designed by Californian installation artist Robert Irwin who described his living work of art as always changing, never the same twice.

The Getty Trust, Foundation, and other Philanthropy

After his death, the bulk of John Paul Getty’s fortune went to the J Paul Getty Trust, boosted by a $10 billion injection when Getty Oil was acquired by Texaco. All this money has made his two museums the richest in the world and the Trust a powerful force on the global art market. In 2005 it became embroiled in a legal wrangle with the Italian Government over the return of 46 objects of antiquity on the grounds that many were treasures looted from archeological sites in Italy, and should not have been subject to buying or selling by international art dealers. 

One of the 40 objects returned to Italy in 2007 was the Sicilian 5BC limestone statue of Aphrodite, The Venus of Morgantina, once the centrepiece of the Getty’s Gods and Goddess’s gallery. According to documents leaked to the press at the time, the Trust admitted it was on shaky ground with the provenance of as many as 86 objects in its collection. The acquisition of a new Porsche by a former head of the Foundation, a villa in Greece by a former commissioning dealer for the museum, who later faced civil charges in Italy, as well as the imprisonment of the art dealer who supplied several of the contested treasures did nothing to strengthen the Getty’s case for keeping them.  

One statue still on the Italian’s wanted list is the Victorious Youth, also known as Atleta di Fano, or the Getty Bronze. In May this year the figure was assigned legal rights by the European Court of Human Rights, although this ruling was not recognised in US law. The life-size bronze was found in 1964 by a fisherman in the Adriatic Sea, off the town of Padaso. It was purchased by the Getty Trust in 1977 for $3.95 million. Since 2022 hundreds of antiquities in the US and 76 in the UK have been confiscated by the Italian authorities.

The Getty Trust has invested hundreds of millions into collecting art, as well as being a generous arts patron. Another member of the family, Paul Getty was a major donor to the arts in England, channeling some £50million into the cash strapped National Gallery. A passionate fan of old films, he spontaneously sent a £20 million cheque to the British Film Institute so it could restore them. In 1986 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, who owned the largest art collection in the world. He lived out the rest of his life as a cricket loving English gentleman in Buckinghamshire.

The PST ART LA Fire Relief Fund

Now, the J Paul Getty Trust’s  PST ART: Art & Science Collide project is leading the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund, a coalition of organisations acting in response to this month’s ferocious LA wildfires. The Fund has allocated $12 million to assist the growing number of artists whose lives and work have been reduced to dust and ashes. The first of three major fires across Southern California started In Pacific Palisades, with rampant flames frazzling the rosemary bushes just yards from the east gate of the Getty Villa.

Three weeks on since the first spark, LA remains under threat from the deadly Santa Anas winds returning to fan the flames. Over 23,000 acres have burned in the Palisades alone, with 12,000 structures destroyed across the County, and 27 people killed. Inside the Getty Villa, the Lansdowne Hercules, the Victorious Youth and the beautiful Mazarin Venus, as well as rooms stuffed with Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Persian cups, jars, coins, frescoes and pots were in peril. But, thanks to the careful pruning and watering of the foliage by 45 staff members on round the clock fire-watch, and the prudent use of fire resistant building materials, the Villa and its priceless contents was spared.  

Since September 2024, a number of PST ART exhibitions have focussed on overcoming the challenges of ecological destruction. The need to conserve and protect the environment is pressing after the wildfire events that arguably were triggered by climate changes, such as warming and drought. The Climate Emergency Fund was set up in LA in 2019 by Aileen Getty the granddaughter of the patriarc (and sister of the kidnapped J Paul Getty), who received a diagnosis of HIV in 1984. The Fund has so far received around $5million to assist the likes of controversial climate concern and civil disobedience organisations Just Stop Oil to protect fossil fuels.

Without a hint of meanness, both Getty museums are free to the streams of visitors from around the world. Since 1984 the Foundation has shared other benefits too, with 9,000 grants awarded to leaders in the visual arts and to its pet projects of art history, research, architecture and museum conservation in 180 countries. 

PST ART continues to act as a local hub connecting scientists, artists, organisations and communities across Southern California. Two recent intriguing, groundbreaking and inclusive exhibitions wereRising Signs: The Medieval Science of Astrology and Sci-fi, Magick, Queer LA: Sexual Science and the Imagination.