Event Calendar
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Performances and Films/Videos
Lectures and Conferences
Tours and Talks
Family Activities
Courses and Demonstrations
Exhibitions
Food Events
Free Hours at L.A. Museums (PDF, 269 KB)
A + D Museum
Autry National Center
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Fowler Museum at UCLA
Hammer Museum
Huntington Library
Japanese American National Museum
LACMA
Los Angeles Public Library
MAK Center for Art & Architecture
MOCA
Museum of Latin American Art
Natural History Museum
Norton Simon Museum
Orange County Museum of Art
Pacific Asia Museum
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Santa Monica Museum of Art
Skirball Cultural Center
June 19, 2012
Family Activities
Art Adventures for Families
Tuesdays - Fridays through August 31, 2012
2 pm, 3 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Our one-hour tours for children (ages 5 and up) and adults to enjoy together feature a fun, activity-filled visit to the galleries. Space is limited. Sign-up begins 30 minutes before the program at the Museum Information Desk.

Morning Art Start
Tuesdays - Fridays through August 31, 2012
10:30 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Slow morning? Jazz it up by exploring a work of art in the galleries with an educator, then create your own masterpiece inspired by what you see. Materials are provided at this 45-minute program geared for families with children ages 5 and up. Sign-up begins at 10:00 a.m. at the Museum Information Desk.

Tours and Gallery Talks
Garden Tour
Daily
11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Getty Center


The gardens of the Getty are the focus of this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Focus Tour: Medieval and Renaissance Art
Tuesdays
3 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Enjoy a one-hour tour focusing on the Museum's medieval and Renaissance collections by exploring the art and culture of these related and distinctive historic periods. The tour may spotlight the current manuscripts exhibition. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Getty Center
Architecture Tour
Daily
10:15 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm
Museum Entrance Hall, Getty Center


Discover more about Richard Meier's architecture and the design of the Getty Center site in this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Halberdier / Pontormo
Collection Highlights Tour
Daily
11 am
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


This one-hour tour provides an overview of major works from the Museum's collection. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Famous Faces: Celebrity Portraits
Tuesdays - Fridays through July 13, 2012
1:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Examine the portrayal of identity, lifestyles, and celebrity culture in paintings, sculptures, and photographs. This one-hour tour looks at works in the exhibitions Herb Ritts: L.A. Style and Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity. Meet the educator at the Museum Information Desk.

Curator's Gallery Talk
Tuesday June 19, 2012
2:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Karen Hellman, curator of Photographs, the J. Paul Getty Museum, leads a gallery talk on the exhibition In Focus: Picturing Landscape. Meet under the stairs in the Museum Entrance Hall.

Masterpiece of the Week Talk
Daily through June 24, 2012
4 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center


Do you believe in happy accidents? Excavate the story behind Jack Zajac's Big Skull and Horn in Two Parts II in this 15 minute talk. Meet the educator at the Information desk.

Exhibitions
The  Life of Art
The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and Display
Daily

South Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


From the time an object is made until the day it enters a museum's collection, it may be displayed, used, and perceived in different ways. The Life of Art takes selected objects from the Getty Museum's galleries and encourages visitors to sit down and spend time with them, offering the opportunity to examine them closely to understand how they were made and functioned, why they were collected, and how they have been displayed. Through careful looking, what may be learned about the maker and previous owners of a French gilt-bronze wall light, for example, or the transformation in England of a Chinese porcelain bowl? Close engagement reveals the full lives of these works and why they continue to be collected and cherished today.

 Learn more about this exhibition
Portraits of Renown
Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity
Daily through August 26, 2012

West Pavilion, Terrace Level, Getty Center


Photography's remarkable propensity to shape visual identities has made it the leading vehicle for representing the famous. Soon after photography was invented in the 1830s, it was used to capture the likenesses and accomplishments of great men and women, gradually supplanting other forms of commemoration. In the twentieth century, the proliferation of photography and the transformative power of fame have helped to accelerate the desire for photographs of celebrities in magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and on the Internet. Drawn from the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection, the exhibition surveys some of the visual strategies used by photographers to picture the famous from the 1840s to the year 2000.

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In Focus: Picturing Landscape
In Focus: Picturing Landscape
Daily through October 7, 2012

West Pavilion, Terrace Level, Getty Center


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.

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Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well
Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well: Images of Death in the Middle Ages
Daily through August 12, 2012

North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


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.

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Herb Ritts: L.A. Style
Herb Ritts: L.A. Style
Daily through August 26, 2012

West Pavilion, Lower Level, Getty Center


Herb Ritts (American, 1952–2002) was a Los Angeles-based photographer who established an international reputation for his distinctive photographs of fashion models, nudes, and celebrities. From the late 1970s until his untimely death from AIDS in 2002, Ritts's ability to create photographs that successfully bridged the gap between art and commerce was not only a testament to the power of his imagination and technical skill but also marked the synergy between art, popular culture, and business that followed in the wake of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This exhibition features a selection of Ritts's vintage prints, magazine covers, Polaroids, and commercial video projects.

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Self-portrait at age 17 / Fantin-Latour
The Getty Research Institute: Recent Print Acquisitions
Daily through September 2, 2012

Research Institute Exhibition Gallery, Getty Center


Representing some of the finest works from the beginning of the 1500s through the late 1900s, this exhibition features recently acquired masterpieces, including Albrecht Dürer's classically inspired suite, Life of the Virgin, and his exquisite etching, Desperate Man. Piranesi's first edition Prisons present the kind of technical and formal innovations that have captivated print collectors, writers, and artists for 250 years; the Getty Research Institute's copy is an exciting discovery in a unique state of preservation. Besides highlighting collection strengths such as artist portraits and landscapes, the exhibition also features Karl Friederich Schinkel's designs for Mozart's operas, and a monumental 12-plate reproductive print after the Last Judgment by the so-called French Michelangelo, Jean Cousin.

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Heemkerck's Ecce Homo altarpiece
Drama and Devotion: Heemskerck's "Ecce Homo" Altarpiece from Warsaw
Daily through January 13, 2013

North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center


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.

 Learn more about this exhibition
June 19, 2012
The Getty Villa is closed to the general public on this date.