Gardens of the Renaissance
May 28–August 11, 2013
Whether connected to grandiose villas or common kitchens, 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.

The Poetry of Paper
July 23–October 20, 2013
The selection of drawings in this exhibition explores the concept of negative space—the unoccupied ground around drawn elements. It elucidates how artists such as Rembrandt, Boucher, and Seurat deliberately left areas of paper blank to create the illusion of light and form, using absence to evoke a sense of presence.

Werner Herzog: Hearsay of the Soul
August 13, 2013–January 19, 2014
A recent acquisition by the Getty Museum's Department of Photographs, Hearsay of the Soul (2012) is a five­channel video projection by celebrated German filmmaker Werner Herzog (born 1942). The work juxtaposes the lush landscape etchings of seventeenth­century Dutch artist Hercules Segers (1589–1638) with a dramatic score and performance by contemporary Dutch cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger (born 1954). This assembly of seemingly disparate parts, along with the simple visual technique of slowly panning over the prints, makes evident the complexity and delicacy of the individual images and fuses the intimate with the epic.

Miracles and Martyrs: Saints in the Middle Ages
September 3, 2013–March 2, 2014
Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians were fascinated by stories about saints, who led extraordinary lives full of mystical events and miraculous occurrences. Saints were depicted in manuscripts experiencing revelatory visions and performing wondrous feats such as healing the sick or raising the dead. Even when their tormentors were performing exceptionally brutal acts—shooting them repeatedly with arrows, for example, or violently beheading them—martyr saints were pictured remaining steadfast in their faith. This exhibition, drawn from the Getty Museum's permanent collection, presents manuscripts that allowed medieval viewers to witness these dramatic narratives and venerate the saints as models of piety.

Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister
September 20, 2013–February 2, 2014
This exhibition brings together two masterpieces of medieval English art: stained glass from Canterbury Cathedral and the St. Albans Psalter, a splendidly illuminated Book of Psalms. Uniting monumental glass painting with the art of book illumination, this presentation explores how specific texts, prayers, and environments shaped the medieval viewer's understanding of these pictures during the great century of art making following the Norman Conquest of England.

Abelardo Morell: The Universe Next Door
October 1, 2013–January 5, 2014
Over the past twenty­five years, Abelardo Morell (American, born Cuba, 1948) has become internationally renowned for photographs that push the boundaries of the medium while exploring visual surprise and wonder. From intimate domestic scenes taken with a child's view to images in which an entire room becomes a camera obscura, Morell has approached picture making with remarkable creativity and wit. Showing a range of individual works and series—many never displayed before—this exhibition demonstrates how Morell has mined photographic history for inspiration. The exhibition was organized by the Art Institute of Chicago in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

At the Window: The Photographer's View
October 1, 2013–January 5, 2014
One of the first camera subjects, the window is literally and figuratively linked to the photographic process itself. This exhibition, drawn primarily from the Getty Museum's collection (including several new acquisitions funded by the Getty Museum's Photographs Council), looks at the ways photographers have explored their medium by turning to the window as a framing device or conceptual tool. It spans the history of photography, from some of the earliest images by William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Eugène Atget to contemporary works by artists such as Robert Adams, Uta Barth, Gregory Crewdson, Sabine Hornig, and Yuki Onodera.

In Focus: Architecture
October 15, 2013–March 2, 2014
From its inception, photography has functioned as a significant tool in the documentation and perception of architecture. The camera made it possible to record the built environment with accuracy and in greater detail, allowing photographers to represent the existence of a building from construction to demise. Drawn from the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection, this exhibition surveys the history of architectural photography through images of sacred and secular structures, picturesque environments, abstracted spaces, and conceptual forms.

Gods and Heroes: European Drawings of Classical Mythology
November 19, 2013–February 9, 2014
Greco­Roman mythology has inspired and challenged generations of draftsmen to depict the colorful and dramatic stories of the classical gods and heroes. Depending on when and where they worked, artists have approached these subjects very differently, sometimes treating them as a mere pretext for visual experimentation. Through a selection of forty drawings from the Getty Museum's collection, dating from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, this exhibition explores the pictorial representation of myths that have been instrumental in the formation of Western culture.

A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography
February 4–June 8, 2014
In 1839, just two years after Victoria became queen of Great Britain and Ireland, the medium of photography was announced to the world. This exhibition explores the relationship between the new art and the young queen, whose passion for collecting photographs began in the 1840s and whose photographic image became synonymous with an entire age. With important loans from The Royal Collection shown alongside masterpieces from the Getty Museum, the exhibition displays rare daguerreotypes, private portraits of the Royal Family, and a selection of prints by early masters such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Roger Fenton, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense
February 4–June 8, 2014
The Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948) has built a career around examining the complex relationship between the medium's ability to record the physical world and its simultaneous association with the abstract notions of time and history. This exhibition highlights three series in which the artist has collaborated with museums to produce photographs of natural history dioramas, wax portraits, and photogenic drawings. The works present objects of historical and cultural significance that signal or re-create earlier moments in time and simultaneously highlight the medium's oscillation between recording the present world and preserving the past.

Hatched! Creating Form with Line
March 1–June 1, 2014
Celebrating the art of hatching—closely­drawn parallel lines that suggest relief or shadow—this exhibition includes powerful examples from the Getty Museum's drawings collection by artists as diverse as Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. One of the most basic and timeless artistic techniques, hatching can create the immediate illusion of three­dimensional solidity on a two­dimensional sheet of paper. Extremely versatile, it can also be used to give the impression of movement or speed.

Jackson Pollock's Mural, 1943
March 11–June 1, 2014
Commissioned by art dealer Peggy Guggenheim in 1943 for the entry to her New York City apartment, Mural by Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956) remained in its original location for less than two years. After she moved to Venice, Guggenheim gave the painting to the University of Iowa, where it will return after its stay at the Getty. Following its examination and conservation at the Museum, and working with the Conservation Institute, this exhibition presents this seminal work to its best advantage and reveals the information gathered from it at the Getty.

In Focus: Ansel Adams, a Recent Acquisition
March 18–July 20, 2014
Near the end of his life, Ansel Adams (1902–1984) selected 75 representative images from 2,500 negatives he made over his career. From this group, Los Angeles-based art collectors Leonard and Marjorie Vernon chose a set of 25 pictures to purchase, with the intention of donating them to a museum. The Getty acquired this unique assembly of photographs in 2011. In Focus: Ansel Adams, a Recent Acquisition provides insight into both the photographer's assessment of his life's work and the collectors' astute aesthetic judgments and personal tastes. This exhibition was made possible by Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin's generous donation of these prints, in memory of Ms. Vernon's parents.

East Meets West: Byzantine Illumination at the Cultural Crossroads
March 25–June 22, 2014
The glittering courts of the Byzantine Empire (A.D. 330–1453) have long been admired for their rich tradition of manuscript illumination. The prominent use of gold, a striking sense of naturalism, and a distinctive spiritual character were among the widely celebrated aspects of Byzantine art in the Middle Ages. These qualities inspired artists and patrons in other Christian locales, including western Europe, Armenia, and Ethiopia. Primarily drawn from the Getty Museum's collection, this exhibition also features important loans in partnership with Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, on view at the Getty Villa from April 9 through August 25, 2014.

The Exceptional James Ensor
June 10–August 31, 2014
This exhibition charts James Ensor's astonishing artistic development in the decade culminating with his avant-garde masterpiece, Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888), a shockingly satirical indictment of modern Belgian society that is one of the Getty Museum's major highlights. The exhibition presents more than thirty Ensor paintings from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, along with a rich selection of the artist's drawings and etchings from the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, and several other key lenders.

Current Exhibitions at the Getty Center

Past Exhibitions at the Getty Center

The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: A New Beginning
October 2–December 2, 2013
Found in 1879, the Cyrus Cylinder is among the most iconic discoveries from the ancient world, with a legacy that resounds to this day. A clay cylinder covered with cuneiform script, it records the conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C. by the king of Persia, Cyrus the Great. The text proclaims that Cyrus restored religious freedoms and allowed those deported by the Babylonians to return home. In doing so, it bears witness to the multiethnic nature of the Persian Empire, which introduced innovative forms of writing, religion, and luxury goods to the Near East. This exhibition is organized by the British Museum in partnership with the Iran Heritage Foundation and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum. The Los Angeles presentation is made possible by the generosity of Farhang Foundation.

Tiberius: Portrait of an Emperor
October 16, 2013–March 3, 2014
Damaged by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, an over-life-size bronze statue of Tiberius (ruled A.D. 14–37) was discovered in 1741, during the first years of excavation at Herculaneum. The subject of a recent conservation project at the Getty Villa, the sculpture—on loan from Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples—provides the occasion to explore Tiberius's character and career. Through twists of fate and familial circumstance, he succeeded Augustus to become Rome's second emperor. Yet, ill at ease with his position, he famously removed himself to the island of Capri for the final decade of his reign. This exhibition has been co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.

Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections
April 9–August 25, 2014
Byzantine artists drew from pagan and early Christian foundations to fashion the opulent and deeply spiritual world of Byzantium (A.D. 330–1453). The establishment of Christianity as the state religion inspired the creation of luminous icons, textiles, architectural sculptures, frescoes, and mosaics to adorn basilicas throughout the empire. Prosperous monasteries illuminated sacred manuscripts and preserved monuments of Greek literature, while private patronage fostered the embellishment of daily life. The exhibition was organized by the Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports, Athens, and the Benaki Museum, Athens, in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Current Exhibitions at the Getty Villa

Past Exhibitions at the Getty Villa