Getty Announces Landmark Gift for K-12 School Visit Program

The J. Paul Getty Trust announced today a $12 million gift from the Camilla Chandler Family Foundation to support the Getty Museum’s Education Department and its ongoing work with students and educators across Los Angeles.

The fund will be established as the Mia Chandler Endowment for School Visits and supports Getty’s free bus service for Title I and similarly eligible schools for field trips to both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa. The record gift is the largest financial contribution Getty has received since J. Paul Getty’s original bequest.

“We are thrilled to introduce the Mia Chandler Endowment for School Visits and to carry on Mia’s legacy of championing arts and education,” says Katherine E. Fleming, President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “Education and access are at the heart of Getty’s mission. This transformational gift will greatly deepen and amplify the work of our Education Department as we continue to find innovative ways to provide the lifelong inspiration of art to young people across Southern California and beyond.”

Camilla “Mia” Chandler was a leading voice in the Los Angeles arts community, and her passion had a profound impact on students and youth throughout the city. She built on the Chandler family’s remarkable influence in shaping the civic and cultural life of Los Angeles through her many philanthropic commitments to education, the environment, and the arts. She is recognized for her decades-long work with LACMA, starting as a docent and becoming a founding trustee and the board’s first female president. Her pioneering efforts included providing funds for bus service for field trips by elementary school students in underserved areas. Chandler was a devoted supporter of the Southwest Museum and Los Angeles Music Center, as well as a longtime trustee of Caltech, the Nature Conservancy, Wellesley College, and several Pasadena schools, among other institutions. The endowed fund at Getty honors her lifelong commitment to the arts and education in Los Angeles.

“My mother was always interested in sharing her appreciation of fine arts from her early days as a docent at the Southwest Museum to her long association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,” says Alexander Spear, son of Mia Chandler. “It was always important to her that school-aged children had access to the exhibits under the guidance of knowledgeable docents. This gift to the Getty is a very fitting tribute to her legacy enabling children from a variety of economic backgrounds to have that exposure for years to come. I think she would be very pleased.”

The Getty Museum’s Education Department is a leader in offering a range of educational programs and resources for adults, college students and faculty, K-12 teachers and their students, museum educators, and more. A cornerstone of the department is Getty’s School Visit Program, which provides transformative, curriculum-connected experiences for K-12 students across Southern California.

“The Museum’s commitment to K-12 students dates back to 1977 at the Getty Villa and to 1998 shortly after the Getty Center opened,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Since then, we have expanded our initiatives, becoming one of the largest school visit programs in the country with the potential to reach more than 100,000 K-12 student visitors each year from public schools, charter schools, and independent schools throughout Los Angeles and beyond. We are delighted and grateful that this fund honoring Mia Chandler’s legacy will sustain a crucial and much-appreciated element of our outreach to local communities long into the future.”

Getty offers fully subsidized bus transportation for eligible school groups within a 30-mile radius, ensuring that transportation barriers do not prevent students at under-resourced schools from accessing the Getty Center and the Getty Villa. In 2024-25, Getty welcomed 47,128 students and chaperones from Title I schools, and demand for the program continues to grow. The Mia Chandler Endowment for School Visits will provide a permanent, dedicated fund to support these programs in the face of rising costs and continued pressure on arts education funding in schools.

“Thanks to the generosity of the Camilla Chandler Family Foundation, we can welcome even more young minds into the Museum—many for the very first time,” says Keishia Gu, head of Education at the Getty Museum. “This endowment helps us deepen our commitment to equity in arts education by expanding access for Title I schools. Every visit is a chance for students to see themselves in art, to ask big questions, and to feel inspired by the world around them.”