Getty Names Joan Weinstein to Newly Created Role Overseeing Institution-Wide Program Planning

Getty announced today the appointment of Dr. Joan Weinstein, director of the Getty Foundation, to the newly created role of vice president for Getty-wide program planning. She will develop strategy across all four of the institution's divisions—the Museum, Research Institute, Conservation Institute, and Foundation—to strengthen Getty's impact in areas from art historical scholarship to community partnerships.

As director of the Getty Foundation, a role she has held since 2019, Weinstein has been responsible for Getty’s international grantmaking in support of museums, art history, and conservation. She is perhaps best known as the creative force and co-director behind the nation's largest art event, PST ART, a collaboration that Getty initiates every five years among more than 70 cultural organizations across Southern California. The most recent edition of PST ART, Art & Science Collide (2024–25), presented dozens of exhibitions, hundreds of programs, and the work of more than 800 artists to some four million visitors.

Heading Getty’s community partnerships at the Foundation, Weinstein is also noted for galvanizing funder communities at critical moments. She led the recent LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund, which awarded more than $16 million to artists and arts workers impacted by the Eaton and Palisades Fires, and spearheaded the LA Arts Recovery Fund in 2020, assembling a consortium that provided more than $36 million in COVID relief to 90 arts nonprofits in Los Angeles County.

“As Getty continues to elevate the work of our four programs, no one can match Joan in operating within and across divisions to achieve our ambitious goals,” said Katherine E. Fleming, president and CEO of Getty. “Her deep knowledge of Getty and the fields in which we are active, combined with her bold leadership and strategic imagination, promise to bring our collective work to new levels.”

“I'm deeply honored to serve in this new role and look forward to working even more closely with talented staff across Getty,” Weinstein said. “At a time when the arts and humanities face daunting new challenges, we have a shared opportunity to show why they matter, invigorate scholarship, engage new audiences, and better serve our communities.”

Before becoming director of the Foundation in 2019, Weinstein served as its senior program officer, associate director, and deputy director. Among the initiatives launched under her direction have been Connecting Art Histories, a program fostering international scholarly exchange across Latin America, Asia, East Central Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin; Keeping It Modern, an initiative to advance the conservation of modern architecture; and MOSAIKON, a ten-year collaboration with the Getty Conservation Institute to improve the care of Roman-era mosaics in North Africa and the Middle East. Editions of PST ART that she co-directed have included the inaugural Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945–1980 (2011), a paradigm-shifting survey of the birth of the LA art scene, and PST: LAILA (2017), which explored Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles.

Weinstein received her BA in Humanities and Aesthetics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), studied at Phillips-Universität Marburg in Germany, and received her PhD in art history from UCLA. She began her career teaching art history at the University of Pittsburgh and is the author of books and articles on the history of modern art in Weimar Germany. Throughout her career she has been active in professional organizations in the fields of art history and philanthropy and has served on non-profit boards, including the Mike Kelley Foundation of the Arts and the Advisory Board of the Thomas Mann House. She was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Weinstein’s appointment is effective immediately. While serving as vice president for Getty-wide program planning, she will also continue as Foundation director until a successor is appointed.