Published by the Getty Research Institute (GRI) since 2009 and currently available via paid subscription, the Getty Research Journal presents peer-reviewed articles on the visual arts of all cultures, regions, and time periods. Topics featured in the journal relate to Getty collections, initiatives, and broad research interests. The journal welcomes a diversity of perspectives and methodological approaches, and seeks to include work that expands narratives on global culture.
The conversion to a free, open-access journal reflects Getty’s ongoing commitment to open content. The texts will be published under a Creative Commons-Attribution Noncommercial (CC BY-NC) license, allowing for the widest possible access, collaboration, and impact. The Getty Research Journal will be produced and published using Getty’s open-source Quire software and made available in web, PDF, and e-book formats.
Mary Miller, director of the GRI, notes, “Getty has long been committed to the open sharing of content and resources, as seen through our Open Content image program, Arches, Getty Provenance Index, and the Union List of Artist Names, as well as a wide range of other initiatives. By transitioning the Getty Research Journal to an open-access publication, we seek to further remove barriers and extend the reach of our scholarly contributions. We are excited to embark on this new chapter and look forward to the increased dialogue that will result from this decision.”
The first open-access issue is anticipated to be published in May 2024. It will feature essays on a fragmentary Kufic Qurʼan of Early Abbasid style produced in Central Iran; cuttings from a 12th-century Bible written in southeastern France for a Carthusian monastery in the orbit of the Grande Chartreuse; a large folding panorama of the city of Salvador in the state of Bahia, taken around 1880 by Brazilian photographer Rodolpho Lindemann; French archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy’s 19th-century documentation of Ilkhanid monuments including the Emamzadeh Yahya, one of Iran’s most plundered tombs; the wartime encounter between Polish painters stationed in Baghdad and Iraqi artists during the British military reoccupation of Iraq in 1941–45; and the integration of photography and poetry in East German samizdat artists’ books of the 1980s.
Doris Chon, executive editor of the Getty Research Journal, remarks, “The transition to open access signals a pivotal moment in the journal’s 14-year history, advancing our mission to bring innovative scholarship on global visual culture to the broadest possible audience.”
The back issues (nos. 1–18) will remain behind a paywall while an evaluation is completed to determine the feasibility of making them freely available. Current Getty Research Journal subscribers will continue to receive access to the back issues via the University of Chicago Press Journals Division through December 31, 2023. Beginning January 1, 2024, ongoing access to subscribers will be provided via Project MUSE, with more details to follow in the coming months. Project MUSE will also host forthcoming open-access issues. Back issues will remain available on JSTOR via their archival journal collections.
Those wishing to submit articles to the Getty Research Journal for consideration may review author guidelines.