Getty Undergraduate Interns Take Center Stage in Manuscripts Exhibition
Manuscripts with personal interpretations from Getty interns will be on view at the Getty Center
[Top, left to right]: Bartholomew Chu, University of Southern California; Luke Godinez, University of California Los Angeles; Maya Janaswamy, University of California Los Angeles; Orisha Lamon, University of California Los Angeles; Alejandro Caminos, California Institute of the Arts; Enrique Del Rivero Ferrer, California State University Fullerton; Jonathan Wong-Hayden, University of Southern California; Isa Aguilar, Occidental College; Cat Broderick, University of Southern California; Zohar Kennard, Rhode Island School of Design; Layla Alamillo, Cal Poly Pomona; Simran Deo, California State University Northridge; Maya Le, Bowdoin College; Meagan Kim, California State University Long Beach; Val Machado, University of California Berkeley; Chloe Wilson, University of California Irvine
Photo: © J. Paul Getty Trust 2024
Body Content
The J. Paul Getty Museum presents Our Voices, Our Getty: Reflecting on Manuscripts, an exhibition of manuscripts accompanied by reflections written by interns from the 2024 Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship program.
The exhibition will be on view at the Getty Center from February 4 through April 27, 2025.
This is the second time that Getty interns and museum professionals have collaborated in this way, following on the success of Our Voices, Our Getty: Reflecting on Drawings in 2023.
“This was an exciting opportunity for interns to work through the creation of an exhibition and interpret art in a relatable way,” said Elizabeth Morrison, senior curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. “We are delighted that this exhibition showcases the diverse voices of our interns and hope that it will inspire visitors to also bring their personal experiences and thoughts to these historic objects.”
Using nature as a theme, the 16 interns from universities across the country were encouraged to examine and respond freely to manuscripts that featured the natural world. None of the manuscript pages featured in the exhibition have ever been shown before at the Getty Center, resulting in a variety of personal and creative commentary: intimate emotional responses, poetic explorations, letters to loved ones, and even imaginative fiction.
Maya Le from Bowdoin College was reminded of her family when reflecting upon A Hedgehog. The illuminated page tells the story of how a hedgehog gathered grapes for its young by spearing them on its spikes. “My dad loves grapes too—he loves them so much that for his birthday, my mom once made him grape pancakes,” wrote Le. “I’m reminded that among the many ways to love, the best ones are often simple (and involve grapes!).”
A Hedgehog, from Bestiary (text in Latin), about 1270, French. Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink. Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XV 3 (83.MR.173), fol. 79v
Zohar Kennard from Rhode Island School of Design finds comfort and a deeper meaning to significant moments in her life when looking at A Man Fishing; Zodiacal Sign of Pisces. “‘It’s because you’re a Pisces’—words that still echo from my dad, a self-proclaimed astrologist who finds answers in the stars,” Kennard writes. “Gazing at the symbolic fish in this manuscript, representing the sign my father and I share, I am reminded that sometimes it’s comforting to assign meaning to something greater than ourselves.”
“I am very grateful that we had the opportunity to bring our modern voices to these medieval manuscripts. I hope these medieval objects capture the imagination of the visitors, as they did for me, and our words resonate with them as well,” said Bartholomew Chu, University of Southern California. “It was such a privilege working with the other interns to make this project come to life, and I am very excited to show the public what we came up with. Lastly, I want to thank everyone who was involved—especially those behind the scenes—for their hard work in supporting this exhibition.”
Since 1993, the Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship program has provided paid, full-time internships in core areas of museum work such as curatorship, conservation, education, publications, and public programming to students from backgrounds that have been underrepresented in the arts. To date, Getty has introduced over 3,700 interns to career possibilities in the arts and continues to support early career professionals through the Getty Marrow Emerging Professionals program.
A separate display in the same gallery will feature the Getty Museum’s recent acquisition of a leaf from the Hours of Louis XII, depicting the Virgin Mary lamenting over Christ’s dead body. The acquisition was discovered to be the companion page of an acquisition Getty made in 2004, a portrait of the French king Louis XII surrounded by his patron saints. Both pages will be shown together, reunited for the first time in almost 200 years.
Our Voices, Our Getty: Reflecting on Manuscripts is supported by Elizabeth Morrison, senior curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum, and Larisa Grollemond, associate curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum, with project management assistance from Bartholomew Chu, Getty Marrow undergraduate intern in the department of manuscripts in 2024.