Top 5 Google Arts & Culture Exhibits from 2021

What were Victorian women doing when they weren’t going to tea parties or bustling their bustles?

Making photo collages, of course! Radical Whimsy, a Google Art & Culture exhibit, was one of Getty’s most viewed in 2021.

You were also drawn in by ancient Egyptian mummy portraits, and enjoyed exploring contemporary work by Asian American photographers. Below are the top five, so get ready to scroll, and enjoy these online presentations that brought many viewers closer to art while museums were still closed during the pandemic.

Irises at the Getty

Though the flower's most popular depiction at the Getty Museum is in a painting by Van Gogh, irises—of which there are 1,750 species and countless varieties—can be seen across all of our collecting areas, and even pop up in our own gardens. This online exhibit unearths the history and meaning of these dramatic and expressive plants with artworks from our galleries and the flowers found in nature.

Faces of Roman Egypt

Come face-to-face with the people who lived thousands of years ago. In ancient Egypt, it was customary to mummify the deceased and create a likeness of them. Some of the people had mummy portraits painted on thin wooden panels or linen shrouds that were affixed to their mummy wrappings. Many of these portraits were removed when the mummies were discovered.

Contemporary Voices in Asian American Photography

Six artists in Getty’s collection reflect on their personal experience of making photographs. Soo Kim, Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, Christine Nguyen, Kunié Sugiura, and Hiroshi Watanabe were all asked to share about their work. Together, they explore built environments, cultural heritage, and the natural world.

Radical Whimsy: Victorian Women and the Art of Photocollage

Two late-19th-century photocollage albums provide insights into how Victorian women found a creative outlet in cutting, pasting, and remixing artforms. They played with scale and perspective and made something entirely new, entertaining, and subversive.

Renoir’s Promenade

Walk through the dappled woods with a couple on a romantic stroll. This Google Arts & Culture exhibit looks at the formal elements of the painting: a woman’s white dress against the dark background, the modesty in how she turns her head, the skillful composition that takes your eye across the canvas and further into the trees.