Visit

Garden Tour

Daily
11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm
Getty Center

The gardens of the Getty are the focus of this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outsideat the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Exhibition Tour: Jackson Pollock's "Mural"

Daily through June 1, 2014
1:30 pm, 2 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center

This 30-minute talk examines Jackson Pollock's Mural (1943), an iconic example of 20th-century American painting. See it for the first time since its conservation at the Getty. Meet the docent at the Information Desk.

Spotlight of the Week

Daily through April 20, 2014
12 pm, 1 pm, 2 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center

Experience That Profile, a monumental sculpture that incorporates art and architecture with the surrounding landscape in this 15-minute talk. Meet the docent at the Information Desk.

Architecture Tour

Daily
10:15 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm
Museum Entrance Hall, Getty Center

Discover more about Richard Meier's architecture and the design of the Getty Center site in this 45-minute tour. Meet the docent outside at the bench under the sycamore trees near the front entrance to the Museum.

Focus Tour: Fit for a King

Daily through May 4, 2014
12:30 pm
Museum Galleries, Getty Center

Explore the Getty's collection of 17th- and 18th-century art in this one-hour tour of French decorative arts, paintings, and sculpture made during the reigns of kings Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. Meet the docent at the Information Desk.

The Life of Art: Context, Collecting, and Display

Daily
South Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center

From the time an object is made until the day it enters a museum's collection, it may be displayed, used, and perceived in different ways. The Life of Art takes selected objects from the Getty Museum's galleries and encourages visitors to sit down and spend time with them, offering the opportunity to examine them closely to understand how they were made and functioned, why they were collected, and how they have been displayed. Through careful looking, what may be learned about the maker and previous owners of a French gilt-bronze wall light, for example, or the transformation in England of a Chinese porcelain bowl? Close engagement reveals the full lives of these works and why they continue to be collected and cherished today.

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Werner Herzog: Hearsay of the Soul

Daily through April 20, 2014
North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center

A new acquisition by the Getty Museum's Department of Photographs, Hearsay of the Soul (2012) is a five-channel video installation by celebrated German filmmaker Werner Herzog. It combines the early-seventeenth-century landscape etchings of Dutch artist Hercules Segers with recent scores and a performance by Dutch cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger, resulting in a richly layered work that is at once intimate and epic.

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A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography

Daily through June 8, 2014
West Pavilion, Lower Level, Getty Center

In 1839, just two years after Victoria became queen of Great Britain and Ireland, the medium of photography was announced to the world. This exhibition explores the relationship between the new art and the young queen, whose passion for collecting photographs began in the 1840s and whose photographic image became synonymous with an entire age. With important loans from The Royal Collection Trust shown alongside masterpieces from the Getty Museum, the exhibition displays rare daguerreotypes, private portraits of the Royal Family, and a selection of prints by early masters such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Roger Fenton, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

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Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense

Daily through June 8, 2014
West Pavilion, Lower Level, Getty Center

Since the mid-1970s, Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948) has used photography to investigate how visual representation interprets and distills history. This exhibition brings together three series by the artist—habitat dioramas, wax portraits, and early photographic negatives—that present objects of historical and cultural significance from various museum collections. By photographing subjects that reimagine or record moments from the distant past, Sugimoto critiques the medium's presumed capacity to portray history with accuracy.

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Jackson Pollock's Mural

Daily through June 1, 2014
West Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center

Commissioned by art collector and dealer Peggy Guggenheim for the entry to her New York City apartment in 1943, Mural by Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956) is now considered one of the iconic paintings of the twentieth century. Following extensive study and treatment at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute, this exhibition presents the newly restored work alongside findings from the Getty's research. It explores a transitional moment in Pollock's career, as he moved toward the experimental application of paint that would become the hallmark of his technique.

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Hatched! Creating Form with Line

Daily through June 1, 2014
West Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center

Celebrating the art of hatching—closely–drawn parallel lines that suggest relief or shadow—this exhibition includes powerful examples from the Getty Museum's drawings collection by artists as diverse as Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. One of the most basic and timeless artistic techniques, hatching can create the immediate illusion of three-dimensional solidity on a two-dimensional sheet of paper. Extremely versatile, it can also be used to give the impression of movement or speed.

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Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Illumination at the Cultural Crossroads

Daily through June 22, 2014
North Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center

The glittering courts of the Byzantine Empire (A.D. 330–1453) have long been admired for their rich tradition of manuscript illumination. The prominent use of gold, a striking sense of naturalism, and a distinctive spiritual character were among the widely celebrated aspects of Byzantine art in the Middle Ages. These qualities inspired artists and patrons in other Christian locales, including western Europe, Armenia, and Ethiopia. Primarily drawn from the Getty Museum's collection, this exhibition also features important loans in partnership with Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, on view at the Getty Villa from April 9 through August 25, 2014.

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In Focus: Ansel Adams

Daily through July 20, 2014
West Pavilion, Lower Level, Getty Center

In the 1970s, Ansel Adams—internationally renowned photographer and conservationist—sought to preserve his archive for future generations by creating the "Ansel Adams Museum Set," a portfolio of his greatest work. Inspired by the recent acquisition of a "Museum Set," this exhibition also includes earlier works by Adams from the Museum's permanent collection, offering visitors an opportunity to view changes in Adams's printing styles and an understanding of the photographer's assessment of his life's work.

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