The Getty Center
-
Mercedes Dorame: Woshaa’axre Yaang’aro (Looking Back)
June 20, 2023–July 28, 2024
Los Angeles-based artist Mercedes Dorame’s work explores how we position ourselves in relation to the land we inhabit. For this new commission, Dorame was drawn to the view from the Getty Center across the Pacific Ocean to Pimugna, or Pimu (Catalina Island), long inhabited by the Tongva people. To conjure a return gaze from Pimugna, her installation includes painted views of the coastline and suspended sculptures of abalone—an endangered mollusk and important cultural resource for coastal California Native peoples.
This project is the first “Rotunda Commission,” a series of art installations inspired by the Getty Museum’s collection, architecture, and site. -
Giacomo Ceruti: A Compassionate Eye
July 18–October 29, 2023
In a group of remarkably haunting paintings by Italian 18th-century artist Giacomo Ceruti, beggars, vagrants, and impoverished workers are portrayed in mesmerizing realism, emanating a sense of dignity and emotional depth. Why were these subjects painted? Where and how were these works displayed, and for whom? At a time when severe inequalities continue to mark even the wealthiest societies, Ceruti’s work testifies to the enduring power of art to reflect our shared humanity.
Organized with Fondazione Brescia Musei. -
Eugène Atget: Highlights from the Mary & Dan Solomon Collection
August 1–November 5, 2023
Around the turn of the 20th century, photographer Eugène Atget broke new artistic ground in his obsessive chronicling of Paris and its environs. Walking at dawn with his heavy camera, he captured the soul of the city by focusing on its old alleyways, picturesque shop fronts, architectural details, staircases, and street vendors. This focused exhibition features highlights from the Getty’s recent acquisition of his work, which continues to influence photographers today.
-
Graphic Design in the Middle Ages
August 29, 2023–January 28, 2024
Medieval scribes and artists were some of the world’s first graphic designers, planning individual pages and whole books in creative ways. Exploring the idea of designing a medieval book, from the layout of the page to text as graphic organizing tool, and the role of ornament in the structure of the finished product, this exhibition reveals the ways that design influenced the reading and interpretation of medieval books.
-
Alfredo Boulton: Looking at Venezuela (1928–1978)
August 29, 2023–January 7, 2024
Alfredo Boulton was one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century in Latin America and a seminal photographer of the modern period. Through his body of work, Boulton generated a new cultural definition of Venezuela. This exhibition explores Boulton’s photography, his relationships with modern artists, and his influence on the formalization of art history in his country.
-
Reckoning with Millet’s Man with a Hoe
September 12–December 10, 2023
This focused exhibition charts the tumultuous public life of Jean-François Millet’s iconic depiction of peasant labor, Man with a Hoe, which was bookended by two moments of controversy. First, the painting’s shocking Paris debut in 1863, where it was attacked as a glorification of ugliness and human degradation. Then, over 30 years later in San Francisco, the painting inspired a politically charged poem that critiqued oppressive labor conditions and suggested a great reckoning to come.
-
Finding an Audience: 19th-Century Drawings
September 26, 2023–January 7, 2024
Featuring drawings from the collection by Edgar Degas, Gustav Klimt, Odilon Redon, Sarah Stone, and JMW Turner, this exhibition looks at strategies used by European artists in the 19th century to show and sell their work. It explores the emerging phenomenon of the “exhibition watercolor” and new opportunities provided by the vibrant market for prints.
-
Power and Prosperity: A Monumental Pastel Portrait
October 3, 2023–October 20, 2024
One of the largest pastels made in the 18th century, Maurice Quentin de La Tour’s Portrait of Gabriel Bernard de Rieux is an astonishing object. In this colossal portrait, the ambitious La Tour pushed pastel to new heights, capturing his sitter’s likeness and surrounding de Rieux with the trappings of his wealth: fine furniture, an extensive library, imported porcelain, and a globe turned to display the West coast of Africa. This focused exhibition highlights both La Tour’s technical achievement and the global reality that financed and furnished de Rieux’s world.
-
William Blake: Visionary
October 17, 2023–January 14, 2024
A remarkable printmaker, painter, and poet, William Blake (1757–1827) developed a wildly unconventional world view, representing universal forces of creation and destruction—physical, psychological, historical—through his own cast of characters. By combining his poetry and images on the page through radical graphic techniques, Blake created some of the most striking and enduring imagery in British art. This major international loan exhibition explores the artist-poet’s imaginative world through his most celebrated works.
Organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum in cooperation with Tate. -
Sheila Metzner: From Life
October 31, 2023–February 18, 2024
This exhibition celebrates the artistry of the internationally acclaimed American photographer Sheila Metzner, who made her mark on the history of late 20th-century photography in the areas of fashion and still life. Metzner’s unique style blends aspects of Pictorialism and Modernism to forge an aesthetic that not only stands out in the history of photography, but became closely associated with the best of 1980s fashion, beauty, and decorative arts trends.
-
Arthur Tress: Rambles, Dreams, and Shadows
October 31, 2023–February 18, 2024
The first exhibition to chronicle the early career of Arthur Tress, one of the most innovative American photographers of the postwar era. During his first decade as an emergent professional in the New York photography world (1968–78), his artistic practice evolved from being rooted in the social documentary tradition to a bold new approach drawing inspiration from the inner worlds of fantasies, daydreams, and nightmares.
The Getty Villa
-
The Horse and Rider from Albania
July 26, 2023–January 29, 2024
In 2018, archaeologists discovered the delicate bronze statuette of an equestrian made around 500 BC at the site of Babunjë in Albania, in a region once populated by Greek colonists and known as Illyria. In collaboration with the Albanian Archaeological Institute, Getty conservators have recently completed treatment of the bronze. The exhibition focuses on the process of analyzing, cleaning, and stabilizing this fragile work of art.
-
Sculpted Portraits from Ancient Egypt
November 1, 2023–November 9, 2026
Egypt’s 26th Dynasty (664–526 BC) was a period of revival and renewal. It marks the last great phase of native pharaonic rule in ancient Egypt and is notable for its exceptional artworks, particularly stone sculpture. The achievements of Egyptian artists of this period are vividly expressed in the sculpted portraits of officials associated with the court and priesthood, which were created to be displayed in tombs and temples.
The works in this exhibition are on special loan from the British Museum, London. -
The Egyptian Book of the Dead
November 1, 2023–January 29, 2024
Among their rigorous preparations for eternity, ancient Egyptians developed an intricate set of religious writings to help the deceased achieve a blessed afterlife in union with the solar god Re and the netherworld god Osiris. Known collectively as the Book of the Dead, these ritual spells were inscribed on funerary objects. This exhibition features the Getty's Book of the Dead manuscripts, which have never been on public view.