Getty Villa

In 1954, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty opened a gallery adjacent to his home in Pacific Palisades. The villa design was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum It was designed by architects Robert E. Langdon, Jr., and Ernest C. Wilson, Jr., in consultation with archeologist Norman Neuerburg. It opened in 1974, but was never visited by Getty, who died in 1976. Following his death, the museum inherited $661 million, and began planning a much larger campus, the Getty Center, in nearby Brentwood. The museum overcame neighborhood opposition to its new campus plan by agreeing to limit the total size of the development on the Getty Center site. To meet the museum's total space needs, the museum decided to split between the two locations with the Getty Villa housing the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. In 1993, the Getty Trust selected the Boston architects Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti to design a renovation of the Getty Villa and its campus. In 1997, portions of the museum's collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities were moved to the Getty Center for display, and the Getty Villa was closed for renovation. The collection was restored during the renovation. In 2004, during the renovation, the museum and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), began holding summer institutes in Turkey, studying the conservation of Middle Eastern Art. Reopened on January 28, 2006, the Getty Villa shows Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities within Roman-inspired architecture and surrounded by Roman-style gardens. The art is arranged by themes, e.g., Gods and Goddesses, Dionysos and the Theater, and Stories of the Trojan War. The new architectural plan surrounding the Villa – which was conceived by Machado and Silvetti Associates (who were also responsible for the plans for the renovated museum) – is designed to simulate an archaeological dig. Architectural Record has praised their work on the Getty Villa as "a near miracle – a museum that elicits no smirks from the art world ... a masterful job ... crafting a sophisticated ensemble of buildings, plazas, and landscaping that finally provides a real home for a relic of another time and place." In 2016–2018 the collection was reinstalled in a chronological arrangement emphasizing art-historical themes. world leaders dinner hosted at the villa by President Joe Biden in 2022 There has been controversy surrounding the Greek and Italian governments' claim that objects in the collection were looted and should be repatriated. In 2007, the Getty signed an agreement to return 40 looted items to Italy. The villa was host to leaders of the Western Hemisphere for dinner, held by President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden in honor of the 9th Summit of the Americas on June 9, 2022, which was a first for the Villa. On January 7, 2025, the villa's grounds caught fire as a result of the Palisades Fire. No structures or artwork were damaged but roughly 1,400 trees were burned. The Villa reopened on June 27, 2025, following remediation work. ==Facility and programs==

The Getty Villa hosts live performances in both its indoor auditorium and its outdoor amphitheatre, the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater. Indoor play-readings included The Trojan Women, Aristophanes' The Frogs, and Euripides' Helen. Indoor musical performances, which typically relate to art exhibits, included: Musica Angelica, De Organographia, and Songs from the Fifth Age: Sones de México in Concert. The auditorium held a public reading of Homer's Iliad. Outdoor performances included Aristophanes' Peace, Aeschylus's Agamemnon, and Sophocles' Elektra. The Getty Villa hosts visiting exhibitions beyond its own collections. For example, in March 2011, it hosted "In Search of Biblical Lands", a photographic exhibition which included scenes of the Middle East dating back to the 1840s. The Getty Villa offers special educational programs for children. A special Family Forum gallery offers activities including decorating Greek vases and projecting shadows onto a screen that represents a Greek urn. The room also has polystyrene props from Greek and Roman culture for children to handle and use to cast shadows. The Getty Villa also offers children's guides to the other exhibits. The Getty Conservation Institute offers a Master's Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation in association with the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. Classes and research are conducted in the museum wing of the ranch house. The program was the first of its kind in the United States. ==Campus==

While the Getty Villa is located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, it self-identifies with the city of Malibu, as it is located just east of that city's limits. The museum complex sits on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which is about from the entrance to the property. An outdoor entry pavilion is also built into the hill near the 248-car, four story, South Parking garage at the southern end of the Outer Peristyle. To the west of the Museum is the 450-seat Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, Writing in 2008, the architectural critic Calum Storrie described the overall effect: What the Getty Villa achieves, first by seclusion, then by control of access, and ultimately through the architecture, is a sense of detachment from its immediate environment. Gardens There are four different gardens on the grounds of the Getty Villa, with plants native to the Mediterranean and known to have been cultivated by the ancient Romans. The largest garden is the Outer Peristyle, an exact proportional replica of the one at the Villa dei Papiri. The garden is , with a long pool at the center. Traditional Roman landscaping designs are replicated with manicured bay laurel, boxwood, oleander, and viburnum shrubs. There are rows of date palms lining each of the long sides of the Outer Peristyle garden. Each corner features pomegranate trees surrounded by ornamental plants like acanthus, ivy, hellebore, lavender, and iris. Copies of Roman bronzes excavated at the Villa dei Papiri and elsewhere are scattered throughout the garden. Just west of the Outer Peristyle is the Herb Garden, where traditional herbs sourced from ancient Roman texts are cultivated along with a variety of fruit trees: pomegranate, fig, apricot, apple, citrus, and pear. The garden is surrounded by grapevines, and bounded by an olive grove planted on terraces above the garden. The East Garden is small and secluded, surrounded by laurel and plane trees. Its chief feature is an exact replica of the famous shell and mosaic fountain at the House of the Great Fountain in Pompeii, but there is also a circular fountain at the center of a basin filled with aquatic plants, around which the garden is oriented. The fourth and final garden is the Inner Peristyle. Like the Outer Peristyle, a long, narrow, marble lined pool forms the centerpiece of the landscaping. Along each side are replicas of bronze female statues from the Villa dei Papiri, modelled to appear as if they are drawing water from the pool. In each corner of the garden is a replica white marble fountain, and there are several bronze copies of famous Greek sculptures like the Doryphoros and busts of Greek philosophers like Pythagoras and Democritus. ==Collection==

'', part of the museum's collection The collection has 44,000 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities dating from 6,500 BC to 400 AD, of which approximately 1,400 are on view. Among the outstanding items is Victorious Youth, one of few life-size Greek bronze statues to have survived to modern times. The Lansdowne Heracles is a Hadrianic Roman sculpture in the manner of Lysippus. The Villa has jewelry and coin collections and an extensive 20,000 volume library of books covering art from these periods. The Villa displays the Getty kouros, which the museum lists as "Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery" because scientific analysis is inconclusive as to whether the marble statue can be dated to Greek times. If genuine, the Getty kouros is one of only twelve remaining intact lifesize kouroi. The Marbury Hall Zeus is an tall marble statue that was recovered from ruins at Tivoli near Rome. ==Gallery==

File:060807-002-GettyVilla002.jpg|Outer Peristyle File:Getty Villa SW12.jpg|Outer Peristyle – architectural detail File:060807-006-GettyVilla005courtyard.jpg|Inner Peristyle File:060807-004-GettyVilla003gallery.jpg|Gallery within the Villa File:Lansdowne Herakles.JPG|The Lansdowne Herakles, part of the museum's collection File:Getty villa 175 (6571418459).jpg|Ancient Roman glassware in the Getty Villa File:Kouros Real or Fake.jpg|Getty kouros, part of the museum's collection File:Zeus Getty Villa.jpg|Marbury Hall Zeus, King of the Gods, at the Getty Villa File:Head of Athena Getty Villa.jpg|Athena, Goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, crafts, justice and skill File:Getty Villa SW01.jpg|Roman-Egyptian Female Mummy Portrait File:Getty Villa SW02.jpg|Roman gold medallion File:Getty Villa SW03.jpg|Roman bronze statuette File:Getty Villa SW04.jpg|Roman fresco fragment of a peacock File:Getty Villa SW05.jpg|Roman head-shaped glass vessels File:Getty Villa SW06.jpg|Venus and Eros in Marble Room File:Getty Villa SW07.jpg|Statue of a Siren File:Getty Villa SW08.jpg|Victorious Youth, part of the museum's collection File:Etruscan Lion and Swan.jpg|Etruscan amber pendant of a lion and a swan File:Etruscan Ring.jpg|Etruscan gold ring depicting a siren, sphinx, and hippocamp File:Getty Villa - Collection (5304880133).jpg|Grave Stele of Pollis (480 BC) ==See also==