The Getty Center was just named one of the best museums in the U.S., and it's in good company
Citing its status as not only a world-class research institute and museum, but a free, immaculately designed destination offering dazzling views of Los Angeles, this outpost of the J. Paul Getty Museum – Malibu's Getty Villa being the other branch – finally gets the national recognition it deserves.
Not only does it house an unmatched collection – spanning media from Medieval to Modern by van Gogh, Manet and Monet, Gentileschi, Renoir, Munch, Rembrandt, Stieglitz, Caillebotte, Degas, Fragonard, Turner and Blake – but it can only be accessed by a 15-minute tram ride that affords the Center's million-plus yearly visitors a chance to take in views of Los Angeles, and the deer frolicking below.
There are also five gorgeous gardens: a street-level sculpture garden with works by modern masters Elisabeth Frink and Isamu Noguchi; two sky-high grounds with sculptures by Magritte, Calder, Miró and Hepworth; a cactus garden with panoramic views; and the Robert Irwin-designed Central Garden, bursting with manicured hedges, streams and over 500 varieties of plant life.
Current exhibitions include a history of queer photography (with stunning shots of Josephine Baker, Keith Haring and the legendary Julius' Bar 'Sip-In') and an appreciation of Artemisia Gentilleschi's strong, oft-beheading women, with a 40th anniversary celebration of the forever-radical Guerilla Girls on the horizon.
The $1.3 billion center opened in 1997 after a much-delayed, yearslong construction process. Pritzker-winning (now disgraced) abstract artist Richard Meier was selected to design the building's architecture, which makes brilliant use of two ridges on the Brentwood hilltop on which it sits.
Aside from its public-friendly museum, the Center also houses the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the J. Paul Getty Trust. (If the name Getty sounds familiar, look up virtually any famous image and look for the watermark.)
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