A Light Touch: Exploring Humor in Drawing
September 23–December 7, 2008
As a result of its immediacy, drawing has for centuries been used to lampoon human character, ridicule physical characteristics, and satirize behavior. While some drawings were intimate objects viewed by individuals or small groups of people, others were transferred into prints with a wider agenda. Different drawing media (watercolor, pen and ink, etc.) often highlight diverse aims and effects. This exhibition will include works by Leonardo da Vinci, Urs Graf, Giambattista Tiepolo, Francisco de Goya, Thomas Rowlandson, and Pierre Bonnard, and will explore brands of humor, from wicked caricatures to wry observations of social injustice.

Sur le motif: Painting in Nature around 1800
September 23, 2008–March 8, 2009
During the late 1700s and early 1800s European artists made a formal practice of working outdoors in the clear, pure light of the Italian countryside, transcribing the atmosphere and depth of picturesque landscape views. Originally intended as studies for more formal, idealized studio paintings, the sketches they created are today considered highly satisfying works of art in their own right. This concise survey exhibition features recent acquisitions by artists such as Jean-Victor Bertin, Jean-Joseph Xavier Bidauld, Camille Corot, Simon Denis, and Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, supplemented by loans from local collections.

Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California
October 14, 2008–March 1, 2009
Dialogue among Giants presents the photographs of Carleton Watkins (American, 18291916) in the context of the birth and evolution of photography in California. The exhibition considers the social, political, economic, and artistic developments in California between the time of statehood in 1850 and the mid-1880s. It includes approximately 150 works, from daguerreotypes by unknown makers to mammoth-plate photographs by Watkins and his contemporaries.

Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910–1917
November 18, 2008–April 19, 2009
Drawing principally from the Getty Research Institute's superb collection of Russian modernist books, Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910—1917 brings into focus a brief, but tumultuous period when Russian visual artists and poets, including Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich, Alexei Kruchenykh, and Velimir Khlebnikov, challenged Symbolism and revolutionized book art. They fabricated pocket-sized, hand-lithographed books and juxtaposed primitive and abstract imagery with a transrational poetry they called zaum' ("beyonsense"). The exhibition traces the avant-garde's use of the materials of their book art—imagery, language and its sounds, design, graphic technique—to convey humor, parody, and an intriguing ambivalence and apprehension about Russia's past, present, and future.

The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry
November 18, 2008–February 8, 2009
The Belles Heures of John, Duke of Berry is one of the most beloved books of the Middle Ages and one of the most sumptuous. Painted by the Limbourg brothers when the art of manuscript illumination in France reached new heights of elegance and sophistication, the book, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be presented with its individual leaves unbound. The resulting display offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the visitor to walk through the book to view all of its major miniatures, a unique gallery of paintings of sublime beauty.

Captured Emotions: Baroque Painting in Bologna, 1575–1725
December 16, 2008–May 3, 2009
In the late sixteenth century, a small group of artists from Bologna changed the course of art history. This exhibition tells the extraordinary story of the Carracci family, who reinvigorated the art of painting with tremendous energy and vitality. Their achievement set standards that remained authoritative for more than two centuries. A selection of key works by the Carracci and their followers brings this artistic triumph to life. Twenty-seven of them—most never exhibited before in North America—are on loan from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, one of the world's premier collections of old master paintings. This exhibition has been co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

Drawing the Classical Figure
December 23, 2008–March 8, 2009
Mastering the depiction of the human figure has long been a cornerstone of an artist's training. This survey of drawings from the 1300s to the 1800s examines how the rediscovery classical sculpture influenced the ways in which artists rendered the human form. A selection of Italian, Flemish, Dutch, Swiss, French, and British drawings illustrates the powerful aesthetic, philosophical, and political forces that informed the representation of the classical figure.

In Focus: The Portrait
January 27–June 14, 2009
Since its invention, photography has forged a revolution in documentary evidence and artistic representation, especially in the realm of portraiture. A more democratic, inexpensive medium than most traditional artistic media, photography made portraits available to a wider public. This exhibition, drawn exclusively from the Getty Museum's collection, presents the evolution of the genre from commissioned portraits to intimate views as well as those reflecting social concerns. Works by such photographers as Félix Nadar, Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, and Nan Goldin are included.

German and Central European Manuscript Illumination
February 24–May 24, 2009
Highlighting masterworks from the Ottonian, Romanesque, and Gothic periods, this exhibition features manuscripts and leaves from the Museum's holdings of German and Central European illumination. Illustrating the artistic achievement of one of the greatest epochs of German and Central European art, the selection show how manuscript illumination continued to flourish, even after the invention of the printed book in the 1400s.

Tales in Sprinkled Gold: Japanese Lacquer for European Collectors
March 3–May 24, 2009
The Mazarin Chest and the Van Diemen Box (now in the collection of Japanese art at London's Victoria and Albert Museum) were made in about 1635 for European patrons. These beautiful and important examples of Japanese export lacquer are the centerpieces of this exhibition, which also includes a selection of lacquer objects that provide history and context. Tales in Sprinkled Gold marks the completion of a major research and conservation project on the Mazarin Chest that was partially funded by the Getty Foundation.

Made for Manufacture
March 31–July 5, 2009
For both economic and creative reasons, many Renaissance and Baroque artists made drawings for sculpture and decorative arts. Such designs are appreciated not only for their aesthetic merit, but for how they were actually used. This exhibition comprises drawings for three-dimensional objects to be made in a variety of media, including metal, wood, glass, ceramic, and stone, with particular attention paid to how the form of a design reflects an object's function and how two-dimensional drawings were transferred to three-dimensional works of art.

Taking Shape: Finding Sculpture in the Decorative Arts
March 31–July 5, 2009
Focusing on objects rarely considered to be works of sculptural art, this exhibition explores the ornamental qualities of sculpture and the sculptural aspects of functional or ceremonial objects. It showcases the inventive metal, wood, and ceramic objects, such as furniture, light fixtures, and accessories for the hearth from the collections of the Getty Museum and Temple Newsam, a country house near Leeds, England. Forty extraordinary works from England, France, and Italy—executed in the exuberant Baroque and Rococo styles popular during the 1600s and 1700s—are featured. The exhibition is conceived in partnership with the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.

Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance
March 31–August 9, 2009
Paul Outerbridge Jr. (American, 1896–1958) was a visionary for his use of color and his efforts to raise advertising photography to the status of art. More than 80 prints illustrate his creative and technical mastery of the medium: from his early precisionist still life compositions in platinum, which quickly established his reputation, to his later vibrant color photographs of female nudes, which were considered too provocative to be shown in museums during his lifetime.

Jo Ann Callis: Woman Twirling
March 31–August 9, 2009
In 1977 Susan Sontag's now-classic collection of serious criticism, On Photography, brought photography to center stage. That same year, Jo Ann Callis, an art student at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had learned to draw, paint, and photograph, received her master of fine arts degree. Her mentor, legendary art professor Robert Heinecken, taught that photographs should be made, not found, and Callis has been constructing photographs, as well as paintings and sculpture, in her studio ever since. Over the past 30 years, she has borrowed inspiration and imagery from the best of Los Angeles's traditions in film, fashion, and design. Fabricated tableaux of the 1980s and 1990s dominate this photographs exhibition selected from the Getty's holdings, gifts from the photographer Gay Block, and the artist's own archive.

Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the Colonial City
May 19–October 18, 2009
The city of Algiers, legendary for its white walls cascading to the azure sea below, reflects the turbulent history of colonial occupation. Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the Colonial City, an exhibition featuring this city's urban fabric, is drawn from diverse 19th- and 20th-century visual sources collected over the last two decades by the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. The exhibition will map, for example, an itinerary of the Casbah and the European quarters through vintage postcards, illustrate the discourse on the Algerian house with chromolithographic architectural renderings and early photographs, and juxtapose the long-tradition of staged Orientalist representations of "indigenous" people with photojournalist coverage from the Algerian War. More than a colonial capital, Algiers served as a testing ground for urban renewal with its walls extending metaphorically across the Mediterranean to take part in the search for modernity.

The Psalms Illuminated
June 9–August 16, 2009
The 150 psalms of the Bible played a central role in Christian religious life throughout the Middle Ages, their elusive poetry attracting both written interpretation and painted decoration. Medieval artists illustrated the psalms in a variety of ways, at times concentrating on the literal meaning of single verses, and at other times addressing broader themes, such as the role of the Psalms in preparing the Christian faithful for the Last Judgment. This exhibition celebrates the importance of the Psalms in medieval devotion and reveals the splendor and variety of the illumination developed to accompany them.

Foundry to Finish
June 23–October 18, 2009
Get a rare look at how bronze sculpture is born in Foundry to Finish. Visitors explore a process called direct lost-wax casting&38212;a method that yields a single, unique bronze cast of an artist's original clay-and-wax model. Thirteen step-by-step models illustrate the sculpting and casting process. Through X-radiographs, visitors can even get a glimpse inside an original sculpture to see firsthand evidence of how the bronze was cast. The installation complements Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, an international touring exhibition also on view.

Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution
June 30–September 27, 2009
Taking advantage of the current resurgence of interest in sculpture and a widespread taste for Renaissance and Baroque art, this exhibition brings together a large number of spectacular bronzes that exemplify an art form that has been described as "among the most splendid manifestations of artistic genius in France." It is the first comprehensive exhibition on the art of French bronze sculpture from its beginnings during the Renaissance until the end of the ancien régime. Co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Musée du Louvre, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this exhibition reflects the latest scholarship on the subject. At the same time, it provides a platform for the exploration of 16th- to 18th-century French culture on many levels.

Current Exhibitions at the Getty Center

Past Exhibitions at the Getty Center

Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)
October 30, 2008–February 9, 2009
This exhibition presents new works and poetry by Jim Dine based on ancient Greek sculptures in the Museum's collection. The first contemporary art project at the Getty Villa, this installation illustrates the continuing influence of antiquity on living artists.

Reconstructing Identity: A Statue of a God from Dresden
December 18, 2008–June 1, 2009
This exhibition examines the restoration history of a Roman statue from the Dresden State Art Collections. Since its discovery in the 1600s, the figure has been successively restored as Alexander the Great, Bacchus, and Antinous in the guise of the wine god. Damaged in World War II, the sculpture was recently reassembled by Getty and Dresden conservators.

The Getty Commodus: Roman Portraits and Modern Copies
December 18, 2008–June 1, 2009
The Getty's marble bust of the Roman emperor Commodus was acquired in 1992 as an Italian work of the 1500s, but specialists later proposed that it may be from the second century A.D. Putting the object in context with Roman portraits and modern copies from the Mannerist and Neoclassical periods, this exhibition shows how curators and conservators have determined the sculpture's date.

Fragment to Vase: Approaches to Ceramic Restoration
December 18, 2008–June 1, 2009
Exploring contemporary issues in vase restoration, this exhibition provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Getty conservators assemble ancient pottery fragments into understandable forms. It illustrates how technical innovations, scholarly contributions, and aesthetic choices combine to reveal the original design and iconography of ceramic masterpieces.

Current Exhibitions at the Getty Villa

Past Exhibitions at the Getty Villa