Paintings Conservation

Founded in 1972, the J. Paul Getty Museum Painting Conservation Department cares for and studies the Getty Museum’s paintings collection in collaboration with art historians, scientists, and educators.

With strong support from the Paintings Council, the department also engages in a program of collaborative projects with partners to conserve and study major works of art from outside collections. The lending institutions benefit from the conservation of their works of art and gain new insights into the paintings from their collections. The work is provided in exchange for the opportunity to exhibit the treated artworks in the galleries at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Many of these projects are associated with exhibitions or lead to scholarly publications, lectures, and other activities to contribute to the field and to increase the visibility of conservation to the public more broadly. The department is also committed to building the next generation of museum professionals, through the Getty Foundation’s enduring and rigorous intern and scholar programs.

Since 1990, the Getty’s Painting Conservation Department has partnered with other institutions to restore major works of art from their collections. These occasional partnerships have since evolved into a formal program supported by the Paintings Council, focusing on the technical study, conservation treatment, and subsequent exhibition of the restored works at the Getty Center.

Countless institutions such as the National Museum of Ireland, Ny Carsberg Glyptotek, Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister in Dresden, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and the Kröller-Müller Museum, just to name a few, have participated in the program.

The lending institutions not only benefit from the restorations provided, often receive new insights into the works of art from their collections. Many of the projects are associated with exhibitions or lead to the publication of important new findings in exhibition catalogues and scholarly journals, advancing the field of technical art history. The Getty benefits from the presence of extraordinary works of art in the conservation studio, the scientific laboratories at the Getty Conservation Institute, and the public galleries of the Getty Center.