Dear Getty community,

I hope this note finds you all well and further adjusting to our new circumstances. I write to you today in lieu of our traditional all-staff meeting, to provide an update on recent Board of Trustee discussions and progress on other activities around the Getty. Several presentations planned for our April staff meeting will be postponed until we are able to gather in person again.

Coronavirus response

Our Trustees have been deeply engaged in our overall response to the coronavirus crisis. They want to be assured that as stewards of the J. Paul Getty Trust we are meeting not only our fiduciary obligations, but our commitment to all of you, to continuing to carry out our mission, and to the communities we serve here in Los Angeles and around the world.

You’ve seen much detail from others this week, and I hope that you are feeling the deep gratitude that has been expressed for all that you are doing to keep us operating and moving forward during this time of crisis. Our staff remain our priority; your work is critical to the execution of all we do. Despite financial uncertainty and volatility, we are making decisions today designed to continue to support all of you through this difficult time. In addition to moving all of our work forward at this time, we also are focusing our efforts on how Getty will recover and what we need to do to be ready for that eventuality. We are so fortunate to know that we will reopen and we can all look forward to it.

It has been increasingly clear that many arts and cultural organizations around the region, and around the country, are in less fortunate circumstances. We’ve seen the difficult measures they are taking now to remain solvent; others may have difficulty recovering. And still other members of our immediate community, including those service organizations that we had planned to support through our Getty Day of Service, also struggle right now to meet growing needs. Among the questions that many of you have asked is “how can Getty help?” And “what can I do to help?”

Getty is working on plans to help regional arts organizations. We will do what we can with our own philanthropic resources, understanding that we face financial limitations in needing to support our own operations. The Getty Foundation, led by Joan Weinstein, has been hard at work for several weeks now to determine the best ways for us to help local arts organizations and who might partner with us in this endeavor.

For those who want to do something personally, our Getty Community Service Committee has assembled a list of organizations that you can help right now through virtual or distant service. There are many organizations still in great need. I also want to remind you all that the Getty Foundation Matching Grant program remains in effect for all employees, making any donations you make now stretch farther. You will find the forms for matching grants online at Getty GO and you can enclose the forms with your gifts to arts and educational organizations.

Ancient Worlds Now

Our global Getty service project, the Ancient Worlds Now initiative to help protect ancient cultural heritage that is at risk around the globe, continues to move forward. Now more than ever it is imperative to protect those cultural remains and the history that connects and binds us in shared humanity. Current travel restrictions are delaying some activity, but we have received encouragement from our potential international partners about the importance of this initiative and their desire to join us when we can resume in earnest. As a colleague at the Shanghai Museum wrote to me, “Thank you very much for keeping us posted. I am writing on behalf of Director Yang with deep appreciation to you and for your efforts for this grand initiative at this very moment, The Shanghai Museum feels honored to be part of it. Solidarity never seemed as important as now to the whole world, not only to combat the virus but to eliminate bias and prejudice and give people encouragement. We are looking forward to working with you and other colleagues. If there is anything the Shanghai Museum can contribute, please do let us know.”

Digital Initiative

Our efforts to move toward a “digital first” ethos have experienced a major boost during this time of crisis. We had a head start from all of our efforts last fall, thanks to the work of Getty Digital and Getty Communications. Not only are we now better connected through online platforms, such as Zoom, but we are better able to connect with vast audiences around the world. I hope many of you have had a chance to see the heartwarming, overwhelming response to the Rijksmuseum’s creative challenge to recreate artworks with objects from home. It has become a global phenomenon, thanks to its promotion on Getty social media channels. You can read more about it and see some of the creativity in evidence in this Iris blog post.

We shared a new digital reach report with the Trustees, which will become a routine part of our board meetings going forward. That report provides evidence that in the short time since our sites have been closed, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in engagement with Getty content on social media and the web. Online usage of our Getty Publications virtual library is up 785% over the same period last year, page views of art objects are up 127%, the Iris blog is up 133% and there are increases in use of research archives and vocabularies. International use of our web pages has gone from 25 percent of web visitors to 40 percent.

This week, Getty Communications will launch a new weekly email titled “Get Inspired” to share our online resources and inspiration with even larger public audiences. Both Museum Education and Communications are at work on more videos to share from our exhibitions, with a “Last-Minute” Michelangelo exhibition tour from curator Julian Brooks now available. I find this burst of digital activity encouraging. The audience excitement about our digital offerings confirms that our work matters now more than ever.

Recognitions and Acknowledgements

No report to all of you would be complete without acknowledging your ongoing good work. Here are a few recent recognitions of note:

The Brentwood Community Council has recognized Getty’s efforts to mitigate the challenging conditions left on the hillsides above Brentwood neighborhoods in the aftermath of the Getty fire. The Community Council appreciates our rapid efforts to install barriers and other erosion and debris prevention measures on the hillsides and in the canyons that were ravaged by fire last October. Getty Facilities led these efforts to continue to protect our neighbor’s homes. The Council is scheduled to grant the award to Getty at its meeting in April.

Earlier this year, the Foundation-funded Closer to Van Eyck web application was presented with a Europa Nostra award for adding documentation of more than 30 additional works by Flemish master Jan van Eyck. Originally dedicated solely to the Ghent Altarpiece, the open source platform now offers visitors high-resolution photography in a variety of formats for all of the artist’s known paintings.

Getty Publications has recently earned a number of honors. A sampling include:

Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World, edited by Elizabeth Morrison with Larisa Grollemond, was winner of the 2020 PROSE Award for Excellence in the Humanities--Art Exhibitions category, was a winner in the Association of University Presses 2020 Book, Jacket and Journal competition in the Scholarly Illustrated category, and was a finalist for the 2020 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award in the Distinguished Catalogue in the History of Art category.

True Grit: American Prints from 1900 to 1950, written by Stephanie Schrader, James Glisson, and Alexander Nemerov, was a winner in the Association of University Presses 2020 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show competition in the Trade Illustrated category. Three other books won the AUPresses awards in the Scholarly Illustration category: Out of Bounds: The Collected Writings of Marcia Tucker; Pierre Koenig: A View from the Archive; and Tremaine Houses: One Family’s Patronage of Domestic Architecture on Midcentury America.

Artists and Their Books / Books and Their Artists, by Marcia Reed and Glenn Phillips, was shortlisted for the JM Kaplan Fund Alice Award, which garnered us a $5,000 grant. Antiquities in Motion: From Excavation Sites to Renaissance Collections, written by Barbara Furlotti, was a finalist in the 2020 Charles Rufus Morey Award competition in the Distinguished Book in the History of Art category.

I sign off with great pride in all that you have accomplished, and continue to accomplish, in the face of these unprecedented challenges. You have all made sacrifices to help California and the Los Angeles region “flatten the curve” of coronavirus. As Getty continues to comply with our county Safe at Home order, we also continue to move our important work forward thanks to the efforts of all of you. I am confident we will return from this crisis a stronger, more resilient community, all the closer for having experienced and overcome the trials of separation.

Jim

James Cuno
President & CEO
J. Paul Getty Trust
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90049
T (310) 440 7600 | getty.edu