Episodes

In 1947, Frank Gehry boarded a train in Toronto bound for Los Angeles, his uncle picked him up from Union Station, and the rest, as they say, is history. In the first installment of a four-part series, Gehry shares stories from his first years in Los Angeles and how his interest in architecture began. Later episodes in the series explore Frank Gehry’s Los Angeles and how his practice has evolved during his seventy years as an Angeleno. During the month of January, we are rereleasing some of our ...

Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang has spent decades using gunpowder as a medium for paintings and performances. Although the explosions are momentary and ephemeral, the records of these events are works of art collected by museums around the world. When Cai began to wonder about the longevity of this unusual material, he turned to the scientists at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI). In this episode, the artist discusses his relationship with this unorthodox medium and is joined by GCI scientists...

The nude human figure, both male and female, has been central to European art for centuries. During the Renaissance of the 1400s and 1500s, artists across Europe used the nude to explore religion, nature, human relationships, and beauty itself. But artists’ approach to the nude were not monolithic, nor were these works received without considerable controversy. Although created long ago, these works continue to inform contemporary attitudes toward the nude human figure in art. The exhibition The...

The Salk Institute opened in La Jolla, California, in 1963, with striking buildings of concrete and earthy wood lining a travertine plaza and overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But within a few years, the buildings began to weather badly, causing unsightly effects that led to inadequate conservation efforts. In 2013, fifty years after the Institute opened, the Getty Conservation Institute began a multi-year process to understand the challenges posed by aging, repair the damage, and plan for the futu...

Shortly after inventing the polio vaccine, scientist Jonas Salk set his sights on another groundbreaking undertaking: creating an institute where science and art could meet and inform each other. In architect Louis Kahn, Salk found a man who not only shared this vision, but who was capable of designing the space to support it. The Salk Institute’s monumental modernist buildings and plaza, located on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, are the result of this collaboration. In this episode, Jon...

The exhibition India & the World: A History in Nine Stories has an ambitious goal: to use objects to chronicle cultural, economic, and artistic exchange and influence between India and the world. From four-thousand-year-old seals from the Indus Valley found thousands of miles from where they were created to contemporary works of art made out of money and concrete, the wide-ranging exhibition centers on India to address our shared human experiences. In this episode, Naman Ahuja, professor of the ...

During its heyday from the first to third centuries CE, the ancient city of Palmyra flourished as a crossroads of Eastern and Western people, goods, and cultures. The unique blend of Eastern and Western influence on Palmyrene society remains visible in the elaborate funerary relief portraits carved to commemorate loved ones. In this episode, we tour an exhibition of Palmyrene funerary portraiture, on loan from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and Stanford University, with curator of anti...

Before the Getty Center opened to the public in 1997, photographer Robert Polidori captured the half-installed galleries and impressive architecture of the museum while on an assignment from The New Yorker. With brilliant colors and beautiful light, these images provide striking behind-the-scenes views of the curatorial process. In this episode, Polidori discusses these photographs of the Getty, touching on his artistic philosophies, creative process, and career.

In the late 1990s, Old Master drawings expert Julien Stock made an incredible discovery—a previously unknown Michelangelo drawing. Hiding in an unmarked book at England’s Castle Howard, the study of a mourning woman from early in Michelangelo’s career had not been seen for generations. This drawing is now part of the Getty Museum’s collection. In this episode, Stock tells the story of this discovery and the process of verifying the authenticity of his remarkable find.

In this episode, curator Scott Allan discusses two artist biographies: one of Édouard Manet by author and art critic Émile Zola and the other of Vincent van Gogh written by his sister in law Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Both artists proved controversial or difficult during their lifetimes, and these accounts, written by people who knew them well, provide insight into their lives and their art. These texts have recently been published as short books as part of the Getty Publications Lives of the Artists s...

In 1902, Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke visited sculptor August Rodin in Paris to write an essay on the artist for a new series of German monographs. Writing with his usual intensity, Rilke’s poetic language and passion for Rodin’s art make this an engaging account of the artist’s life and work. Curator Anne-Lise Desmas discusses this text and Rodin’s career, addressing the personal relationship between the two men, Rodin’s unusual artistic process, and the reception of Rodin’s art in his time...

A towering sarcophagus for a man with a Grecian name, an ancient medical scroll that details Mycenaean cures in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a Roman mosaic illustrating scenes from the Nile are just a few of the incredible objects that tell the story of sustained trade and cultural exchange between Egypt and Classical Greece and Rome. The Getty Center exhibition Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World centers on this artistic exchange and in this episode, exhibition curators Timothy Potts ...

Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was a well-known and somewhat controversial artist in his time, and many historians, critics, and artists wrote about his work and life during and shortly after his lifetime. In this episode, curator of paintings Anne Woollett discusses three short biographies of the artist: one by German painter Joachim von Sandrart; the second by Italian painter Filippo Baldinucci; and a third by Dutch painter and printmaker Arnold Houbraken. All three biographies were ...

Giorgio Vasari’s book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects from Cimabue to Our Times, first published in 1550, is widely considered to be the ideological foundation of the discipline of art history. In this episode, senior curator of paintings Davide Gasparotto discusses the structure and history of Vasari’s Lives and explores three biographies in particular—those of Giovanni Bellini, Raphael, and Michelangelo. These texts have recently been republished as individual b...

The husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames produced some of the most iconic designs of the mid-twentieth century. This episode engages with a wide range of topics, from Charles and Ray’s training and inspiration, to their collaborative design process, to the challenges of preserving and conserving modern architecture. Recorded at the Eames’ home and studio in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, this episode brings together in conversation Eames Demetrios, the grandson of Char...

How do we understand the seemingly senseless destruction of monuments during World War I? How does art history dovetail with military history? In this episode, Thomas Gaehtgens’ explores these questions through the lens of Reims Cathedral. He traces the history and symbolism of this iconic gothic building through the war and after, investigating the roles of culture, scholarship, and media in shaping our understanding of WWI and its legacy. Gaehtgens is Director Emeritus of the Getty Research In...

Tom Weiss, a specialist on humanitarian intervention and the United Nations, believes we are at a watershed moment for international cooperation on the protection of cultural heritage. In this episode, Weiss uses the ongoing civil war in Syria as a springboard to address the preservation of monuments and cultural heritage during times of humanitarian crisis and armed conflict. He traces the evolution of thinking and action on this issue, considering the role of the UN, useful legal frameworks, a...

The early Baroque artist Caravaggio painted bold compositions with dramatic lighting that emphasized the physical and emotional humanity of his subjects. In this episode, we listen as two curators, Davide Gasparotto and Keith Christiansen, visit the Getty Museum’s exhibition "Caravaggio: Masterpieces from the Galleria Borghese" to talk about the paintings on view. Gasparotto is senior curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Christiansen is the John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Depa...

Venetian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini is widely considered one of the greatest Italian artists of all time. His landscapes are imbued with allegory and a reverence for nature. In this episode, we listen as two curators, Davide Gasparotto and Keith Christiansen, visit the Getty Museum’s exhibition Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice to talk about a selection of paintings on view. Gasparotto is senior curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Christiansen...

To say that Swiss-born artist, art historian, and curator Harald Szeemann was an obsessive collector might be putting it mildly. Szeemann’s personal archive and research library, which he referred to as the “Museum of Obsessions,” spans over five decades and amounts to thousands of linear feet. In this episode, we hear from the Getty Research Institute’s Glenn Phillips, Doris Chon, and Pietro Rigolo about the work and archive of this influential curator.

Egyptian mummy portraits are among the oldest paintings that have survived from the ancient world. Incorporated with the wrappings of mummies, these strikingly realistic portraits of the deceased reflect a blending of the artistic style of Greco-Roman culture with Egyptian funerary traditions. We visit the galleries of the Getty Villa with associate conservator Marie Svoboda to learn about a project that will bring greater understanding to these remarkable portraits and the era of ancient Egypt.

Last week, Indian architect, urban planner, and educator Balkrishna Doshi was selected as the 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate. In light of this news, we wanted to share an episode from earlier this year featuring an interview with Doshi. — While working in Chandigarh, Le Corbusier also developed projects in Ahmedabad, the former capital of Gujarat, 740 miles southeast of Chandigarh. In the second of a two-part series on modern architecture in India, we hear from B. V. Doshi, Le Corbusi...

The Getty Center is a campus that features modernist buildings, beautiful gardens, open spaces, and panoramic views of Los Angeles. Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic at the Los Angeles Times, discusses the relationship between Richard Meier’s unique design and the architectural tradition of LA. This is the final episode of Getty at Twenty, a three-part series that looks at the Getty Center on the twentieth anniversary of its opening.

Stephen Rountree served as the director of the Getty building program, working closely with architect Richard Meier, Getty staff and committees, and neighborhood councils during the construction of the center. In this episode, Rountree talks about the challenges he and his colleagues faced throughout the thirteen-year process. This is the second episode of Getty at Twenty, a three-part series that looks at the Getty Center on the twentieth anniversary of its opening.