On the occasion of head preparator Bruce Metro’s retirement today from the Getty Museum after 31 years, chief registrar Sally Hibbard and senior conservator for antiquities Jerry Podany, also longtime Getty employees, sat down to discuss Bruce’s impact on the… More»
Zero-calorie doughnuts and tarts while supplies last at the Museum Store! Get ‘em while they’re hot! Much like other calorie-free foods, these desserts aren’t edible. They’re photographs by Jo Ann Callis imprinted on dessert plates. Callis’s photographs elevate decadent desserts to… More»
Sophocles’ Elektra—which concludes its run at the Getty Villa this Saturday—is the story of a woman’s thirst for revenge: Elektra rages and plots against her mother (and her mother’s lover) for slaying her father. But Elektra’s brother, Orestes, is the… More»
Pamela Reed rips into the role of murderous queen Clytemnestra in Sophocles’ Elektra with gusto. She creates a character that reviewers have described as despicable, divalike, suave, snarky, and imperious—in short, a perfect and delicious villain. In this video, Reed… More»
Even though it’s been more than a decade, I remember it as though it were yesterday. Like so many art history students, I made my first pilgrimage to the Louvre—tantamount to mecca for an art nerd like me—to feast my… More»
“I will not participate in that patriarchy!” That was Olympia Dukakis’s reaction, almost 25 years ago, when director Carey Perloff approached her about starring as Clytemnestra in Ezra Pound’s translation of Elektra. Today’s production—with a text by acclaimed female playwright… More»
“A living, pulsing world” is what composer, cellist, and vocalist Bonfire Madigan Shive set out to create with her music for the Villa’s outdoor production of Elektra. Though it’s been described as haunting and subtle, the sound is also a… More»
Can you handle this book? It’s one of the most challenging we’ve ever published. Not in the words—it has only 97 of them—but in what it does to your mind. Featuring beautiful surrealist-inspired paintings by artist Sarah Perry, If… imagines… More»
Italy is full of extraordinary, breathtaking round-the-corner experiences. You round a corner in Rome and find the Pantheon. In Pisa it could be the Torre Pendente di Pisa, better known as the Leaning Tower. When you arrive at the Florence… More»
Greeting you as you enter the exhibition In Focus: Still Life are two beautiful photographs that incorporate dead animals in their compositions. Lorikeet with Green Cloth by Marian Drew includes a parrot on a plate, while Sharon Core’s portrait of… More»
Andrea del Sarto, Various studies, c.1520’s
Son of a tailor (sarto). Andrea became one of the best loved artists of Florence. Vasari had good things to say about him.
…Andrea del Sarto, in whose single person Nature and art showed all that painting can achieve by means of drawing, colouring and invention: and indeed if Andrea had possessed a little more boldness and daring of spirit, to match his very profound judgement and talent as a painter, he would, there is no doubt at all, have been without equal.
Browning wrote poems about him:
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?His drawings are natural, graceful and sensitive, an excellent draughtsman.
…and he was very much in love with his wife… (something we don’t often hear about Renaissance artists!)
Our curator Julian Brooks is in Florence now researching del Sarto for an exhibition in 2015.