This weekend, we’re screening a four-part film series, Soy Cuba!, that offers a brutal and beautiful look at Cuba through different perspectives in the 1960s (and one from 1959 with Our Man in Havana), a time of great transition...
Read More
Update—We’ve posted video excerpts from Patrick McGovern’s talk. See below for his discussion of Midas Touch, here for Chateau Jiahu, and here for Theobroma. What ancient brews were served at the funeral feast of King Midas, or his father...
Read More
In 2007 the Getty Security department was approached by the VA (Veterans Affairs) to see if we could arrange a visit to the Getty Center for some of the veterans at their facility off Sepulveda Boulevard at Constitution Avenue....
Read More
What is “¡Sí Cuba! SoCal,” you ask? Well, it all started in New York this spring with a multi-venue festival celebrating Cuban culture, called ¡Sí Cuba!. Then, coincidentally, several cultural institutions across Southern California, including we here at the...
Read More
As a kid I was sure if I could be alone with works or art, in or out of museums—ditch the parents, teachers, and guards—that the works of art would talk to me. I assessed hiding places, considered alarm...
Read More
The well-coiffed elite of the time relished a good card game.
Read More
Have you been called to acts of service? Did you answer the call? Saint Francis of Paola, who lived in the 1400s, was called. Two moments of divine intercession are paired in The Vision of Saint Francis of Paola...
Read More
What brings a group of architects, conservators, engineers, geologists, scientists, and archaeologists from twenty countries and six continents to Rome? Rocks—or more accurately, stone. They have all come to participate in the 17th International Course on Stone Conservation, which...
Read More
There are digital photographers. And then there’s Luther Gerlach. In the time it took you to read that last paragraph, you could have snapped six digital photos. It would take Luther half a day to make that many images—on...
Read More
It was an unusual day at the Villa. People wandered about with numbers clipped to their lapels. Intense conversations took place about Homer’s poetry, fueled by coffee and snacks. Visitors moved in and out of the auditorium, as if...
Read More
Art Kaplan is on a mission. At my request, he’s looking for a particular yellow pigment to show me—and there are hundreds of yellows to choose from, in drawers labeled Yellow Ochre, Lemon Ochre, Golden Yellow, French Yellow, and...
Read More
In the emerald-green galleries of the exhibition Spirit of an Age: Drawings from the Germanic World, I was drawn to a cluster of quiet drawings that convey beautiful stories: miraculous healings, heroic quests of medieval knights, momentous coronations. These...
Read More
