Horses have been the subject of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and other renderings for thousands of years. They have been depicted as companions of man, within picturesque landscapes, and in dynamic races, chases, and battles. Anne Woollett, curator of paintings at… More»
Antoine Watteau is famous for his theatrical pictures of the 18th-century French megarich at their elegant balls and fêtes galantes. Theater of a different kind figures in The Italian Comedians, a beautiful and poignant painting that has just joined the… More»
Museum-quality paintings by Édouard Manet still remaining in private hands are exceptionally rare, and the Getty Museum is extremely fortunate in its most recent addition to the paintings collection: Manet’s Portrait of Madame Brunet, which goes on view at the… More»
In March, one of the most elegant women at the Museum was forcibly escorted out of the galleries. I was there and saw the whole thing. Princess Leonilla, who’d been on constant view since the Getty Center opened in 1997,… More»
Emily Beeny of the Museum’s paintings department recently gave a gallery talk for eager Getty staff to acquaint us with the Museum’s new painting by J.M.W. Turner, whose arrival and installation we posted about on Friday. We invite you to… More»
How long does it take to install a painting in the Museum, from loading dock to gallery wall? For J.M.W. Turner’s Modern Rome—Campo Vaccino, the answer is seven days: really busy days, with lots of people working together to make… More»
Writing the gallery label for a painting can sometimes feel like an art form in itself, a kind of circumscribed descriptive poetry not unrelated to haiku. How, in fewer than 100 words, do you capture the essence of an object,… More»
Remarkably realistic for medieval illuminated beasts, which were often fabulous admixtures of fantasy and fur. The unicorn is clearly drawn from life, for example.