Best known for his experimental films and his anthology of American folk music, Harry Smith was a fascinating multidisciplinary artist and avid collector. More»
Candid photographs of racially divided neighborhoods and cities during apartheid join the collection. More»
It could happen to you: comic mix-ups, near-death encounters, and other tales of accursed romance from French prints at the Getty Research Institute. More»
These amazingly detailed prints depict the successful military campaign of the Qianlong Emperor against Nepalese warriors. More»
Last year the Getty and LACMA jointly acquired the art and archives of Robert Mapplethorpe, including more than 2,000 works of art as well extensive documentation of this important artist’s celebrated career and working methods. Now both museums are presenting… More»
In this time of uncertainty, art can bring pleasure to the eye, nourishment to the mind, and also solace to the heart. A work that does just this is Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Making Fritters (Les Beignets), an enchanting drawing from about… More»
The Getty Museum’s most recent painting acquisition, Jean-Antoine Watteau’s The Italian Comedians, is now on view at the Getty Center. It’s installed in Gallery S202 with an array of other 18th-century paintings in the collection, including one by Nicolas Lancret…. 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»
I find auctions terrifying. Mesmerizing, but terrifying. When a major early Renaissance portrait drawing came up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York a month ago, my stomach was in my mouth. It was the sort of drawing one hardly… 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»
Remarkably realistic for medieval illuminated beasts, which were often fabulous admixtures of fantasy and fur. The unicorn is clearly drawn from life, for example.