Maria Puente: Getty Facing Controversy Over Upcoming Exhibit
The largest treasure in the J.Paul Getty Museum's collection, a replica of an ancient Roman villa buried by Mount Vesuvius, is just months from reopening, but already it's being covered by a poisonous ash of bad publicity. And some of it might drift over other museums, too.
The Getty Villa in Malibu, which has undergone a six-year, $275 million renovation, will showcase the museum's collection of more than 40,000 antiquities from classical Greece and Rome. But the top Getty official who led the project, antiquities curator Marion True, won't be there for the opening celebrations in January: She had to resign. Worse, she goes on trial in Italy next month on charges she conspired with European dealers to traffic in looted ancient artworks. She and the Getty deny any wrongdoing.
It's an embarrassing comedown for a mighty institution. The Getty has been the envy of the museum world, with access to billions of dollars in trust accounts, the power to dominate art markets and lavish praise for its Richard Meier-designed Getty Center complex, which opened eight years ago in Los Angeles. But now the Getty is under siege: The California attorney general's office is investigating its financial practices. The CEO's lavish spending habits have been exposed to ridicule. Key officials have quit or been forced out.
But it is True's predicament that has alarmed museums, dealers and collectors across the country. This is the first time an American museum official has been charged with a crime for doing what art museums do: Buy art. Buying ancient art, however, has become a risky business. Source countries are pursuing their pilfered patrimony in the courts, U.S. authorities are backing them, and fewer legal objects are on the market than there were when many museums were founded 100 years ago.
Moreover, True widely is viewed as a zealous reformer against trafficking, who persuaded the Getty in 1995 to change its policies to guard against buying looted art. Now she may be paying the price for the Getty's prior policies when the young museum rushed to build a world-class collection.
"The Getty got caught when attitudes and laws changed, and they found their way of doing business was no longer acceptable, ethically or legally," says Bill Pearlstein, a New York lawyer who represents private collectors and antiquities dealers in arguing against efforts to curtail or shut down the antiquities trade.
But as glum museum officials acknowledge, the case extends beyond the Getty, even to museums that don't collect antiquities.
"This could tar and feather everybody," says Mary Sue Sweeney Price, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and director of the Newark Museum.
[Editor's Note: The original of this piece is much longer. Please see USA Today for more.]
The Getty Villa in Malibu, which has undergone a six-year, $275 million renovation, will showcase the museum's collection of more than 40,000 antiquities from classical Greece and Rome. But the top Getty official who led the project, antiquities curator Marion True, won't be there for the opening celebrations in January: She had to resign. Worse, she goes on trial in Italy next month on charges she conspired with European dealers to traffic in looted ancient artworks. She and the Getty deny any wrongdoing.
It's an embarrassing comedown for a mighty institution. The Getty has been the envy of the museum world, with access to billions of dollars in trust accounts, the power to dominate art markets and lavish praise for its Richard Meier-designed Getty Center complex, which opened eight years ago in Los Angeles. But now the Getty is under siege: The California attorney general's office is investigating its financial practices. The CEO's lavish spending habits have been exposed to ridicule. Key officials have quit or been forced out.
But it is True's predicament that has alarmed museums, dealers and collectors across the country. This is the first time an American museum official has been charged with a crime for doing what art museums do: Buy art. Buying ancient art, however, has become a risky business. Source countries are pursuing their pilfered patrimony in the courts, U.S. authorities are backing them, and fewer legal objects are on the market than there were when many museums were founded 100 years ago.
Moreover, True widely is viewed as a zealous reformer against trafficking, who persuaded the Getty in 1995 to change its policies to guard against buying looted art. Now she may be paying the price for the Getty's prior policies when the young museum rushed to build a world-class collection.
"The Getty got caught when attitudes and laws changed, and they found their way of doing business was no longer acceptable, ethically or legally," says Bill Pearlstein, a New York lawyer who represents private collectors and antiquities dealers in arguing against efforts to curtail or shut down the antiquities trade.
But as glum museum officials acknowledge, the case extends beyond the Getty, even to museums that don't collect antiquities.
"This could tar and feather everybody," says Mary Sue Sweeney Price, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and director of the Newark Museum.
[Editor's Note: The original of this piece is much longer. Please see USA Today for more.]