GETTY CENTER BACK ON DISPLAY
Museum’s galleries and gardens reopen to limited attendance
The Getty Center, the pastoral artistic hub of Los Angeles County, reopened Tuesday after being shuttered since March 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Getty’s older, more ornate sister museum, the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, opened a month ago.
At first, the Brentwood attraction’s galleries and gardens will be open to a limited number of visitors. Admission is free, but guests are required to book reservations online.
“Initially, we are asking people to book their tickets online, which are still free, and we’re having about a third of our nor
mal attendance just to be very safe, we’re asking that visitors were masks and we will increase the number of guests allowed each day as we make sure everything is working properly, said Timothy Potts, Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Other safety measures will be in place:
• Visitors and staff must wear face coverings.
• Visitors and staff must maintain 6 feet of distance (except within household groups).
• Visitors and staff displaying symptoms (coughing, sneezing, fever) will not be allowed to enter.
• Staffers are required to wash hands regularly; visitors are urged to do so as well.
• Garden Terrace Cafe and Coffee Cart meals will be prepackaged.
• The Family Room remains closed.
During the 14 months the museum went without guests, staffers were at work doing intensive cleaning, especially in areas that couldn’t be cleaned during normal circumstances.
The closure also allowed for greater study of art at the museum.
“We’ve done research on ‘Irises’ by (Vincent) Van Gogh, which is always on the wall because people want to see it, but this gave us a chance to do a full scientific examination and understand the painting and exactly how it was made,” Potts said.
The Getty’s current showpiece is the newly acquired painting of “Lucretia” by Artemisia Gentileschi.
Other new exhibitions include “Photo Flux: Unshuttering L.A.”; “Power, Justice and Tyranny in the Middle Ages”; “Artist as Collectors”; and “Silk & Swan Feathers: A Luxurious 18th-Century Armchair.”
The Getty is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive in Los Angeles and is open 10-5. It is closed on Mondays. Free tickets can be obtained online at tickets.getty.edu/.