In 1954, oil baron J. Paul Getty opened a gallery adjacent to his home in Pacific Palisades. Can you imagine, you were able to walk around his home and view his collections. Visitors were limited but it must have been very intimate. When he ran out of room, he built a second museum on the property down the hill from his original home. In 1974 he opened the Getty Villa as his second museum in a building inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum and incorporated additional details from several other ancient sites. Getty died in 1976 and sadly never visited the Villa. His architect, from the architectural firm of Langdon and Wilson, flew back and forth regularly from the museum to London to keep him apprised of the work. Following his death, the museum inherited $661 million and began planning a much larger campus, the Getty Center, in nearby Brentwood. To meet the museum’s total space needs, the museum decided to split between the two locations with the Getty Villa housing the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. In 1993, the Getty Trust selected Rodolpho Muchado and Jorge Silvetti to design the renovation of the Getty Villa and its campus.
As you look across this court yard the peristyles walls are covered with murals by Garth Benton. While truly beautiful, I was struck by their oddity, it finally dawned on me that the originals in Herculaneum were frescoes and these are murals, there is quite a difference.
If you are interested in some other great pictures, there is a blog with some great ones, and some fun comments as well.
Like many museums the Getty was packed with people, so taking any photos at all was difficult at best. to get pictures without people, was impossible.