J. M. W. Turner
Self portrait, oil on canvas, circa 1799
Birth name	Joseph Mallord William Turner
Born	(1775-04-23)23 April 1775 Covent Garden, London, England
Died	19 December 1851(1851-12-19) (aged 76) Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, England
Nationality	English
Field	Painting
Training	Royal Academy of Art
Movement	Romanticism

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting.^[1] Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light"^[2] and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on or around the 23 April 1775^[a] in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, England.^[3] His father, William Turner (1738–7 August 1829), was a barber and wig maker,^[4] His mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers.^[5] A younger sister, Mary Ann Turner, was born in September 1778 but died aged four in August 1783.^[6]

Drawing of St John's Church, Margate by Turner from around 1786, when he would have been 11 or 12 years old. The ambitious but unsure drawing shows an early struggle with perspective, that can be contrasted with his later work

A View of the Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth – this watercolour was Turner's first to be accepted for the Royal Academy's annual exhibition in April 1790, the month he turned fifteen. The image is a technical presentation of Turner's strong grasp of the elements of perspective with several buildings at sharp angles to each other, demonstrating Turner's thorough mastery of Thomas Malton's topographical style.^[7]

Fishermen at Sea exhibited in 1796 was the first oil painting exhibited by Turner at the Royal Academy

In 1785, as a result of a "fit of illness" in the family^[b][5] the young Turner was sent to stay with his maternal uncle, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, in Brentford, which was then a small town west of London on the banks of the River Thames. From this period, the earliest known artistic exercise by Turner is found, a series of simple colourings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell's Picturesque View of the Antiquities of England and Wales.^[8] Around 1786, Turner was sent to Margate on the north-east Kent coast. Here Turner produced a series of early drawings of the town and surrounding area foreshadowing his later work. Turner would return to Margate many times in later life.^[9] By this time, Turner's drawings were already being exhibited in his father's shop window and sold for a few shillings each.^[5] His father boasted to the artist Thomas Stothard that: "My son, sir, is going to be a painter".^[10] In 1789 Turner again stayed with his uncle, who by this time had retired to Sunningwell in Oxford. A whole sketchbook of work from his time in Oxford survives, as well as an early watercolour of Oxford. The use of pencil sketches on location as a basis for later finished paintings would form the basis of Turner's essential working style for his whole career.^[8]

Many of the early sketches by Turner were studies of Architecture and/or exercises in perspective and it is known that the young Turner worked for several architects including Thomas Hardwick (junior), James Wyatt and Bonomi the Elder.^[11] By the end of 1789 he had also begun to study under the topographical draughtsman Thomas Malton, whom Turner would later call "My real master".^[12] He entered the Royal Academy of Art schools in 1789, when he was only 14 years old,^[13] and was accepted into the academy a year later. Sir Joshua Reynolds, president of the Royal Academy, chaired the panel that admitted him. At first Turner showed a keen interest in architecture but was advised to continue painting by the architect Thomas Hardwick (junior). His first watercolour A View of the Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth was accepted for the Summer Exhibition of 1790 when Turner was only 15.

As a probationer in the Academy, he was taught drawing (not painting) from plaster casts of antique sculptures and his name appears in the registry of the Academy over a hundred times from July 1790 to October 1793.^[14] In June 1792 he was admitted to the life class to learn to draw the human body from nude models.^[15] Turner continued to exhibit watercolours each year at the Academy – travelling in the summer and painting in the winter. He travelled widely throughout Britain, particularly to Wales, and produced a wide range of sketches for working up into studies and watercolours. These particularly focused on architectural work, which utilised his skills as a draughtsman.^[14] In 1793, he showed a watercolour with the title The Rising Squall – Hot Wells from St Vincent's Rock Bristol (now lost) that foreshadowed his later climatic effects.^[7] Cunningham in his obituary of Turner wrote that it was: "recognised by the wiser few as a nobel attempt at lift in landscape art out of the tame insipidities...[and] evinced for the fist time that mastery of effect for which he is now justly celebrated."^[16]

Turner exhibited his first oil painting at the Academy in 1796, Fishermen at Sea. A nocturnal moonlit scene, the image of boats in peril contrasts the cold light of the moon with the firelight glow of the fishermen's lantern.^[17] Wilton has said that the image: "Is a summary of all that had been said about the sea by the artists of the eighteenth century."^[18] and shows strong influenced by artists such as Horace Vernet Philip James de Loutherbourg and Willem van de Velde the Younger. The image was praised by contemporary critics and would found Turner's reputation, both as an oil painter and as a painter of maritime scenes.^[19]

Early career[link]

Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He also made many visits to Venice. On a visit to Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England, he painted a stormy scene (now in the Cincinnati Art Museum).

Important support for his work also came from Walter Ramsden Fawkes, of Farnley Hall, near Otley in Yorkshire, who became a close friend of the artist. Turner first visited Otley in 1797, aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area. He was so attracted to Otley and the surrounding area that he returned to it throughout his career. The stormy backdrop of Hannibal Crossing The Alps is reputed to have been inspired by a storm over Otley's Chevin while Turner was staying at Farnley Hall.

Turner was also a frequent guest of George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont at Petworth House in West Sussex and painted scenes that Egremont funded taken from the grounds of the house and of the Sussex countryside, including a view of the Chichester Canal. Petworth House still displays a number of paintings.

Personal life[link]

As he grew older, Turner became more eccentric. He had few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for 30 years, eventually working as his studio assistant. His father's death in 1829 had a profound effect on him, and thereafter he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married but had a relationship with an older widow, Sarah Danby. He is believed to have been the father of her two daughters born in 1801 and 1811.^[20]

Death[link]

He died in the house of his mistress Sophia Caroline Booth in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea on 19 December 1851. He is said to have uttered the last words "The sun is God" before expiring.^[21] At his request he was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, where he lies next to Sir Joshua Reynolds. His last exhibition at the Royal Academy was in 1850.

The architect Philip Hardwick (1792–1870) who was a friend of Turner's and also the son of the artist's tutor, Thomas Hardwick, was in charge of making his funeral arrangements and wrote to those who knew Turner to tell them at the time of his death that, "I must inform you, we have lost him." Other active executors were his cousin and executor, and chief mourner at the funeral, Henry Harpur IV (benefactor of Westminster – now Chelsea & Westminster – Hospital), Revd. Henry Scott Trimmer, George Jones RA and Charles Turner ARA.

Art[link]

Joseph Mallord William Turner – Dutch Boats in a Gale (1801)

Willem van de Velde the Younger, Ships on a Stormy Sea (c. 1672)

Turner's painting Dutch Boats in a Gale (the Bridgewater Sea Piece) was painted as a pendant to this painting by Willem van de Velde for the Duke of Bridgewater.

Style[link]

Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321)

Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840).

Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), a set of seventy prints that the artist worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. Loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), the plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorised the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.^[22] His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a whole museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.^[23]

Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God–a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.

Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844)

His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects.^[24]

One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea.^[25]

In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.

Chichester Canal's vivid colours may have been influenced by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815.

High levels of ash in the atmosphere during 1816 the "Year Without a Summer", led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, and were an inspiration for some of Turner's work.

John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878, that an early patron, Dr Thomas Monro, the Principal Physician of Bedlam, was a significant influence on Turner's style:

His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Giston, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate.

On one of his trips to Europe, circa 1820, he met the Irish physician Robert James Graves. Graves was travelling in a Diligence in the Alps when a man who looked like the mate of a ship got in, sat beside him, and soon took from his pocket a note-book across which his hand from time to time passed with the rapidity of lightning. Graves wondered if the man was insane, he looked, saw that the stranger had been noting the forms of clouds as they passed and that he was no common artist. The two travelled and sketched together for months. Graves tells that Turner would outline a scene, sit doing nothing for two or three days, then suddenly, "perhaps on the third day, he would exclaim 'there it is', and seizing his colours work rapidly till he had noted down the peculiar effect he wished to fix in his memory."

Wreckers Coast of Northumberland, painted ca. 1836. Yale Center for British Art

An engraving of a sketch by Turner depicting Brougham Castle. The sketch, made during a visit to the castle in 1809, provided the starting point for a later watercolour.

The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1839

The shipwreck of the Minotaur, oil on canvas

J.M.W. Turner, Calais Pier

The first American to buy a Turner painting was James Lenox of New York City, a private collector. Lenox wished to own a Turner and in 1845 bought one unseen through an intermediary, his friend C. R. Leslie. From among the paintings Turner had on hand and was willing to sell for £500, Leslie selected and shipped the 1832 atmospheric seascape Staffa, Fingal's Cave.^[26] Worried about the painting's reception by Lenox, who knew Turner's work only through his etchings, Leslie wrote Lenox that the quality of Staffa, "a most poetic picture of a steam boat" would become apparent in time. Upon receiving the painting Lenox was baffled, and "greatly disappointed" by what he called the painting's "indistinctness". When Leslie was forced to relay this opinion to Turner, Turner said "You should tell Mr. Lenox that indistinctness is my forte." Staffa, Fingal's Cave is currently owned by the Yale Center for British Art.

Legacy[link]

Turner left a small fortune which he hoped would be used to support what he called "decayed artists". He planned and designed an almshouse for them at Twickenham with a gallery for some of his works. His will was contested and in 1856, after a court battle, part of his fortune was awarded to his first cousins including Thomas Price Turner.^[27] Another portion of the money went to the Royal Academy of Arts, which occasionally awards students the Turner Medal. His collection of finished paintings was bequeathed to the British nation, and he intended that a special gallery would be built to house them. This did not come to pass owing to a failure to agree on a site, and then to the parsimony of British governments. Twenty-two years after his death, the British Parliament passed an Act allowing his paintings to be lent to museums outside London, and so began the process of scattering the pictures which Turner had wanted to be kept together. In 1910 the main part of the Turner Bequest, which includes unfinished paintings and drawings, was rehoused in the Duveen Turner Wing at the Tate Gallery. In 1987 a new wing of the Tate, the Clore Gallery, was opened specifically to house the Turner bequest, though some of the most important paintings in it remain in the National Gallery in contravention of Turner's condition that the finished pictures be kept and shown together. Increasingly paintings are lent abroad, ignoring Turner's provision that they be kept "constantly" in Turner's Gallery. After the Turner content was diminished and diluted in the Clore Gallery from c. 2002, in 2010–12 only two of the nine rooms on the main floor were devoted to Turner. The claim that the Tate was fulfilling Turner's wishes was dropped in 1995, when the Charity Commission said that the Turner Bequest had been free of Turner's conditions. This was challenged by Leolin Price QC.

A commemorative stained glass window was added to St. Mary's Church, Battersea between 1976 and 1982.^[28] There are statues representing him at St Paul's Cathedral, Victoria & Albert Museum, Royal Academy of Arts and Victoria & Albert Museum. A portrait drawing by Cornelius Varley with his patent graphic telescope (Sheffield Museums & Galleries) was compared with his death mask (National Portrait Gallery, London) by Kelly Freeman at Dundee University 2009–10 to ascertain whether it really depicts Turner (www.faceofturner.com).

The Turner Society was founded by Selby Whittingham at London and Manchester in 1975. After that endorsed the Tate Gallery's Clore Gallery wing as the solution (on the lines of the Duveen wing of 1910), to the controversy of what should be done with the Turner Bequest, Selby Whittingham resigned from that and founded the Independent Turner Society.

A prestigious annual art award, the Turner Prize, created in 1984, was named in Turner's honour, and twenty years later the Winsor & Newton Turner Watercolour Award was founded.

A major exhibition, "Turner's Britain", with material (including The Fighting Temeraire) on loan from around the globe, was held at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery from 7 November 2003 to 8 February 2004.

In 2005, Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's "greatest painting" in a public poll organised by the BBC.^[29]

Turner's Ovid Banished From Rome, 1838

In October 2005 Professor Harold V. Livermore (1914–2010), its owner for 60 years, gave Sandycombe Lodge, the villa at Twickenham which Turner designed and built for himself, to the Sandycombe Lodge Trust to be preserved as a monument to the artist. In 2006 he additionally gave some land to the Trust which had been part of Turner's domaine. The organisation The Friends of Turner's House was formed in 2004 to support it.

In April 2006, Christie's New York auctioned Giudecca, La Donna Della Salute and San Giorgio, a view of Venice exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841, for US$35.8 million, setting a new record for a Turner. The New York Times stated that according to two sources who had requested anonymity the buyer was casino magnate Stephen Wynn.

In 2006, Turner's Glaucus and Scylla (1840) was returned by Kimbell Art Museum to the heirs of John and Anna Jaffe after a Holocaust Claim was made.^[30] The painting was repurchased by the Kimbell for $5.7 million at a sale by Christie's in April 2007.^[31][32]

Between 1 October 2007 and 21 September 2008, the first major exhibit of Turner's works in the United States in over forty years came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Dallas Museum of Art. It included over 140 paintings, more than half of which were from the Tate.

An art gallery known as the Turner Contemporary has been built in Margate to celebrate the association of the artist with the town.^[33]

The "Turner and his painters" exhibition (Tate Britain, London, 23 September 2009 to 31 January 2010, Paris, Grand Palais, 22 February to 24 May 2010) retraces and illustrates the development of Turner's very personal vision, through the many chance or deliberate, but always opportune and enriching interaction that influenced his remarkable career. Nearly 100 paintings and other graphic works (studies and engravings) from major British and American collections, as well as the Louvre and the Prado will be on show.^[34]

On July 7, 2010, Turner's final painting of Rome, Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino, from 1839, was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum at a Sotheby’s auction in London for $44.9 million. In January 2011 The Painter, a biographical play on his life by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, premiered at the Arcola Theatre in London.

Selected works[link]

Turner was an extremely prolific artist who produced over 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, 30,000 paper works.^[35] The Tate Gallery in London produces the most comprehensive and up to date catalogue of Turner works in held by both public and private collections worldwide.

• 1796–Fisherman at Sea, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 1/8 in., Tate Gallery, London
• 1806–The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory, oil on canvas–Tate Gallery, London
• 1809–The Trout Stream, oil on canvas, Taft Museum, Cincinnati
• 1812–Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, oil on canvas, Tate Gallery, London
• 1817–Eruption of Vesuvius, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT
• 1817–Raby Castle, the Seat of the Earl of Darlington, oil on canvas, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
• 1822–The Battle of Trafalgar, oil on canvas, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
• 1829–Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
• 1834–Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
• 1835–The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
• 1835–The Grand Canal, Venice, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• 1838–The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken up, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
• 1840–Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• 1843–The Evening of the Deluge, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
• 1844–Approach to Venice, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
• 1844–Rain, Steam and Speed–The Great Western Railway, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
• c.1840-1850–Europa and the Bull, oil on canvas, Taft Museum, Cincinnati

See also[link]

• British art
• Cloudscape (art)
• History of painting
• List of British painters
• Theory of Colours
• Western painting

Notes[link]

a. ^{^} Turner was born some time in late April or early May 1775, the exact date of Turner's birth is unknown. The date of the 23rd of April, which is both St George's Day and the birthday of William Shakespeare, was the date Turner himself claimed to have been born, but this claim has never been verified.^[3] The first verifiable date is that Turner was baptised on May 14. This casts some doubt on the April 23rd date, as high infant mortality rates meant parents would usually baptise their children shortly after birth.^[36]

b.^{^} Mary Marshall died in 1804, after having been committed in 1799 to St Luke's Hospital and then to the Bethlem Royal Hospital, a mental asylum. Her illness possibly due in part to the early death of Turner's younger sister. Hamilton suggests that this "fit of illness" may have been an early sign of her madness.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Bailey, Anthony (1998). Standing in the sun : a life of J.M.W. Turner. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6604-4. 
• Hamilton, James (2007). Turner. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-6791-3. 
• A.J.Finberg, The Life of J.M.W.Turner, R.A. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939 and 1961)
• Selby Whittingham. An Historical Account of the Will of J.M.W.Turner, R.A. (J.M.W.Turner, R.A., Publications, London, 1993-6)
• Colin Harrison, Turner's Oxford (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2000)
• Stanley Warburton, Discovering Turner's Lakeland (Lytham St Annes, 2008)
• David Hill, Turner and Leeds: Image of Industry (Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2008)
• Bockemühl, Michael (2006). J.M.W. Turner, 1775–1851 : the world of light and colour ([2nd ed.] ed.). Köln: Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-6325-4. 
• Wilton, Andrew (2006). Turner in his time (Revised ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-23830-1. 

Further reading[link]

• Joll, ed. by Evelyn; Butlin, Martin, Herrmann, Luke (2001). The Oxford companion to J. M. W. Turner. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0-19-860025-9. 
• Barker, Elizabeth E. "Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/trnr/hd_trnr.htm. 
• Ackroyd, Peter (2005). J.M.W. Turner (Ackroyd's Brief Lives) (1st ed. ed.). New York: Nan A. Talese. ISBN 0-385-50798-4. 
• Venning, Barry (2003). Turner (1st publ. ed.). Berlin: Phaidon Verlag GmbH. ISBN 0-7148-3988-4. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: J. M. W. Turner

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Turner, Joseph Mallord William.

•  "Turner, Joseph Mallord William". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. 
• The Turner Society
• Katharina Fritsch, The Artist and the Emperor, Tate etc., Spring 2007
• Christie's Videos – Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio Joseph Mallord William Turner,RA
• Sotheby's Videos – The Temple Of Jupiter Panellenius Joseph Mallord William Turner,RA
• Sotheby's Videos – Modern Rome Campo Vaccino and The condition of Modern Rome, Campo Vaccino J. M. W. Turner, RA
• Web site of the Tate Turner Collection, includes the "Turner Bequest" of over 300 Oil paintings and over 30,000 sketches. The catalogue holds records of over 40,000 works by turner

William Turner Logan (June 21, 1874 - September 15, 1941) was a U.S. Representative from South Carolina.

Born in Summerville, South Carolina, Logan attended the public schools, and was graduated from the College of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1895. He studied law at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1895 and commenced practice in Charleston, South Carolina. He served as member of the State house of representatives 1901-1904. Corporation counsel of Charleston 1914-1918. He served as chairman of the Democratic executive committee of Charleston County 1916-1918. He served as chairman of the city Democratic executive committee 1918-1922 and reelected in 1922.

Logan was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1921-March 3, 1925). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1924. He continued the practice of his profession in Charleston, South Carolina, until his death in that city on September 15, 1941. He was interred in Magnolia Cemetery.

Source[link]

• W. Turner Logan at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Simon Schama
Born	(1945-02-13) 13 February 1945 (age 67) London
Nationality	British
Institutions	Columbia University
Alma mater	Christ's College, Cambridge

Simon Michael Schama, CBE (born 13 February 1945) is a British historian and art historian. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University.^[1] He is best known for writing and hosting the 15-part BBC documentary series A History of Britain. Other works on history and art include The Embarrassment of Riches, Landscape and Memory, Dead Certainties, Rembrandt's Eyes,^[2] and his history of the French Revolution, Citizens.^[1] Schama is an art and cultural critic for The New Yorker.^[1]

Life and early career[link]

The son of Jewish parents with roots in Lithuania, Romania, and Turkey, Schama was born in London.^[1][3] In the mid-1940s, the family moved to Southend-on-Sea in Essex before moving back to London. Schama writes of this period in the Introduction to Landscape & Memory (pp. 3–4)

I had no hill [the previous paragraph had talked of his enthusiasm for Puck of Pook's Hill], but I did have the Thames. It was not the upstream river that the poets in my Palgrave claimed burbled betwixt mossy banks. ... It was the low, gull-swept estuary, the marriage bed of salt and fresh water, stretching as far as I could see from my northern Essex bank, toward a thin black horizon on the other side. That would be Kent, the sinister enemy who always seemed to beat us in the County Cricket Championship. ...

In 1956 Schama won a scholarship to the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Cricklewood, (from 1961 Elstree, Herts.), followed by Christ's College, Cambridge, reading history under J. H. Plumb and graduating with a Starred First in 1966.^[1]

He worked for short periods as a lecturer in history at Cambridge, where he became a Fellow and Director of Studies in History, and at Oxford, where he was made a Fellow of Brasenose College in 1976, specialising in the French Revolution.^[1] At this time, Schama wrote his first book, Patriots and Liberators, which won the Wolfson History Prize. The book was originally intended as a study of the French Revolution, but as published in 1977, it focused on the effect of the Patriot revolution in The Netherlands, and its aftermath.

His second book, Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978), is a study of the Zionist aims of Edmond James de Rothschild and James Armand de Rothschild.

He is married to Ginny Papaioannou, a geneticist from California; they have two children.^[4]

In the United States[link]

In 1980 Schama took up a chair at Harvard University. His next book, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987), again focused on Dutch history.^[5] In it, Schama interpreted the ambivalences that informed the Dutch Golden Age of the seventeenth century, held in balance between the conflicting imperatives, to live richly and with power, or to live a godly life. The iconographic evidence that Schama draws upon, in 317 illustrations, of emblems and propaganda that defined Dutch character, prefigured his expansion in the 1990s as a commentator on art and visual culture.^[6]

Citizens (1989), written at speed to a publisher's commission, finally saw the publication of his long-awaited study of the French revolution, and won the 1990 NCR Book Award. Citizens was very well received and sold admirably. Its view that the violence of the Terror was inherent from the start of the Revolution, however, has received serious criticism.^[1][7]

In 1991, he published Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations),^[8] a relatively slender work of unusual structure and point-of-view in that it looked at two widely reported deaths a hundred years apart, that of General James Wolfe – and the famous painting by Benjamin West – and that of (by murder) George Parkman, uncle of the better known Francis Parkman. Schama mooted some possible (invented) connections between the two cases, exploring the historian's inability "ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing the documentation," and speculatively bridging "the teasing gap separating a lived event and its subsequent narration." Not all readers absorbed the nuance of the title: it received a greatly mixed critical and academic reception. Traditional historians in particular denounced Schama's integration of fact and conjecture to produce a seamless narrative^[9] but later assessments took a more relaxed view of the experiment.^[10] It was an approach soon taken up by such historical writers as Peter Ackroyd, David Taylor and Richard Holmes.^[11] Sales in hardback exceeded Schama's earlier works.^[12]

Schama at Strand Bookstore, New York City

Schama's Landscape and Memory (1995) focused on the relationship between physical environment and folk memory, separating the components of landscape as wood, water and rock, enmeshed in the cultural consciousness of collective "memory" that are embodied in myths, which Schama finds to be expressed outwardly in ceremony and text. While in many ways even more personal and idiosyncratic than Dead Certainties, roaming through widening circles of digressions, this book was also more traditionally structured and better-defined in its approach. While many reviews remained decidedly mixed, the book was a definite commercial success and won numerous prizes.^[13]

Appropriately, many of the plaudits came from the art world rather than from traditional academia. This was borne out when Schama became art critic for The New Yorker in 1995. He held the position for three years, dovetailing his regular column with professorial duties at Columbia University; a selection of his best essays on art for the magazine, chosen by Schama himself, was published in 2005 under the title Hang Ups. During this time, Schama also produced a lavishly illustrated Rembrandt's Eyes, another critical and commercial success. Despite the book's title, it contrasts the biographies of Rembrandt van Rijn and Peter Paul Rubens.

BBC[link]

In 1995 Schama wrote and presented a series called Landscape and Memory to accompany his book of the same name.

The year 2000 saw Schama return to the UK, having been commissioned by the BBC to produce a series of television documentary programmes on British history as part of their Millennium celebrations, under the title A History of Britain. Schama wrote and presented the episodes himself, in a friendly and often jocular style with his highly characteristic delivery, and was rewarded with excellent reviews and unexpectedly high ratings. There has been, however, some irritation and criticism expressed by a group of historians about Schama's condensed recounting of the British Isles' history on this occasion, particularly by those specialising in the pre-Anglo-Saxon history of insular Celtic civilisation.^[14] The series was eventually expanded to three, with 15 episodes^[15][16] produced in total covering the complete span of British history up until 1965;^[16] it went on to become one of the BBC's best-selling documentary series on DVD. Schama also wrote a trilogy of tie-in books for the show, which took the story up to the year 2000; there is some debate as to whether the books are the tie-in product for the TV series, or the other way around. The series also had some popularity in the United States when it was first shown on the History Channel.^[16]

In 2001 Schama received a CBE. In 2003 he signed a lucrative new contract with the BBC and HarperCollins to produce three new books and two accompanying TV series. Worth £3 million (around US$5.3m), it represents the biggest advance deal ever for a TV historian. The first result of the deal was a book and TV show entitled Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, dealing in particular with the proclamation issued during the Revolutionary War by Lord Dunmore offering slaves from rebel plantations freedom in return for service to the crown.

In 2006 the BBC broadcast a new TV series, Simon Schama's Power of Art which, with an accompanying book, was presented and written by Schama. It marks a return to art history for him, treating eight artists through eight key works: Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath, Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa, Rembrandt's Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, Jacques-Louis David's The Death Of Marat, J. M. W. Turner's The Slave Ship, Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field with Crows, Picasso's Guernica, and Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals.^[17] It was also shown on PBS in the United States.^[18]

In October 2008 BBC broadcast a four-part television series called The American Future: A History presented and written by Schama. In March 2009, Schama presented a BBC Radio 4 show entitled 'Baseball and Me', both exploring the history of the game and describing his own personal support of the Boston Red Sox.

In 2010, Schama presented a series of ten talks for the BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View:

• Why We Like Tough Guys in Politics: When times are hard people seem to prefer tough leaders.
• Singing in the Rain: Schama looks forward to spring with personal reflections on the changing seasons.
• At the Heart of the Matter: The politics surrounding President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms.
• The Gift of the Gab: The history of political rhetoric and the power during election campaigns of televised debates.
• Behold, Newstralia!: Celebrates the distinctive history and culture of New Zealand and regrets any renewed talk of joining forces with Australia.
• A Welcome Slice of American Pie: Reflection on the quality of American food and eating habits.
• The Drama of Politics: The timeless drama of British politics.
• When Money is Just an Illusion: Reflection on the meaning of money as represented by coins and notes and in art.
• Hearts of Oak: Reflection on the significance of one of the sights that will greet new MPs in the chamber of the House of Commons - the panelling made of solid oak.
• Britain's New Politics: Reflection on the 2010 United Kingdom General Election, favourably comparing the British system for a swift handover of power to the cumbersome American one.

Politics[link]

Schama is a supporter of the Labour Party, donating £2,000 to Oona King's bid to become Labour's candidate for the 2012 London Mayoral election.^[19]

Israel[link]

Schama was critical of a call by British novelist John Berger for an academic boycott of Israel over its policies towards the Palestinians. Writing in The Guardian in an article co-authored with lawyer Anthony Julius, Schama compared Berger's academic boycott to policies adopted by Nazi Germany, noting "This is not the first boycott call directed at Jews. On 1 April 1933, a week after he came to power, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, offices and department stores."^[20]

In 2006 on the BBC, Schama debated with Vivienne Westwood the morality of Israel's actions in the Israel-Lebanon war.^[21] He characterised Israel's bombing of Lebanese city centres as unhelpful in Israel's attempt to "get rid of" Hezbollah.^[21] With regard to the bombing he said: "Of course the spectacle and suffering makes us grieve. Who wouldn't grieve? But it's not enough to do that. We've got to understand. You've even got to understand Israel's point of view."^[21]

United States[link]

Schama is a vocal supporter of President Barack Obama^[22] and critic of George W. Bush.^[23] He appeared on the BBC's coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, clashing with John Bolton.^[24]

Writing style[link]

Schama has a literary way of writing that is attractive to both historians and a wider readership. It is "packed with evocative detail: rich fruit cakes crammed with raisins, currants, nuts and glacé cherries all mulled in brandy sauce".^[1] He has also received criticism for dumbing down history, presenting a "grossly oversimplified and mythologising view of the history of nations" and not fostering critical thinking.^[25]

Criticism[link]

Susan Buck-Morss criticizes Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age for its "selective national history" of the Dutch Republic, "that omits much or all of the colonizing story."^[26] "One would have no idea that Dutch hegemony in the slave trade (replacing Spain and Portugal as major players) contributed substantially to the enormous 'overload' of wealth that he describes as becoming so socially and morally problematic during the century of Dutch 'centrality' to the 'commerce of the world.'"^[27]

Publications[link]

Books

• Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 (1977)
• Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978)
• The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987)
• Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989)^[1]
• Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (1991)
• Landscape and Memory (1995)^[2][13]
• Rembrandt's Eyes (1999)^[2]
• A History of Britain Vol. I (2000, ISBN 0-563-48714-3)
• A History of Britain Vol. II (2001, ISBN 0-563-48718-6)
• A History of Britain Vol. III (2002, ISBN 0-563-48719-4)
• Hang Ups: Essays on Art (2005)
• Rough Crossings (2005, ISBN 0-06-053916-X)
• Simon Schama's Power of Art (2006, ISBN 0-06-117610-9)^[18]
• The American Future: A History (2009, ISBN 0-06-053923-2)
• Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill and My Mother

Documentaries

• Landscape and Memory (1995), in five parts
• Rembrandt: The Public Eye and the Private Gaze (1995)
• Simon Schama's A History of Britain – BBC (2000), in 15 parts
• Simon Schama's John Donne - 2009
• Murder at Harvard - PBS (2003)
• Rough Crossings – BBC (2005)
• Simon Schama's Power of Art – BBC (2006), in eight parts
• The American Future: A History – BBC (2008), in four parts
• Simon Schama's: Obama's America – BBC (2009).

Prizes & Other Honors[link]

• 1977 Wolfson History Prize, for Patriots and Liberators
• 1977 Leo Gershoy Award, for Patriots and Liberators
• 1987 New York Times Best Books of the Year, for The Embarrassment of Riches
• 1989 New York Times Best Books of the Year, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
• 1989 Yorkshire Post Book Award, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
• 1996 Lionel Trilling Book Award, for Landscape and Memory
• 1996 WH Smith Literary Award, for Landscape and Memory
• 2001 Broadcasting Press Guild Writer's Award, for A History of Britain
• 2001 Nominated for BAFTA Huw Wheldon Award for Specialised Programme or Series (Arts, History, Religion and Science), for A History of Britain
• 2002 Nominated for BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features and News), for A History of Britain
• 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-fiction winner, for Rough Crossings^[28]
• 2006 Hessell-Tiltman Prize Shortlist, for Rough Crossings
• 2007 Nominated for BAFTA Huw Wheldon Award for Specialized Factual Programme or Series, for Simon Schama's Power of Art
• 2008 The Daily Telegraph's 110 Best Books: The Perfect Library, for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Columbia History faculty page
• Columbia Art History faculty page
• "Free Fight", with Schama, offers "a new look at Britain, the United States, slavery and freedom during the Revolutionary War". The Brian Lehrer Show, 8 May 2006.
• Simon Schama’s The American History: A Future A Talk at the Shanghai International Literary Festival
• Audio: Simon Schama in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum
• Booknotes interview with Schama on Citizens, 14 July 1989.
• Works by Simon Schama on Open Library at the Internet Archive

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Simon Schama

Getty Center
The Getty Center Exhibitions Pavilion.
Established	1997
Location	Los Angeles, California
Collection size	art museum
Visitor figures	1,153,903 for 2009[1]
Director	David Bomford (Acting)
Public transit access	Metro Rapid Line 761
Website	http://www.getty.edu/museum/

The Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, is a campus for the J. Paul Getty Trust founded by oilman J. Paul Getty. The $1.3 billion center, which opened on December 16, 1997,^[2] is also well known for its architecture, gardens, and views overlooking Los Angeles. The center sits atop a hill connected to a visitors' parking garage at the bottom of the hill by a three-car, cable-pulled tram. The center draws 1.3 million visitors annually.

It is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum. This branch of the museum specializes in "pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts; and 19th- and 20th-century American and European photographs".^[3] Among the works on display is the painting Irises by Vincent van Gogh. Besides the museum, the center's buildings house the Getty Research Institute (GRI), the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the administrative offices of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which owns and operates the center. The center also has outdoor sculptures displayed on terraces and in gardens. Designed by architect Richard Meier, the campus includes a central garden designed by artist Robert Irwin. GRI's separate building contains a research library with over 900,000 volumes and two million photographs of art and architecture. The center's design included special provisions to address concerns regarding earthquakes and fires.

Location and history[link]

USGS satellite image of the Getty Center. The circular building to the left is the Getty Research Institute. The two buildings at the top are the Getty Trust administrative offices and the rest is the museum.

Originally, the Getty Museum started in J. Paul Getty's house located in Pacific Palisades in 1954. He expanded the house with a museum wing. In the 1970s, Getty built a replica of an Italian villa on his home's property to better house his collection, which opened in 1974. After Getty's death in 1976, the entire property was turned over to the Getty Trust for museum purposes. However, the collection outgrew the site, which has since been renamed the Getty Villa, and management sought a location more accessible to Los Angeles. The purchase of the land upon which the center is located, a campus of 24 acres (9.7 ha) on a 110-acre (45 ha) site in the Santa Monica Mountains above Interstate 405, surrounded by 600 acres (240 ha) kept in a natural state, was announced in 1983.^[4] The site cost $25 million.^[5] The top of the hill is 900 feet (270 m) above I-405, high enough that on a clear day it is possible to see not only the Los Angeles skyline but also the San Bernardino Mountains and San Gabriel Mountains to the east as well as the Pacific Ocean to the west.^[6][7]

In 1984, Richard Meier was chosen to be the architect of the center.^[8] After an extensive conditional-use permit process,^[4] construction by the Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company^[9] began in August 1989.^[10] The construction was significantly delayed, with the planned completion date moved from 1988 to 1995 (as of 1990).^[11] By 1995, however, the campus was described as only "more than halfway complete".^[4]

The center finally opened to the public on December 16, 1997.^[2][12] Although the total project cost was estimated to be $350 million as of 1990,^[11] it was later estimated to be $1.3 billion.^[13] After the center opened, the villa closed for extensive renovations and reopened on January 28, 2006, to focus on the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.^[14] Currently, the museum displays collections at both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades.

In 2005, after a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times about the spending practices of the Getty Trust and its then-president Dr. Barry Munitz, the California Attorney General conducted an investigation of the Getty Trust and found that no laws had been broken. The trust agreed to appoint an outside monitor to review future expenditures.^[15] The Getty Trust experienced financial difficulties in 2008 and 2009 and cut 205 of 1,487 budgeted staff positions to reduce expenses.^[16][17] Although the Getty Trust endowment reached $6.4 billion in 2007, it dropped to $4.5 billion in 2009.^[18]

Architecture[link]

Cactus Garden perched on the south of the Getty Center, with West Los Angeles in the background

Meier has exploited the two naturally-occurring ridges (which diverge at a 22.5 degree angle) by overlaying two grids along these axes. These grids serve to define the space of the campus while dividing the import of the buildings on it. Along one axis lie the galleries and along the other axis lie the administrative buildings. Meier emphasized the two competing grids by constructing strong view lines through the campus. The main north-south axis starts with the helipad, then includes a narrow walkway between the auditorium and north buildings, continues past the elevator kiosk to the tram station, through the rotunda, past the walls and support columns of the exhibitions pavilion, and finally the ramp besides the west pavilion and the central garden. Its corresponding east-west visual axis starts with the edge of the scholar's wing of the Getty Research Institute (GRI), the walkway between the central garden and the GRI, the overlook to the azalea pool in the central garden, the walkway between the central garden and the west pavilion, and finally the north wall of the west pavilion and the courtyard between the south and east pavilions.

The main axes of the museum grid that is offset by 22.5 degrees begins with the arrival plaza, carries through the edge of the stairs up to the main entrance, aligns with the columns supporting the rotunda as well as the center point of the rotunda, aligns with travertine benches in the courtyard between the pavilions, includes a narrow walkway between the west and south pavilions, a staircase down to the catus garden and ends in the garden. The corresponding cross axis starts with the center point of the circle forming the GRI library garden, then passing to the center of the entrance rotunda, and aligning with the south wall of the rotunda building. Although all of the museum is aligned on these alternative axes, portions of the exhibitions pavilion and the east pavilion are aligned on the true north-south axis as a reminder that both grids are present in the campus.^[19][20]

The primary grid structure is a 30-inch (760 mm) square; most wall and floor elements are 30-inch (760 mm) squares or some derivative thereof. The buildings at the Getty Center are made from concrete and steel with either travertine or aluminium cladding.^[21] Around 1,200,000 square feet (110,000 m²) of travertine was used to build the center.^[21]

Throughout the campus, numerous fountains provide white noise as a background. The initial design has remained intact; however benches and fences have been installed around the plaza fountains to discourage visitors from wading into the pools. Some additional revisions have been made in deference to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The north promontory is anchored by a circular grass area, which serves as a heliport in case of emergencies, and the south promontory is anchored by a succulent plant and cactus garden. The complex is also encircled by access roads that lead to loading docks and staff parking garages on both the west and east sides of the buildings. The hillside around the complex has been planted with California Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) trees.

The museum has a seven-story deep underground parking garage with over 1,200 parking spaces. Its roof has an outdoor sculpture garden.^[22] An automated three-car, cable-pulled tram takes passengers between the parking garage at the bottom of the hill and the museum at the top of the hill.

Arrival court and central rotunda[link]

A stairway leading down to the Central Garden

Visitors typically arrive at a tram station in the arrival plaza located between the administrative buildings and the museum entrance. A large set of steps leads to the main doors of the rotunda building. The rotunda building houses information desks, two orientation theatres and museum shops. It also holds a grand staircase that starts a path toward the paintings located on the second floor of each art pavilion. The rotunda opens to the south to a terrace that links all five of the museum pavilions. A separate building to the west of the arrival plaza and stairs holds a cafeteria and restaurant. Next to the restaurant is a stone arch, which separates the museum from the GRI. Stairs from the terrace connecting the GRI and the restaurant lead down to the central garden.

Museum[link]

The J. Paul Getty Museum's estimated 1.3 million visitors annually make it one of the most visited museums in the United States.^[23] The collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum on display at the Getty Center includes "pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts; and 19th- and 20th-century American and European photographs".^[3] The paintings include:

Terrace between pavilions looking toward Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda.

• Arii Matamoe (The Royal End) by Paul Gauguin (1892). The Museum's director, Michael Brand, stated that the purchase of the painting was "one of the key moments in the history of our collection."^[24] The literal translation of the Tahitian words of the title are "noble" and "sleeping eyes", which implies "death".^[25]
• Irises by Vincent Van Gogh (1889). The museum purchased the painting in 1990; it had sold for $53.9 million in 1987.^[26]
• Portrait of a Halberdier by Pontormo (1528–1530).^[27] When the museum bought the painting for $35.2 million at an auction in 1989, "the price more than tripled the previous record at auction for an Old Master painting".^[28]
• A copy of Portrait of Louis XIV, which measures 114 x 62-5/8 inches, by the workshop of Hyacinthe Rigaud (after 1701).^[29]

Getty's photograph collection is located on the lower level of the west pavilion. It includes 35,000 individual prints, 1,500 daguerreotypes and other cased objects, 30,000 stereographs and cartes-de-visite, and 475 albums containing almost 40,000 mounted prints.^[30]

The inner courtyard of the museum

The museum building consists of a three-level base building that is closed to the public and provides staff workspace and storage areas. Five public, two-story towers on the base are called the North, East, South, West and the Exhibitions Pavilions. The Exhibitions Pavilion acts as the temporary residence for traveling art collections and the Foundation's artwork for which the permanent pavilions have no room. The permanent collection is displayed throughout the other four pavilions chronologically: the north houses the oldest art while the west houses the newest.^[31] The first-floor galleries in each pavilion house light-sensitive art, such as illuminated manuscripts, furniture, or photography. Computer-controlled skylights on the second-floor galleries allow paintings to be displayed in natural light. The second floors are connected by a series of glass-enclosed bridges and open terraces, both of which offer views of the surrounding hillsides and central plaza. Sculpture is also on display at various points outside the buildings, including on various terraces and balconies. The lower level (the highest of the floors in the base) includes a public cafeteria, the terrace cafe, and the photography galleries.^[32]

Central Garden[link]

The Central Garden as seen from the Museum

The 134,000-square-foot (12,400 m²) Central Garden at the Getty Center is the work of artist Robert Irwin.^[33] Planning for the garden began in 1992, construction started in 1996, and the garden was completed in December 1997.^[34]

Irwin was quoted as saying that the Central Garden "is a sculpture in the form of a garden, which aims to be art."^[35] Water plays a major role in the garden. A fountain near the restaurant flows toward the garden and appears to fall into a grotto on the north garden wall. The resulting stream then flows down the hillside into the azalea pool. The designers placed rocks and boulders of varying size in the stream bed to vary the sounds from the flowing water. A tree-lined stream descends to a plaza, while the walkway criss-crosses the stream, which continues through the plaza, and goes over a stone waterfall into a round pool.^[33] A maze of azaleas floats in the pool, around which is a series of specialty gardens.^[33] More than 500 varieties of plant material are used for the Central Garden, but the selection is "always changing, never twice the same".^[33]

After the original design, an outdoor sculpture garden, called the "Lower Terrace Garden" was added in 2007 on the west side of the central garden just below the scholar's wing of the GRI building.^[22][36]

Getty Research Institute (GRI)[link]

The Getty Research Institute, seen from the Central Garden

The Getty Research Institute (GRI) is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts."^[37] Among other holdings, GRI's research library contains over 900,000 volumes of books, periodicals, and auction catalogs; special collections; and two million photographs of art and architecture.^[38] GRI's other activities include exhibitions, publications, and a residential scholars program.^[37] At the Getty Center, GRI is located to the west of the museum.^[21] The round building encircles a landscaped garden and is located to the west of the central garden. The main entrance of GRI is connected by a terrace to the main arrival court of the museum, with outdoor sculptures placed along the route.^[22] GRI has one art gallery on its entrance level that is open to the public.

Other offices[link]

The Getty Center, seen from a hill in Bel-Air. East Building, North Building and Auditorium are closest to camera.

Meier also designed three other buildings located next to the north promontory and offset at a 22.5 degree angle from the main axis of the museum pavilions. The north-most building is an auditorium. Next to it is the North Building, with the East Building sitting between the North Building and the rotunda. The main entrance to the East Building is flanked by two round silos that hold its elevators. A bridge over a sunken courtyard links the main entrance of the East Building to the main walkway that connects the auditorium and North Buildings to the rotunda. These buildings house the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Getty Foundation. These buildings are generally closed to the public except for special events held in the auditorium.^[21] They are linked to the museum both by landscaped terraces and by an enclosed glass walkway that leads from the main rotunda of the museum.

GCI, which is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, commenced operation in 1985.^[39] It "serves the conservation community through scientific research, education and training, model field projects, and the dissemination of the results of both its own work and the work of others in the field" and "adheres to the principles that guide the work of the Getty Trust: service, philanthropy, teaching, and access".^[39] GCI has activities in both art conservation and architectural conservation.^[40]

The Getty Foundation awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts".^[41] In addition, it runs the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders".^[42] Its offices are north of the museum.^[21] The foundation offices are located in the two administrative buildings that are north of the museum. The J. Paul Getty Trust, which oversees the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Foundation, Getty Research Institute, and J. Paul Getty Museum, also has offices there.^[21]

Preparation for natural disasters[link]

Earthquakes[link]

Looking north from main entrance toward arrival plaza.

Although the center's site was thought to have little motion during earthquakes, which are frequent in the Los Angeles area, in 1994, as the center was being constructed, the Northridge earthquake struck.^[43] It caused "disturbing hairline cracks... in the welds and plated joints of the steel framework."^[44] As a result, the steelwork through the site was retrofitted.^[44] The Center's buildings are thought to be able to survive an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude on the Richter scale.^[43]

Fires[link]

In the 16 electrical transformers at the center, silicone fluid is used as a coolant "with less risk of ignition" than hydrocarbon coolant.^[45] The native flammable chaparral was removed and fire-resistant poverty weed was added to the slopes around the center.^[44] Each year, a herd of goats is rented to clear brush on the surrounding hills.^[46]

At the north end of the center, a tank with 1,000,000 USgal (3,800,000 l) of water, together with a grass-covered helipad, allow helicopters to collect water.^[47][48] The access ramp from the entry plaza to the museum was constructed to allow a fire truck to pass over it.^[44] Inside the museum, the sprinkler system is designed to balance "between the potential damage of a fire and the risk of water damage to valuable artwork".^[49]

Panoramic view looking south[link]

A near 180-degree panoramic view of Los Angeles looking south from the Getty on an exceptionally clear day. The 405 freeway intersects the view

References[link]