The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".About the Research Institute (Research at the Getty) Retrieved May 25, 2011.
A program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, GRI maintains a research library, organizes exhibitions and other events, sponsors a residential scholars program, publishes books, and produces electronic databases (Getty Publications).
History
The GRI was originally called the "Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities", and was first discussed in 1983.Isenberg, Barbara. Manuscripts rated top Getty acquisition. Los Angeles Times, p. H1, March 10, 1983. It was located in Santa MonicaGetty Center acquires sculptor's archive. New York Times, April 23, 1985. Retrieved May 25, 2011. and its first director (beginning in 1985) was Kurt W. Forster.Muchnic, Suzanne. Getty Center's Kurt Forster resigns post. Los Angeles Times, p. 6, March 20, 1992. GRI's library had 30,000 volumes in 1983, but grew to 450,000 volumes by 1986.
In a statement upon his departure in 1992, Forster summarized his tenure as "Beginning with the rudiments of a small museum library... the center grew... to become one of the nation's preeminent research centers for arts and culture...". In 1994, Salvatore Settis, a professor of the history of classical art and archeology in Italy, became the director of the Center.Briefing - Italian professor to join Getty. Daily News of Los Angeles, March 9, 1993. By 1996, the Center's name had been changed to "Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities",Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities Announces 1996-97 Getty Scholars. Retrieved May 25, 2011. and by 1999 it was known simply as "Getty Research Institute".The Getty Research Institute Announces 1999-2000 Getty Scholars. September 7, 1999. Retrieved May 25, 2011.
When the Getty Information Institute (formerly the Art History Information Program, established in 1983) was dissolved in 1999 as a "result of a change of leadership at the Getty Trust",Fink, Eleanor E. The Getty Information Institute. A retrospective. D-Lib Magazine, March 1999, Volume 5, Issue 3. Retrieved May 25, 2011. GRI absorbed "many of its functions".
In 2000, Thomas E. Crow was selected as GRI director to replace Settis who had resigned in 1999.Encore - short subjects. Getty's choice. Orange County Register, February 20, 2000. Crow announced in October 2006 that he would be leaving for New York University.Thomas W. Gaehtgens named director of the Getty Research Institute. August 14, 2007. Retrieved May 25, 2011. In November 2007 Thomas W. Gaehtgens became GRI's director;Associated Press. "German art historian to head Getty's research institute in LA." International Herald Tribune, August 14, 2007. he was previously (1985–86) a visiting scholar with the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. He served in the position until 2019 when Mary Miller was appointed as the new GRI director.
Programs
Library
Among other holdings, GRI's research library contains over 1 million volumes of books, periodicals, and auction catalogs; special collections; and two million photographs of art and architecture.Research Library Overview (Research at the Getty). Retrieved May 25, 2011.
The library is located at the Getty Center, and does not circulate its collections, but does extend library privileges to any visitor.
Exhibitions and other events GRI holds two public exhibitions per year in its two galleries which "focus primarily on the special collections of the Research Library or on work produced by artists in residence". For example, in 2005–2006 GRI held an exhibition entitled "Julius Shulman, Modernity and the Metropolis".Getty Research Institute. Julius Shulman, modernity and the metropolis. October 11, 2005 - January 22, 2006. Retrieved May 26, 2011. The exhibition traveled to the National Building MuseumNational Building Museum. Julius Shulman: modernity and the metropolis. April 1, 2006 - July 30, 2006. Retrieved May 26, 2011. and to the Art Institute of Chicago.Art Institute of Chicago. Julius Shulman: modernity and the metropolis. September 2, 2006 - December 3, 2006. Retrieved May 26, 2011. Other GRI exhibitions have included "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990", co-organized with the museum in 2013, "World War I: War of Images, Images of War" in 2015, and "Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road", co-organized with Getty Conservation Institute in 2016.
In addition to exhibitions, GRI organizes lectures (open to the public), colloquia (most open to the public), workshops (by invitation only), and screenings of films and videos (open to the public).Getty Research Institute. Colloquia, lectures, and workshops. Retrieved September 2, 2008.
GRI also holds online exhibitions. In 2017 it launched its first online-only exhibition, "The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra". This exhibition was relaunched in 2021 as "Return to Palmyra" with new content and Arabic translations. Its next online exhibition was "Bauhaus: Building the New Artist", which was launched in 2019 in tandem with its gallery exhibition "Bauhaus Beginnings".
In 2013 the GRI gallery underwent a renovation that added an additional 2,000 square feet to its existing 800 square feet of space.
Residential scholars program The residential scholars program seeks to "integrate the often isolated territory of art history into the wider sphere of the humanities".Muchnic, Suzanne. Getty's visiting guinea pig scholars. Los Angeles Times, p. 98, August 10, 1986. The first class of scholars arrived in 1985–1986; they had their salaries paid for and their housing provided but were under "absolutely no obligation to produce," a policy that continues to this day. Among the notable scholars was German writer Christa Wolf in 1992–1993, who wrote the novel Medea: a modern retelling during her year at GRI.Gitlin, Todd. "I did not imagine that I lived in truth". New York Times, April 4, 1993. Retrieved May 25, 2011.Wolf, Christa. Medea: a modern retelling. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1998. Slavitt, David R. Revenge fantasy. Christa Wolf puts a late-20th-century spin on the story of Jason and Medea. New York Times, June 14, 1998. Retrieved September 2, 2008. (paid site)
Each year the scholars are invited to work on projects related to an annual theme.Getty Research Institute. Past Themes & Scholars. Retrieved May 25, 2011. The lengths of stay vary: Getty scholars are in residence for three, six or nine months, visiting scholars for one to three months, and predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows for a nine-month academic year.
Publications GRI publishes "Series Imprints" books in the categories of "Issues and Debates", "Texts & Documents", "Introduction To" (on "cultural heritage information in electronic form"), and "ReSources" (on the library's special collections).Getty Research Institute. Publications Overview. Retrieved September 2, 2008. In addition, GRI publishes exhibition catalogs and other materials in hardcopy form.
In 2021, Käthe Kollwitz: Prints, Process, Politics (edited by Louis Marchesano, ), which accompanied an exhibition of the same name that ran at GRI and the Art Institute of Chicago between 2019 and 2020, won the College Art Association's Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for distinguished catalogues in the history of art.
GRI publishes a peer-reviewed academic journal, the Getty Research Journal, that presents work "related to the Getty's collections, initiatives, and research". Started in 2009, the journal publishes one annual issue and is slated to begin biannual publication in 2021.
Electronic databases Among the electronic databases from the former Getty Information Institute that GRI continues to produce are: Getty Vocabulary Program databases (Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), and Union List of Artist Names (ULAN))Getty Research Institute. Learn about the Getty Vocabularies. Retrieved May 26, 2011. Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA)Getty Research Institute. Bibliography of the History of Art. Retrieved May 26, 2011. Getty Provenance Index which holds records of collections, auction sales and other information for researching the art market and the provenance of works. The Getty Research Portal provides free access to fully digitized art history texts in the public domain. The database launched in 2012 and is a collaboration with libraries that are digitizing art history books. Initial contributors include the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, the Biblioteca de la Universidad de Málaga, the Frick Art Reference Library, the Getty Research Institute, the Heidelberg University Library, the Institut national d'histoire de l'art, members of the New York Art Resources Consortium, and the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2006, GRI and the OCLC Online Computer Library Center announced that the Getty Vocabularies (Art & Architecture Thesaurus, Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, and Union List of Artist Names) will be available as a Web service.OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Getty Vocabularies added to OCLC Terminologies Service. November 9, 2006. Retrieved May 26, 2011.
Until July 1, 2009, the Getty Information Institute and later GRI co-produced the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals with the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. On that date, GRI transferred the database back to Columbia University, which continues to maintain it.
The Getty Research Institute also participates in the German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP), which trains researchers specializing in Holocaust-era provenance projects.
Special collections GRI holds many important archives related to artists, architects, and art collectors. It also houses the institutional archives of past and current programs of Getty Trust.
Already by 1985, the Getty had acquired the complete archive of the American sculptor Malvina Hoffman. In 2011, it acquired Harald Szeemann’s substantial archive, consisting of more than 1,000 boxes of correspondence, research files, drawings, and ephemera, as well as some 28,000 books and 36,000 photographs.Kate Taylor (June 7, 2011), Getty Acquires Vast Archive of Post-War Art Documents New York Times. It also owns several art dealers' archives, including records for the Goupil & Cie and Boussod Valadon galleries, Knoedler Gallery, and the Duveen Brothers.Carol Vogel (October 18, 2012), Getty Institute Buys Knoedler Gallery Archive New York Times. It also owns the papers of gallery owner Clara Diament Sujo and the records of Stendhal Art Galleries.
The GRI’s Special Collections includes archives of major modern and contemporary artists and movements. In 2019 it acquired the complete archives of sculptor Claes Oldenburg and his wife Coosje van Bruggen. It has collecting strengths in early twentieth-century European modern art movements including Dada and Surrealism, Italian Futurism, Russian Modernism, and Bauhaus.
Additionally, the GRI's holdings in the field of experimental art includes archives related to many important mid-century 20th-century movements and groups, including the Japanese avant-garde, Fluxus, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), and the Situationist International. It also holds papers relating to music, dance, and film media, including the papers of composer David Tudor, the archives of dancers Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer, the Long Beach Museum of Art video archive, and the recordings of the New York performance space The Kitchen.