The Getty Villa
On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 7th, the grounds of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles caught fire as part of the series of wildfires sweeping through Southern California.
The Getty Villa in the Pacific Palisades of Los Angeles is one of two campuses comprising the J. Paul Getty Museum. The Villa is dedicated to ancient art and is the home of around 44,000 antiquities. The structure itself, opened in 1974, is based on the Villa of the Papyri, a ruined villa in Herculaneum buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The museum’s collection includes several well-known works of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art. They include the Lansdowne Heracles, a second-century AD Roman marble sculpture; the Victorious Youth, a Greek bronze possibly by the master Lysippos; and the Beauty of Palmyra, a female bust noted for having some of its original paint relatively intact.
Earlier in the week, dry conditions plus winds from the interior caused wildfires to spread and affect about 1,200 acres of coastal land in the Los Angeles area. Emergency services evacuated nearly 30,000 people from the area. Thus far, two people have died as a result. On Tuesday, shortly before 5:00 PM, fire department radio announced that the wildfires were approaching the Getty Villa. Not long after, videos on social media showed some of the land surrounding the Villa in flames. This is not the first time California wildfires have endangered Getty Museum properties. Most recently, in 2019, fires came close to the Getty Center, the museum’s location in the Brentwood neighborhood. Katherine Fleming, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, commented that the museum had prepared for this situation by clearing out much of the brush on the property. Furthermore, the museum’s air filtration system and double-walled structures prevented the museum’s collection and staff from being harmed by the fire and smoke. We would expect nothing less from the most well-funded museum in the world. Thankfully, Tuesday is also the day of the week that the Villa is closed to the public, meaning no visitors were put in danger by the fires. Another museum in the area, the Eames House, closed on Tuesday because of the nearby fires. Like the Getty Villa, it has remained safe from the blaze.
The Getty Museum has closed the Villa for the remainder of the week. The Getty Villa will reopen on Monday, January 13th.