Press Releases

A Queen's Treasure brings to the Getty precious examples of Japanese lacquer from the personal collection of the French queen Marie-Antoinette (1755–1793). Her collection of small lacquer boxes was one of the finest assembled in Europe, and she considered them to be among her most cherished possessions. The elaborate and costly works reveal a fascinating example of the queen's sophisticated taste and demonstrate the consistent level of achievement attained by Japanese lacquer artists during the mid-Edo period (about 1681–1764) when these pieces were created.

Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions explores the life and career of the quintessential exhibition maker, from his groundbreaking involvement with the avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s and his global contemporary exhibitions of the 1990s and 2000s to his personal reading of early 20th-century modernism. Drawn from materials in the Harald Szeemann Archive at the Getty Research Institute, the exhibition is structured as a surprising series of thematic interests: avant-gardes, utopias and visionaries, geographies, and grandfathers.

This exhibition features a satellite presentation, Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us, on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) from February 4 to April 22, 2018.

Medieval manuscripts preserve stories of faith, romance, and knowledge, but their luxurious illuminations can reveal disturbing narratives as well. Often created for the privileged classes, such books nevertheless provide glimpses of the marginalized and powerless and reflect their tenuous place in society. Attitudes toward women, Jews and Muslims, the poor, those perceived as socially divergent, and foreign peoples beyond European borders can be discerned through caricature and polemical imagery as well as marks of erasure and censorship. Curated by Kristen Collins and Bryan C. Keene.