Press Materials

This exhibition highlights extraordinary drawings and prints by Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945) from the Getty Research Institute’s Dr. Richard A. Simms Collection. Kollwitz created unforgettable scenes of struggling workers, rebellious peasants, and grieving mothers in series of works that reveal her innovative technical and formal experiments. Kollwitz’s commitment to showing the effects of war and poverty and her dedication to the creative process have made her one of the most compelling graphic artists of the 20^th century. The exhibition is curated by Louis Marchesano, the Audrey and William H. Helfand Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Christina Aube, Exhibitions Coordinator at the Getty Research Institute, and Naoko Takahatake, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Getty Research Institute.

The Getty is renowned for its ambitious collecting. This inaugural exhibition of recent acquisitions by the Getty Museum highlights the most important works of art added to the collection in the past year. Selected by the Museum's director, it includes ancient gems and sculpture; Renaissance and 19th-century paintings; Renaissance sculpture; medieval manuscripts; old-master drawings; and 20th-century and contemporary photography. Curated by Timothy Potts. 

Early medieval legends reported that one of the three kings who paid homage to the newborn Christ Child in Bethlehem was from Africa. But it would be nearly one thousand years before artists began representing Balthazar, the youngest of the magi, as a black African. This exhibition explores the juxtaposition of a seemingly positive image with the difficult histories of Afro-European contact – in particular the brutal African slave trade – which informed European artists’ interest in representing race. Curated by Kristen Collins and Bryan Keene.

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) earned his place as the leading avant-garde painter of modern Paris through a series of provocative paintings that shocked contemporary audiences. The first exhibition ever to explore the last years of his short life, Manet and Modern Beauty highlights a less familiar and more intimate side of this celebrated artist’s work. Stylish portraits, luscious still lifes, delicate pastels and watercolors, vivid café and garden scenes convey Manet’s elegant social world and reveal his growing fascination with fashion, flowers, and the parisienne—for the artist, a feminine embodiment of modern life in all its particular, fleeting beauty. Curated by Scott Allan and Emily Beeny. 

Photographers often record change through images in series, registering transformations in the world around them. Artists featured in the exhibition photographed faces and places over minutes, months, or years. Historical and contemporary photographs prompt reflection on the ways the passage of time impacts how we see people and spaces. Curated by Mazie Harris.