Administrative History

The J. Paul Getty Trust is a not-for-profit institution, educational in purpose and character, that focuses on the visual arts in all of their dimensions. As of 2013 the Trust supports and oversees four programs: the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Foundation, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Research Institute. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa near Malibu, California.

The origins of the J. Paul Getty Trust date to 1953, when J. Paul Getty established the J. Paul Getty Museum as a California charitable trust to house his growing art collections. Originally a small, private institution located in Mr. Getty's ranch house near Malibu, the museum moved to the newly constructed Getty Villa in grounds adjacent to the ranch house in 1974. When most of Mr. Getty's personal estate passed to the Trust in 1982, the Trustees decided that, given the size of the endowment, it should make a greater contribution to the visual arts and humanities than the museum could alone. Out of this resolve grew an expanded commitment to the arts in the general areas of scholarship, conservation, and education. This took the shape of new programs including the Center for the History of Arts and Humanities, Art History Information Institute, Conservation Institute, and Center for Education in the Arts, as well as smaller programs such as the Museum Management Institute and the Program for Art on Film. Williams supervised the Trust's development of new program areas with the advice and recommendations of advisors such as Lani Duke and Nancy Englander. In 1983 the trust's name was changed from the J. Paul Getty Museum to the J. Paul Getty Trust to reflect its broader scope, with the museum becoming an operating program of the Trust.

Due to expanded operations and limited space at the original J. Paul Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades, the various programs of the J. Paul Getty Trust were located at different sites throughout the Los Angeles basin during the 1980s and early 1990s. The Trust's vision was to bring together most of their programs at a single site. A roughly 750-acre property in Brentwood (west Los Angeles) was purchased by the Trust in 1983 and the following year Richard Meier & Partners was chosen to design the Getty Center, which now houses the Trust, its programs, and additional space for the Museum.