Museum established by Jean Paul Getty to house his large collection of artworks, to which he continued to add.
The original museum occupied a wing added to his ranch house in Malibu, Calif., U.S. His collections soon outgrew that location, and in 1974 they were moved to a new building in Malibu, a lavish re-creation of a Roman villa uncovered at Herculaneum. On Getty's death the museum became the most richly endowed in the world. It now is housed in the Getty Center, a striking six-building complex in Los Angeles designed by Richard Meier , which opened with great publicity in 1997. Its collections include European paintings, sculpture, drawings, and decorative arts to 1900, illuminated manuscripts, and photographs. Greek and Roman antiquities remain in the Malibu villa. The collections reflect Getty's preference for paintings of the Renaissance and the Baroque period and for French furniture.