Getty continues its online-accessible series of exhibits and art exploration. Explore the range of online events, podcasts, and articles.
Before Instagram influencers, there was Hippolyte Bayard
More than 160 years before smartphones and selfie sticks allowed even the most inexperienced shutterbugs to snap photos of themselves, Hippolyte Bayard was turning his camera on himself. Bayard, a bureaucrat who worked at the Ministry of Finance in Paris and took pictures on weekends or his lunch hour, was one of the first photographers to practice the art of the self-portrait.
The 19th-century selfie pioneer
Explore the new exhibition Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer
The real woman behind the Manet painting
The woman in the Getty Museum’s painting Jeanne (Spring) by Édouard Manet seems to be waiting for someone, lush spring greenery all around her. But who was this woman? And why did her identity remain a mystery for so long? How about the woman in Manet’s companion painting, Autumn—who was she in real life?
Curators delve into the identities of two models who posed for Manet
What is a polyptych? (And can you say it three times fast?)
In this episode of Frequently Asked Art Questions (FAAQs), Jessie takes a look at a 12-foot-tall work of 14th century art to define a mouthful of an art term: polyptych. This elaborate altarpiece was commissioned by the politically influential Gianfigliazzi family, for display in a neighborhood church patronized by many of Florence’s most prominent families.
Watch the video or read on now
The first painting by Sophie Fremiet to enter a US museum
The Getty Museum has acquired Portrait of a Woman, a neoclassical-era portrait painting by French artist Sophie Fremiet. Portrait of a Woman is believed to be one of two ambitious, full-length portraits the artist exhibited at the 1818 Salon in Brussels, her public debut at just 21 years old. The painting is now on view at the Getty Center in the South Pavilion.
Picture Worlds: Greek, Maya, and Moche Pottery
Mighty deities, brave heroes, and fantastic beings adorn the terracotta vessels of the ancient Greeks in the Mediterranean, the Maya in central America, and the Moche of northern Peru. This exhibition juxtaposes these three distinct ceramic traditions and explores how painted pottery served as a dynamic means of storytelling and social engagement.
Related talk April 25: “Stories on Ceramics: Pictures, Politics, and Primordial Times”
Two women painters get their due
Sofonisba Anguissola, a Renaissance painter, and Louise Moillon, a still-life artist, navigated complex social hierarchies to achieve a level of acclaim rarely available to their female peers.
Two new Getty publications shed light on their lives and work
A fishbowl? A chandelier.
How do you design a chandelier fit for King Louis XVIII? Add live goldfish “whose continuous movement will give agreeable recreation to the eye.”
Evaluating risk
Is it too bright? Too dry? Too cold? Art objects can be sensitive.