Museum has brought a half-century of art and culture to Los Angeles area

You’ve probably driven by it hundreds of times.  The Getty Villa is a beloved Los Angeles destination and landmark and it’s right in our own backyard along the Malibu coast.

The Getty Villa is this country’s preeminent museum of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities and it’s celebrating 50 years welcoming the public to its beautiful grounds.

Not to be confused with the Villa de Leon, a separate privately-owned villa visible from Pacific Coast Highway right near the Getty’s entrance near Coastline Drive, the Getty Villa Museum is not visible from the highway, but once you enter you’ll be transported back in time to a sanctuary for the preservation and appreciation of classical art and cultures.

The Villa was built for oil magnate J. Paul Getty to house his growing art collection and provide the public with greater access to view it. For the 50th anniversary of the Getty Villa that opened this month back in 1974, you can experience the permanent collection plus rotating exhibitions. Currently there are two ancient Egyptian exhibitions on display, one from the Villa’s own collection and one on loan from the British Museum of ancient Egyptian materials.

The curator of antiquities at the Getty, Kenneth Lapatin explained, “While our collection is Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, we also are interested in the entire ancient world. In April we’re going to have an exhibition, ‘Picture Worlds,’ looking at Greek, Maya, and Moche ceramics, so even the New World. We don’t collect in that area, but we display it in changing exhibitions.”

“Picture Worlds” is described as “Mighty deities, brave heroes, and fantastic beings adorn the terracotta vessels of the ancient Greeks, the Maya in Central America, and the Moche of northern Peru. This exhibition juxtaposes these three distinct ceramic traditions and explores the ways in which painted pottery served as a dynamic means of storytelling and social engagement.”

About 400,000 visitors come yearly to the magnificent museum designed to resemble an ancient Roman country house. The villa is a near replica of the Villa di Papyri that was buried by the Mt. Vesuvius eruption in 79 A.D. 

The Getty Villa version is just about how you would find the original in the same Mediterranean climate. You’ll walk among its stately colonnades, elaborate fountains and the most magnificent reflecting pool surrounded by ancient statues in the middle of a fragrant garden planted with the same native plants that were once cultivated by the ancient Romans.

Inside the Getty Villa Museum are galleries filled with treasures that are not found in other area museums. 

“I think what’s so special about the villa is when you enter the site and go through the modern architecture that since the early 2000s frames the Villa, you’re kind of time traveling,” Lapatin said. “You’re back in an ancient Roman luxury home and although it’s very grand and beautiful, it’s very humane in scale. You hear the birds singing, there’s the ocean breeze and unlike any kind of reconstruction on paper, video, or virtually, you’re really in this place and it’s a kind of time travel to a different world. I think that’s what makes it so magical.

“Obviously the collections are important and meaningful artifacts from antiquity, but, to be in this ancient house with the gardens and fountains, it’s really magical.”

According to Lapatin, the daily number of visitors to the Villa is actually limited. “We’re mindful of the neighborhood,” he said. 

There is so much to learn at the Getty Villa that it’s become a gateway to the arts for many school-age children. The museum hosts tens of thousands of school children each year for docent-led tours of the ancient treasures dating as far back as 6,500 B.C. The museum even subsidizes bus transportation.

To celebrate its milestone, the Villa will offer daily 45-minute tours delving into the artworks purchased by J. Paul Getty. The tour will take place daily through March 4 at 1 p.m. at the Getty Villa. 

Look for programs centered on the ancient Villa di Papyri which is the model of the villa from the Bay of Naples. It’s the site where papyrus scrolls have been found. In March there will be a program on the papyri from Herculaneum. 

There is a charge for parking, and reservations are required, but admission is free. 

“Many people may think they know the Getty Villa, but have never been. What they’re seeing from Pacific Coast Highway isn’t it,” said Lapatin. “There’s a lot of loveliness to be seen here.”

SAMO Fund partners with volunteers to help protect oak tree saplings environmental protection effort

The Santa Monica Mountains Fund hosted an environment restoration event over the weekend, pairing volunteers with members of the SAMO Fund restoration team in an effort to give back to the local community and ecosystem.

The event was hosted the weekend before Dr. Martin Luther King Day, and the first-ever National Day of Service designated by Congress. SAMO Fund honored Dr. King’s legacy by hosting the day of community-based service and promoting meaningful change in their community. 

The teams gathered at Cheeseboro Canyon on Saturday morning, serving an area of recently planted valley oak trees by weeding, installing protective cages, and removing cartons to help promote their growth and improve their chances of survival. 

Volunteers were guided through the process of hand weeding, removing the non-native vegetation from near the oak tree sapling, opening up resources for the tree to not have to fight with other vegetation for these vital nutrients.

The process will help expand on the amount of valley oak trees in the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area, and supports the life of trees that go on to have lifetimes of hundreds of years. The success of these keystone species helps tie the local ecosystem together, and can make a long-lasting impact on the health of the park’s ecosystem.   

SAMO Fund Restoration Field Crew Lead Jia Wiebe said the event was a success, bringing out more volunteers out than expected, and was an exciting start to 2024, as this was their first event of the new year.

“All these trails are out here for you, the public,” Wiebe said. “These events are great learning opportunities for a lot of people. Knowing the types of environments that are around them, what’s native, and how they can help our future and our environment.”

She added that their events promote an awareness among children that they hope create a new generation of stewardship for environmental protection.

“We have volunteers who are little kids and we hope that by having them here at such a young age it inspires them to be more aware of their surroundings but also inspires them to lean more towards environmentally friendly products,” Wiebe said.

SAMO Fund Wildlife and Volunteer Program Technician Miroslava Munguia Ramos said their events showcase the work SAMO Fund does to maintain the park and encourages support for the work done to maintain the ecosystem in the Santa Monica Mountains both for wildlife and visitors of the park.

“A lot of times when folks are out and about they don’t realize that the park has to be maintained by someone,” Munguia Ramos said. “They recognize how much work goes into maintaining this park, it’s not just one person maintaining the trails. It’s a team of restoration, and a whole team of volunteers in our mountain bike units that make sure guests are safe on the trails, it showcases a team effort that gets even the smallest of trails in tip-top shape.” 

SAMO Fund is very active throughout the winter, during the peak planting and breeding season, inviting volunteers to plant and maintain new native plants. They hope to keep a steady volunteership throughout the weekends in winter, increasing the amount of green throughout the Santa Monica Mountains.

Wiebe said SAMO Fund will continue to host events and encouraged community members to seek opportunities to serve their community.

“It’s a great way to not only give back to the public, but give back to Mother Nature. What we do is something very important that our society needs,” Wiebe said. “We’re very passionate about what we’re putting out in the world, so hopefully our passion spreads to our volunteers and they grow that passion as well. We have to give back to this Earth, we only have one so we have to take care of it.”

Munguia Ramos added that the passion to serve the environment grows beyond the Santa Monica Mountains and helps promote environmental protection in neighborhoods across Los Angeles and beyond. 

“Just in our park, between the fiscal year 2022-2023, we’re seeing more and more people come out and volunteer their time,” she said. “Beside having something fun to do, they bring this experience back to their respective communities and homes. They come out and learn and we hope they take back a thing or two and start this positive cycle and keep it going from there.”              

Munguia Ramos said their experience is that most volunteers are not one and done, and they are inspired to come back more and more. They hope to create a positive change and spark social engagement with not just the Santa Monica Mountains, but local parks and communities. 

For more information on SAMO Fund’s future restoration volunteer events visit www.SAMOfund.org/calendar or visit @samofund on Instagram. More information on SAMO Funda could be found on www.nps.gov/samo.