[MSN] Thomas Hoving: Getting it right at the Getty

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Getting it right at the Getty
By Thomas Hoving
THOMAS HOVING was director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to
1977 and a curator from 1959 to 1966.

September 27, 2005

A COUPLE of months ago, I submitted my application to become the interim
director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. I suggested a tenure of just 18 months
because all I had in mind was reforming its troubled antiquities division. 

I thought I knew how to do it because I've been a bad boy and a good boy in
the antiquities game. My track record as a curator and then director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York went from being a rabid collector,
willing to grab anything even if I suspected it had been smuggled, to a
reformer who helped draft the landmark 1970 UNESCO convention against the
worldwide smuggling of cultural patrimony. (The U.S. signed on to the
convention in 1983.) 

Now the Getty clearly needs reform. Antiquities curator Marion True is under
indictment in Italy for allegedly conspiring to traffic in looted artworks,
and the museum's lawyers figure that about half of its top 100 ancient
artworks were obtained from dealers now under investigation in Italy. 

My offer was pleasantly turned down. The Getty already had an interim
director; it was shopping for someone to take the job full time. Now that
that person - the resolute (we hope) Michael Brand - is onboard, I'd like to
pass along to him what I was planning to do in my first day on the job. 

I'd start settling with the Italians, even though the Getty is proclaiming
its innocence and supporting True, whose trial is coming up in November. The
Getty Trust has hired expensive lawyers, and they ought to be able to cut
the proper deal. 

Part of that deal should be a resolution, passed by the Getty board of
directors, pledging never to buy, or receive as a gift or bequest, any
antiquity unless its ownership record - its provenance - is squeaky clean.
To its credit, the Getty has had versions of this policy in place, but none
worded this strongly. Fact is, unless an ancient Greek or Roman artifact can
be proved to have been bought by Lord So-and-So on his grand tour in the
mid-18th century and shipped to London, it has to have been excavated
illegally and smuggled out of Italy (or Turkey or Croatia). Laws in Italy
protecting its cultural patrimony stretch back to the 1930s and earlier.

That clean provenance can't be a vague notation, and simply publishing that
an antiquity has an "unknown provenance" doesn't cut it either. It may not
be possible to prove that a piece with little or no documentation was
stolen, but that's not the same thing as proving that it's legal. 

The Italian authorities have stated that they want to stop future illegal
acquisitions of their patrimony. But they have also asked that 42 objects in
the Getty Museum's possession be returned. That's the total so far. If they
see a photograph of a Roman treasure in the Getty paired with a photo of the
identical work seized from a known Italian smuggler, they may begin to ask
for more. The Getty should quickly cut them off at the pass.

For starters, the Getty should immediately return at least one major piece
that the Italians have identified as questionable. At the top on my list
would be the gargantuan (and oddly clunky, I think) statue of Aphrodite that
the latest evidence indicates was found sometime before 1986 by tombaroli -
looters - in what was ancient Morgantina in Sicily (near the sleepy town of
Aidone). It made its way into the hands of dealer Robin Symes (whose name
comes up more than once in questionable Getty purchases) and then for $18
million to the Getty, thanks to True. 

Another piece that should be sent back - but only as a special two-year
goodwill loan - is the famous 4th-3rd century BC sculpture of a male
athlete, known as the Getty bronze. 

As I reported in a piece on ABC's "20/20" in 1979, it was found by a fishing
boat crew from Fano, Italy. It was shipped, at one point, to South America -
identified as concrete - and offered by an antiquities dealer in Europe to
oil magnate J. Paul Getty for more than $4 million. Getty worked with me to
buy it for less than that, but only if the dealer obtained permission from
the Italian government. This didn't happen. After Getty's death, however,
the museum acquired the piece. It's not on the Italians' current most-wanted
list. According to court records I've seen, the highest court in Italy
dismissed charges, on a technicality, that the piece was smuggled.

Still, it would be a good idea for the Getty bronze to be loaned to Italy
for two years in exchange for a work of equal importance - say, one of the
two 5th century BC bronze warriors found near Riace, Italy, and now housed
in the National Museum of Archeology of Reggio Calabria. Every two years the
Getty could loan another of its questionable treasures to an institution in
its country of origin in exchange for something totally legitimate.

I would order the publication on the Getty Museum's website of the complete
inventory of the antiquities division, including all facts (and horrors) of
acquisition - along with measurements and photographs. I'd suggest that True
undertake an exalted new role in research curatorship, and then I'd start
the search for a new department head.

And on the second day.. 

http://www.latimes.com/