In 1965 accountant Sidney Felsen asked his former USC fraternity brother, Stanley Grinstein, if he would like to change gears with him and start a lithography studio. Their shop, Gemini G.E.L., would become a place of inspiration for Felsen, whose photographs of artists and printers are now on view in First Came a Friendship: Sidney B. Felsen and the Artists at Gemini G.E.L.
How Getty’s African American Art History Initiative is making history
Since 2018, Getty’s African American Art History Initiative (AAAHI) has been collecting the stories of a vanguard generation of Black artists. AAAHI’s ongoing oral history project explores how Black artists remember, record, and rewrite history, and offers fascinating stories you won’t find anywhere else.
Video Still from Dream City, 1983, Ulysses Jenkins. Photo courtesy the artist
Video: J. Paul Getty’s treasured Hercules
Celebrate 50 years of the Getty Villa Museum with this Close Looking video about J. Paul Getty’s beloved Statue of Hercules (Lansdowne Herakles). As Curatorial Assistant of Antiquities Nicole Budrovich tells us, “Getty was such a fan of this piece that he nerded out and wrote a fan-fiction novella for it.”
Budrovich with Statue of Hercules (Lansdowne Herakles), about 125 CE, Roman. Marble. Getty Museum
NEW ON VIEW
First Came a Friendship: Sidney B. Felsen and the Artists at Gemini G.E.L.
Through July 7, 2024
The photographs of Sidney B. Felsen document the history of Gemini G.E.L., the Los Angeles artists’ workshop and publisher of limited-edition prints and sculpture. Presenting Felsen’s photographs alongside Gemini editions spanning five decades, this exhibition explores the joys and demands of the creative process and chronicles friendships with artists from Robert Rauschenberg to Julie Mehretu.
On Elegy: Dawoud Bey and LeRonn P. Brooks in Dialogue
Saturday, March 2, 4:00–6:00 pm
Arcana: Books on the Arts, Culver City
For the landmark exhibition and publication Elegy, renowned American artist Dawoud Bey joins Getty curator LeRonn P. Brooks to address how Bey has evoked the invisible history of the Black presence in the American landscape.
A Rome of One’s Own: Putting Women Back into Roman History
Friday, March 8, 11:00 am PT Online only
Vestal Virgins to business owners, on the empire’s front lines and in its palaces, women were as much a part of Roman society as men. To celebrate International Women’s Day, historian Emma Southon explores what it was like to be a woman in the Roman empire.
Mosaic portrait of Saint Perpetua (detail) in the archiepiscopal chapel, Ravenna, Italy, about 500 CE. Photo by Nick Thompson, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed, via Flickr
Julius Caesar and Caesar’s Forum: A Formative Space in the Heart of Rome
Sunday, March 10, 1:00 pm Getty Villa, Auditorium
What we know about Julius Caesar’s influence in Rome comes largely from written sources; but archaeology also offers clues. In this talk, Rubina Raja, director of the Centre for Urban Network Evolutions at Aarhus University, revisits Caesar’s legacy in light of archaeological discoveries made during the recent excavations of Caesar’s Forum.
Rediscover Sargent Claude Johnson, the California artist whose sensitive, uplifting portrayals of people of color made him the West Coast’s key connection to the Harlem Renaissance. The Huntington’s sweeping exhibition of Johnson’s powerful works spans the Great Depression to the Civil Rights Movement and includes masks, sculptures, and monumental public commissions.
Sometimes a window frames a view just so, turning it into a work of art.
Case in point: this shot of the coastal town of Hondarribia in northern Spain taken by Get Inspired subscriberNick Gerson. “The spit of land on the right is in Hendaye, France,” Gerson tells us.
Have a window-framed scene “hanging” on your wall? Did you snap one somewhere else? Send us the photo! Include your name, camera used, location, and anything else you’d like to share. stories@getty.edu
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