When people find out that you are in LA almost everyone recommends the J. Paul Getty Art Museum. They follow this with the fact that it is free so I was pretty disappointed when we finally went and parking was $20. It’s not so much that I didn’t think it was worth the $20 but that is not free and should be included in the sales pitch 🙂 Still we were excited to go but we were surprised by how crowded it was. Everything in LA is crowded though so I am not sure why I keep getting surprised by it.
Once you leave the parking garage you can either walk up a very steep hill or take the tram. We took the tram and it didn’t take long to get to the top. The museum is actually multiple buildings with large grounds and many people say the grounds are the best part. We were more interested in the museum though and headed into one of the main buildings.
The buildings were very beautiful and they were interconnected with walkways. They also had large porches on the second floor where you could look out over the grounds and the city.
My problem with the museum was the type of art they had. It was mostly 13th -17th century European with lots of furniture and portraits. Lee and I both really like landscape paintings and they were few and far between. That being said if this is the type of art you like by all means visit..it just wasn’t our cup of tea.
My favorite section has the Iris Van Gogh painting and I even bought a glasses case with the picture on it.
It was also very crowded which in spots really took away from the fun but in all fairness it was a Sunday.
The Louis XIV furniture in particular was really neat…especially the clocks were beautiful.
One of their claims to fame is the work they are doing restoring old manuscripts. This area was pretty interesting because of how old the documents were.
We only spent a couple of hours there but I am glad I went at least once. If you have a limited time in LA though I wouldn’t put this at the top of your list unless you really like this type of art.
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