Monreal to Head Getty Conservation Institute

The J. Paul Getty Trust has named Luis Monreal director of the new Getty Conservation Institute, The Times has learned. Harold Williams, president of the trust, confirmed the news late Friday, after unofficial reports of Monreal’s appointment.

Monreal, currently secretary general of the International Council of Museums in Paris, will head an institute that is expected to become the world’s leading center in the scientific preservation and restoration of artworks. He will assume his new post in May.

“My ambition will be to build a farsighted program and to establish strategies for the 21st Century,” Monreal said in a statement released by the Getty Institute. “For the first time in history, this institute can bring together specialists from all over the world to develop research and advance training, which is severely lacking.”

Citing “enormous needs” in the field, Monreal said: “Art treasures are decaying all over the world--either by neglect, human aggression or adverse environmental factors--because of the lack of professional knowledge and training. In the last 50 years, due to the pollution in the environment, works of art have decayed more than in the last 1,000 years.”

Plans for the institute include a global information center housing a specialized library and a computerized data base. The Getty Institute also will give grants to mid-career conservators who want to pursue advanced study at conservation centers around the world.

The institute is one of seven operating programs devised by the J. Paul Getty Trust to conform to federal tax law provisions, requiring the trust to spend about $90 million during three of every four years.

Monreal, 42, was born in Barcelona, Spain. He studied at the universities of Barcelona and Valencia, earning the equivalent of a master’s degree in art and archeology in 1965.

He has served 11 years as chief executive officer of the International Council of Museums, a UNESCO affiliate with a membership of 8,000 museum specialists from 121 countries.

Extensive Publications

As the council’s secretary general, Monreal has designed and managed programs offering professional assistance to an international slate of cultural institutions, including the Kuwait National Museum, the Nubia Museum in Aswan and three museums in Cairo. He has also taken an active interest in the council’s 500-member Committee for Conservation.

Most prominent in Monreal’s extensive list of publications is a seven-volume series on masterpieces of painting in the collections of 35 museums around the world.

He will take up professional residence in temporary quarters in Marina del Rey. The art conservation laboratory will be moved to Brentwood when the Getty Fine Arts Center is completed in the 1990s.