David A. Jaffe Named Getty Curator of Paintings : Art: The scholar is ‘delighted. . . . From a curatorial point of view the museum’s vision is a dream vision.’

David A. Jaffe, a former curator of European art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, has been named curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Jaffe will succeed George R. Goldner, who resigned last October to head the departments of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Jaffe, 40, is a scholar of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art who has specialized in the work of 17th-Century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. During the last three years he has lived in London and worked independently on Rubens projects. His recent accomplishments include writing a book, “Rubens and His Friends, Some New Letters,” and organizing a major exhibition, “Rubens and the Italian Renaissance,” for the National Gallery of Australia.

In making the announcement, Getty Museum Director John Walsh said “although he is not as well known as many museum curators, he has a really amazing visual gift. Furthermore, he has a great deal of experience in the art market, so he can help us with great acquisitions.”

“I’m absolutely delighted to have got the job,” Jaffe said in a telephone interview. “I have met the staff, which is very talented and friendly. It’s a small team, with a family spirit, and I look forward to joining them.” Praising the museum for proving that a significant art collection can be built in the late 20th Century, he said: “From a curatorial point of view the museum’s vision is a dream vision. And the museum has a hands-off director who encourages his curators to get on with it.”

While Goldner focused on building the museum’s collections of drawings and paintings--occasionally making international news with multimillion-dollar purchases--Jaffe will take on additional responsibilities at the Getty’s new museum in Brentwood, which is expected to open in 1997.

Jaffe was educated at the University of Melbourne and at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where he received a master’s degree in art history in 1978. During his tenure as curator at Australia’s National Gallery, from 1982-90, he was in charge of temporary exhibitions and acquisitions of European art. He will join the Getty’s staff on Feb. 1.