Getty Museum Acquires $60-Million Collection of Antiquities

In the latest of a series of spectacular art acquisitions--this time through a combination gift and purchase--the J. Paul Getty Museum has added a $60-million cache of 300 Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities to its collections. The works were amassed by New York-based arts patrons Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, who are said to have one of the world’s finest holdings of its kind.

The museum declined to disclose details of the deal, but in announcing the acquisition Wednesday, museum Director John Walsh said the Fleischmans are donating the vast majority of the pieces and the museum is purchasing a very small number.

Large private collections of antiquities are extremely rare. The Fleischmans’ is said to be particularly unusual in its variety and quality. Over the past 15 years the couple have purchased works of sculpture and functional objects in terra cotta, marble, bronze and glass, as well as fresco panels and jewelry in gold and silver, dating from 2600 BC to AD 400.

Among many notable objects are a marble Cycladic “Head of an Idol” made around 2600-2500 BC; a Greek “Red-Figured Bell Krater,” a terra cotta vessel depicting a theatrical scene, from the 4th century BC, and a Roman “Head of the Young Dionysos” cast in bronze with silver during the first half of the 1st century AD.

About 200 works from the collection were displayed at the Getty Museum in the fall of 1994 in “A Passion for Antiquities: Ancient Art From the Collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman,” which traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Getty also published a fully illustrated color catalog of the show, raising questions about a possible acquisition.

At the time, the couple insisted that no gift or purchase was under consideration, but they now say the exhibition paved the way to their recent decision.

“We had a wonderful experience when the exhibition was in Los Angeles,” Barbara Fleischman said. “We have great respect for the Getty and we have developed great affection for the staff, especially [curator of antiquities] Marion True, John Walsh and [J. Paul Getty Trust President] Harold Williams. Last February when we began to talk seriously about where our collection should go, we decided--with their sense of quality and scholarship--it should be the Getty.”

The museum’s West Coast location “doesn’t bother us,” she said. “We got great joy when we saw public interest in our collection in Los Angeles. We’re Americans, whatever coast we are on.”

Lawrence Fleischman said he and his wife “are at the time of life we wanted to make a decision about the collection and we have found the right place for it. The collection means a lot to us. It was a lot of work. We wanted to keep it together in an institution where it will be properly maintained and exhibited.”

All the Getty’s collections except antiquities will be moved to a new museum at the Getty Center in Brentwood, scheduled to open in fall of 1997. The existing museum in Malibu will be closed in June 1997 so that it can be converted to a showcase exclusively devoted to antiquities. The Fleischman collection will be installed in the Roman-style villa when it reopens in 2000.

Praising the Getty’s latest coup--only a few weeks after it landed major paintings by Renaissance master Fra Bartolommeo and Postimpressionist Paul Cezanne--Walsh said the Fleischman holding “makes a fundamental difference” to the Getty. “It means that the Villa will have a vastly more interesting, rich and important collection. And the timing is perfect. Marion and the architect and the staff are working now on the design of the galleries, so the material can be perfectly integrated,” he said.

The acquisition represents “a quantum leap” for the museum’s antiquities collection, curator True said. “The most important thing is that it’s the perfect complement to ours. They are strong in the very areas where we are weak, including ancient bronzes and Etruscan art. There are pieces that only come along once in a lifetime, if that, and they got them. Also, they have focused on special themes, like the theater and daily life, that provide a broader scope for our collection.”

Antiquities experts from other institutions also lauded the acquisition. “It’s a great private collection and a great addition to the museum, especially at a time when they are reorganizing their antiquities galleries,” said Arielle Kozloff, curator of ancient art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, who organized the Fleischman exhibition with True. “And it’s a wonderful resolution for the Fleischmans. They have found a first-rate home for their collection.”

The Fleischmans have donated several important artworks to the Cleveland museum in the past. While Kozloff would have been pleased to get the collection for her institution, it doesn’t have as much space for antiquities as the Getty, she said.

Lawrence Fleischman, a native of Detroit, made his fortune there in television, real estate and investments. He and his wife became known in the art world as collectors of American art, but they sold that collection in 1966, when Lawrence became a partner in Kennedy Galleries, a New York-based American art dealership. The couple moved to New York in 1980, when he became chief operating officer of the firm.