Getty Trust Growth Plans Rattle Nerves in Art Circles

Despite sitting on a portfolio that has grown in value to nearly $5 billion, the president of the J. Paul Getty Trust wants to do what some see as the unthinkable: start raising money.

One year into his tenure, Barry Munitz has a list of options on the table: seek corporate sponsors for exhibitions at the Getty’s famed museums; solicit gifts of art from private collectors; charge for memberships at the Getty Villa in Malibu; and borrow money for future construction projects.

Although Munitz is only in preliminary discussions, these proposals, which would be commonplace elsewhere, represent a fundamental shift in the Getty’s way of operating that could have as much impact on the institution’s evolution as last year’s move into the extravagant new Getty Center in Brentwood.

The plans, which appear to be garnering support from a majority of the trust’s board of directors, are drawing fire in the arts community from those who fear competition for scarce financial resources and see the trust as already among the wealthiest in the world.

“If they set up a big development office, they’ll be a laughingstock and make a lot of enemies,” said one local art administrator, who declined to be named.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed,” said Andrea Rich, president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “The philanthropic pool of the arts is not very abundant. I would have hoped they would add to the pool rather than take away from it. One can’t dictate policy to them. The Getty is a private institution. But this will have an effect. It’s not a level playing field.”

Munitz and his predecessor, founding President Harold M. Williams, have suggested privately in the past the need for bringing in new revenue, but this is the Getty’s first concrete move in that direction. On the eve of the first anniversary of the enormously popular Getty Center, Munitz spoke with candor and vigor about providing a cushion for the trust’s endowment and increasing the impact of its resources. This comes at the end of a year when Munitz has deeply shaken up the organization, not only losing some of its top leaders, but also reorganizing some of its key programs.

With an annual operating budget of $177 million, including the costs of accommodating nearly 2 million visitors to the Getty Center during its inaugural year--double the pre-opening expectations--as well as ambitions for an expanded grant program, Munitz contended that it is necessary to “diversify the revenue stream.” The reason is so the trust would not be completely dependent upon the return of its investment portfolio, which is subject to fluctuations in the stock market.

“In the long run, no matter how strong our portfolio is--and it is very strong at the moment--we cannot, and should not, run our entire operation with just one source of revenue,” Munitz said in one of a series of interviews last week.

The trustees have had “very intense conversations about [fund-raising] because there is a great disparity of opinion,” Munitz said. However, the argument has not necessarily pitted new trustees against the old guard, as might be expected.

Getting Up to Speed

The two newest board members are simply asking a lot of questions as they become familiar with the Getty, rather than advocating any particular action, Munitz said.

“Some of the senior members are very much used to the old way and questioning why we would change,” but longtime Getty board member and current Chairman Robert F. Erburu has led discussions about ensuring the Getty’s long-term financial health, Munitz said. (Erburu is also the retired chairman of the board and CEO for Times Mirror Co., the parent company of the Los Angeles Times.)

Erburu, who also chairs the board of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino--which was endowed with $8.2 million by Henry E. Huntington at his death in 1927--said in an interview Friday that it is never too soon to plan for leaner times. Although the Huntington’s endowment was thought to be adequate to sustain the institution, it has been forced to establish memberships, charge admission and increase the endowment to maintain its collections and facilities.

“The Getty has started out wonderfully well, as the Huntington did, with assets such as an art collection and a library, and a very large endowment,” Erburu said. “But the time will come--if you take the long view and look at the history of the Huntington and other cultural institutions--when they will be looking for other revenue sources. And it’s better to start thinking about those kinds of things sooner than later. We are just in the initial phases of so many things in terms of our thinking, but now’s the time to do it.”

Munitz said that among the proposals, only the memberships at the Villa have a time frame. “I am serious about the possibility of having special memberships when the Villa opens because [the parking situation is] so tight. But that’s three years away.”

Other revenue-producing proposals under consideration include adding another bookstore and food service facility at the base of the tram at the Getty Center and creating a new price structure for parking, instead of charging a flat $5 fee.

Putting the Getty’s proposals in a national context, Edward H. Able, president and CEO of the American Assn. of Museums, a 15,000-member organization based in Washington, said that museums nationwide are “stretched in terms of the resources awarded to them.”

“It’s a good time for arts-support from the corporate, public and private sectors,” he said, but the cost of maintaining museums and collections and serving the public still exceeds the supply of funds. While declining to comment on the Getty proposals, he said that adding one more competitor for corporate sponsorship only makes the struggle more difficult.

“All museums must diversify their funding base to the extent possible” to guard against a sudden loss of money from any one source, Able said. “But the Getty is unique in terms of its endowment. Other museums are woefully under-endowed.”

Reaching Out to Arts Community

At the same time Munitz is talking about raising funds, he is also planning to create more partnerships with other cultural institutions, he said. “We can’t do everything our staff can design by ourselves. So there are two choices: Do it with others, or don’t do it. I would much rather do it with others than feel there is something magic about always having to do something on our own.

“The profound change at the Getty is, instead of continuing to run most of our programs by ourselves in-house, we are now going to look for partners,” Munitz said. “We are going to do much more in the way of grants and contracts than just expenditure of our own money long-term. Then, down the road--maybe, if the board is comfortable with it--we might do some very targeted development of our own.”

Munitz is also talking about giving away more money. In the future, the Getty Grant Program will probably spend much more than the $10 million it dispersed during the past fiscal year. “We can dramatically expand that program,” he said.

Unlike a philanthropic foundation, which is required by law to spend 5% of the value of its endowment annually, primarily on grants, the Getty Trust is an operating foundation. It must spend 4 1/4% of the market value of its endowment three out of every four years, mostly on operating its own programs. But an additional 3/4% can be spent on grants. With its endowment currently worth close to $5 billion, the Getty could spend about $37 million a year on grants.

“The board has had a serious conversation about the notion of formally expanding and strengthening the grant program and calling it the Getty Foundation,” Munitz said. “It’s a long way from happening, but it’s something I’m serious about, and something they were very responsive to. Changing the name is not a legal change, but it would reinforce that we are a philanthropic organization as well.”

The grant program will also be more “proactive,” Munitz said. One proposed program would support arts journalism and possibly establish a major award in the field.

Munitz, the former chancellor of the California State University system, arrived at the Getty in an atmosphere of apprehensive excitement. His agenda was a matter of speculation because he was known as a public educator, not an art administrator.

He has set off a firestorm of activity, giving challenging new assignments to the Getty people he considers “stars,” bringing in a few outsiders and announcing the resignations of three top officials: Leilani Lattin Duke, Eleanor E. Fink and Miguel Angel Corzo, directors of the institutes of education, information and conservation, respectively.

Munitz has also placed all the trust’s enterprises under intense scrutiny. He has made many changes in the trust’s specialized institutes after an internal review process, initiated to see how the trust was spending its money and how the resources might be used more efficiently.

He disbanded the Information Institute, established to improve the technology of art history, because some of its programs duplicated efforts elsewhere and others could be integrated into other branches of the trust. Databases and research tools developed by the institute are being shifted to the Research Institute, while programs that involved grants and contracts to outside organizations are moving to the Getty Grant Program.

The fate of the Education Institute, which promotes art in the schools, is still uncertain. But it is likely to disappear. “It’s clear that education has to be even stronger and woven together even more effectively among all the programs at the Getty,” Munitz said. “The open question is, in what organizational structure and with what leadership?”

He plans to make a decision over the holidays and take a recommendation to the January board meeting. But Munitz said if the meeting were held tomorrow, he would recommend dismantling the institute.

Corzo’s resignation last Monday fueled rumors that the Conservation Institute would be shut down as well, but Munitz denied that possibility. “The question is not, do we [continue to operate the institute] . . . but what’s the best way of doing it?” he said.

The training program for conservators will be strengthened, as will conservation science. And plans are going forward for a new joint program with UCLA that will concentrate on archeological conservation at the Getty’s facility in Malibu, he said.

Shifts in the Getty’s programs and operations inevitably mean changes in personnel, Munitz said. “These are different worlds and some people will love to play in them and some people won’t.”

Taking a long view of the trust on the eve of the Getty Center’s first birthday, Munitz said he does not see a museum and a collection of separate institutes, as the organization was described before his arrival. “I see a collaborative visual arts entity that is a wonderful museum, a magnetic public site, a philanthropic organization and a shaper of cultural policy,” he said. “The one thing that is unique about us is the weaving together of all of these pieces, not any of them separately.”

Asked how he will be able to tell whether the collaboration he is trying to facilitate is working, he said: “That’s my assignment this next year. Asking how you know if we have made a difference is another way of asking about accountability. I won’t be able to measure it. It’s a question of perceptions, taste, feel and nuance. But taking the temperature of states of mind is a very tricky thing.”

The jury is still out among outsiders as well. “It’s hard to make judgments about the Getty right now,” said Robert C. Ritchie, W.M. Keck Foundation director of research at the Huntington Library, who has served as an occasional advisor to the Getty. “So much of it is a work in progress.”

* A YEAR LATER: On the eve of the Getty’s first birthday, Calendar takes a look at the museum’s future. Page 4