Otto Wittmann; Helped Guide Getty

Otto Wittmann, eminence grise of the art world who in 30 years virtually created the Toledo (Ohio) Art Museum from nothing and then came to Los Angeles to guide the Getty Museum in spending its inherited millions, has died. He was 89.

Wittmann, also a former trustee of the Los Angeles County and Santa Barbara museums of art, died July 14 in Santa Barbara. He was a longtime resident of its upscale suburb of Montecito.

Considered a leader of the art acquisition business, Wittmann was hired as a Getty consultant in 1978, just as the Malibu museum was coming into the billion-dollar trust left by its founder, oil baron J. Paul Getty. Wittmann was elected a trustee in 1979 and was named acting chief curator in 1980, in effect running the museum.

The Getty fortune was both welcomed and feared by the international art market, anticipating that astronomical prices for scarce pre-20th century artworks might benefit sellers but put many museums out of competitive bidding.

But the prudent Wittmann rescued both the Getty, which was dazzled but also frightened by its new gold-filled coffers, and the international art world. He established, and until 1989 chaired, the museum’s powerful acquisition committee.

Even more importantly, he drafted the newly wealthy Getty’s “implementations of policy” and set the standards for spending. Long before the building of the new Getty Center and closure of the original Getty Museum for renovation, Wittmann started his careful purchasing. He concentrated on Greek and Roman antiquities, French decorative arts of the 17th and 18th centuries and European old masters--the core of the collection personally shaped by Getty himself.

Wittmann rejected many offerings, and kept prices competitive enough that other major museums had no trouble outbidding him if they so desired.

“We must remember,” he told an interviewer in 1983, “that we are only one institution among many institutions dedicated to the preservation of what few precious relics of our past still exist.”

During his three years as acting chief curator, Wittmann performed so well that many supporters inside and outside the Getty touted him for museum director. Instead, Wittmann helped search for and recruit John Walsh, who became museum director in 1983.

Wittmann also helped guide the board of trustees’ building, grant and investment committees. His work helped lay the foundation for the future $1-billion Getty Center now reigning above the San Diego Freeway.

Named a trustee emeritus in 1989, Wittmann also became a benefactor of the Getty when he and his late wife, Margaret, donated 13 albumen prints of European views to the museum, strengthening its collection of 19th century travel photographs.

His seminal work for the emerging Getty only capped Wittmann’s remarkable career as an art historian that in 1987 helped earn him the Award for Distinguished Service to Museums. Considered the nation’s highest honor in museum circles, the award is presented by the American Assn. of Museums.

Born in Kansas City, Mo., Wittmann earned a fine arts degree from Harvard and delved into his profession during his service in World War II. A major in the Army Air Force, he was a special intelligence officer assigned to find and return works of art looted by the Nazis from France and elsewhere.

“Basically what happened is that during the early part of the war, the Germans took over France and headquartered in Paris. Suddenly there appeared a well-organized group that the Germans established to seize works of art,” Wittmann told The Times in 1995. “At the same time as Hermann Goering was head of the German air force, which was trying to conquer England, he was in Paris collecting art. He got an enormous number of pictures.”

As the Allies moved into Germany, Wittmann related, Americans heard of secret caches of looted art and determined to return it to the countries where it belonged, primarily France. Wittmann, as head of the Art Looting Investigation Unit in Washington through 1946, spent long periods in Paris and Munich, collection centers for the recovered art, and investigating transactions in Sweden and Switzerland.

Years later, during his long tenure at the Toledo Museum of Art, he hosted an exhibition of a group of works seized by the Allies from Germany--and also hosted the entire Army company that came along to protect the collection.

Wittmann was at the Toledo museum from 1946 to 1976, tripling its collection in size and establishing his impeccable international reputation for acquiring top-quality artworks. He also doubled the museum’s exhibition space and became one of the first American museum directors to display furniture, sculpture, decorative arts and paintings together in one setting.

He came to Los Angeles in 1977 as a consultant and trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but stayed only until 1978, when the Getty snared him.

A founding member of the National Council on the Arts, Wittmann was among the first museum professionals to work for development of federal programs to aid the arts and humanities. He was twice elected president of the Assn. of Art Museum Directors, and was vice president of the American Assn. of Museums, a director of the College Art Assn. and a fellow of England’s Museums Assn.

Wittmann is survived by two sons, John and William, and five granddaughters.