Getty forms search party

The J. Paul Getty Trust has launched a search for the next director of the Getty Museum in Brentwood. Three Getty trustees and six staff members have been invited to join trust President Barry Munitz in finding the successor to Deborah Gribbon, who resigned last October, citing critical philosophical differences with Munitz.

The abrupt departure of Gribbon -- a highly respected arts professional and 20-year Getty veteran who had directed the museum since 1998 -- set off a storm of controversy in the art world and raised questions about Munitz’s leadership of the $6.8-billion trust and its programs.

The Getty did not return phone calls about the search, but in a March 2 memo to prospective search committee members, Munitz describes their challenge as “one of the most important decisions that will shape the future” of the trust. “This must be a comprehensive, international, fully credible search process that explores every possible means of bringing a professional with extraordinary strength and experience to the museum,” he states in the memo.

Those asked to join the committee include trustees Lloyd Cotsen, a Los Angeles-based collector, philanthropist and retired chief executive of Neutrogena Corp. who is president of Cotsen Management Corp.; Agnes Gund, a New York-based collector, philanthropist and former president of the Museum of Modern Art; and Barbara Fleischman, a New York-based collector who, with her husband, donated a large collection of Greek and Roman antiquities to the Getty Museum.

Getty employees selected to help with the search are: Steve Juarez, director of financial management; Deborah Marrow, director of the Getty Foundation (formerly the Getty Grant Program); Kenneth Hamma, executive director of digital policy initiatives; Thom Kren, curator of manuscripts; Mark Leonard, head of painting conservation at the museum; and Jens Daehner, assistant curator of antiquities.

The Getty board of trustees approved plans for the search in February, the memo says. The committee is expected to hold its first meeting later this month, to discuss the process with a professional consultant, rough out a schedule and plan an advertising campaign. At their next meeting, probably in early May, committee members will review their progress and identify semifinalists with four members of the museum’s visiting committee: Anne d’Harnoncourt, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Neil Harris, a scholar of American culture and professor of history at the University of Chicago; James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum in London.

According to Munitz’s tentative timetable, outlined in the memo, the committee will reconvene in July to refine the list of semifinalists to a few serious candidates who have indicated their interest in the position. If the search proceeds on schedule, a decision could be made by mid-September, when the trustees will hold their fall meeting.

William Griswold, who joined the museum’s staff in 2001 as associate director, became acting director and chief curator after Gribbon’s departure.