New faces in the frame

THE museum director has his eyes on a still life. It’s a sun-splashed chair and cafe table, empty and gleaming like Hockney props on a private balcony overlooking an ocean.

The good news is his museum can afford it. In fact, his museum already owns it. But odds are Michael Brand will never enjoy this scene quite the way most people would like to.

It’s his own balcony, seen from his corner office at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

“I sat there once,” Brand says, half wistful, half kidding and entirely too burdened to spend a lot of office moments idling in the sun.

He’s haggling with Greeks. He’s dickering with Italians. He’s looking to fill a couple of big jobs while waiting to see who his new boss will be. And most of all, he’s trying to nudge the institution toward equilibrium after the most scandal-marred, morale-sapping year since the late J.P. Getty started showing off his art collection three decades ago.

Brand, a 48-year-old Australian who speaks softly and carries a Harvard PhD, knew he was taking a chance when the Getty Trust’s recruiters came calling last year. The institution was in the middle of an international confrontation over its antiquities collection and a domestic brouhaha over executive perks. And the Getty Museum director slot has always carried less autonomy than at most institutions, because the museum is an arm of the larger Getty Trust. It’s the Trust’s president who wields the greatest power on that Brentwood hilltop.

But Brand couldn’t help noticing that this was still the world’s wealthiest art organization, an institution with globally coveted collections of antiquities and photography and vast resources for art research and conservation -- not to mention the view. Last August he said yes to the Getty and goodbye to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In January, he came west with his wife and two daughters and started work.

And so began his baptism -- by transatlantic tug-of-war (when Italy and Greece stepped up their demands for the Getty to hand back dozens of treasured objects), by hasty presidential exit (when Barry Munitz, the chief executive who hired Brand, abruptly resigned in February) and by household mold (the Getty bought a house for Brand’s use for $3.5 million, then found it was fungus-riddled and uninhabitable).

These last nine months, Brand has seen plenty. But unless you count this window-gazing moment, none of it shows on his face.

“Yes, I was surprised when [Munitz] resigned five weeks after I started work,” he says carefully. “On the other hand, I knew when I was coming here that there were complications.”

Brand says he’s eager to build and emphasize the Getty photography collection, to boost contemporary art programming -- without formally collecting it -- and, extravagant as it may sound, to restore order among the museum’s more than 430 employees and 110,000 objects.

“It’s photography that takes us into the 20th century, and the 21st century. And it’s a natural for Los Angeles -- photography and its relation to film,” Brand says. Last year, he notes, 15 collectors donated more than 360 photographs to Getty collections -- encouraging signs at an institution that has never made donor-courting a top priority.

Furthermore, he says, the pursuit of photography gives curators a chance to reach beyond Western Europe, where most of its paintings and decorative arts come from, to connect with cultures farther afield, “whether it’s South Africa, Australia or China.”

If those references sound far-flung, consider his resume. Born in Australia, he spent two of his high school years in the Washington, D.C., area, where his father was serving as a director for the International Monetary Fund. After earning his bachelor of arts from Australian National University, he specialized in Indian art and architecture at Harvard. Before he took the top job in Richmond at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, he put in stints at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane. (At one of his early meetings, Brand introduced staffers to a useful term from Aussie slang: shonky, which means “dubious” or “unreliable.”)

Brand’s new job includes a $482,000 salary -- a $132,000 increase over that of the last permanent director, Deborah Gribbon, who resigned in October 2004, citing conflicts with Munitz. There’s no telling when he’ll get a new boss: The Getty trustees formed a presidential search committee only last month.

“He’s been a very calming influence,” says Karol Wight, the Getty’s acting antiquities curator. And even amid the tension of Greek and Italian antiquities claims and reopening the Getty Villa, “he has encouraged me from Day One to not work myself to death -- that’s something that American workaholics can appreciate.”

Brand does have his critics within the Getty. Three current or former staffers, all declining to be named, say his handling of the Getty’s search for a director’s residence has projected a sense of entitlement that rubs some colleagues the wrong way. One calls him “Prince Michael.”

Wight warns, however, that “it’s easy to misjudge someone who is not necessarily a flamboyant personality.” For all his outward calm, she says, “he comes in with a very strong personality and a very strong presence.” Unfortunately, she adds, all the best examples of that have cropped up in conversations she can’t disclose.

“Michael is an exceptional consensus-builder. He’s very good at understanding relative viewpoints,” says Willard Scribner, president of SMBW Architects in Richmond.

Scribner met Brand in early 2002, when SMBW joined the team working on an $82-million expansion of the Virginia museum. It was a tricky project -- a contemporary design bankrolled by conservative board members in a city that Scribner calls “the last bastion of the Confederacy.”

Those trustees “would not respond at all to a glad-handing, glib personality,” but they did to Brand’s integrity and gentle persuasion, Scribner says. And in a city with anglophile leanings, he adds, the Australian accent didn’t hurt, either.

The accent may not make such a difference here. But Ann Philbin, director of the UCLA Hammer Museum of Art, says Brand’s demeanor will serve him well as he faces the challenge of rebuilding museum morale at all levels.

“He has a wonderful manner about him,” says Philbin, e-mailing while on a business trip. To welcome Brand and his counterpart at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan, Philbin threw a party April 19 at the Hammer and raised her glass to “the handsome and the brave.”

“I suspect he will take his time with everything,” Philbin says. And she offers this advice: “Come down off the hill as often as possible.”

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Core assets, concerns

WHEN he welcomes a visitor to talk about his adventures, Brand wears his blue tie snugly knotted beneath his brown jacket. Clearly, the poker face and dry wit are helpful survival skills. But when the subject turns to art itself, Brand’s tone changes. Describing the 17th century mythological hunting scene by Peter Paul Rubens that the museum bought in April, he slips into outright, unrestrained enthusiasm.

“One of my greatest pleasures since arriving here,” says Brand, “has been looking at that painting with Scott [Schaefer, the Getty’s curator of paintings, ] in the conservation lab. No frame. No glass. Just walking around it.”

The Getty won’t disclose how many millions it paid, but the Rubens purchase is the museum’s biggest acquisition, and perhaps its biggest financial move of any kind, since Brand arrived. It shows “a great master in his absolute peak form,” Brand says, and reminds him “how magical painting can be, that deftness of touch.”

As for morale, “what you do is try to get out there and be approachable,” he says. “Some things have been hard to talk about, as you can imagine. The staff were very concerned about [former antiquities curator] Marion True as a former colleague. Lots of questions in that area. And some of those questions, I couldn’t answer, for legal reasons.”

In the list of troubles Brand aims to rise above, True’s case ranks near the top. Accused by Italian prosecutors of knowingly buying looted goods for the museum, she remains on trial in Rome, the Getty footing her legal bills.

The trial began last year, and True moved to France, which meant the long-awaited reopening of the Getty Villa -- a $275-million project aimed at highlighting the museum’s antiquities collection -- went on in January despite the conspicuous absence of the curator who led the project.

Meanwhile, a financial probe by the state attorney general into spending practices under Munitz -- who drew a $1-million salary and favored high-end travel and accommodations -- remains unresolved.

Where does a newcomer begin?

Brand began with diplomacy. Even before setting up shop in Los Angeles, he sent off letters to cultural leaders in Italy and Greece. While the Getty Villa was opening in late January, Brand was in Rome, dickering with Italy’s culture minister. By mid-May -- with a domestic political meltdown preoccupying the Italians -- Brand was in Athens, making a tentative deal with Greek officials.

Under that agreement, the Getty may give back some of the four items demanded by the Greeks, and the Greeks may loan other comparable items to the Getty. Further talks and a vote by Getty trustees are needed before any hard deal is made, but Brand said in Athens that “we feel we’re making progress more quickly than expected.”

In its key elements, Brand’s agreement seems to echo the pact Italian leaders made in February with Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Philippe de Montebello. In that deal, the museum agreed to return its prized Euphronios krater and 20 other apparently looted objects; the Italians agreed to lend items of comparable significance.

“Michael has been very busy with the Italians and the Greeks, and I have actually seen very little of him,” says one museum insider, requesting anonymity. “He is very much about delegation, and thank heavens he is anything but a micromanager.... He just has not had a lot of time to devote to anything other than the ‘Getty ills’ of the moment.”

When in town, Brand typically starts his days by dropping one of his two daughters at school, then turns up in Brentwood about 8 to go over the day’s schedule with secretary Julia Tanner. He doesn’t like meetings before 10 a.m., and he doesn’t like meetings on Fridays at all. In fact, he’s banned Friday meetings from his schedule, except in emergencies, in a bid to make more time for thinking and planning. He’s even set up a second office at the Getty Villa for that purpose.

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Priorities outlined

ONE of Brand’s biggest thoughts so far: more photography. In March, he announced the Getty would quadruple the wall space it gives to photography. Beginning in October, the museum’s West Pavilion will reserve 7,000 square feet for photos, taking space formerly occupied by antiquities now relocated to the Getty Villa near Malibu.

The museum will also add an area on the Terrace Level of the West Pavilion for watching videos, including selections from the Long Beach Museum’s highly regarded collection, which the Getty Research Institute acquired in December.

Brand says he expects to give more resources to the restoration of color photographs and set aside more space for photograph storage as well, a hint that the museum’s collection of more than 63,000 prints -- all amassed since 1984 -- will likely continue to grow substantially.

As it happens, the expanded photography space will look out upon a courtyard holding five items from the museum’s 28-piece Stark collection of contemporary sculpture -- another tricky issue.

The Getty has never made contemporary art a priority, yet Munitz, who had no training in art history, accepted the Stark collection as a donation shortly after Gribbon’s resignation. His move sparked criticism from some (including Times art critic Christopher Knight) who thought the top executive was ignoring the museum’s mission and standards.

Brand doesn’t see a problem. In fact, he sees the works as the chance to make “a very important transfiguration of the campus” and he’s deploying the Stark collection throughout the Getty grounds, putting an Alberto Giacometti sculpture in the museum’s entry hall, an Aristide Maillol on the steps and eight more works near the tram arrival point. The Getty Center has always had some contemporary work around, he notes, including several works commissioned by the Trust for the 1997 opening of the campus. And a Getty contemporary projects series, including several commissioned works, will start next year.

Still, “I don’t think that we should just start collecting contemporary art in general,” says Brand. “We can be really innovative in the field of contemporary art without collecting.”

He does, however, need to collect some personnel. The museum endured the last months of 2005 with each of its top three jobs empty -- director, associate director for administration and associate director for collections -- not to mention the antiquities curator position, which associate curator Wight has filled on an interim basis.

Brand has filled the administration position from within -- Thomas Rhoads started Jan. 15 -- and he is about to start interviewing candidates for the collections job. Meanwhile, Brand meets with senior staff weekly (a step up from the museum’s former every-other-week schedule), and with the collections committee monthly (instead of every other month).

He lunches once a week with the leaders of the Getty’s research, conservation and grant-making programs. He expects to meet with department heads monthly and with the full staff every two or three months. And then there are quarterly trustee meetings, and efforts to stay in close touch with Deborah Marrow, the Getty Trust’s acting top executive.

And almost endlessly, he faces questions on the antiquities issue. How does the Marion True trial affect the Getty’s negotiations in Rome? Does the Getty’s eagerness to settle mean it will hand back all 52 objects contested by the Italians? Or just some but not all? And are archeologists using this case as an excuse to beat up on museums generally? Brand lets neither tiny details nor his broader philosophy slip, citing the sensitive nature of the talks.

At least he’s done looking at houses. In April, the Getty trustees bought another director’s residence, a mold-free dwelling, in a neighborhood convenient to the Getty Center, for $4.35 million. Brand and his family, still in a rental home, will probably move this summer. The Trust is still figuring out what to do with the other house.

Come to think of it, Brand is still figuring out what to do with the olive-hued wall behind his desk. His bookshelves nearly groan with volumes on art, most of them Getty publications, but five months after his arrival, that prominent wall remains empty except for a small photograph of J. Paul Getty.

The challenge, Brand says, is “thinking of something I can put up that’s not too sensitive to light.” And anyway, he adds, “I can’t have people worrying too much about a painting for my office.”

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Times staff writers Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino contributed to this report.