ABOUT THE GETTY
The J. Paul Getty Museum seeks to inspire curiosity about, and enjoyment and understanding of, the visual arts by collecting, conserving, exhibiting, and interpreting works of art of outstanding quality and historical importance.
To fulfill this mission, the Museum continues to build its collection through purchases and gifts, and develops programs of exhibitions, publications, scholarly research, public education, and the performing arts to engage our diverse local and international audiences. All of these activities are enhanced by the stunning architectural and garden settings of the Museum’s two renowned venues: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. Admission is free at both the Getty Center and Getty Villa, which together welcome nearly two million visitors a year from all over the world. Please explore the Museum’s website for more details -https://www.getty.edu/museum/.
The Getty believes diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are essential to its excellence and to the execution of the mission. The Getty community values differences in the pursuit of inquiry and knowledge, mutual understanding, respect, trust, transparency, and cooperation. Committed to creating a diverse and welcoming workplace that reflects the diversity of the communities served and includes individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Individuals of color, women, LGBTQIA+, veterans and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply. For more details, please review the Getty’s Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and
Inclusion plan here - https://www.getty.edu/about/governance/pdfs/deai_plan.pdf.
THE OPPORTUNITY
The J. Paul Getty Museum seeks an experienced individual to lead their Registrar’s department reporting to the Associate Director for Exhibitions. The Head of Registration demonstrates leadership in all areas of registration, establishing departmental objectives and developing and implementing departmental policies and procedures to maximize the effectiveness of resources. Managing a highly competent team of 14, this leader will apply new ways of working where appropriate, overseeing personnel actions and evaluating performance. The Head of Registration represents the Museum externally on registration matters, maintaining active relationships with registrars at peer institutions, attending museum registration and other industry conferences; may act as a courier for art shipments.
With a data-driven philosophy and approach, this leader will have had extensive experience overseeing record-keeping and tracking of works of art, particularly data and files pertaining to acquisition, loan, and deaccessioning. This person devises policies and procedures for creating and maintaining accurate documentation, providing data to other departments as necessary. The Head of Registration oversees the quality of and access to information on the Museum's collections, working closely with curatorial and administrative staff and ensuring appropriate maintenance of the collections database and the collections pages on the Getty’s website, serving collections staff and others, such as Accounting, General Counsel, and Institutional Archives, through reports or electronic transfer of data. Oversees audits of permanent and loan collections by Museum staff, Trust Accounting, and outside auditors.
With fiscal responsibility for the department’s operation and numerous delegated budgets supporting the successful delivery of exhibitions program, this leader oversees all shipping and security arrangements for works of art arriving and departing the Museum, ensuring maximum standards are followed for their safe, professional handling, and transport and that US Transport Security Administration (TSA) regulations are followed.
Exhibitions
- Oversees all incoming loans for temporary exhibitions, working closely with Exhibitions Department. Includes negotiating and approving loan contracts, planning and budgeting for art crating and transport, couriers, and security; coordinates insurance, tracking, and reporting on exhibition budget; reviews exhibitions agreements with co-organizing partners and touring venues; and schedules exhibitions and deinstallations.
- Ensures that fine arts insurance and/ or U.S. Government Indemnity adequately covers the Museum’s ambitions for its loans-in program, with Trust Risk Management and the USGI Administrator as required. Oversees the preparation of U.S. Indemnity applications, the issuing of insurance or Indemnity certificates, and the reporting of loan values and transits.
Collections
- Participates in the process for art purchases and donations. Includes the review of acquisition proposals and deeds of gift; evaluates import/export documentation; conducts Art Loss Register searches; drafts purchase documentation and reviews contracts, coordinating with Museum Senior Staff and Trust Accounting as required.
- Oversees loans to the collection for acquisition consideration, display with the permanent collection, and conservation projects, ensuring that agreements are in keeping with Museum's conditions governing loans and conservation of objects.
- Oversees loans from the collection, ensuring that all are made in accordance with the Museum’s policies and procedures and its standard conditions of loans. Oversees facility report reviews and courier selection.
- Develops guidelines, policies, and procedures for art couriers, in-person and virtual, and determines the advisability of courier accompaniment for the Museum collection, working with curators and conservators.
- Manages the approval process for deaccessions; Includes the review of deaccession proposals; coordination with General Counsel on auction sales or repatriation contracts; verifies receipt of deaccessioned objects by appropriate recipients; tracks auction sales and receipt of proceeds.
Rights and Reproductions
- Oversees the collection’s portfolio of rights, copyright research, negotiations for rights and permissions with rights holders and the reproduction of collections by outside requesters.
- Oversees the drafting and implementing of Museum policies and procedures regarding the reproduction of images of objects in the collection and behind-the-scenes images and ensures procedures are followed.
- Oversees the use of images for exhibition-related purposes to ensure compliance with license and loan agreements and lender negotiations for permissions for these uses. Includes filming & photography, 3-D photography permissions, and other digital projects, as required.
- Ensures that rights information is maintained in the Museums’ collections information and digital asset management systems and communicated to those who wish to use collection and loan images. Includes oversight of the drafting and implementation of security policies in the digital asset management system.
Other duties, as directed.
CANDIDATE PROFILE
While it is understood that no one candidate will bring every desired skill, characteristic, and experience, the following offers a reflection of the ideal candidate profile.
Passion for the Mission
The successful candidate will demonstrate a passion for visual culture, art history, cultural heritage, and research, and will have a strong command of the challenges and opportunities facing arts and research institutions as the sector collectively strives to attract and retain significant and sustained attention of audiences, ranging from the academic to the general public and inclusive of all backgrounds.
Visionary Leader and Manager
This leader will manage a high-performing team of professionals with empathy and compassion. A natural mentor and trainer, this person is comfortable reinforcing policies, processes, and information across niches of internal constituents. Possesses management finesse to work with colleagues up, down, laterally, and beyond. The individual will also position the Getty at the forefront of conversations in the field regarding issues such as sustainability, diversity, equity, access and inclusion, maintaining the organization’s very highest level of quality, reputation, and integrity while also evolving best-practices to address changes in the cultural landscape.
Systems Thinker with Sensitivity to Compliance and Risk Management
Top candidates will be outcome-oriented leaders who will guide and articulate a vision for the department, including overall strategy, execution, and evaluation. Given the department’s most critical responsibility is managing risk in an intense environment, this leader will find joy in the administrative aspects of the role, being naturally detail- and process-oriented in a highpressure environment in which preparing for the unexpected is the norm. The ability to see the bigger-picture implications of decisions while also understanding the immediate needs of specific situations is a must.
Strong Written and Verbal Communication Skills
A confident, influential, and effective communicator with the ability to work fluidly across all levels both internally and externally. Our client seeks an optimistic, high-energy leader who can connect authentically with a range of internal and external constituents while successfully conveying organizational, programmatic, and mission-oriented objectives. They will be an exceptional presenter and communicator with strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence (EQ), with a natural ability to convey priorities in a way that builds trust. With an inherent capability to listen, think, and respond effectively to a variety of inquiries and challenges, they will be able to remain firm and steady in situations requiring diplomacy and in high-level strategic discussions.
Minimal Education/Management Experience
- Bachelor’s degree
- 5-7 years of supervisory and/or project/process management experience
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range is $109,000 - $142,000 with a generous benefit package.
Requirement
All employees must be fully-vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus as a condition of employment. Exemptions from this requirement as a reasonable accommodation due to medical contraindication, disability or sincerely held religious belief or practice will be considered.
CONTACT
Naree W.S. Viner and Christy Farrell of Koya Partners have been exclusively retained for this search. To express your interest in this role please submit your materials here or email Christy directly here. All inquiries and discussions will be considered strictly confidential.
The Getty is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship or immigration status, color, disability, ethnicity, familial status, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected status.
ABOUT KOYA PARTNERS
Koya Partners, a part of Diversified Search Group, is a leading executive search and strategic advising firm dedicated to connecting exceptionally talented people with mission-driven clients. Our founding philosophy—The Right Person in the Right Place Can Change the World—guides our work as we partner with nonprofits & NGOs, institutions of higher education, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.
At Koya, we don’t just accept difference—we celebrate it, support it, and thrive on it for the benefit of our team, our clients, and the communities we serve. For more information about Koya Partners, visit koyapartners.com.
APPENDIX
GETTY CENTER
Situated in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains off the 405 Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass, the 110-acre Getty Center was designed by architect Richard Meier. The Getty Center’s 86 acres of landscaped gardens and terraces include the Central Garden designed by artist Robert Irwin—a 134,000-square-foot work of art commissioned by the Getty Trust that features more than 500 varieties of plant materials. The Center serves a varied audience through the permanent Museum and GRI collections, changing exhibitions, conservation, scholarship,
research, and public programs. The driverless, computer-operated trams are emission-free and glide on a cushion of air generated by electric blowers—the only tram system of its kind on the west coast of the United States.
The Museum at the Getty Center is home to pre 20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, and decorative arts; a photographs collection that dates from the medium’s inception to the present, collected worldwide; and European and American sculpture from the late 12th century to the present day. The 1.2 million square feet of travertine used as pavement and wall cladding were quarried in Bagni di Tivoli, Italy, and total 290,000 blocks weighing 16,000 tons. Visitors ride free trams from the parking garage to the top of the hill.
GETTY VILLA
Located on 64 acres in Pacific Palisades, California, the Villa site occupies a small canyon defined by the coastal mountains to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south; the 11,000- acre Topanga State Park is immediately adjacent. The Villa contains the Getty Museum’s antiquities collection and in addition to the Museum, the site includes conservation training laboratories, antiquities conservation facilities, office buildings, and the Ranch House—Mr. Getty’s former residence. The former residence is now home to curatorial offices, a 20,000-volumecapacity Research Library, as well as conservation and analytical labs.
Originally opened in 1974, the Villa is modeled after the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman country house at Herculaneum that was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. In early 2017 the Getty Villa underwent a reinstallation of its collection from a thematic display to a chronological and art historical presentation. Opening in 2018, the new display, with almost 3,000 square feet more gallery space and redesigned display cases, invites visitors to follow the historical development of classical art from the Neolithic Period through the late Roman Empire (ca. 3000 BC–AD 600). About 300 variety of plants can be found in four gardens (Outer Peristyle, Inner Peristyle, East Garden, Herb Garden) planted with a mix of species from the ancient Mediterranean and native California varieties.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
- Nearly 20 exhibitions are mounted each year at both The Getty Center and Getty Villa.
- Collections contain more than 125,000 separate objects. Less than three percent of the art currently on view was personally acquired by J. Paul Getty.
- The Museum brings well-known scholars and performers from around the world to the Getty through lectures, conferences, symposia, concerts, and theater works.
- About 1,300 employees and nearly 1,000 volunteers and docents work at the Getty
Center and Getty Villa. - In addition, Getty staff work around the world helping to conserve cultural heritage and to advance conservation science and art historical research.
- Approximately 100 scholars from all over the world are in residence at the Getty each year.
- The Getty Center and Villa welcome over 100,000 K-12 students every year at no cost for guided school visits subsidized by the Getty.
- The J. Paul Getty Museum enjoys support from five donor councils, each comprising 12 to 30 members. The Museum Director’s Council was established in 2016; the Villa Council in 2001; the Paintings Conservation Council in 2002; the Photographs Council in 2005; and the Disegno Group, supporting the Drawings Department, in 2013. Each council has generously provided funding for major restoration and educational projects in their respective fields
