THOMAS W. GAEHTGENS NAMED
DIRECTOR OF THE GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Respected German Art Historian will Relocate from Europe to Los Angeles

August 14, 2007

LOS ANGELES — The J. Paul Getty Trust today announced that Professor
Thomas W. Gaehtgens has been appointed Director of the Getty Research
Institute (GRI) effective November 1, 2007.

Dr. Gaehtgens currently is the Director of the German Center for the
History of Art in Paris, an organization he founded in 1997. He also was
Chair of the Department of Art History at the Free University of Berlin
where he served as a professor. Dr. Gaehtgens holds degrees in art history
from the Universities of Bonn, Freiburg, Vienna and Paris, received his
Doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1966, and achieved his
Habilitation in 1972, the highest academic qualification in Germany, from
the University of Göttingen. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute
for Advanced Study at Princeton from 1979 to 1980 and at the Getty
Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities from 1985 to
1986. In 2004, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Courtauld
Institute of Art in London.

“Thomas Gaehtgens is uniquely qualified to serve as director of the Getty
Research Institute,” said James N. Wood, president and CEO of the J. Paul
Getty Trust. “His contributions to our appreciation and understanding of
the visual arts through his own scholarship, his creation of opportunities
for others, and his realization of a wide range of publications, combined
with his international experience and network of colleagues, assure the
continuing dynamism of the GRI and promises new opportunities for its
exceptional staff.”

Jim Wood added that Professor Gaehtgens met all aspects of the criteria he
was looking for in a candidate to lead the GRI. He said the qualities he
sought included international respect as a scholar, a wide range of
interest beyond one’s own areas of expertise, proven leadership with the
ability to inspire and manage a complex organization, a collegial
personality, and a commitment to the centrality of original works of art
and documentation to achieving the mission of the Research Institute.

Dr. Gaehtgens stated that he feels “honored to serve in this unique
community of multifaceted institutions of excellence, and is looking
forward to participate in this common and synergetic enterprise to enhance
the study, the understanding, and the pleasure of art.” The GRI will under
his leadership “continue to be a place of the highest level of research in
the spirit of his predecessors, and at the same time open up and develop
methodologies to better understand the art of western and non-western
cultures as well as cultural encounters.”

Over his career, Professor Gaehtgens has developed several fields of
interest, and has specialized in his publications in 18th and 19th century
French and German art as well as the history of the museum. He has been a
lecturer and professor at the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, Hamburg,
Aachen, Chicago, and the Collège de France in Paris. He organized the
XXVIIIth International Congress of Art History in Berlin in 1992 and
served as the President of the Comité International d’histoire de l’art
from 1992 to 1996.

He has received numerous honors and among many other responsibilities
serves as a Trustee of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown,
Massachusetts, as member of the advisory boards of the Würth Museum, the
Research Forum of the Courtauld Institute in London, the Château and
Museum of Versailles, the Rodin Museum in Paris, and the Kuratorium
Museumsinsel Berlin. He is also President of the Kuratorium of the
Zentralinstitut für Kunstge-schichte in Munich, and numerous advisory
boards of Museums in Germany and other countries. He is a member of the
Academy of Science in Göttingen, and president of the Friends of the
Prussian Châteaux and Gardens in Berlin and Potsdam.

Professor Gaehtgens, who will assume his role at the GRI in November 2007,
and his wife, Dr. Barbara Gaehtgens, a respected art historian
specializing in Dutch and French 17th century art, will relocate from
Paris to Los Angeles. He succeeds Professor Thomas Crow, who joined the
GRI as its director in 2000, and who announced in October 2006 that he was
leaving the Getty to take a position as the Rosalie Solow Chair in Modern
Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:
John Giurini
Getty Communications
310-440-6573
jgiurinigetty.edu