Los Angeles has some world class museums, including the famous Getty collection and the lesser known, but no less spectacular, Norton Simon.

Say what you like about the rich but we owe them a lot: some of the best museums in the world are due to their munificence, to their desire to finally achieve eternal fame by their magnificent bequests.

John Paul Getty

In Los Angeles there are two superb examples. On the one hand, John Paul Getty (1892 – 1976). Within two years of graduating from Oxford, he had earned his first million in the oil industry. After a stint as a playboy he returned to the oil business and with clever investing in Saudi Arabia, was the world’s richest man by 1957.

By then he was living at Sutton Place in Sussex, England, for tax reasons, surrounded by a pack of free range Alsatians and two lions called Nero and Teresa. He was reputed to be stingy, installing a pay telephone for his guests and wearing threadbare jumpers. Perhaps the greatest example of this was when his grandson was kidnapped in Italy in 1973. Refusing to pay the $16 million ransom, he eventually loaned his son $850,000 towards a reduced payment, but only after the arrival of the boy’s ear.

As well as working his way through five marriages in fairly quick succession, all to wives no older than 18 when he married them, he started serious art collecting in the 1930’s dividing his collection between his ranch in Malibu and later the English manor.

It was at the former that he opened his first museum to the public in 1954 and in 1969 started building the Roman villa that we see today. Who else but the world’s richest man could afford to recreate a full size replica of the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman seaside estate near Herculaneum which had been buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in Italy in AD 79?

Sadly he never actually saw this completed, dying in England in 1976. His entire collection came to Malibu and the charitable trust he had created received $1.2 billion. Today the collection is divided between the Getty Villa which houses the antiquities at the original Malibu ranch and the Getty Centre which opened nearby in 1997.

Through both branches are stunning, this time we were visiting the Getty Villa.  We drove down from Ventura through the devastation of recent forest fires, ironically now in pouring rain. The museum had thoughtfully provided umbrellas for our walk up the the villa: the approach is designed to mimic an architectural dig as one drops down to the building, nestling in a tight valley.

A shaft of sunshine emerged and we explored the long rectangular gardens first. With a central pond and frescoed colonnaded sides, it was all rather splendid. There were many statues about and at first I was slightly disparaging: they were all copies of the famous originals which reside in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. Albeit they looked rather fine with glistening raindrops, it all seemed a bit contrived.

However, I then went inside and was blown away with some of the finest Greek and Roman art in the world. The collection has recently been reordered and its remit expanded to include the edge of the empire. Thus there was a room devoted to funerary relief statues from Palmyra, the caravan oasis in Syria, including The Beauty of Palmyra, a haughty bejewelled woman who still has traces of the original paint. This section is all the more poignant for the fact that the actual site has recently been destroyed by terrorists. The next room has a wonderful array of female fertility statues from the Cylades that would hold their own with any modern masterpiece.

I loved the huge amphorae which had been presented as prizes in the great games: how moving to think these had once been handed over to some sweaty athlete two thousand years ago. There was fabulous glassware, delicate gold jewellery, lively paintings and mosaics from Pompeii and statues too numerous to mention. The most famous is the Getty Bronze, a magnificent nude from 300-100 B.C. which was dragged up from the seabed in 1964 by an Italian trawler. He could be a prototype for Michaelangelo’s David.

The main two storey building has a inner peristyle with Ionic columns and more statuary. It all looked rather atmospheric as we dragged ourselves away in the dusk – this museum needs the whole day, but there is a cafe on site and those lovely gardens.

Norton Simon Museum

Poor old Norton Simon: he was as successful in his way as Getty but lived a little later and maybe not as flamboyantly. His name does not instantly spring to mind even though he was worth $2.8 billion when he died and today his stupendous collection is rather overshadowed by the vast Getty Trust.

Norton Winfred Simon (1907-1973) made his money with Hunt’s Food, one of the biggest food processing operations on the West Coast of America. Advertising prominently under the slogan Hunt for the best, the company became a household name. He started collecting art in the 1950’s and in 1972 accepted an overture from the struggling Pasadena Museum of Modern Art to house his 4000 strong collection. It was renamed the Norton Simon museum in 1974.

He had some similarities with Getty: both had a son who committed suicide though Simon only married twice.

It is a very accessible museum in Pasadena , one of the nicest parts of Los Angeles, with free parking right on the doorstep. As you climb the stairs to the entrance, you are confronted by a corridor of Rodin bronzes. Inside there are two floors.

This museum is a friendlier size than the Getty, and more varied so one can happily concentrate on one area. Downstairs there is a good collection of Indian and Southeast Asian art ranging back 2000 years, with many large sandstone statues – you might even discover the pornographic one subtly placed behind a door jamb!

However, our main interest was on the art side and we were not disappointed. There are some superb Impressionists, including some early dark Van Gogh’s and a later one of a mulberry tree in vivid yellows against a blue sky, the paint so thick it could have been applied by a trowel.

A glorious riot of colour announces a Monet gardenscape, next to some elegant Cezanne tulips. Degas is well represented, in bronze as well as paint, including his famous statue of a ballet dancer with real tutu and a big bow in her hair.

The earlier art from the Renaissance on has no less than three Rembrandts, including a lovely self portrait. There is a gloriously blond repentant Mary Magdalene on all fours, saucy pink Fragonards and later landscapes by Corot and Ruisdael catch the eye.

Modern art includes some colourful Matisses and a couple of Picasso’s, as well as an unusual portrait sketch of a woman. Kandinsky is represented and Riviera, now less fashionable than his wife, Frida Kahlo.

There are rotating displays of other artworks: we coincided with an exhibition of gorgeous Flemish tapestries depicting the Trojan wars.

The gardens are quite small but set around a sculptured lake, with a selection of large bronzes from the likes of Henry Moore. A little cafe occupies a quiet corner and does drinks and light lunches – the lentil soup was tasty. Friday and Saturday happy hours are popular when the museum is open until 8 pm.

Although we did not visit on this occasion, there is one other Pasadena museum with a world class art collection and superb garden that deserves a mention: the Huntington. Truly an embarrassment of riches.

Notes

Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. Entrance is free but parking costs $15 or $10 after 3 pm. If you are energetic, the parking charge will cover both collections on the same day. In theory a time slot should be booked in advance, but we turned up in November and got in without booking. Tel (310) 440-7300 or go online. Closed Tuesdays and major holidays.

Getty  Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049. Superb collection of art, photographs and furniture in a modern building with great views. Entrance is free but again parking costs $15 or $10 after 3 pm. No reservations are required. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91105. Entry $15 with free parking. Closed Tuesdays and holidays.

The Huntington Museum, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108. Entry $25 with free parking. Closed Tuesdays.