The ANNOTICO Report
Getty Museum Curator who preached Art Ethics is accused
of criminal
conspiracy to receive stolen goods and illicit receipt
of archeological
objects. The indictment also alleges that she in effect
laundered artworks
through a private collection to create a phony paper
trail of their
provenance.
Her surname is True.
Getty curator Marion True, indicted over acquisitions,
has often spoken on
ethical issues.
Los Angeles Times
By Suzanne Muchnic, Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2005
Ordinary curators spend their careers in the shadows of
museums, caring for
collections and emerging only with news of special acquisitions
or
exhibitions.
Marion True, curator of antiquities and trust coordinator
of Villa programs
at the J. Paul Getty Museum, is not an ordinary curator.
A Harvard
University-educated scholar who occupies a hot seat at
the famously wealthy
institution, she has picked her way through a minefield
of cultural
heritage issues for 23 years while building the most
controversial
component of the Getty's collection: a 50,000-piece holding
of objects from
Greece, Rome and Etruria. She also has become a leader
in a field fraught
with conflict over the ethics and legalities of collecting
ancient art,
often speaking out in professional forums, the popular
press and court
proceedings.
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Approached in 1988 by an American dealer attempting to
sell Byzantine
mosaics stolen from Cyprus by the Turks in the mid-1970s,
True notified
authorities in Cyprus and testified on their behalf in
a 1989 case that
returned the artworks to their country of origin. At
a public meeting of
the U.S. State Department's Cultural Property Advisory
Committee in 1999,
she supported Italy's request for a five-year ban on
the U.S. importation
of a wide range of Italian antiquities, which went into
effect in 2001.
"I think she is very well-regarded," said Nancy Thomas,
curator of ancient
art and deputy director of art administration and collections
at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art. "With her scholarly background
and decades of
work, she has contributed significantly to the field,
including hosting
numerous symposia at the Getty on topics ranging from
Egyptian bronzes to
the reconstruction of classical sculpture. That's something
we have all
benefited from as we have watched her career develop."
But nothing has prepared True for the challenge facing
her now. In a case
that attorneys and True's colleagues say is highly unusual,
if not unique,
she has been indicted in Italy on criminal charges involving
the
acquisition of antiquities. The trial — at which she
is not required to
appear — is scheduled to begin July 18. True, 56, is
accused of criminal
conspiracy to receive stolen goods and illicit receipt
of archeological
objects. The indictment also alleges that she in effect
laundered artworks
through a private collection to create a phony paper
trail of their
provenance.
True and Getty officials declined to comment on the case
or contribute to
this story. The Getty has defended True throughout the
legal battle, which
has played out over the last 10 years. When the Italians
recently announced
that the case would go to trial, the Getty issued a statement
expressing
disappointment about the decision and confidence that
True would be
exonerated.
Among about 40 Getty objects at issue are two large Greek
statues of female
deities carved in stone. One work is a 7 1/2-foot sculpture
of Aphrodite,
the goddess of love, that's among the most rare and costly
pieces in the
collection, valued at $20 million in 1987 when it cleared
U.S. customs. The
other is a 33-inch figure of Tyche, the goddess of fortune,
from the
collection of New York patrons Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman,
acquired by
the Getty in 1996 as part gift, part purchase.
Details of the indictment — including a list of the objects
in question —
and the penalty to be sought have yet to be disclosed.
But Italian
authorities say that the case is intended to send a message:
Italy is
clamping down on illegal excavation and exportation of
ancient art by
stamping out the market for it.
The trial may or may not have the desired result for Italian
prosecutors,
but the protracted legal imbroglio and impending court
proceedings have
already sent a warning to antiquities curators worldwide.
"I am very concerned about this case," Thomas said.
In pursuing True, the Italians also have made an example
of a high-profile
professional who probably never imagined that her career
in art would lead
to an indictment in Italy.
True, who was born in Tahlequah, Okla., in 1948, graduated
from New York
University in 1970 with honors in classics and fine arts
and membership in
Phi Beta Kappa. Two years later she completed a master's
in classical
archeology at NYU. She spent the next decade on the East
Coast doing
curatorial work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
and Harvard's Fogg Art
Museum, teaching at Harvard and working in commercial
galleries.
True joined the Getty's staff in 1982 as an assistant
to antiquities
curator Jiri Frel, who was hired in 1973 by the museum's
founder, oil baron
J. Paul Getty. Frel expanded the collection enormously
but was forced to
retire in 1984 after disclosures that he had traded inflated
appraisals for
donated antiquities. True became associate curator upon
Frel's departure
and took charge of the antiquities department in 1986,
the year she
received her doctorate from Harvard with a thesis on
ancient Greek
red-figure vases.
Like other museums with collections of ancient art — including
such
venerable institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York and
the British Museum in London — the Getty has come under
fire for acquiring
works said to be fakes, copies or illegal imports. During
True's tenure,
the relatively young Los Angeles museum has investigated
questionable
pieces and relinquished a few of them.
In 1988, True concluded that a marble "Head of Achilles"
acquired during
Frel's leadership as a 4th century BC work by Greek sculptor
Skopas was
probably created in the 20th century. The same year,
when the Getty
unveiled the Aphrodite sculpture now at issue, a controversy
erupted over
claims that it had been illegally excavated. No evidence
materialized, and
it isn't clear if new information will be produced in
the trial.
The Getty's kouros, a statue of a Greek young man acquired
in 1985, also
has been troublesome. In 1990, the museum undertook an
extensive public
study to consider challenges to its authenticity. Results
were
inconclusive, with supporters contending that the figure
is a genuine 6th
century BC sculpture and detractors dismissing it as
a modern copy.
In another highly publicized move, the Getty in early
1999 returned to
Italy three works: a 480 BC Greek terra cotta drinking
cup that was
illegally excavated; a 2nd century torso of the god Mithra
stolen from a
private Italian collection; and a 2nd century Roman head
of an athlete
illicitly taken from an excavation storeroom.
"True inherited a lot of problems," said Steven E. Thomas,
an attorney at
the Los Angeles firm Irell & Manella who teaches
art law at UCLA. "The
interesting thing about this case is that the Getty can
at least say, 'We
have given stuff back.' And in 1995, while True was curator
of antiquities,
they were one of the first museums setting out a new
strict policy for
acquisitions of antiquities requiring documented provenance.
Other museums
have jumped on board, but the Getty was definitely one
of the early ones to
do that.
"When Italy requested import restrictions on a variety
of antiquities that
were likely to have come from Italy and ancient Rome,"
he added, "True was
the only museum curator who spoke up and said: 'I support
this, on behalf
of the museum. We should permit some restrictions. We
should require
provenance. We should require background information.'
You can certainly
hold her to a different standard and say she falls short,
but relative to
what others have done, she has a good track record."
In a 1999 press release announcing the Getty's plan to
return artworks to
Italy, True stated: "Our antiquities collecting policy
calls for our prompt
return of objects to their country of origin should information
come to
light that convinces us that this is the appropriate
action to take."
Emphasizing that the Getty had acted on its own initiative,
she added, "We
are proud of the relationship we have built with the
Italian Ministry over
the years."
That relationship appears to have crumbled, but the extent
of the damage
remains to be seen.