The records comprise internal and external correspondence from Pamela Wiget, Registrar of the J. Paul Getty Museum from 1973-1975. The external correspondence contains information on day-to-day administrative activities; the internal correspondence consists of both letters and memoranda addressed primarily to Stephen Garrett, Museum Director, and details day-to-day internal administrative activities.

The J. Paul Getty Museum was established as a charitable trust in 1953 by billionaire J. Paul Getty in order to house his growing art collections. Getty had been collecting art since the 1930s. The J. Paul Getty Museum originally opened in 1954, with relatively little publicity, in two rooms of Mr. Getty's Ranch House in the Pacific Palisades near Malibu, California. By August 1955 the museum in the Ranch House had six gallery areas. In 1956 Mr. Getty began planning a new antiquities gallery, which was completed and opened to the public in mid-December 1957. Each year the number of museum visitors increased, and though Mr. Getty curtailed his art acquisitions activities beginning in 1958, the museum continued to grow.

0.63 linear feet (2 boxes)

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The records in accession 1986.IA.45 are closed to all except the department that created them, the General Counsel, the director of the originating program or division, or their designees until 2010.