Getty Museum's Central Garden

Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.
Elizabeth Murray (1940 – 2007), painter, printmaker, and draughtsman

I spent two days at the Getty Museum, well, four plus hours on Tuesday and three hours on Wednesday, and photographed the Getty Garden. Even though the trees were stripped of leaves there was still plenty of muted color, as it turns out by design.

The garden fascinated me. I thought it was just from a photographic point of view. From the museum store I purchased the book “Plants in the Getty’s Central Garden.” I read one of the early chapters "A Gardener Meets an Artist" and I was amazed at the planning, designing, investigating, and positioning to create a garden that most people will walk through and admire, but will never investigate further the years of punctilious perfectionism that created the Central Garden and the Stream Garden.

I will share notes from the book as it relates to my photos. I love the serendipity of going to the Getty the first week into 2010 and taking pictures of trees and shrubs purposely designed to heighten winter’s effect in California’s deciduous climate. I will go back again in March, April, and May. Oh, but I want to see how the canvas will change further in June and July. The New Year is already off to a sterling start.

Enjoy the photos, but real thing is an inspiration.