Art: Case of the Looted Relics

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Some Getty staff members contend that Munitz has been more interested in impressing celebrities and rising socially than in serving the institution's interests. (One charge leveled against Munitz, which he denies, is that he helped arrange the sale of Getty-owned property to billionaire Eli Broad, a close friend, at $700,000 less than its appraised value.) "Barry wasn't very interested in the core mission of the organization," says a former staff member. "He was even somewhat bored with it." Last year the Getty lost director Deborah Gribbon, a 20-year veteran, over differences with Munitz, who came to the museum in 1998. Other staff members were alienated when he hired as his chief of staff Jill Murphy--a 33-year-old with little art experience; she has announced that she'll leave at the end of the year. Munitz, who denies allegations of profligate spending, says that friction was to be expected: "You cannot run a big, complicated institution and take risks and make change and not have some people unhappy."

Now he must try to make a larger public happy. He has retained the p.r. services of Michael Sitrick, who previously represented Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee. The museum has hired a new director, Michael Brand, and in early 2006 after a $275 million renovation will reopen the Malibu villa that houses its antiquities. John Walsh, the museum's director from 1983 to 2000, says the Getty once had "a certain intellectual and moral position which was, ironically, brought about by its financial freedom." Things have changed. The museum still occupies its lofty perch in the hills. But, says Walsh: "the Getty is losing the high ground." --Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles