LOS ANGELES—The J. Paul Getty Museum’s priceless collection of artwork, which includes paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, and Degas, once again found itself in the path of destruction as the Palisades fire spread.
As fire officials issued evacuation orders for the Brentwood neighborhood on Friday night, the museum’s collection remained safely inside the Getty Center’s fortress of travertine stone, fire-protected steel and reinforced concrete.
“It would be extremely foolish to try and remove artwork,” said Katherine Fleming, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, noting how quickly fires spread, with little notice.
“It’s complicated enough moving really, really valuable artworks around under the best of circumstances. The last thing we would try to do is move them out en masse, on the eve of an event of this sort.”…