Unique gallery courses explore the fascinating world of art and ideas found in the Museum's collection and current exhibitions. Participants have the opportunity for close encounters with art through lecture and guided discussion.

Courses are designed for adults and taught by educators, curators, and scholars. Registration and tickets are required for all courses.

Enrich your Saturday nights! Join an open-ended discussion in the Museum galleries to heighten your appreciation and understanding of the visual arts. Study and explore one masterpiece in the collection with an educator. The chosen work of art changes every session, making each visit a new experience. Course fee $20 per session (includes a sandwich voucher). Meet at the Museum Information Desk for course introduction.

Learn more about this program on our blog, The Iris.

Next in the series
A Masterpiece to Be Explored

Saturday, June 23, 2012
6:00–8:00 p.m.



Saturday, July 21, 2012
6:00–8:00 p.m.

Explore in depth the work of a featured artist or a stylistic movement related to a current exhibition. An educator presents an illustrated lecture, culminating with the guided viewing and discussion of art in the exhibition galleries.

Love, Nudity, Power: Aphrodite from Antiquity to Today
Part 1: Saturday, June 9, 2012
1:00–4:00 p.m.
Getty Villa, Meeting Rooms and galleries
Part 2: Saturday, June 16, 2012
Getty Center, GRI Lecture Hall
10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Course fee $40; $30 students

Aphrodite, the powerful goddess of love, symbolizes feminine beauty and sensuality. Investigate her far–reaching influence on artists, past and present, in this two–part course. Starting June 9 at the Getty Villa, examine how classical images of Aphrodite, especially nudes, revolutionized ancient art. Educator Amber Wells leads an exploration of the exhibition Aphrodite and the Gods of Love, focusing on the conflicting meanings and impact of the deity's feminitity. Survey the goddess's enduring influence on the visual arts with educator Lilit Sadoyan the following week at the Getty Center.

Novice and seasoned museumgoers are invited to fully experience works of art in the Museum's collection. Educators direct discussion and the study of select masterpieces. Each course includes up to four thematically linked sessions, which take place once a month, usually on a Saturday morning. Attend a single class or the whole series.

Next in the series
Inventing Landscape
Fridays, April 20, May 11, and June 29, 2012
2:00–4:00 p.m.
Museum Sketching Gallery, East Pavilion/Museum galleries
Course fee $15 per session
Open to 35 participants

Explore the evolution of landscape as an essential subject for painters and photographers, and the development of a modern vision in this three-part course. Join Museum educators Tuyet Bach and Jennifer Li to consider the process and the meaning of painted and photographic landscapes.

Part I (April 20): Measured and Inspired Visions: Dutch and British Painted Landscapes   Works by Jacob van Ruisdael, Joseph Mallord William Turner, and others will be studied.

Part II (May 11): A Day in the Country: Impressionist Landscape  Works by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and their contemporaries will be studied.

Part III (June 29): In Focus: Picturing Landscape   Join Museum educators Tuyet Bach and Jennifer Li to consider the process and the meaning of photographic landscapes with a focus on the artists and works featured in the In Focus: Picturing Landscape exhibition.

Enjoy an afternoon at the Getty Villa exploring the antiquities collection, gardens, and ancient architecture. Course fee varies.

Next in the Series
And So Much Traffic! Roman Poetry at the Getty Villa
Saturday, May 12, 2012
1:00–4:00 p.m.
Getty Villa, Meeting Rooms
Course fee $35; $28 students

So you think urban life is bad? Two thousand years ago, Roman poets illuminated the horrors of city life in sarcastic and irreverent detail, crafting mean and funny diatribes about rudeness, pollution, and special-interest groups. They extolled the pastoral in impassioned poems about the real and imagined virtues of nature and the seaside. Compare Roman city and country life and behavior with educator Shelby Brown and read selected Roman poems in an ideal location: the Getty Villa, a recreated Roman seaside mansion surrounded by the urban sprawl of Los Angeles.

See all upcoming courses and demonstrations on our event calendar.