Letter from Getty Ex-Curator: Getty Plays Marion True False

"Felcholino," the LA Times' cultural-news equivalent of the Washington Post's "Woodstein" of Watergate fame, have done it again: Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino have obtained a copy of a Dec. 18 letter written by the J. Paul Getty Museum's former antiquities curator, Marion True, to the Getty Trust's chief executive Deborah Marrow, museum director Michael Brand and spokesman Ron Hartwig.

The Getty has played her false, True feels, by letting her take the fall for the Getty's past antiquities iniquities.

Felcholino reported yesterday:

True, on trial in Rome on charges of trafficking looted objects, wrote Dec. 18 that her superiors at the Getty Museum were "fully aware of the risks" of buying antiquities and had approved the acquisitions.

"You have chosen to announce the return of objects that are directly related to criminal charges filed against me by a foreign government...without a word of support for me, without any explanation of my role in the institution, and without reference to my innocence," True wrote.

The implied threat of similar prosecutions is what has impelled other American museum professionals to take Italy's and Greece's repatriation claims seriously. By virtue of the Getty's riches, and perhaps also because of its desire to build a world class collection quickly, Marion True probably committed indiscretions on a bigger scale than many colleagues of more modest means. With her colleagues reluctant to speak too loudly on her behalf, for fear of attracting more prosecutorial retaliation, she has been left to twist slowly in legal purgatory as the sacrificial curator.