Getty tries to make some art news today too

The Getty Museum paid more than $65 million at auction last night in New York for an 1881 Édouard Manet painting, “Spring (Le Printemps)." It's the highest price ever for a Manet. The museum says in the LA Times story that the new Manet will be considered one of the top five paintings in the Getty collection. Maybe so, but what art coverage comes out of Los Angeles today is more likely to focus on the record-setting gift to LACMA's future new building by A. Jerrold Perenchio.

The Getty acquisition is likely to be seen as a clue to how new director Timothy Potts plans to operate. From the LAT story:

Manet intended “Spring” to be the first in a series of portraits expressing the four seasons through Parisian women, but the artist died in 1883 with only two completed: “Autumn” and “Spring.” The latter is an expression of the season through a portrait of Parisian actress Jeanne Demarsy, in floral print and gloves.

“Spring” was one of the “very small number of truly landmark masterpieces of the Impressionist period” that had remained in private hands, said Timothy Potts, director of the Getty Museum. He said the Manet would become an iconic part of the museum’s Impressionist/Post-Impressionist gallery. “No artist in late-19th-century France is more important, and this is one of his finest paintings. It’s as simple as that.”

Manet painted “Spring” for his final Salon, the Paris art exhibition, in 1882, when the artist was at the height of his powers, Potts said by phone Wednesday night.

Potts said that "Spring," which measures 29 inches by 20 inches, will be moved to Los Angeles immediately and could go on public display at the Getty within weeks.