The Getty Swaps Sunlight for Candlelight Thanksgiving Week
November 5, 2026
November 5, 2026
For two years, the Museum rotunda at the Getty Center has worked like a sundial. Charles Ross's Spectrum 14 is a set of calibrated prisms. Getty describes how bands of spectral light cross the room in relation to the sun, which follows a slightly different arc through the sky every day. The piece opened September 10, 2024, and closes November 29, 2026.
Five days before it closes, a very different show about light opens down the plaza. "A Light in the Dark: Joseph Wright of Derby" opens November 24 in the Museum West Pavilion, Plaza Level. Its subject is candlelight in dark rooms. For the next few months, the hilltop's art is about darkness, and the Getty's own hours and parking rates make evenings the easiest time for a Brentwood neighbor to see it.
Nearly every day of the overlap week falls in the holiday stretch, so the count is short. Here are the Getty Center dates from Wright's opening to Ross's closing:
That leaves five open days. And Spectrum 14 only works with the sun, so the late Saturday hours don't help with it. To see the prisms, go during the day, when the color bands are moving across the rotunda floor. Getty commissioned the piece for PST ART as part of the exhibition Lumen: The Art & Science of Light. It is the second "Rotunda Commission," a series of installations inspired by the museum's collection, architecture, and hilltop site. Getty's published exhibition schedule doesn't yet name a third commission for the room.
Ross uses daylight and lets it move. Wright of Derby painted candlelight and kept it still. Getty calls him "celebrated for his astonishing ability to capture the magic of light piercing the dark." It explains that a series of pictures he showed in 1760s London "catapulted the provincial artist to national fame." The new show brings several of those candlelight paintings back together.
Getty's exhibition page lists loans from Derby Museums, English Heritage's Kenwood, the Art Institute of Chicago, and private collections, hung alongside Getty-owned works. The titles include A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery, Two Girls Dressing a Kitten by Candlelight, and Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candle-Light.
The Getty's own painting at the center of the show has an unusual history. When Getty announced its plan to acquire Two Boys with a Bladder in 2019, the museum's announcement said the picture had not been seen in public since the 18th century and was previously unknown to scholars. It shows two boys blowing up a pig's bladder by the light of a hidden candle, and Getty points to Wright's experiments with metal foil in the work. Wright painted it in the late 1760s. The show then gives that painting the company it was made to keep.
Admission to the Getty Center is free but requires a timed-entry reservation. The Center is open 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and on Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, and is closed Monday. The parking fee drops as the day goes on:
| When you arrive | Parking per car or motorcycle |
|---|---|
| Before 3 p.m. | $25 |
| 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. | $15 |
| After 6 p.m. | $10 |
| Saturday after 6 p.m. | Free |
Parking is cashless, and the rates include the Los Angeles City Parking Occupancy Tax. Parking after 6 p.m. on a Saturday is free, and the galleries stay open until 9 p.m., so an arrival right at 6 still leaves close to three hours inside. That is plenty of time for one exhibition. For neighbors who live a short drive below the hill, it beats paying $25 for a midday visit.
Getty seems to have planned its programming around the same idea. On Saturday, December 5, the Center runs "Drawing in the Dark," a free, drop-in family drawing program from 5 to 9 p.m. inspired by Wright's dramatic lighting. The same evening, free live demonstrations on light and shadow, also inspired by Wright, run at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30, and 8:30 p.m. The 6:30, 7:30, and 8:30 demonstrations fall after free parking starts.
The next afternoon, Sunday, December 6, at 4 p.m., the free curator talk "Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter and Draftsman" takes place in person and online.
Other dates on the Getty Center calendar this fall:
The next opening is a different kind of show. "Paul R. Williams: Architecture Across the Color Line" opens December 15 in the Getty Research Institute Galleries and runs through March 14, 2027, according to Getty's exhibition page. It marks the first public showing of Williams's archive. The show looks at his architecture with and for Black communities and at the architecture of Black Los Angeles. According to the Beverly Press, it includes drawings of his own home and office. It also covers preservation work on Second Baptist Church, the 28th Street YMCA, and the original Angelus Funeral Home.
The Getty show is part of a series. USC reported in February that the Getty, LACMA, and the USC Fisher Museum of Art are presenting coordinated Williams exhibitions through July 2027. The archive behind them was acquired jointly by the USC School of Architecture and the Getty Research Institute in 2020. That same article gives the Getty show a July 18, 2027, end date. Getty's own page says March 14, 2027, so check the Getty page before planning a late-season visit.
Williams designed more than 3,000 projects over almost six decades, including the 1949–50 addition to the Beverly Hills Hotel. One of them is in Brentwood. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2014 that a 1940 ranch house he designed for Nelle Payton Hunt in the Oakmont section was named a city historic-cultural monument that year.
Even with new shows arriving, other galleries are closing. Two photography exhibitions, "Instante/revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography" and "'Every minute is history': Five Views of Los Angeles," close Sunday, January 3. "The Holy Family at Home," built around Getty's recently acquired Gerard David painting, closes Sunday, January 10. "The Making of a Medieval Manuscript" stays through March 14, 2027.
Holiday hours shorten the calendar. The Center closes on Christmas Day and New Year's Day and closes early on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. Between December 15 and January 3, Paul R. Williams, Wright of Derby, the photography shows, and the Holy Family exhibition are all on view at once. Three Saturdays in that stretch, December 19, December 26 and January 2, keep the 9 p.m. close, and parking is free after 6 p.m. on each of them.
For neighbors hosting visitors this season, Renée Avedon is glad to share how she plans a Getty afternoon or a Saturday evening around the reservation and parking timing. Renée Avedon works with clients across Brentwood and the Westside. Let's connect.
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