J. Paul Getty

Born in Minneapolis in 1892, Jean Paul Getty inherited a pioneering spirit from his father, George Getty, an oilman. He quickly demonstrated his own keen business sense. Given $10,000 to invest in Oklahoma oil fields in 1914, he struck oil with the Nancy Taylor No. 1 Oil Well Site and became a millionaire by the summer of 1916. He was fluent in several languages, including Arabic, which enabled him to expand his oil interests into the Middle East with unparalleled success. A bold move in 1948–49 saw him pay a hefty $9.5 million cash and guaranteed payments for the Saudi Arabian Neutral Zone concession. This gamble paid off, producing 16 million barrels a year after oil was discovered in 1953, cementing his status as one of the world's wealthiest people. By 1966, Guinness Book of Records declared him the wealthiest private citizen on Earth.

Despite his intense focus on accumulation, Getty nurtured an unexpected passion: art collecting. His first forays began in the late 1930s, inspired by the 18th-century French pieces owned by his New York City landlord, Amy Guest. He bought furniture from the period, often at reduced prices during the depressed art market. He even wrote books on the subject, including Collector's Choice and The Joys of Collecting. Yet, even in his collecting, his famed stinginess showed through; his companion, Penelope Kitson, once noted he was "too mean ever to allow himself to buy a great painting." Still, by his death, his collection included over 600 works, with pieces by Rubens and Monet among them. His interest eventually shifted to Greco-Roman sculpture, leading to the construction of the Getty Villa in the 1970s. This extraordinary collection, housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum and its complexes, became his most enduring public legacy, a stark contrast to his private parsimony.

Getty’s personal life was as tumultuous as his business career was successful. He divorced five times and had five sons with four of his wives. He was famously quoted saying, "A lasting relationship with a woman is only possible if you are a business failure." The failures of his marriages were a deep regret, but he continued his pursuit of wealth, often at the expense of his family. His fifth wife, Louise Dudley Lynch, recounted how he scolded her for spending too freely on treatment for their son, who had become blind from a brain tumor and later died at age 12. Getty, residing in England, did not attend the funeral. He accumulated immense personal wealth, estimated at over $6 billion at his death in 1976. This fortune ultimately funded one of the world's wealthiest art institutions, the J. Paul Getty Trust, ensuring his treasures would be shared with generations to come. He left behind a legacy as complicated and monumental as the museum that bears his name.