California is known for many world-class museums. These include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. The J. Paul Getty Museum is the largest art museum in California. The museum consists of two locations – the famous Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The Getty Center’s exposition presents a major exhibition of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present day. The Getty Villa Museum presents one of the largest collections of ancient art in the world. More than 1.3 million people visit the Getty Museums annually, making them one of the most visited museums in the United States.

The famous museum was founded in 1954 by collector and oil magnate J. Paul Getty (1892-1976), one of the richest men of the twentieth century. The billion-dollar museum endowment created by Paul Getty allowed the Getty Museum, after the death of its founder, to become one of the most prominent buyers of ancient and European art at the world’s leading auctions. The collection was so successful that the museum’s management was often accused of deliberately creating an artificial excitement in the art market, as well as of the illegal purchase and export of works of ancient art. Initially, the museum was located in the Getty Villa, built on the model of the famous ancient Villa of Papyri in Herculaneum. In 1997, the Getty Center building, designed by architect Richard Meyer, opened in Los Angeles, costing $1.2 billion to build. Between 1997 and 2006, the Getty Villa was closed for reconstruction. The museum’s collection is so extensive that it occupies four exhibition pavilions. Only a part of the Getty’s collection is on public display. While traveling around the museum, you can take an audio guide or plan your tour in advance based on the media files and bookmarks provided on GettyGuide. The museum also hosts special children’s tours and entertaining workshops. Admission to the Getty Museum is free. The museum is open all year round, except for Mondays, January 1, July 4, Thanksgiving and December 25. The museum hosts concerts and other cultural events. The main art museum of San Francisco – the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) – is 18500 m² of total area, almost 5000 m² of exhibition space, more than 26000 works and such names as Warhol, Pollock, Matisse, Rauschenberg, Rivera, Paul Klee, Weston, and so on. In the ranking of contemporary art museums in the United States, the museum is second only to the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The author of the building’s design is the famous Swiss architect Mario Botta, an original whose creations are difficult to attribute to any style. Botta did not want to create another “box full of art” (a well-known criticism of the new building of the de Young Museum). He presented the townspeople with a strange, at the same time awkward and elegant building with a giant “eye of Cyclops” at the top – a huge cut cylinder (aka a hatch for ceiling lighting). This unusual volume not only makes the building stand out from the outside, it also organizes a spectacular open space inside the building. The interior in general makes a strong impression: it is an impressive light-filled space with an interesting change of angles and unexpected details. At SFMoMA, when you’ve had your fill of art, you can grab a bite to eat and a coffee at Caffe’ Museo on the ground floor, with its espresso bar, or at the Rooftop Coffee Bar, a small cafe on the roof. The most creative employees of the latter create cookies and cakes inspired by works from the museum’s collection – for those who really want to get their fill of art. They can enjoy it there, in the sculpture garden (which, unfortunately, is surrounded by walls, depriving you of a view of the city). The museum is quite popular, especially on weekends.

Los Angeles will also be interesting from a cultural point of view, where, in addition to luxury hotels, restaurants and shopping malls, there are many museums and exhibition centers. The Paterson Museum is dedicated to automobiles, and the Museum of Fine Arts offers beautiful paintings and sculptures. The most famous open-air museum is the Asphalt Lake La Brea, located in Hancock Park. It features a rich collection of fossils.

The Bay Area near San Francisco is popular among tourists due to its Victorian architecture. The city’s design was shaped by Frank Lloyd Wright and Daniel Burnham, although nowadays the architectural tone is set by Frank Gehry and Joe Eric, who live here. Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck lived in California, as well as “beatnik writers” Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg. Today, the writers Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club) and Sue Crafton have taken over the creative baton from them. The Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers started their careers in California. The famous California cuisine was created by chefs Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters: they combined local ingredients with Asian cooking methods.