Getty Trust to Slash Budget as Investments Tumble

Also, Wood said, he is against the wholesale lopping off of any of the trust's nonmuseum limbs -- the scholarship, conservation and grant programs that he said magnify the Getty's global influence in ways not available to other art institutions.

It would be a mistake "to simplistically say we're going to stop doing that" and just run the museums, he said during an interview in his sparsely furnished office, which commands a panoramic view of the city. "I don't think that would be the best thing for the Getty or Los Angeles, because it's one of the many things that makes L.A. a cosmopolitan, exciting place."