Frel, Jiří K.

Date born: 1923

Place born: (?), Czechoslovakia

Date died: 2006

Place died: Paris (?), France

Curator of Greek and Roman art at the Getty Museum, 1973-1985; fired for impropriety. Frel's father was an elementary school teacher in a Czechoslovakian village. The family changed the name to Frel from one of Jewish origin to escape Nazi persecution during their occupation. After World War II, Frel studied at the Sorbonne École normale supérieure in Paris. He returned to Czechoslovakia where he taught classical art at Charles University (Universitas Carolina) from 1948 to 1968. During the 1968 Czech revolt, he defected from Czechoslovakia, then under communist rule, to the United States. He taught at Princeton University before joining the staff of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1970 as associate curator of Greek and Roman Art. In 1973 the American billionaire J. Paul Getty (1892-1976) appointed him curator of ancient art for his future museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum. Working with Getty, who had narrow views of art, and the board of directors, proved difficult and Frel actually found himself soliciting donations from outside the museum for greater freedom to purchase. After Getty's death in 1976, the museum, recipient of his fortune, became the wealthiest in the world. Frel was assigned to acquire the best classical works of art available as the Museum's focal-point collection. Frel used two principal antiquities dealers, Giacomo Medici and Robert Hecht, both of whom were subsequently accused of major antiquities export violations in Italy. He acquired thousands of small ancient Greek pottery sherds to fill the collection which later scholars charged to be of dubious research value. In 1979, Frel was instrumental in buying a stone head of Achilles for the Museum, supposedly carved by Scopas, for $ 2.5 million. In 1982 the Museum hired Arthur A. Houghton III (b.1940), son of Metropolitan Musuem of Art Board President Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. (1906-1990), as its Associate Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Soon after, Frel was accused of grossly overvaluing the donations of objects to the Museum by donors in order for the donors to get larger tax breaks. Over the eleven years he worked at the Getty, his evaluation of donations totaled a purported $14.4 million. Frel was initially relieved of acquisitions duties from the Getty in 1984 for what the museum termed ''serious violations of the museum's policies and rules regarding donations to the antiquities collection.'' He was succeeded by Houghton. Things began to unravel quicker for Frel now. In 1985 a purchase of a Greek kouros (standing nude youth) was made at Frel's urging and based on Frel's attribution of 6th century B.C. The Museum paid for $7 million. Federico Zeri (q.v.), the only art historian on the Getty's board at the time, denounced it as a fake. The attribution was effusively supported by New York Times art critic John Russell. Though the kouros was added to the museum, the controversy grew. The Getty acquired a known fake, similar to the kouros they owned, for comparison. Ultimately, the Museum decided to describe the Getty kouros as ''6th century Greek or modern forgery.'' Then, in 1987, a University of Mainz professor, German Hafner, proved that the stone Achilles' head Frel had purchased wore an incorrect helmet, one apparently copied from another fake made in the 19th century. Frel's judgments were attacked in the popular press by the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Thomas Hoving (q.v.), editor of Connoisseur magazine, and Geraldine Norman (b. 1940), a freelance writer for the arts for the London Independent in 1986. Frel moved back to Europe after these incidents where he died at age 82. He is buried at Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Frel was married four times.

Home Country: Czech/United States

Sources: Hoving, Thomas. "The Getty Kouros: Sixth Century B.C. or Twentieth Century A.D.?." Connoisseur 216 (September 1986): 100; Hoving, Thomas, and Norman, Geraldine. "The Getty Scandals: How the Questionable Activities of One Curator Cast a Shadow Over an Entire Museum." Connoisseur 217 (April 1987): 29; Norman, Geraldine. "Greek Youth Younger than He Looks? A Damaged Torso May Hold the Answer to One of the Most Famous Whodunits of the Antiquities Market." The Independent (London), July 14, 1990, p. 34; personal correspondence, Getty Museum; Eakin, Hugh. "An Odyssey in Antiquities Ends in Questions at the Getty Museum." New York Times October 15, 2005 p. B 7; [obituary:] Kennedy, Randy. "Jiri Frel, Getty's Former Antiquities Curator, Dies at 82." New York Times May 17, 2006, p. 20.

Bibliography: Contributions à l’iconographie grecque. vol. 5. Praha: Academia, 1969; The Getty Bronze. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1978; and Morgan, Sandra Knudsen. Roman Portraits in the Getty Museum. Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Art Center, 1981; Greek Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, CA: The Museum, 1981; Death of a Hero. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984; and Houghton, Arthur, III, and True, Marion. Ancient Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, CA: The Museum, 1987ff.