#ConnectingCollections is celebrating new beginnings! Join us this month as we look at some #MuseumFirsts. Museums will be sharing stories about first exhibitions, first acquired objects, first publications, first storage systems, and more. Published in 1954, the first Getty guidebook gives a snapshot of the museum when it opened to the public in May of that year. Before the construction of the Villa and the Getty Center, J. Paul Getty’s collections of ancient and European art were housed in a Spanish-style ranch house, nestled in a canyon above the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. The guidebook highlights the original display of objects, sometimes in surprising locations. Do you recognize the sculpture in the cover image? Mr. Getty’s favorite work of art, the Lansdowne Hercules, is an over-life-size Roman sculpture of the Greek hero. Swipe to see a view of the museum entrance courtyard. Look closely, the statue of Hercules is on the far right. When the museum first opened, some marb...