Frank Gehry, image © dbox

The J. Paul Getty Trust announced today that it will award the third annual J. Paul Getty Medal to Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry. The medal will be awarded at a celebratory dinner at the Getty Center on September 28, 2015.

“There have been very few individuals in all of history who have changed the course of architecture, and Frank is one of them,” said J. Paul Getty Trust President and CEO James Cuno. “He effectively reinvented architecture with his use of new technologies in the design of beautiful and iconic buildings. And architecture will never be the same as a result.”

Over more than five decades, Frank Gehry has built an architectural career that has produced iconic buildings in North America, Europe and Asia, and earned him the most significant awards in the field, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize, perhaps architecture’s premier accolade. Other honors include the National Medal of Arts, Ordre National de Legion d’honneur Commandeur from the French government, Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Biennale, and others too numerous to mention.

“Frank holds a special place in his art for the work of contemporary artists. He was a central figure in the contemporary art world in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s, working closely with Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, John Altoon, Bob Irwin, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha and Ken Price. And he continues to work closely with artists, including Claes Oldenburg and Jeff Koons, for whom he has collaborated on deeply sensitive installations of their work,” said Cuno. “Given his contributions to architecture, and the Getty’s extensive research and collections in Los Angeles art and architecture at the mid-century and beyond, and the commitment of the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute to the conservation and study of modern architecture, it is fitting that we present Frank with our highest honor.”

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