I helped pass this law that Garth took advantage of. He and Christine did not know we are kin to them and Liz Taylor.

John Presco

“The capacity of some people to give back to the community is truly awe- inspiring, and as far as San Francisco is concerned, the Gettys are in a world all their own.

As if the local standard bearers of high society had not done enough in the areas of philanthropy, culture, music or family planning, now the Gettys have ventured forth in a new and unexpected arena: art education.

Their first project is to remind us that when you decide to “upgrade” an artist’s work, you may want to call the artist before getting in touch with your inner Monet. And it’s better, and cheaper, if your cubist leanings don’t involve someone else’s cube.

Late last week, Ann and Gordon Getty quietly settled a lawsuit — as if for them there could be any other way — that had been hanging over their estate for several months. Under the agreement, the Gettys have agreed to pay Garth Benton, an internationally acclaimed muralist, a sizable but undisclosed amount in exchange for the artist’s agreeing to drop his suit against one of the country’s richest families.

Benton’s lawsuit centered on an obscure California law that protects the work of artists, giving them the equivalent of copyright ownership of their work even after the work is sold. The 20-year-old law makes it a crime to alter, destroy or deface a work of fine art and holds that doing so can be “detrimental to the artist’s reputation.” In Benton’s case, however, the art wasn’t so much defaced as actually erased.