Capturing Beauty
My Malibu MasterpiEce: An Art Piece
by
John Presco
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
My childhood friend, Nancy Hamren Van Brasch took me to meet Jeryl Zorthian at his ranch in Altadena – that is still burning.He was working on a painting, and we had a brief conversation. We would live with his two daughter in a cimmune in San Francsisco called ‘The Idle Hands;.
It is 2:53 A.M. January 11, 2025. I awoke early with the notion the Zorthian family would like me to do a Fire Painting-Sculpture at the ranch. Below is a painting I did when I was sixteen, and a new arrival to LA. I understood I was living in a desert, and rendered our apartment building on Midvale – melting! The other buildings look like they have been destroyed by fire. A year later I drive up the coast past Malibu in a rain storm, park my car, and carry a canvas easel, and colors out to a grassy hill overlooking the sea, and do a painting in the rain that went with me when I hitchhiked to New York.
Days after Drew Taylor Rosamond Benton, died, I began a search for Rosemary’s jewelry box. I asked Damien Bosley if he had it. I was going to put Drew’s cremated remains in it. I want that box. I asked Shamus Dundon for it. He said my nieces were fighting over it. I believe he lied – as usual! He hid from the Bullhead Police.
Our childhood friend, describes my paintings as being “dark” in Rosamond’s bad biography. Today the lives of ten thousand people have all but been destroyed. Their grief is unfathomable. The image of the bleak lifeguard reminds me of the painting I did in the bachyard of Glendon of the duck hunting shack near the Bay Bridge in Oakland. Vic’s wife is standing on a barren hill – screaming at each other. Is that smoke coming their way. Dee-Dee chased my father around the house, and shot him in the back.
TO BE CONTINUED
WARNING! 4:34 AM…UCLA students have just been put on possible evacuation. No one is helping me. Casey Farrell is a parasite and cut off from me and all that is mine. He is trying to loot my family legacy. My aunt and uncle Rise went to UCLA. Vincent was my art patron.
Drew Benton Was On “Kill List”
Posted on September 26, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
Yesterday I communicated with someone who loved my niece. He was very respectful of my feelings – and privacy, Like me, he did not think much of Damien Bosley whose primary concern is for me to get authorization for him to come to the mortuary in person – and get Drew Benton’s death certificate! No matter what I said, he comes back to that DC. I just reread his text – before I had a sip of coffee. He says he’ll mail me anything I want. So far, he hasn’t mailed me a thing I asked for. When his brother called and told me Damien was clearing out my niece’s apartment, my mother’s jewelry box popped in my mind – like a vision! I had asked Drew’s cousin Shamus Dundon for the box when he asked if there was anything I wanted from his mother’s estate.
“Screw the jewelry box! Tell us about the “KILL LIST!“
Cameron Bosley told me Drew was……”hearing voices!” Daimen never mentioned the….”voices”.
“Shut up already about the voices. Are you going to tell us about the damn “KILL LIST”
Today is my late mother’s birthday. Rosemary Rita Rosamond, was the third girl born to Royal and Mary Magdalene Rosamond. When someone dies in your family all members of the immediate family come to mind. Damien and Cameron could care less. Drew co-signed a financial agreement, and Damien needs proof of death to get out of the contract. He’s promising me a lot. He even went down to the Morturary – and pounded on the door! He promises to spread Drew’s ashes at the place – she wanted them spread….IF I get him that DEATH CIRTIFICATE! Did Drew see the end of her life – was near?
What his kind, caring, and respectful friend of Drew told me, was that my niece went on leave from her job at Walmart, because she feared for her life. Two years earlier a fellow employee went to prison for making a “KILL LIST” and Drew’s name was – AT THE TOP! After getting out of prison, he stops by the store. A member of my family was utterly terrified something bad was going to happen – just before some truly awful happened to her! Why didn’t the Bosley Brothers tell me about Drew’s……
STALKER?
Why didn’t officer Holstrom mention DREW’S STALKER? Maybe Drew told me about the ex-convict? Maybe I knew the asshole? Perhaps he wanted something from Drew, and all she had to do was
COMPLY!
Here are The Family Names on Drew’s Death Certificate.
Drew Tylor Benton
Garth Benton
Christine Benton
John Presco
Drew saw Rosemary’s Jewelry box every time she came in the front door. Drew and Vicki Presco were roommates for several years. That’s a [photograph of Vicki and Drew peering over the top of the painting I did when I was sixteen. Drew’s cousin promised he would mail it to me – five years ago? I am still waiting for the mailman. And I’m still waiting for the police report from the Bullhead City Police Department, so I can read it, and KNOW who I should be WATCHING OUT FOR!
I did not ask for the name of Drew’s Stalker. Does he check in on her Facebook? Has he
CHECKED ME OUT? DOES HE KNOW WHERE I LIVE?
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
EXTRA! I can’t help but wonder aloud. THE KILL LIST consisted of employees of Walmart. Does Damien work at Walmart? Maybe THE STALKER wants proof Drew is dead, and is not faking it? Was there a story about Drew’s alleged suicide in the newspaper? How about in T.V.? Maybe Walmart has a motive for shutting down all dark rumors about………THE KILL LIST?
Are you hearing voices……..too?
EXTRA! EXTRA! Make THE VOICES….stop! Perhaps none of Drew’s relatives responded my niece’s death, because they knew all about THE KILL LIST.…And THE TRIAL! And, THE CONVICTION. And the threats to…..ALL MEMBERS OF DREW’S FAMILY?
Just thinking aloud!
Rosemary’s Jewelry Box
Posted on September 5, 2019 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here is my dead mother’s jewelry box that Shamus Dundon said Drew Benton and Shannon Rosamond are fighting over. Rosemary kept mementos from her four Children in it. There is nothing about her grandchildren.
Shamus did not call me and tell me my mother was dying. He was punishing me for asking questions about chasing lizards – when he said he had a headache! He ended up with Rosemary’s treasured Mustang. I didn’t get anything. Robby called and asked me if I wanted my painting. I had him send it to Vicki when I attempted to go foreward for the sake of my daughter and grandson. Heather was my Trustee. She and her lover called me a parasite because I get food stamps and SSI for my PTSD, and my Childhood Head Butting?
I asked Shamus for the Stuttmeister marriage certificate.
For a quarter of a century I have struggle in confusion to understand why my family does not know what a Artistic Legacy is. They see no value in my post on Joaquin Miller and Emma Hill that enhances Rosamond’s creative legacy – and my own! I told my Doctor I think my family is jealous of the two Creative siblings in their midst. Now I conclude they are greedy ingrates, savages, who need to claim all the shiny things they see, and eliminate The Shiny Ones. For sure, these are The Enemies of Art and Literature, and thus they have value. They are………The Perfect Examples!
John Presco
Copyright 2019
Family Treasures
Posted on April 21, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
Here are some family treasures Vicki Presco owns. Included is the marriage certificate of Rudolph Stuttmeister. Instead of scanning it and making it available to the rest of the family, Vicki hoards it. She helped create our late sister’s imposter and art forger, and allows Stacey Pierrot to title herself ‘Caretaker’ which is like a ‘Curator’. Vicki showed me Christine’s autobiography that was kept from the public.
Rosemary kept her children’s achievements in her jewelry box. I did a painting of Midvale Avenue in Westwood when I was fifteen.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
The Getty Villa survived LA’s firestorms while the area around it burned, revealing a key lesson for homeowners
Jessica Orwig and Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Jan 9, 2025, 9:25 AM PSTShareSave
- The Palisades fire has burned thousands of acres in Los Angeles.
- Buildings in the area that have survived include the Getty Villa art museum in Pacific Palisades.
- The villa isn’t your average home, but homeowners can learn from the Getty staff’s fire prep.
The Palisades fire in California has burned through thousands of acres since breaking out Tuesday between Malibu and Santa Monica, but the iconic Getty Villa, which lay in its path, has remained standing with minor damage, even after homes and trees around it went up in flames.
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“We deeply appreciate the tireless work and dedication of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and other agencies,” the museum said in a statement Wednesday morning.
The Getty Villa is part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which includes the largest endowment of any museum in the world, estimated at more than $8 billion in 2023. It houses the trust’s collection of Ancient Greek and Roman art.
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Fire departments used “state-of-the-art air handling systems” to help protect the building, Katherine E. Fleming, the president and CEO of the Getty Trust, told USA Today.
Moreover, builders designed the galleries with double-walled construction, which also helped protect the precious art inside.
But it wasn’t just expensive architecture and state-of-the-art firefighting that helped. Getty staff members have been consistently clearing brush from the surrounding area all year as part of its fire-mitigation efforts, the museum said.
Moral Rights Art Preservation Law
Posted on October 4, 2011 by Royal Rosamond Press
Without a doubt, the muralist, Carl Morris, was infkuenced by my kinfolk, Thomas Hart Benton, whose cousin sued his freinds, Ann and gordon getty for painting over a murral he did for them in their home. Garth Benton worked nine months on the murrals he did for the Getty Villa, with the help of my niece, Shannon Benton, the daughter of my late sister, the world famous artist, Christine Rosamond.
Yesterday I talked with my sister Victoria about our niece, Drew Benton. Her father suffered a stroke a week ago, and may not be able to render more of his famous murals. We wondered if Drew would pick up the gauntlet when alas Garth lays down his brush.
I am seeking a legal opinion on whether it is moral and legal for murals rendered for public consumption, can be sold into private hands, especailly when the monies paid to the artist for his, or her efforts, was paid for by a Federal Program with express purpose of being enjoyed by the public in a public place. Until a legal decision can be reached, and or, a Federral Law passed to protect the moral intergrity of the Artist, and said Government Program, I highly suggest this pending sale be postponed. Morris’s murals represent the real history of other family members, John Fremont ‘The Pather Finder’ and his wife, Jessie Benton-Fremont who helped author the first journals of the Willameet Valley.
Garth Benton is the cousin of Thomas Hart Benton who was Jackson Pollock’s mentor. Senator Thomas Hart Benton was the Administrator of the Oregon Territory and sent Fremont to secure Orego from the British who had desings on it.
I am going to found an originzation of people who will oversee and preserve public murals that are imprissoned in vacant buildings waiting to be sold to the highest bidder, like a slave.
Our Founding Father’s founded a nation of thirteen states, that were colonized and improved upon by British and Dutch sujects of a king. The other thirty seven states were founded by Pioneers like my kinfolk who built a thousand cities without the help of any king, and any of his subjects! Kings and millionaire bankers have come to own much the world’s art. The Tea Party Fakeriots want to give them billions so they own that much more!
Oh sure, they will let us come see their art, but only if we have hat in hand, and are bowing at the knees!
Jon Presco
California Art Preservation Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The California Art Preservation Act is a 1979 California lawthat provides legal protection for artists’ moral rights. The law is currently codified at California Civil Code§987. The law has since been amended in part. The California Art Preservation Act was the first major law to specifically address artists’ rights in the United States.
Portions of the law may overlap with the provisions of the Visual Artists Rights Act, in which case the California law is preempted.
Content
The Art Preservation Act provides for civil penalties and injunctive relief for the intentional or grossly negligentdestruction or mutilation of a work of fine art, defined in the statuteas any original painting, sculpture, or drawing that is of “of recognized quality.” Fine art, as used in the law, does not include works prepared for commercial use by the purchaser.
The Act also provides artists the right to claim authorship and disavow modifications to works of fine art.
The rightsgranted under the act subsist for the life of the author plus 50 years.
See also
Kent Twitchell won the largest settlement ever under Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and CAPA for $1.1 million dollars against the US Government and 12 other defendants. His mural of Ed Ruscha was painted over without his knowledge or consent.
Visual Artists Rights Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Resident Scholarship at The Villa
Posted on June 20, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
I am working on two letters to Governor Newsom. I will ask if he can get me a honorary residenet scholarship at the Villa, being I am a high school drop-out.
John
Dear Governor Newsom.
The Getty Scholars Program supports researchers in advancing knowledge of the arts and humanities and producing cutting-edge scholarship that contributes to the understanding and preservation of cultural heritage. While in residence, scholars have the opportunity to spend significant time at one of the world’s premier art history collections while contributing to an international community committed to intellectual exploration and exchange. Scholars may be in residence at the Getty Center or Getty Villa.
The Getty Scholars Program at the Villa supports researchers in advancing knowledge of ancient arts and cultures through cutting-edge scholarship that contributes to the understanding and preservation of cultural heritage. While in residence, scholars have the opportunity to spend significant time at one of the world’s leading art collections, where they join an international community of scholars, staff, and visitors committed to intellectual exploration and exchange. Villa Scholars are in residence at the Getty Villa near Malibu, the site of the Getty Museum’s collection of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art, antiquities conservation labs, and a research library dedicated to the ancient Mediterranean world.
Dear Governor Newsom. Today is June 19th. and I am inspired to make a proposal to you and the people of California, where I was born – during an amazing star-shower! Earlier today I made a proposal to Notre Dame de Namur asking for creative and just sanctuary, after learning more of my ancestors were dug up out their graves – and relocated. This has left me with deep and stressful feeling of impermanence that hurtles beyond the feelings of enlightenment I have enjoyed via literary meditation. I believe I own the largest blog in the world – that needs protection – too.
I am kin to John and Jesse Fremont who authored the first emancipation of slaves. John was the first candidate for the Republicans’ Abolitionist Party. I want to declare my candidacy for Republican President – but I don’t feel safe. I’m too poor to move. There is no room for bodyguards. This is why I’m asking for the immediate construction of a sound stone home like the one I found on the internet. The Fremonts had their Black Point home taken from them by the U.S. Military. There was a court case that compensated most of the offspring of homeowners, but the Fremont home was not one of them.
I would like to see a tower – with large clock – honoring the Forty-Eighters, and the German Turners who went South with the Union Army and helped defeat the Confederacy. I have uncovered some amazing history about the Getty family, that are my kin due to the marriage of Christopher Wilding to Aileen Getty I m kin to Ian Fleming. From this tower I will direct cyber warfare against Putin and his brain. Mark Twain was a frequent visitor to Black Point. Consider his story; A Connecticut Yankee at King Author’s Court. I will be the caretaker of the San Francisco Magic in the years I have left. This proposal will be a part of The Great Story.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
Copyright 2023
The Villa J. Paul Getty Built but Never Saw
Ancient and modern history intertwine at the Getty Villa
KENNETH LAPATIN | APRIL 10, 2018 | 4 MIN READ
J. Paul Getty (at left) views a model of the Getty Villa at Sutton Place, his home in England, in 1971. The Getty Research Institute, Institutional Archives.
Ironically, J. Paul Getty never saw the Getty Villa. He died two years after his museum opened to the public in January 1974 in a new building modeled on an ancient Roman luxury home. It was not until after Getty’s death in June 1976 that he returned from his estate in England to his “ranch” on the Pacific Coast: he is buried there at the edge of the property on a private plot overlooking the ocean, alongside his eldest and youngest sons, George and Timothy, both of whom predeceased him.
Following a renovation and reinstallation of the galleries, the Getty Villa opens a new chapter in its history. Although Getty never set eyes on his creation, the story of how he built the Villa and assembled his collection pervades the galleries even today. A suite of revamped rooms—Galleries 105 to 108—share this history. Featuring ancient works of art Getty bought himself along with archival documents, the new displays place the objects in their cultural contexts and shed light on Getty’s personal relationship to his museum and final resting place.
From a Ranch House to an Ancient Villa
Getty bought the 64-acre ranch—once part of the Rancho Boca de Santa Monica, an early-nineteenth-century 6,656-acre Mexican land grant—just after the end of World War II, intending it as a weekend retreat where his fifth wife Theodora (“Teddy”) could ride horses and he could display his growing art collection.
The Ranch House prior to renovation, between 1920 and 1945. The Getty Research Institute, Institutional Archives
He knew the area well, for he already owned a small house on the beach in nearby Santa Monica, just steps from the sprawling complex his friend and rival collector William Randolph Hearst had built for the actress Marion Davies. (The Davies estate is now the Annenberg Community Beach House, while Getty’s beach house has been replaced by a large modern condo complex, 270 Palisades Beach Road.)
After buying the property, Getty remodeled the low-slung “Ranch House,” adding a second story and several Spanish-style features. Although Getty left the United States permanently in 1951, leaving Teddy and their son Timmy behind, he continued to fill the Ranch House with works of art, and in 1954 it opened it to the public as the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Large antiquities gallery in the Getty Ranch House between 1957 and 1974. At the far end of the gallery stands the Lansdowne Hercules. The Getty Research Institute, Institutional Archives
Over time he added to the building to accommodate his growing collection, and by the late 1960s it needed to expand further. Getty’s architects drew up several proposals in a variety of styles—Spanish, European, and modern—all of which he rejected. Ultimately, he decided to construct a replica of the ancient Villa dei Papiri at Herculaeneum, which was buried in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79.
Ancient and Modern History Meet
Several newly reinstalled galleries on the first floor of the Getty Villa feature objects that speak to both their ancient and modern histories. Gallery 105, known as the Hall of Colored Marbles, is dominated by a marble statue of Venus. Getty readily admitted that he “enjoyed the company of women,” and when the Villa first opened in 1974 an entire gallery was devoted to images of the goddess of love.
When planning the new display we therefore decided that the first of two built-in vitrines in this gallery would focus on representations of Venus in various media: terracotta, marble, and bronze. The smallest object in the case, a finely worked bronze head of the goddess, once attached to a larger figure, is remarkable for the preservation of a golden earring with a single pearl. Pearls were highly prized in antiquity, as they are today, and fetched vast prices.
The largest object in the case, a terracotta group of a Woman Reclining on a Couch with Cupids, is still more intriguing. It is the first “antiquity” that Getty purchased. In 1939, when he was in Rome courting Teddy, who was studying to be an opera singer, he placed a number of absentee bids on items being sold from an aristocratic collection in London. He was particularly interested in the tapestries, but on the same page of the auction catalogue as some of the objects he most desired was the listing for this terracotta. It was associated with similar ones found at the Greek site of Tanagra in the late nineteenth century. These artworks were popular among collectors for the vivacity of their compositions and the insights they seemed to provide into daily life in the ancient world.
Statuette of a Woman Reclining on a Couch with Cupids, 1875–90, probably made in Greece. Terracotta, pigment, and gold, 7 5/16 × 10 5/8 × 4 5/16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 78.AK.38. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program
Detail of J. Paul Getty’s personal copy of the Sotheby’s auction catalogue of items from Cam House, London. The Getty Research Institute
As with all his purchases, Getty was canny, seeking to get the best possible price. But his annotated auction catalogue, rediscovered in the collections of the Getty Research Institute library by former Getty Museum curatorial assistant Laure Marest-Caffey (now the Cornelius and Emily Vermeule Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) reveals that Getty himself had doubts about its authenticity. In the margin beneath the entry he wrote, “modern?” The terracotta belonged to a venerable English collection, so Getty was willing to take a chance. His low bid of £10 prevailed, but his first antiquity turned out not to be an antiquity at all.
History on Display
This story and others about J. Paul Getty and the growth of his collections are told in an innovative display in Gallery 107. Building on the ongoing installation J. Paul Getty: Life and Legacy at the Getty Center, this interactive program, installed alongside some of Getty’s favorite ancient sculptures, allows visitors to explore hundreds of archival photographs, maps, graphs, and other resources relating to Getty’s family, business, travels, development of his collections, decision to build the Villa, and lasting legacy.
The Lansdowne Hercules, about A.D. 125, Roman. Marble, 76 3/16 × 30 1/2 × 28 3/4 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 70.AA.109. Pictured in the Temple of Hercules (Gallery 108).
Gallery 108, known as the Temple of Hercules, meanwhile appears much as it did before the reinstallation, but it now features improved lighting and a smaller seismic isolator underneath the famous statue of the Lansdowne Hercules. This change enables more of the splendid polychrome marble floor to show; it’s a replica of one of the first finds by well-diggers who discovered the Villa dei Papiri in 1750. The ancient villa is itself the focus of a newly installed cubiculum just off the Atrium, Gallery 101C, and it will be the subject of an international loan exhibition in the summer of 2019.
While Getty never visited his Villa, his legacy continues to endure. From his architectural choices to the objects he collected, his twentieth-century history blends with that of ancient times, yielding stories that captivate us even today.
Gavin Newsom For The Arts
Posted on May 12, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
On cue, Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference and announced massive aide for the Homeless and The Arts. I had just sent my business proposal to the City Government of Belmont, who have no Arts Program that I am aware of. I had talked with a friend about getting Grace Slick to do paintings in Charlatan Square as part of my Cultural Package for the Belmont that needs to get the Governor’s attention, being, I am kin to Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, as is Belmont Pioneer, Carl Janke. Michael Wilding married Aileen Getty, and thus Carl Janke is in the Getty Family Tree. This Getty Tree For The Arts adopted Gavin when he was a teenager. The J. Paul Getty father and son moved to England. Junior was Knighted by the Queen and was titled “Sir” after he became a British subject. Liz Taylor was Knighted by the Queen for her contribution to the Film Industry that made California great.
John Presco
President: Belmont Soda Works
Rosamond Press 
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