Getty when the Getty is good

Then the comrades forget about it and whine, What have you done for us lately;

STRIKING National Gallery staff stormed to super-rich boss Mark Getty’s private gallery yesterday, vowing to keep him in the spotlight until hated privatisation plans are ditched.
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Employees are fighting plans to outsource security and visitor services staff to privateer contractors.

A lunchtime rally saw workers brave torrential rain to march from their Trafalgar Square home to the Getty Images gallery, off Oxford Street, which is owned by board of trustees’ chairman Mr Getty.

Leading the charge, PCS culture sector president Clara Paillard slammed Mr Getty’s firm for making money from selling copyrights to cultural institutions.

But what has Mr. Getty done with his money? As this 2001 Guardian piece makes clear, donate it to the arts;

News that a new generation of the Getty dynasty has taken up the family hobby of giving large amounts of money to good causes will bring joy to the directors of cash-strapped museums and galleries.

It emerged yesterday that the Getty responsible for a £10m gift to the National Gallery is Mark, 41-year-old heir to part of one of the largest oil fortunes in the world, son of John Paul Getty II, and grandson of John Paul Getty I.

Which is in addition to the 50 million Pounds Mark's father donated in 1985. When the money could have gone to the Getty Foundation's own museum in California.

But, for the comrades at Morning Star that's all in the past. Now it's class war;

[PCS union head Clara Paillard] called for culture to be valued as a public good and a means of resistance. “Our aim is to use art as a weapon,” she told onlookers.

There's a precedent for that;