J. Paul Getty

American industrialist and art collector (1892–1976)

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Lived 1892–1976, aged 84United States

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Wikipedia
50 languages
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Era
1892–1976
Aged 84

Summary

Updated 2026-06-10

The oilman so tight-fisted he haggled over his own grandson's ransom. Getty turned petroleum into a fortune that made him the world's wealthiest private citizen by 1966—then left most of it to art.

Biography

About

Born in Minneapolis in 1892, the son of a pioneer oilman, Getty founded Getty Oil Company in 1942 and rode the petroleum boom to staggering wealth: Fortune called him America's richest man in 1957, and by 1966 the Guinness Book pegged him at $1.2 billion. He married and divorced five times, fathered five children, and lived by a parsimony so severe that when his grandson was kidnapped in 1973, he negotiated with the captors over price. What he hoarded in life he released in death: more than $661 million went to the J. Paul Getty Museum he'd seeded with his art and antiquities collection. The t…

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