Getty posts salary of its new museum director


When Timothy Potts joins the Getty in September as its new museum director, he also will join the narrow ranks of American museum directors who earn more than half a million dollars annually.
According to a compensation disclosure dated Feb. 14 and published on the Getty website, his base salary is $690,000, and this year he also will receive a signing bonus of $150,000.

This amount will place his salary among the highest within the Getty, after James Williams, Getty Trust chief investment officer and treasurer, whose base salary is currently $851,760, and James Cuno, Getty Trust chief executive and president, whose salary is $728,000. (In 2011, WIlliams' total compensation reached $1,040,822, while Cuno received $795,497, including a signing bonus of $250,000, moving allowance of $150,000, monthly housing allowance of $20,000, and salary for five months of service since his Aug. 1, 2011, start date.)

Traditionally the biggest compensation packages in the field have gone to the heads of the biggest New York museums. Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, received $1.32 million in salary and benefits for the fiscal year ending June 2009. And Thomas Campbell, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, earned $929,735 in salary and benefits for the fiscal year ending in June 2010.

L.A. County Museum of Art Director Michael Govan, whose compensation amounted to $915,000 over that time period, remains the best-paid museum director in L.A.