Ann Getty

Ann Getty (née Gilbert, March 11, 1941 – September 14, 2020) was an American philanthropist, publisher, paleoanthropologist and socialite. As a fellow of the Leakey Foundation, she worked on archeological digs in Turkey and Ethiopia and was part of a team that excavated Ardipithecus fossils. She provided funding for the National Museum of Ethiopia and redesigned the museum's garden. Getty served as president of Grove Press, a publishing house that she and Lord Weidenfeld purchased in 1985, and founded the interior design firm Ann Getty and Associates in 1995. In 1964 she married billionaire Gordon Getty, the fourth son of oil baron J. Paul Getty, then the richest man in the world and had 4 children. As his wife she was a prominent society hostess in both New York City and San Francisco high society and a philanthropist for political, artistic, and scientific causes. She served on the boards of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, New York University, and Wexner Center for the Arts, and was a patron of the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Getty ran fundraising events for Democratic political candidates including Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, and hosted cultural salons in her Pacific Heights mansion.