Verena Lepper from the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection becomes the new director of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles
Press release from 08/27/2025
Prof Dr Verena Lepper, currently curator at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, is leaving Berlin for California. The 52-year-old Egyptologist and orientalist will head the Getty Villa in Los Angeles in future.
The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades is one of the two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum. The building, modelled on the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, now houses the museum's collection of antiquities. Ms Lepper will not only be responsible for the collection of around 45,000 antiquities, but will also manage the museum's programme and curatorial team.
Verena Lepper has been a curator at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin since 2008 and is responsible for a collection of 30,000 Egyptian and Oriental papyri. Lepper has directed and curated major international exhibitions and research projects in Germany and abroad, including in Doha and Abu Dhabi and at Harvard University. She is currently also Director of the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic Religious History at the Humboldt University in Berlin.
In order to promote cultural diplomacy between the Arab world and Germany, she founded the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA), which she has headed since 2013. She is a member of several committees and supervisory boards that deal with cultural and science policy.
"We are proud that an extremely renowned colleague from our ranks will head the Getty Villa in the future. Verena Lepper has achieved a great deal for cultural dialogue, and there is every reason to hope that the SPK will work even more closely with the Getty in the future," says SPK President Marion Ackermann.
"Verena Lepper brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience in the art, material culture, languages and religion of the ancient world from the Mediterranean to the Near and Middle East. " says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. "Their success in engaging diverse audiences from a variety of backgrounds through exhibitions, publications, and educational programmes will greatly expand the Getty Villa's impact on visitors from around the world."
"It is a great honour to work for the Getty Museum in the future. The Getty Villa is a unique place that brings together world-renowned objects, architecture and gardens in the Villa dei Papiri," says Verena Lepper "With an exceptional team, I hope to support awareness of the relevance of the past and promote an accepting view of different cultures in the present and for the future."
Lepper has published 20 books on Egyptian and Oriental papyri, language and religion, as well as literary and cultural history, history of science and art. Her work has been recognised with numerous international awards. One of her most recent multidisciplinary research projects focussed on the cultural history of the island of Elephantine, which lies in the south of Egypt in the Nile. This project was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with 1.5 million euros and included objects from 60 collections in 24 countries around the world. It culminated in a major exhibition on Berlin's Museum Island in 2024 entitled "Elephantine: Island of Millennia", which showed the significance of 4,000 years of cultural history, with twenty different ancient ethnic groups, including contemporary art.
To conclude Lepper's work on Elephantine in Berlin, a discussion evening will be held on 2 October at 7 pm on "Elephantine goes global. Museum and science as soft power" at the James Simon Gallery. The virtual version of the exhibition "Elephantine. Island of the Millennia" will be presented for the first time.
Registration at: https://pretix.eu/museumsinsel/elephantine/