Jean Paul Getty was a successful petroleum entrepreneur and art collector, who built the Getty Oil Company into a major international player. Born in 1892 to a lawyer in
Minneapolis, Getty gained practical experience in the oil fields before successfully speculating in undervalued companies during the Great Depression. In 1957, he was rated the richest man in the world by Fortune magazine. However, he was afraid of flying and did not cross the Atlantic to visit his corporate headquarters in
Los Angeles for the last 25 years of his life. He left his fortune to the J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty died in 1976.
