A benefactor who saved the 'Three Graces' for the nation

The Getty largesse was spread widely across his adopted land.

Best known are the massive donations he gave to the capital's cultural powerhouses. The National Gallery was given a £50m pot to provide for future acquisitions and shore up its educational works so as to bring the art he loved to future generations.

The British Film Institute received £20m which helped finance the transfer of old British films from perishable nitrate stock to a modern medium at the BFI's Conservation Centre in Berkhamsted. He also helped in the purchase of the institute's headquarters at Stephen Street in London and, in recent years, assisted in the creation of the London Imax Cinema and the Museum of the Moving Image.

North of the border, the National Galleries of Scotland received a major boost with a £1m donation to secure Canova's sculpture of the Three Graces for the country.

He donated an undisclosed sum to saving Sir Winston Churchill's wartime papers for the nation and a £3m gift to Hereford Cathedral to save the Mappa Mundi, a 5ft-high, 13th-century map of the world which looked certain to be sold abroad. The cathedral had proposed to auction the map, made from animal skin, for an expected £7m to fund repairs to the Norman building, before Mr Getty and the National Heritage Memorial Fund stepped in to save it for the nation.

A £2.7m library built to house the map was opened at the cathedral seven years ago and was named as the Royal Fine Art Commission's building of the year.