Herbert Hymans, 72; ex-diplomatic official, Getty Center executive

Herbert Henri Eduard Hymans, 72, former assistant director of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, which subsequently became the Getty Research Institute, died Saturday of heart disease at a hospital in Paris.

Hymans joined the fledgling Getty Center as its assistant director in 1984. One of his principal tasks was to manage the center’s fellowship programs, which during his tenure was host to the composer Elliott Cater and the writer Susan Sontag among other leading intellectuals. Hymans retired from the Getty in 1997 and spent much of his time in Paris after that.

A native of the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, he moved to California with his family in 1940. Hymans graduated from Stanford University and earned a doctorate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

After returning from England, Hymans joined the State Department and was posted to Spain and several Latin American countries. He resigned in the mid-1960s and, according to his family, taught the history of Western civilization at Stanford for several years.