Photographers of Genius at the Getty

Weston Naef

Celebrating twenty years of collecting photographs at the Getty Museum, Photographers of Genius at the Getty spotlights the genius of thirty-eight seminal photographers selected from the hundreds of artists represented in the collection. The author writes, "Genius causes us to stretch our own limits, and genius photographers take us into new realms of seeing through their eyes." The innovative pioneers presented here span the early nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. They advanced the art of photography and in the process brought about changes in the history of art. These artists include well-known photographers such as Gustave Le Gray, Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugène Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, August Sander, André Kertész, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Weegee, and Diane Arbus. Others will be new even to experts. For example, early innovators Girault de Prangey, Anna Atkins, Camille Silvy, Henry Bosse, and the Langenheim brothers have been rediscovered in recent years, bringing to light the importance of their particular contributions to the history of art and photography.

Each artist is represented in the book by three related images and interpretive remarks by the author. Illustrations include selections from Atget's signature views of Paris, Stieglitz's portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe, Weston's distinctive nudes, and Arbus's images of women. The book accompanied an exhibition that was on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from March 16 to July 25, 2004.

Weston Naef, curator emeritus in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, joined the Getty in 1984, the year the Department of Photographs was formed. He is the author of numerous publications, including The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers in Modern Photography and The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Photographs Collection.

The hardcover edition of this book is out of print.