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WestonNaef, Chief Curator of Department of Photographs, stated his intentions: ‘‘I want to work slowly and systematically toward forming the most comprehensive collection of photographs of all schools, all periods, up until and through the 1930s.’’ (Schreiber, 1984, 93, 95) Yet the collection seemingly was established overnight. This occurred when in 1984, the art dealer Daniel Wolf was introduced to Naef and John Walsh, the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Daniel Wolf had first approached Naef with the collections of legendary Detroit and New York-based curator and collector Samuel Wagstaff and Chicagobased Arnold Crane. Wagstaff’s collection included 18,000 objects and represented many important nineteenth century figures. Arnold Crane’s collection represented early French and British materials and important twentieth-century modernist photographers such as Man Ray, La´szlo´ Moholy-Nagy, and Walker Evans. After securing these two collections, additional purchases were made including early European photography (Bruno Biscofberger of Zurich), portions of the Albert Renger-Patzsch archive (Ju¨rgen and Ann Wilde of Cologne), and 1920s and 1930s Czech photographs (William Schurmann of Aachen). While unusual at the time, the acquisition of

these materials under the auspices of a private dealer that were in fact for a public museum caused a seismic shift in attention from the East to theWest coast. By the official announcement of the department’s creation in September 1984, themuseum had acquired some 30,000 objects, reportedly costing $20 million. Acquisition strategies at the J. Paul GettyMuseum

are qualified by thematic divisions: How We Live, Mythology, Natural World, People and Occupations, Religion, Science and Industry, and Where We Live. These divisions shape public reception, relying mostly on the ideas of cultural developments. In the Department of Photographs, the diversity of photographic systems and objects, including stereographs, graphic illustrations of photography’s influence, original negatives, prints by various techniques, card photographs, and cased objects such as daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, highlights the international phenomenon of photographic processes that shaped artistic developments. Wagstaff’s collection provided the substance for the department’s first

exhibition, Hanging Out: Stereographic Prints from the Collection of Samuel Wagstaff, Jr. at the J. Paul Getty Museum (1985). Experimental Photography: Discovery and Invention (1989) was a later exhibition and symposium that brought together photography’s major figures who first attempted to connect photography’s scientific endeavors of the nineteenth-century with the fathers of modernist photography, such as Alfred Stieglitz. Beaumont Newhall, Larry Schaaf, Nancy Keeler, Eugenia Parry-Janis, and John Szarkowski were among the symposium’s participants, whose presentations constituted a related publication. Other exhibitions have ranged from examinations of nineteenth-century permutations, such as Palette of Light: Handcrafted Photographs, 18981919 (1994), to monographic exhibitions of the masters of photography: Euge`ne Atget, Gertrude Ka¨sebier, Albert Renger-Patsch, Walker Evans, Doris Ulmann, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Manuel A´lvarez Bravo, and Frederick Sommer. The exhibitions reflect a dedication to scholar-

ship and dissemination of communal knowledge that is culturally biographic. The depth and diversity of their collection allows for exploration of acknowledged masters that increases understandings of their timely contributions. Walker Evans, widely acclaimed for his photographs from the 1930s and 1940s of America’s rural communities, exemplifies the museum’s conscientious research. The exhibitions, Walker Evans: The Getty Collection (1995), Walker Evans: Signs (1998), and Walker Evans, Cuba (2001) revealed his ability to not only document America but to intuitively identify the structures that subtly characterize the growth of industry. The American Tradition and Walker Evans: Photographs from the Getty Collection (2001) actively demonstrated this strength of the collection. Work chosen from 1850 to 1940 exhibited Evans with predecessors and contemporaries to discuss the insight photographers gave to changes in advertising and immigration that transformed rural towns and urban cities. This smaller exhibition of rare photographs complemented a larger exhibition that the museum hosted, Walker Evans & Company: Works from the Museum of Modern Art. The J. Paul Getty Museum also holds the work of nineteenth century English pictorialist photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, and has exhibited and published this work extensively. The educative role of the J. Paul Getty Museum

is realized through symposiums and colloquiums around important ideas that bring together eminent authorities to engage in discussions and debates on contemporary topics involving the collection and the artists. An important component of

the Getty’s educational program is their publication In Focus, an alternative form of catalogue for many of their monographic exhibitions. The standard format is pocket-sized with over 100 pages and consists of 50 images, artist’s chronology, and transcriptions of round-table discussions that include important figures in photography. Among the titles in this series are Andre´ Kerte´sz (1994), Alfred Stieglitz (1995), Euge`ne Atget (2000), August Sander (2000), and Dorothea Lange (2002). In contrast to the museum, the Getty Research

Institute (GRI) for the History of Art and the Humanities offers a collection that critically engages the function and employment of photography. Photography acquisitions in the Special Collections and Visual Resources department are also purchased from individual collectors, but the agenda is shifted from a modernist approach to interests in the vernacular. The collection is divided into seven areas: Ritual, Performance, and Spectacle; Cross-Cultural Exchange; Processes of Conception and Production; Visual Communication and the Culture of Images; Art and Science; History of Collecting and Display; and Cultural and Social Debates. Headed by Curator of Special Collections, Frances Terpak, the divisions examine the complexities of the nineteenth-century and photography’s participation by examining the materials of the period, which includes archival photographs, rare books and albums, and mechanical devices. The approach at GRI is interdisciplinary and

expansive. Framing the Asian Shore: Nineteenth-Century Photographs of the Ottoman Empire (1998) was composed from a purchase of 6,000 photographs from French collector Pierre de Gigord. The exhibition contextualized the photographs in postcolonialist terms, examining the Western image of the Orient. Other materials that described Eurocentric interests were included as well, such as maps, early prints, ceramic tiles, and Romantic literature. Exchanges between scientific technology and visual perception are growing aspects of the collection as well. Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen (2001) connected visual entertainment devices from the seventeenth-century through to the twentieth-century and displayed many of photography’s precursors such as a physionotrace, crank magic lanterns, and a portable camera obscura. In addition to Western devices, the department has increased holdings in Latin American photography. Purchases have resulted in a two-part exhibition that traced Mexico’s revolutionary history through to its modernist era, Mexico: From Empire to Revolution (2000). The exhibition featured the work of Augustin Victor Casasola,

Manuel Ramos, and a series of documentary photographs that captured the historic shooting of Emperor Maximilian, photographs that served as E´douard Manet’s inspiration for his realist painting The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1867). The collection of Mexican photography complements the J. Paul Getty Museum in its large holding of photographs by Manuel A´lvarez Bravo, whose work is often connected to both Mexico’s documentary tradition, which stems from the Revolution and to modernist and surrealist movements. Since 1984, the museum has extended its collec-

tion to include practices since the 1930s and 1950s, moving into the areas of Pop Art and color photography. The Hidden Witness: African Americans in Early Photography (1995) was an important exhibition in this respect. The objects drew from a recent acquisition of Jackie Napoleon Wilson’s collection of African American photography composed of daguerreotypes, albumen prints, and carte-de-visites from the Civil War era. Although the exhibition featured nineteenth-century work, contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems was commissioned to create a photographic installation that spiritually responded to The Hidden Witness. The collaboration received wide acclaim and laid the groundwork for later comparative exhibitions such as Nadar/Warhol: Paris/New York (1999) andWilliam Eggleston and the Color Tradition (1999).