Since the J. Paul Getty Museum began collecting photographs in 1984, it has formed one of the greatest photography collections in the world. Weston Naef, Curator of Photographs, has selected more than two hundred of the most important images from the Museum's collection and written commentaries on each. Ranging in date from the 1830s to the 1960s, these photographs provide a brief history of the art of photography and offer a wide-ranging survey of the Getty's holdings.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Eugene Atget, Andre Kertesz, Walker Evans, and Diane Arbus are among the more than one hundred artists whose works are reproduced in this beautiful volume. Also included is an index of the photographers whose work is represented in the Museum's collection.