Photography Luminaries Shine at Getty

In 1984, Weston Naef boarded a 747 in New York accompanied by his dog and 50 crates filled with the most outstanding photographs ever assembled. As the Getty Museum’s newly appointed curator of photographs, Naef was shepherding to Los Angeles the museum’s recently purchased bounty, photographs obtained through the simultaneous acquisition of several major American and European collections. Thus began the legacy of the Getty’s foray into photography, a bold stroke that instantly transformed Los Angeles into one of the leading centers of the art form. Prior to this visionary move, the Getty was known mostly for its collections of Greek and Roman antiquities,18th-century French decorative arts and European paintings. Naef, today still at the helm as curator, organized the current ‘Photographers of Genius,’ exhibition, a major show marking the 20th anniversary of the Getty’s formidable photography collection. The exhibition spotlights the genius of 38 photographers, with three images chosen to represent each, all selected from among 600 photographers of which the museum has significant holdings. (Twenty-five or more prints by an individual artist is considered a strong holding.) Of no surprise is the inclusion of such groundbreaking artists as Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus. Eye-opening, even to aficionados, are such ‘new’ names as Anna Atkins, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey and Camille Silvy. Naef’s vision and curatorship was put to the test to winnow his list from such vast holdings, but with ironclad criteria, the task became less difficult. First, every photographer had to be held in-depth at the Getty, with an equal balance between quality and quantity. ‘For instance, Ansel Adams is not among the 38, since we only have one print that is definitive,’ explains Naef, a longtime Palisadian. The photographers all had to be ahead of their time risk-takers, too, and each needed to exercise influence beyond his or her own time. The influence factor, something impossible to measure among contemporary photographers, explains why the exhibition stops in the 1960s with Diane Arbus. The only living photographer represented in the show is Cartier-Bresson (born in 1908), and the oldest photographs go back to the medium’s infancy in the 1840s. Among them is Hippolyte Bayard’s ‘Arrangement of Specimens,’ an 1842 cameraless photogram using the technique known as cyanotype to record flowers, plants, textiles and feathers. The process, based on the light-sensitivity of certain iron salts, displays an arresting and characteristic bright blue color. Other explorations of Bayard’s, including many portraits and self-portraits, are described by Naef as among the ‘first to introduce a first-person voice. Bayard used photography to explain himself rather than the outside world.’ In Naef’s view, another overlooked pioneer is Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, whom he credits as the first to ‘apply the most essential options that are available in photography: point of view, light and choice of subject.’ Naef feels certain Girault de Prangey will equal Daguerre in the realm of photo history. ‘He did something earthshaking and important by photographing the Parthenon,’ Naef says. Not just simple recordings, his pictures of ancient monuments employ photography as a creative tool. His 1842 ‘Rome, So-Called Temple of Vesta’ image takes the radical perspective of exposing just the top half of the columned temple. Gustave Le Gray’s ‘Seascape with a Ship Leaving Port’ of 1857 foreshadows the Impressionists, who undoubtedly saw in his work the dramatic play of light and atmosphere they later sought to capture in their paintings. Another compelling image in the show is Camille Silvy’s ‘Twilight’ (1859-60), a photograph filled with interesting deception. ‘He’s the first person to believe that photographs should be works of fiction,’ Naef says. ‘It’s a work that appears to use a pure means of photography, but instead is an elaborate fiction.’ The photograph, artfully showing a figure disappearing in the background fog and a boy leaning on a lamppost, is actually a skillful manipulation spliced together using four different negatives. Roger Fenton’s ‘The Billiard Room, Mentmore House’ (1858) offers a glimpse into a less formal, unstaged world rarely captured in early photography. ‘It powerfully conveys the universal need to have relaxed and carefree moments,’ Naef says. Naef points to two strong threads carried throughout the collection. One is social documentation, vividly displayed in images such as Lewis Hind’s 1910 ‘Sadie Pfeiffer, Spinner in Cotton Mill, North Carolina’ and the iconic work of Dorothea Lange in the 1930s. The other strain is showcased by visionaries such as Moholy-Nagy, whose avant-garde, abstract work convincingly put photography on the same plane as painting in terms of importance. Ultimately, the show’s theme’aside from showcasing genius’highlights how photographs have the power to change us by causing us to look at the world in a new way. ‘Photographs are another way of doing what began with Gutenberg and D’rer as a magical way to communicate ideas visually,’ Naef says. ‘They are the most effective vehicle of communication besides the human voice.’ Through the Getty’s aggressive efforts to collect and show photography, Naef believes a ‘huge number of people have become literate in photography. It has the potential to reach out to audiences of every kind.’ ‘Photographs of Genius At the Getty’ continues through July 25. Contact: 440-7300. On Thursday, April 22, at 7 p.m., Mark Haworth-Booth, curator of photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, will discuss the first ‘Golden Age’ of photography, including works in the exhibition by Gustave Le Gray and Camille Silvy.