"Celebrating twenty years of collecting photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Photographers of Genius at the Getty and the exhibition it accompanies spotlight the genius of thirty-eight influential photographers whose work is held in depth by the Museum. From Hyppolyte Bayard to Diane Arbus, the innovative pioneers presented here span more than a century of photography from the early years of the new art in the 1840s to the early 1960s. Each advanced the art of photography and, in the process, brought about a change in the history of art, as well." "Many well-known names are included here, such as Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Eugene Atget, Brassai, Julia Margaret Cameron, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Gustave Le Gray, Man Ray, August Sander, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston. Others will be new even to experts: early innovators Anna Atkins, Henry Bosse, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, the Langenheim brothers, and Camille Silvy 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 by three related images and interpretive remarks by the author."--BOOK JACKET.