Photographs

Jim joined the Department of Photographs in 2018, after ten years as curator of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He specializes in 19th- and 20th-century European and American photography, with emphasis on early French photography, the history of photography in California, and the relationship between photography, painting, and the graphic arts. He has organized or co-organized more than 40 exhibitions on diverse subjects, including monographic exhibitions on Édouard Baldus, Willard Worden, Peter Stackpole, and Arthur Tress. He served as president of the Print Council of America (2013-2017), and established the collection of photographs at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts. He received his PhD in art history from Yale University.

Mazie specializes in American photography past and present. She holds a PhD in the history of photography and American art from Brown University, as well as an MA in modern art from Boston University. Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, American Antiquarian Society, National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Terra Foundation for American Art. She joined the Department of Photographs in 2014.

Virginia specializes in German photography between the two World Wars and contemporary photography that privileges objectivity and materiality. She received her PhD from Columbia University, New York, with a dissertation on Albert Renger-Patzsch. Since joining the Department of Photographs in 2005, she has organized monographic shows drawn from the collection on the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Mario Giacomelli, Irving Penn, Ed Ruscha, and August Sander, and loan shows on Lyonel Feininger’s photographs and Ray K. Metzker and the Institute of Design. In 2015, she organized the exhibition Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, with accompanying publication. She has also authored or co-authored the following Getty publications: Irving Penn: Small Trades (2009), Some Aesthetic Decisions: The Photographs of Judy Fiskin (2011), Ed Ruscha and Some Los Angeles Apartments (2013), and Mario Giacomelli: Figure/Ground (2021). She served as acting department head from 2014 to 2018.

Miriam Y. Katz has been the collection manager for the Department of Photographs since 2011. She has an MA in museum studies and collections management from George Washington University and a BA in art history from Wellesley College. Her academic focus was on 19th-century American art and material culture. Before coming to the Getty, Miriam worked at small and mid-sized history museums as well as for private collectors. Her focus shifted to caring for photographs in 2006, when she started managing the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, which is now at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Arpad’s exhibitions have focused on 20th-century and contemporary photography, with a specific interest in conceptual practices and time-based media. A graduate of Queen's University and York University, Arpad arrived at the Getty Museum in 2011. He organized the monographic exhibitions Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense (2014), Werner Herzog: Hearsay of the Soul (2014), and Richard Learoyd: In the Studio (2016). His thematic shows include In Focus: Play (2014), In Focus: Animalia (2015), Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media (2016), Mapping Space: Recent Acquisitions in Focus (2019), Encore: Reenactment in Contemporary Photography (2019), and In Focus: Platinum Photographs (2020).

Claire’s research focuses on the intersection between the history of photography and histories of race, labor, and empire formation. She holds a BA in art history from Indiana University and an MA from the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art. After graduating from Williams, Claire served as the graduate curatorial intern in Getty's Department of Photographs (2022–23). Previously, Claire completed internships at the Clark Art Institute, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Originally from Toronto, Canada, Gabriela brings a specialized perspective on the care and management of photography collections. She holds an MA in photography preservation and collections management and a BFA in photography studies from Toronto Metropolitan University. Gabriela's master's research focused on collection management practices within corporate fine art collections. Prior to joining the Getty Museum, she completed placements in the Department of Photographs at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Scotiabank Fine Art Collection, and Edward Burtynsky Studio.

An alumnus of the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, Paul joined the Getty Museum in 2003. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for visual storytelling, he has curated or co-curated more than 20 exhibitions on a diverse range of topics. A specialist in 20th-century American photography, Paul is a prolific author, having written or co-written 11 books, including, most recently, Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith (2023), Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective (2020), Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography (2018), Robert Mapplethorpe: The Photographs (2016), and The Thrill of the Chase: The Wagstaff Collection of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum (2016).

Carolyn joined the Department of Photographs in 2018 after serving as director and curator at the Laband Art Gallery at Loyola Marymount University for ten years. She previously held curatorial positions at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. She has curated or co-curated over 60 exhibitions including: A Letter from Japan: The Photographs of John Swope (2006), Stephen Berkman: Chamber Pieces (2008), and Gallery 32 and Its Circle (2009). She specializes in 19th-century French and British photography. She is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and the University of California at Berkeley.

Julieta is an anthropologist and curator specializing in Latin American photography with a PhD in history and theory of arts from the University of Buenos Aires. Previously she was a graduate intern in the Curatorial Department (Latin American Art) of the Getty Research Institute, a fellow of the Bauhaus Lab Global Modernism Studies and the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut in Berlin, and a postdoctoral researcher in the 4A_Lab program of the Kunsthistorisches Institut/Max Plank Institut in Florence. She authored the book Prácticas modernas: Fotografía y grupalidad en La Carpeta de los Diez (2023), and curated the exhibitions Julia Chambi, la primera fotógrafa andino-peruana (Peru, 2024), and Lo múltiple y lo único. Fotografía en expansion (Argentina, 2022), among others.