The Department of Photographs Goes Global
By 2010 the Getty Museum’s Department of Photographs had increased its focus on contemporary global imagery and was welcoming works by underrepresented artists
Gallery view of Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography Since the Sixties, Getty Center, 2010
Body Content
In 1984 the Getty Museum acquired several of the most important private photography collections in the world—those of Bruno Bischofberger, Arnold Crane, Volker Kahmen/Georg Heusch, Samuel Wagstaff Jr., and others, all focused on European and American works from 1839 to 1945.
And so its Department of Photographs was born. When the Museum moved into its new home at the Getty Center 13 years later, the location prompted ideas about what the department might become.
A milestone in its development came in 2005, when the Museum launched the Photographs Council, a donor group that helped expand the department’s geographical and temporal parameters by funding acquisitions of works by contemporary artists not yet represented or underrepresented in the collection. A year later the Museum tripled the number of galleries for photography, creating one of the largest spaces in the United States dedicated to the medium. By 2010 the department was in full swing, mounting up to 10 exhibitions a year.
Songdowon International Children's Camp, North Korea, 2007, Hiroshi Watanabe. Inkjet print, 32 3/16 × 31 15/16 in. Getty Museum, 2010.57.2. Gift of Hiroshi Watanabe and Kopeikin Gallery. © Hiroshi Watanabe
Inspired primarily by the permanent collection, the exhibitions organized in 2010 focused on contemporary documentary photography; monographic presentations of the work of Irving Penn, Frederick H. Evans, and Felice Beato; and themes like laborers, still lifes, and cities. Photography from the New China was the first Getty show dedicated to imagery from Asia—in this case, photographs by contemporary Chinese artists—and the display clearly demonstrated that the collection had evolved far beyond those first purchases in 1984. By 2010 the department had begun collecting Asian works in depth, and more were to follow. In 2013 the Museum presented Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto; in 2014, In Focus: Tokyo; and in 2015, Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows and The Younger Generation: Contemporary Japanese Photography.
Banner for Photography from the New China, Getty Center, 2010
Untitled, print 1975, frame 2004, Malick Sidibé. Gelatin silver print with glass, paint, cardboard, tape, and string. Getty Museum. © Estate of Malick Sidibé
In 2010 the department added 540 photographs by purchase and donation—ranging from documentary and fashion images to landscapes, portraits, and conceptual works by artists from Japan, Korea, China, South Africa, and other countries. It also completed a new cold storage room for the large-scale color photographs it was acquiring with increasing frequency. Such photos require cooler temperatures than works in black and white.
Elderly Woman and Man Seated on Stone Ledge Talking, negative January 17, 1992; print September 2002, Kim Ki-chan. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum. © Kyung Ja Choi for the Estate of Kim Ki-chan
A current focus of the department is cataloguing and digitizing the collection so that it can be enjoyed by photography enthusiasts all over the world, especially those who are unable to travel to the Center. In the wake of the dramatic racial reckoning of 2020, the department has strengthened its commitment to shaping a more inclusive canon of the medium for current and future generations. The team of curators, collection management staff, and administrators hopes that its dedication to acquiring images by previously marginalized local and global artists will, in time, change the footprint of the collection and profoundly enrich visitors’ in-person and virtual experiences.
