Still life is one of the great traditional art forms. The first
still-life photograph was created around 1827, more than a
decade before the news of photography's invention was announced
in Paris and London in 1839. This volume surveys some of the
innovative ways photographers have explored the traditional
genre of still life from photography's earliest years to the
present day. The introductory essay is followed by an
illuminating sequence and juxtaposition of plates selected from
the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection. Still life has served as
both a conventional and an experimental form during periods of
significant aesthetic and technological change. Illustrating
that here are nineteenth-century masterpieces by practitioners
such as Hippolyte Bayard and Roger Fenton, twentieth-century
examples that include the diverse styles of Baron Adolph de
Meyer, Irving Penn, and Edward Weston, and a sampling of
contemporary artists, some recalling styles from the past. The
current revival of interest in the genre come