Drew Heath Johnson, editor

Capturing Light

A stunning visual history that celebrates 150 years of California's greatest photographers.

From rare daguerreotypes of gold prospectors to Edward Weston's intimate portraiture, from glamour shots of Hollywood starlets to Dorothea Lange's arresting Dust Bowl imagery, Capturing Light: Masterpieces from 150 Years of California Photography offers a rich, extensive survey of the master photographers who have shaped the consciousness of a state—and America as a whole—for more than a century and a half. Drawn from the extensive collections of the Oakland Museum of California by curator Drew Heath Johnson, these enduring images offer a portrait as diverse as the state itself.

California, from the advent of statehood in 1850, has always represented the last frontier, and its photography has celebrated both a pioneer spirit and an avant garde sensibility. Not surprisingly, photography arrived in California during the hysteria of the Gold Rush, as artists were already producing exceptional and technically brilliant images that spoke to the folly and fortune of that era. From there, photographers branched out into work that was at once epic and more personal. The classic images of a century and a half spring from the diverse range of styles and subjects found in California's rich cultural and natural history: the daring figure studies and still lifes of innovators like Imogen Cunningham share these pages with the startling and brilliant portraiture of Edward S. Curtis and Oscar Maurer; awe-inspiring landscapes of Ansel Adams seem a universe distant from the glitz and glamour of George Hurrell's Hollywood; and the provocative works of Carrie Mae Weems demonstrate the power of the medium of photography on a nation's social consciousness.

Accompanying the 200 color plates presented here, Capturing Light offers an illuminating series of essays by pioneering scholars including Sally Stein, Andy Grundberg, Naomi Rosenblum, and Peter E. Palmquist, who elucidate and in some cases prophesize how California's photographers forever changed the medium of photography and affected a nation's conscience and aesthetic sensibility.

A momentous and magnificent book, Capturing Light is published in tandem with the touring exhibit of the Oakland Museum of California, and mirrors the first 150 years of the state's history—an essential work for any lover of photography and for those who seek the pioneering spirit of California.