Berenice Abbott – architectural studies of New York City in the 1930s – the Atget of Manhattan
Ansel Adams – Majestic landscapes of the American West
Robert Adams – Documenting the environmental destruction of the American West in the late 20th century
Manuel Alvarez Bravo – cultural and surreal imagery from Mexico
Eugene Atget – documentary photos of Paris architecture in the early 20th century
Karl Blossfeldt – Early 20th century, magnified photos of plant life revealed surreal, even Art Noveau forms
Bill Brandt – surrealist and working-class imagery, British, 1930-60
Harry Callahan – formalistic, minimalist portraits and landscapes
Julia Margaret Cameron – Victorian portraits, soft focus, from the early days of photography
Alvin Langdon Coburn – pioneer of abstract photography with his “Vortographs”
Imogen Cunningham – American modernist, best known for closeups of flowers and plants
Robert Doisneau – Happy photos of Parisian life in the mid-20th century.
Walker Evans – imagery of American society during the Great Depression
Emmet Gowin – “Gowin’s simple yet intensely seen daily events take on the quality of ritual” – Jonathan Green
John Gutmann – 1930s America but NOT the Great Depression, a precursor of the street photographers of the 50s
Lewis Hine – activist documentary work from early 20th century, from Ellis Island to child labor to sweatshops
Hill & Adamson – mid-19th-century calotypists, interesting collaboration between artist and technician
Yousuf Karsh – Canadian portrait master, created some of the iconic portraits of world leaders in the 40s and 50s.
Andre Kertesz – Eastern Europe to Paris to New York, ranging from surrealist imagery to street photography
William Klein – New York street photography in the mid-fifties
Dorothea Lange – documented American poor during the Great Depression
Jacques-Henri Lartigue – a child photographer, with exuberance and delight, France before World War I
Clarence John Laughlin – haunting images of abandoned cotton plantations and cemeteries in New Orleans.
Helen Levitt – street photography from early 1940’s New York City.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard – surrealist vision from middle America in the 1950s and 1960s
Joel Meyerowitz – moving from street photography to landscape; from black-and-white to color; and from 35mm to 8 x 10 format
Tina Modotti – revolutionary images from 1920s Mexico
Eadweard Muybridge – 1880s, the first to use the camera to analyze motion too fast to be seen with the naked eye.
Nadar – Paris, 1850-1870, portraits, early photographic pioneer
Arnold Newman – One of the greatest portrait-makers in the history of photography
Irving Penn – much, much more than just a fashion photographer
Jacob Riis – photos were only a tool for his crusade against poverty in early 20th century New York City slums
Alexander Rodchenko – 1920-30s in Russia, formalist, odd angles, a new way of looking
Cindy Sherman – artist using the photographic self-portrait as a means to express narrative.
Stephen Shore – master of large format camera, working in color depictions of urban scenes and landscapes.
Frederick Sommer – Surrealist imagery somehow from realist content
Edward Steichen – protege of Stieglitz, pioneer in pictorialism before moving on to fashion photography
Alfred Stieglitz – the Prophet of photography as an art form, his own excellent work is too often overlooked
William Henry Fox Talbot – early photographic pioneer, developed some of the first methods of fixing shadows on paper
Max Waldman – celebrating theatre and the dance, 1960s and 1970s.
Carleton E. Watkins – premier landscape photographer of the American West in the 1800s
Edward Weston – photographer’s photographer, f64, landscapes, portraits, still-life’s, all done in same realist manner
Minor White – cofounder with Ansel Adams of the Zone System, also a great educator
Garry Winogrand – compulsive street photographer, imagery is edgy, disorienting
Lothar Wolleh – a master of the portrait, featuring photographs of modern artists