"By the preservation of a harmonious balance of lines and light and shade, several objects are attained. The first and simplest result is the production of a pictorial effect."

So wrote British photograher Henry Peach Robinson in 1869. Seeking a "pictorial effect" soon became known as pictorial photography, or Pictorialism. This romantic and painterly form of photography was the dominant style, both in Europe and America, for a quarter century. In California in the early twentieth century, Pictorialism came to encompass works as varied as landscape studies, Hollywood portraits, and moody evocations of modern dance. Northern California practitioners included such celebrated names as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Arnold Genthe, and Dorothea Lange; in Southern California, Louis Fleckenstein, William Mortenson, Margrethe Mather, and Edward Weston were among the photographers who came under the influence of the Pictorialist movement.

Published to coincide with complementary exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Huntington Library, Pictorialism in California brings together some one hundred photographs—many never before published—that illustrate the full range of Pictorialism in the northern and southern parts of the state. In thoughtful and informative essays, authors Michael G. Wilson and Dennis Reed discuss this important aesthetic movement and the lives and careers of the Pictorialist photographers who worked in California in the early decades of this century.