The Thrill of the Chase: The Wagstaff Collection of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum

Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr. (1921-1987) amassed an extraordinary collection of 26,000 photographs between 1973 and 1984, recognizing that photography was an undervalued art form on which he might have a profound impact as a collector. He was mainly attracted to photographs that stimulated his imagination, and his taste ran toward the idiosyncratic—images that surprised him chiefly because he had never seen them before.

In choosing the 147 works reproduced in this volume, Paul Martineau selected...