DATE: November 4, 2010 Contact: Melissa Crowley FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (310) 440-6795 / [email protected] THE FASCINATING LIFE AND WORK OF FELICE BEATO, ONE OF THE EARLIEST PHOTOGRAPHERS TO CAPTURE VIEWS OF THE EAST Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road LOS ANGELES—In recent years Felice Beato (1832–1909) has come to be recognized as one of the major photographers of the nineteenth century, yet until now there has been no general survey of his singular life and work. Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road (Getty Publications, $39.95, hardcover) includes an engaging narrative of his life and entrepreneurial career and a thought-provoking essay on Beato and the photography of war. There is a generous selection of his photographs, including panoramas and hand-colored Japanese studies, along with captivating period ephemera, lithographs based on his work, and humorous caricatures of the artist. Born in Venice, Italy, Beato came of age in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. In 1856, as a young apprentice, he photographed the sites of the Crimean War, thereby launching a long and remarkably adventurous career. Over the next half century he would follow in the wake of the British Empire: Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; India, where he photographed the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny; and China, where he chronicled the Second Opium War. He spent some thirty years in Japan and Burma, where he was among the first commercial photographers at the time that these countries were starting to open to the West. This abundantly illustrated book accompanies an exhibition—the first devoted to Beato’s entire oeuvre—on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from December 7, 2010 to April 24, 2011. -more- Page 2 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Anne Lacoste, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, is coauthor of Irving Penn: Small Trades (Getty Publications). Fred Ritchin, former photograph editor of the New York Times Magazine, is professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and author of After Photography and In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography. PUBLICATION INFORMATION Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road Anne Lacoste With an essay by Fred Ritchin J. Paul Getty Museum 208 pages, 11 x 10 1/2 inches, hardcover 162 color illustrations, 1 map ISBN 978-1-60606-035-3, $39.95 [CAN $47.95] [£27.95] Cover of Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Publication Date: December 7, 2010 # # # For more information about the exhibition, please contact: Desiree Zenowich Getty Communications (310) 440-7304 [email protected] Kindly send two tearsheets of your review when published to: Melissa Crowley Getty Publications 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 500 Los Angeles, CA 90049-1682 Available at bookstores or through Getty Publications (800-223-3431). Distributed to the trade in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press, in the U.K. and Europe by Orca Book Services, and in Canada by the Jaguar Book Group. .