Most museums shun fashion photography. A splashy new exhibition at the Getty counters this prejudice with an onslaught of 160 arresting images by masters ranging from Erwin Blumenfeld and Man Ray ...

The catalog got its start in 1968, when U.S. Air Force veteran Gene Burkard returned from Europe with a desire to bring a little of the continent’s fashion home with him.

As viewers wind through the gallery, they witness the evolution of the art of fashion photography—its transformation from marketing materials for catalogs to a venerable art form of its own.

Early in 2007, John Wells, a former fashion and catalog photographer, sold the farmhouse he’d renovated in Columbia County, N.Y., paid off his debts, canceled his credit cards and headed to the ...