Uncovered here is a captivating visual history of China during photography's first century. Chinese export painters learned and adapted the medium of photography by grafting the new technology onto traditional artistic conventions - employing both brush and shutter. The essays in this volume shed light on the birth of a medium.

Accompanies an exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, 8 Feb.-1 May 2011.

Introduction: Reading early photographs of China / Wu Hung -- The history of the camera obscura and early photography in China / Edwin K. Lai -- Through a foreign glass : the art and science of photography in late Qing China / Jeffrey W. Cody and Frances Terpak -- Inventing a "Chinese" portrait style in early photography : the case of Milton Miller / Wu Hung -- Chinese as subject : photographic genres in the nineteenth century / Sarah E. Fraser -- Beyond the frame : the camera in Republican Shanghai and wartime Chongqing / Wen-hsin Yeh.