This volume presents more than 150 works from the collection of the Miami-raised and New York-based collector, art dealer and curator Charles Cowles. Spanning the breadth of modern photographic history from the early twentieth-century to the present, these works display a broad range of styles, processes and aesthetic intentions and an impressive number of concentrated strengths--featuring works by Atget, Arbus, Cartier-Bresson, Eggleston, Evans, Hockney, Frank, Mapplethorpe, Ruscha, Schorr, Sherman, Sugimoto, Warhol, Weegee and Winogrand, among many others. Renowned photography critic Andy Grundberg presents a precise analysis of the collection along with studied observations about the nature of photography and how it has become the art form that it is today. Cowles provides an engaging inside look at the development of a collection in an era when photography gained acceptance as an acknowledged art form. And Miami Art Museum Director Terence Riley contributes an introduction.