The professor of economics and the professor of nutritional sciences were not always in love with photography. The avid collectors Joseph and Elaine Monsen, who now are retired from those respective positions at the University of Washington, started acquiring photography in 1969, when the medium was coming into its own in terms of market value. Their interest was primarily taxonomic. Photography was a relatively young art-historical organism, and they wanted to map every strand of its DNA, to get one photograph from every type, style, and major artist. That (abridged but) glorious map now covers the tall, curving East Gallery at the Henry, to which the Monsens have donated 985 photographs, and counting. In honor of Joseph's 75th birthday, 75 of his favorites hang in a cracklingly snug salon display designed by curators Liz Brown and Sara Krajewski.

We pack lives into photo albums, and so it is apt that the life story of this art form is seen not in dissection, but en masse, like something unremittingly urban. It is awfully satisfying to catch, with a single 180-degree turn of the head, a Timothy O'Sullivan American Civil War death field, a radiant but slightly nuclear Richard Misrach lakescape, a quadrupled view by Andy Warhol stitched between quadrants, a sultry red William Eggleston ceiling, suburban parents sunning themselves by Diane Arbus, solarized ghost hands by Man Ray, the unforgettable Allie Mae Burroughs by Walker Evans and the striped Buchenwald prisoners by Margaret Bourke-White, and finally, Andres Serrano's Thinker bathed in a blast of sunshiny piss. Some are iconic, some unexpected, and all are continuously reactivated by their close quarters and ingenious placements. Way up high, presiding over everything, hang two enormous photographs that are all about painting: Cindy Sherman's Judith draped in cadmium red and wearing a detached Botticelli expression, and Thomas Struth's schoolchildren sitting on the floor at the Louvre and marveling at a giant gilded painting on the wall above, just as visitors at the Henry now find themselves humbly at the foot of these worshiped photographs.

^{Thomas Struth. Louvre 2, Paris. 1989. Chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas; Diasec face. Henry Art Gallery, Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company. Courtesy of the artist.}

^{Richard Misrach. Swimmers, Pyramid Lake (from Desert Canto VII: Desert Seas). 1987. Chromogenic development print. Henry Art Gallery, Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company. Courtesy of the artist.}

^{Gustave Le Gray. Brig on the Water. 1856. Albumen print. Henry Art Gallery, Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company.}

^{Timothy H. O’Sullivan. Incidents of the War: A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, July 1863. 1863. Albumen print. Henry Art Gallery, Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company.}