“We are soliciting all types of photography in which words and images are joined in a visual presentation,” announced a call for submissions, in 1976, for an exhibition to be organized by artist Lew Thomas. The response was overwhelming, and works by more than 100 artists were presented in San Francisco later that year. Titled Photography and Language, the exhibition and its catalogue are today remembered as a turning point for artists using photography in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

This gallery borrows its title from that project but expands beyond it to include works by artists based throughout the United States and internationally. Many were influenced by Conceptual art and explored the relationship between the medium of photography and the structure of language expression, primarily during the 1970s. Their works use seriality, captions, and narration, among other devices, to probe how a photographic image can produce meaning.