Luna Imaging venture

Getty Trust and Kodak announce new company to develop digital collections for the arts

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- The J. Paul Getty Trust and Eastman Kodak Company today announced a new imaging venture. LUNA Imaging Inc. will offer digital imaging services and electronic publications to the academic community worldwide.

The Getty Trust and Kodak cited the growing importance of imaging technology for scholars, researchers, and institutions in the visual arts. Michael Ester, director of the Getty Art History Information Program, will move from his position to become president of LUNA Imaging on September 1, 1993.

Concentrating on practical imaging solutions, LUNA will provide services for the visual collections of museum and archives; technology to preserve, manage, and access digital images; and new forms of electronic publications to make such resources available for scholarship and education.

The collaboration to establish LUNA leverages Kodak's expertise in photography and digital image technology with the Getty's experience in making arts and humanities scholarship more accessible throughout the world.

"The Art History Information Program has become a respected leader in arts-related scholarship and technology, but it cannot meet all the visual needs of the academic community," explained Getty Trust President Harold M. Williams. "This joint venture makes possible the creation of a range of digital imaging services that neither organization could develop independently, and will make those services available to institutions and scholars," he continued.

"It's a good fit," said David Biehn, Kodak vice president and general manager, Professional Imaging. "LUNA focuses our expertise all through the imaging chain--in film capture, scanning, processing, and both electronic and print output. Its involvement in working with high-quality source material provides an on-going challenge as we continue to develop our capabilities."

As its first project, LUNA will produce a digital archive of several thousand drawings from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation collection at Taliesin West that will be available for use and research at the Foundation in the coming year. Images derived from the digital archive--comparable to high-quality print reproductions--and accompanied by text will be released as an electronic publication.

"Our goal is to ensure that the visual record of our historical and artistic heritage will have lasting value in electronic form," said Ester. "The archival images and systems we develop will meet the demands of high-quality reproduction and support the way professionals use visual materials in their work. The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives is a collection of extraordinary beauty and importance that has had only limited publication to date. The quality of the photographic and text documentation of the Archives make it an ideal place for LUNA to begin production. We look forward to projects with other institutions as well."

At the same time, the Getty Art History Information Program is establishing an information and standards organization for digital imaging in the visual arts as a separate, parallel effort. As interest in and enthusiasm for electronic imaging expands and many different projects develop, this organizatin will serve as an internatina forum for scholarly and technical groups to explore key issues, establish standards, and use publicatins and training to reach a wider audience.

Translations

A Czech translation of this document is available
Translated by Barbora Lebedová
(Accessed Tue Sep 6 09:01:16 PDT 2016