Solemn people were encouraged and vulgarians excluded, or so I guess from the catalogue's account of Moma politics. On the broader cultural front, photography as presented in Edinburgh contrasts with American painting and sculpture of the period. Perhaps that's because the show ends in 1965, which is far too early. A deeper reason may be that Moma was always concerned that photography should have its own dignity.

There's no glamour, even when movie stars make an appearance Technically, they are careful Even the "experimental" art photographs are timid. The overall impression is of a sad, faraway country. There's not enough of the crackle of the here-and-now. We learn of many disputes about the role of camerawork within Moma, and indeed the whole exhibition has an introspective flavour This is not what we expected. One walks into the gallery looking for large, vivid and panoramic pictures of American life Instead, the photographs appear small. They are often rather dark and are evidently the products of private experience Hardly any are optimistic. A crucial issue then, as now, was the division between photography conceived as a part of modern fine art and photography as a means of mass communication.

"American Photography 1890-1965", a Moma exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, is a record of this prescience and its catalogue provides an interesting survey of attitudes toward photography in the 1940s. It's not true, only fact: he is in heaven, of course, where he has been introducing Technicolor If only he could bring it back here, too !. THE MUSEUM of Modern Art in New York, founded in 1929, collected photographs from its earliest days and in 1940 was the first museum to establish a curatorial department devoted to photography as an art form. They were together the Archers, a company that shot an arrow in the air with every film and rarely missed the target The books say that Michael is dead.