The degree to which photography has permeated our visual consciousness is clear when you see the legendary names and scrumptious images in the current exhibition at the Frick Art Museum.

The woman of Dorothea Lange's "Resident, Conway, Arkansas," of 1938, part of the New Deal's Farm Security Administration photographic project, stares stoically into the camera lens, reflecting the eroding power of poverty.

Nearby, the advancing sand of Arthur Rothstein's 1936 "Dust Storm, Cimarron County," another FSA image, becomes a metaphor for the relentless economic and social forces that kept such families on the fringe of survival.

"Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico," Ansel Adams' dramatic 1941 landscape that has an almost spiritual component, is in a class of its own and probably the most recognizable photograph in the exhibition.

However, "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art" is not just a "Top 59" list. The images also encapsulate a history of photographic technique and the history of an evolving nation.

And, perhaps most importantly, they speak to how we perceive and interpret our natural and cultural surround in a given time period. Thus they are a record of social attitudes and policies changed and lingering.

Good examples of this are the three images that introduce the exhibition.

Ralph Steiner's 1929 " 'NEHI' Billboard in a Field," a large graphic rectangle intrusively altering the bucolic expanse of grassy field and trees that it's plopped into, reflects the photographer's exploration of the effect of advertising upon American life, and the landscape in particular. But it also records roadside advertising in the early days of automobile travel. NEHI (pronounced knee-high), a carbonated beverage brand, dominates in huge block letters next to a pair of shapely women's legs, shown from the knees down, and a soda bottle. The text reads: "Take a Good Look at the Bottle." Risque for the year, or simply Roaring '20s?

Charles L. Weed's circa 1865 "Yosemite Valley From Mariposa Trail," with unimaginable depth and detail, is representative of -- surprisingly, considering the effort involved -- many 19th-century photographs of the frontier wilderness, made early on for government or railroad survey teams and later by men driven by a muse.

They also, stylistically and by subject matter, have a connection to frontier painters like Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt who recorded (or sometimes imagined) the splendors of the Wild West and introduced them to Eastern city dwellers. Look for the women wearing a bonnet almost imperceptibly seated among the rock outcropping at photo front left, spotted by Frick director of curatorial affairs Sarah Hall.

The third is a portrait of a burdened and preoccupied Georgia O'Keeffe taken by her husband, Alfred Steieglitz, at Lake George, where the famed artist was recovering from an emotional breakdown. She's leaning on the spare tire cover of her Ford V-8 convertible, "a potent symbol of her personal freedom" the text label offers. What it doesn't say is that the breakdown was most probably precipitated by Steiglitz's unfaithfulness.

From a circa 1865 anonymous daguerreotype of a "Dead Child on a Sofa," an example of the kind of postmortem portrait that became popular during a period of high infant mortality, to Imogen Cunningham's sensual and abstracted, gelatin silver print "Black and White Lillies III"; from the Grand Canyon to the concrete canyons of New York City; and from famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady to sensationalist freelance photojournalist Weegee, this show rewards exploration.

Finally, note the 1940s "Greyhound Mechanic" by Esther Bubley, whose 1951 series on Children's Hospital is represented in an exhibition in an adjacent gallery (story on Page C-1). Her ability to build narrative and eye for composition are evident.

Today, when devices for recording images are ubiquitous, it's both fun and edifying to take a long look back at where it all began.

The exhibition continues through Jan. 3 at 7227 Reynolds St., Point Breeze. Museum staff will give gallery talks, at 2 p.m., on "The Pittsburgh Photographic Library" (Dec. 11) and "Intrepid Female Photographers: Abbott, Bourke-White and Lange" (Dec. 18). Admission is free. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; closed Dec. 24, 25 and Jan. 1. Information: 412-371-0600 or www.TheFrickPittsburgh.org.

Scottish artist Richard Wright, whose ephemeral installation of repeating red patterns was impeccably painted across three gallery walls in the 2008 Carnegie International, was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize at London's Tate Britain Monday. The 25,000 pound ($41,116) award is annually given to a British artist under age 50 and the finalists are usually a controversial bunch.

As is Wright's practice for such large wall works, "No Title," which took Wright and assistants weeks to complete, was painted over at the close of the International. However, his gouache on paper "3.3.08" is hanging in the Carnegie's contemporary galleries.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.