In the 1980s and 1990s, you weren’t a star unless you’d been photographed by Herb Ritts. As portrait photographers go, few artists — maybe Diane Arbus, possibly Alfred Stieglitz — have been able to capture personalities in 1/100th of a second as well as Ritts did.

It’s fitting, then, that the J. Paul Getty Museum has just launched a major retrospective of Ritts’ work, spanning the fields of celebrity portraiture, fashion, and fine art photography. After all, the Getty has built its reputation on photography, and Los Angeles has been home base for the star system for nearly 100 years: where else should Ritts’ photos be?

It’s also entirely appropriate that Lincoln has signed on as the lead sponsor for the exhibition. Lincoln is looking for ways to buff up its high-end, luxury credentials, and aligning itself with the Getty is a great way of doing so. It doesn’t hurt that the folks most familiar with Ritts’ work are early Gen Xers and late Baby Boomers, who are a good match for Lincoln rides like the 2013 Lincoln MKZ (which debuted yesterday, in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition).

In addition to the photography show, Lincoln has also underwritten a ten-minute documentary about Ritts and his work, featuring commentary from many of his famous subjects and colleagues.

Lincoln exec Jim Peters had this to say about the sponsorship: “As we return Lincoln to celebrating the best of premium values, the celebration of the photographic values that made Herb Ritts one of the world’s most renowned photographers is a natural choice for us. His elegant, modern and sophisticated style matches exactly our focus in the reinvention of the Lincoln brand.”

And there you have it.

Ritts was an out, proud gay man, who died from AIDS-related causes at the crushingly early age of 50 in 2002. We’re not exaggerating when we say that his style defined a decade’s worth of magazines, designers, and musicians. If you find yourself within 100 miles of this show, do yourself a favor: make time to see it.

“Herb Ritts: L.A. Style” runs at the J. Paul Getty Museum from April 3 – August 26, 2012. Afterward, the exhibition will travel to the Cincinnati Art Museum (October 6 – December 30, 2012) and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Florida (March 1 – June 2, 2013).