Aaron Scharf (22 September 1922 – 21 January 1993) was an American-born British art historian who contributed in particular to the history of photography in which he had developed an interest while studying at the Courtauld Institute.

He trained at Hancock College of Aeronautics in Los Angeles County in 1944 as a second lieutenant, where he gained his 'silver wings', qualifying to fly heavy aircraft.

[5] During World War II he flew 46 missions as a bomber navigator and was award an Air Medal in November 1944,[6] and later promoted to captain.

[5] In his memoir of the war Flak (1996) published posthumously by Scharf’s widow, Marina, he recounts how he deliberately botched the targeting of Ravenna, Italy in a bombing raid.

As early as 1969 Los Angeles Times art critic William Wilson was certain that it would "join standard texts on the subject" and in summary concluded that “Scharf, insists, in scholarly fashion, that photography has created a new situation we cannot call better or worse, only different, challenging.

Dr. Scharf's new book is absolutely indispensable to any research in the field; it will be the standard reference for a long time to come,"[17] and hailed by Marie Czach as "the definitive work on the subject of Art and Photography",[18] while Ken Marantz declared it "carefully documented, appropriately illustrated, and readable...important, but the conclusion is particularly insightful..."[19] Robert A. Sobieszek considered it "one of the most appealing books in the field to be published in a long while...the sheer ambition of the work's scope covers the subject with a density lacking until now.

"[20] Earlier, Michael Webb likened the book to "an archaeological dig, laying bare a lost city on the evidence of an incoherent scatter of shards.

"[21] Art and Photography appears in David Hockney's painting My Parents, 1977 (Tate, London)[22] in which the painter's father is engrossed in reading the book;[23] this is significant in indicating the connection between the Scharf's discoveries and the later Hockney-Falco thesis.

Scharf’s peer, and also friend and frequent correspondent, was Van Deren Coke, whose own studies into the links between art and photography were published as The Painter and the Photograph a year earlier than Creative Photography, but without the same circulation and international reception,[24] revised and enlarged from the 1964 catalogue issued under the same title for the exhibition curated by Van Deren Coke which toured the US in 1964 and 1965.

Scharf's own art production consisted of montages made from old photographs and/or 19th-century wood engravings, a selection of which were published by Bill Jay in his last issue as editor of Creative Camera.

From August 1972 he was a member of the photography committee of the Arts Council chaired by Barry Lane with Tristram Powell, a BBC producer; Marina Vaizey, Sunday Times art critic; Bill Gaskins, head of the Audio-Visual Department at Sheffield Polytechnic; David Hurn of Magnum, Ron McCormick and Peter Turner, assistant editor of Creative Camera.

Friends Chris Mullen and Tim Giles encouraged him to write his autobiography, which he wrote with the assistance of his wife Ruth and was published posthumously as Flak,[33] concentrating on his experiences as an USAF pilot in the Second World War.