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THE PICTURE HISTORY OF
Photography
THE PICTURE HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST REGINNINGS
TO THE PRESENT DAY
BY PETER POLLACK
HARRY
N.
ABRAMS, INC.
Publishers,
New York
Milton
S.
Fox, Editor
Philip Grushkin,
Book Designer
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER
I
5S-II357
A!I tights resened part of this book may be reproduced except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews without written per-
No
mission from the publishers Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers,
PRINTED IN GERMANY
New York
To
BEAUMONT NEWHALL and HELMUT GERNSHEIM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I
WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE
M'itli
gratitudc gifts of encour-
agement, advice, and pliotograplts from torians
Beaumont Newhall,
curator of
tl>e brilliant his-
George Eastman
House, Rochester, and Mr. and Mrs. Helmut Gcrnsheim of
London.
My thanks are also due Daniel Catton
Rich,
Kelly of the Chicago Public Library; Carl
Standard Oil
Museum
Mayor, curator of
of Art; Janine
Historical Society;
Balisli of
Modern
Morris of
Magnum
Photograpliy; Inge Bondi and fnhn G.
Photos; the Crerar Library, Chicago;
Bruce Downes of Popular Photography; Minor White of
Rochester
the
Institute
of
Technology; General
Oscar Solbcrt, director of George Eastman
Howard ciation,
R. Driggs of American Pioneer Trails Asso-
New
York City;
Iowa, for Laton Alton Grosset of the Paris
York
office of
Harris
House;
office
W.
R. Felton of Sioux City,
Huffman
Raymond
material;
and Charles Rado
of the
New
the Rapho-Guillumette agency; T. George
and Stanley Rayficld
of
Time,
Inc.;
Mathilde
Paris;
New
York; A.
Museum
Georgia O'Keeffe, for
Mary Frances Rhymer
Stieglitz material;
now
Worcester Art Museum: faccjucline
of the City of
prints, Aletropolitan
Niepce of
former director of The Art Institute of Chicago, and director of the
of
Company of New Jersey; Grace M. Mayer,
curator of prints. Llyatt
Maas
of the Chicago
Harold White of Kent, England,
for
Talbot material; Anselnio Carini, Richard Florsheim,
and Father Raymond Bruckberger, tions; Elizabeth Racely,
for help in transla-
my secretary; and, finally, Helen
Perce, for typing the manuscript.
am particularly grateful to Samuel Cauman, who not only read my manuscript but made invaluable suggesI
tions; to Philip
Grushkin,
to Joseph E. T. Rankin,
who
who
designed this volume; and
arranged the bibliography.
My deepest thanks are extended to the photogiaphers who have permitted me Specific
to reproduce their photographs.
acknowledgment
is
made
in each case.
p.
p.
albumen / Blanquart-Evrard's mass production of positive prints on albumen paper / Scott Archer and the wet-collo-
sensitized
Contents
dion plate / Six pioneers: Frith and the Middle East, Bissau Freres and the Alps, Fenton and the Crimean War. Beato and the
Indian Mutiny,
INTRODUCTION
9.
Photography
memory /
as art / as
communication /
10.
PART ONE
1.
The Long Road
to
Photography
11.
lucida / 2.
Niepce:
the physionotrace, the camera
Tom Wedgwood's First
efforts
Photographer
world's
first
Nadar:
photograph / Niepce and
era.
1
T
The mercury-vapor artist
and
3.
"Titian of Photography"
aerial
photograph / First use of
Carte-de-Visite
1^4
Julia
Napoleon
III,
downfall
Margaret Cameron:
"Primitive" portraits
166
/ Allegory
Diorama / Arago
describes daguerreotypy to the
14.
Academy
Rcjlander, Robinson, and "Art" Photography llie composite print / Pictorialism
4.
The Daguerreotype
in
Europe
mentalism / Rejlander's The
Aquatint reproductions of daguerreotypes /
15.
Brady:
Cameraman
their successors
of the Civil
Fox Talbot— Paper Negatives and
Positives
the developed latent image
and Adamson: The Great Collaboration Fifteen hundred calotype portraits / One
Early Wet-Plate Photography
Niepce de Saint-Victor coats glass plates with
Pioneers of the
War
9-/
West
Muybridge and Eakins— Photography of Motion First
horse / Eakins
and Tintypes
Mom / Theater personali/ The publicity photograph / The picture postcard / Tintype parlors and albums
Falk / Sarony / ties
224
photograph of a running
and the multiple exposure
iS. Footlights, Skylights,
102
204
Henry Jackson, Laton A. Huffman
Muybridge /
painting, 470 Scottish ministers 8.
iSS
Robert Vance, Timothy O'Sullivan, William
17.
"Photogenic draM>ings" / The calotype and
Hill
16.
78
Invention of paper negative-positive process /
y.
War
New
TWO
MASTERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 6.
of
York and Washington / Alexander Gardner / The Lincoln photo of Galleries in
i860 / Covering the Civil
PART
Two Ways
Darwin and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Mirror with a Memory: The Daguerreotype in America
Draper and Morse and
174
and senti-
Life /
Portrait parlors 5.
142
Portraits Out-of- Focus
3-^
process / Daguerre as
o^\'ner of the
The
The Ubiquitous
Daguerre Daguerre and the Daguerreotype
130
Etienne Carjat / Adam-Salomon / Pierre Petit / Disderi: the ^-lens carte-de-visite cam-
--f
"Heliography," ancestor of photoengraving /
The
Stereoscope: Pictures in Pairs
photojournalism 12.
The World's
The
Nadar / First
camera: the camera obscura, the
silhouette,
12^
and Longfellow's
Impact of photography on French art: Corot and the cliche vcne/ Nadar and Le Pantheon
Discovery of chemical reaction to light / Literary predictions of photography / Ancestors of the
Falls
Wheatstone and Brewster j Duboscq and Soleil I Oliver Wendell Holmes
BEGINNINGS
ll'-,
Minnehaha
Hiawatha / Three decades of photographs
as folk art
'II
Hesler: Chicago Pioneer Hesler's
as
Notman and Canada
2
5cS
—
ig.
The "Detective" Camera and the Kodak Maddox and the dry plate / Eastman and film
29.
The funny moments
/ Beginnings of candid photography /
The Kodak,
Doisncau: Humorist with a Camera
31. Brassai's
An American Legend
260
Return from Germany / Detective-camera enthusiast / Editor of Camera Notes / A
32.
21. Steichen: Painter,
Photographer, Curator
The
Discerning Lens of Alfred Eisenstacdt
and the Salon of 1902 / New York, Stieglitz, and "zqi" / Colonel Steichen, U.S. Army and aerial photography. World War I
Callahan and Siskind
abstract 34.
and the
EavesdropjK'r
readers
Life
456
/ Photo-
/ Chronicler of our time
35.
Van
der Elsken:
Photographs
Storyteller in Idealists
with
A
the
296 as sociological
girl's life in
Sahit-
Germain-des Pres 36. Cartier-Bresson
in
470
three-year record of a
document
Genthe— Celebrities and Anonymous Throngs
312
Moments
academic man-
ner / San Francisco's Chinatown /
Francisco earthquake and
for
28S
and documentary photographs
Fashionable photographs
432
real
Margaret Bourke-White: Roving Recorder
essayist
Camera The photograph
inception
its
meaningfid and exciting / Fusing of the
—Between wars / Captain Steichen USNR naval photography. World War II / Curator of photography. Museum of Modern Art
and Mine: Social
^iS
— Photogra-
The Magic of the Commonplace The dilapidated and the useless become
Paris
Atget and the Streets of Paris
compositions
pher for Life Magazine since 33.
and
in side streets
Pioneer with miniature camera
280
^88
War ^(4
/ People
alleys in flawless
founder of Plioto-Secession igo2 / The Little Gallery at "291" / Camera Work
24.
pa-
Probing Vision
Paris at night
Riis
A
/
David Duncan: Lensman of the Marines Photographs of the Korean
MASTERS OF THE MODERN ERA
2^.
376
life
tiently waiting Lcica
PART THREE
Realistic
French
it
30.
20. Sticglitz:
in
in
and the
Human Comedy
4S0
which ordinary persons reveal
their innermost thoughts
and
feelings
The San 37.
fire
Yousuf Karsh— Faces of Destiny
496
Intimate characterizations of world leaders
Edward Weston: A New Vision The familiar world seen anew 26.
Germany and
the
322
PART FOUR
PHOTOGRAPHY TODAY
Bauhaus—
Photography for Design
33^
38.
Expanding photography's vocabulary / Applied photography / Photomontage and photogram / The Bauhaus / The German
Werkbund / Film und
Color: Another Dimension Its
its development / Its coming of age / Color photography as a tool and as expressive art
Foto, 3929 / Renger-
Patzsch / Moholy-Nagy / Dr. Erich Salomon
39.
Extending the Range of
Photography 27.
Roy Stryker— Documentaries
for
program
/ Training ground
worlds of 40.
for
visio7i
life
\^ision
/H ex-
^744
/ Applied pho-
New
/ The photographer's arsenal
Around the World
An Ansel Adams: Interpreter of Nature
Master of harmonious composition and pressive nuance
Human
modern
in Fifty
Photographs
Photography as an internaional
O.W.I, and Standard Oil 28.
in
tography / Photography and science /
Government and Industr\'' 3jo The Farm Security Administration's photographic
510
challenge to the photographer / Stefjs in
educated public /
art
560
today /
New frontiers
BIBLIOGRAPHY
61S
INDEX
620
Introduitioii
It
is
with photography
as
an art and with photog-
man
raphers as artists— with the vision of the
camera— that of
book
this
many hundreds
is
largely concerned. It
title to
grown
a
book
many photographers
presentation of their work. In the last
twenty-five years, the art has
is
of pages, despite the fact that lack of
space has forced the exclusion of
with a clear
bcliind the
body
of distinguished photographic
to vast proportions. Nevertheless, the art
of photography
is
only a small part of the enormous
photographic enterprise, which
developments
one of the momentous
is
human
in the history of
expression and
communication.
Photography was artists for their
own
invented
by
purposes. These
nineteenth-century
men were
seeking
and
a lasting, literal record of their visual surroundings,
they found
it.
lens, shutter,
The new combination
and
flat
surface coated with chemicals sen-
sitive to light
produced, within a
images more
lasting,
and more manually
of illumination,
.short interval
more convincing
in their reality,
richly detailed than painters could in
weeks and months of
effort.
of time,
produce
This alone was
enough to throw consternation into the ranks of fellow artists;
and. after their
kind of image, art
first
reaction of pleasure in a
critics rallied
with the haughty charge
that photography was not and could not be an actual worid in
which we
live
new
had too strong
art.
The
a grip
on
photography, they
and pictures so dependent upon
said,
The production
of cameras, photochemicals,
become
mechanical means could not be called acts of man's
tographic equipment has
creative imagination.
industry of strategic importance to the
Despite the
critics,
found a new artists,
photographers knew that they had
form, a
art
new form
thought and expressed themselves naturally through visual images.
its
artists,
before and after
artists
—to
As
they used the
new
tools as other
them have used brush and
pencil
interpret the world, to present a vision of nature
structure as well as the things and the people in
The most
important use of photography was
in
and
it.
com-
and con-
quality of immediacy, of literal description
vincing presentation of reality. This quality was retained to a large extent even after pictures
made them
into forms that
for the illustration of books.
had been translated
Our newspapers and
and economy
periodicals flood us with pictured
and employ armies of
reports of events as they happen,
photographers for
this purpose.
Merchants expose
goods for sale through photographs, and
when
they present their products in color
vinced of the reality of what
is
shown
goods themselves. Photography
Almost anything that could travel,
and publishing,
advertising
neering, in medicine,
their
— especially
— we are so conthat
we
accept
used extensively in
is
in basic science
commerce,
keeping, recreation, and defense.
and
engi-
city planning, record
It
touches almost every
aspect of our indi\idual and social existence.
Today we
a\'ailab!e as printing plates
be photographed could be printed; and books on
life
pictures as samples, as reasonable substitutes for the
munication. Here the value of photography was seen in its
a huge, world-wide
of ever}- great nation.
of expression. As
they had extraordinary visual sensitivity, and they
and pho-
live in a technical
are attuned to an aesthetic in
and
industrial world.
which
scientific
mass production, and teamwork for
we
We
technique,
creativity
have
and wear and put into
medicine, science, and art were published with a wealth
shaped the
and authenticity
our homes. In such a society old distinctions between
By now, photography has become
sible.
the
of visual information never before pos-
word— perhaps more important
riers fell
We
as
as all linguistic bar-
us. ^\'ith
we have
younger, of places where
and
relatives
who
are
and
film are sold
art in history.
who make
of
it
a
medium
Cameras
a field in
it,
of high art
here, for they belong to
trial
still
photography.
found that the camera could was only a blur to the human
tool of
When
it
was
still
photog-
raphers took action sequences and superimposed action of art, enter-
tainment, and mass communication took shape swiftly
and since then has swept the world.
its
beauty.
technical-industrial world
and bringing
harmony and order through
their art.
imagination, and sensitive vision
it,
enjoy
it,
correct
it,
it
into greater
Men with cameras,
show
and a
eye, pioneering
new form
its
member
clearly resolve action that
pictures. Thereafter, this great
less
us today have ac-
as well as the
beginnings are dealt with
Its
and
world, and have been challenged to express
strength and
it.
itself.
among
potential beauty of our time, so that
This book cannot go into motion-picture photograph\', is
creative
less
our society have accepted also the task of reshaping the
science and industry.
which
The most
have come to have
man-
everywhere— in newsstands, drugstores,
and tobacco shops. The millions practice few
meaning.
art
In accepting this assignment, the creative leaders of
the ad\ent of the roll-film Kodak,
art— the most democratic
and "applied"
no longer
ageable even by a young child, photography became a folk
"fine"
drive
cepted the forms and the drives of the technical-indus-
use photographs as memories, memories of our-
lived or visited, of friends
with
important
before this "picture talk."
when we were
selves
as
articles that
protect
us the actual
we it,
and
are able to re-
and learn about
In the forward ranks of today's creati\c workers in the
studio and in the field— in the service of industry, advertising,
their
publishing, government, humanity, and ser\'ing
own
creative
needs— are
today's photographers.
/ y
The Long Road
to
Pliotoi^raphy
It
a popular belief that one
is
of photography. Mis
when
it
was made pubhc
inventions— the airplane, to in
name was
man was
the inventor
that given to the process
in 1839. Curiously, like so
automobile, and the
electric light, the
mention only a few
many
— several
men, working
complete independence of one another, conceived
a
practical solution at about the same time. Actually, the
one man, Dagucrre, did not take the
That was the accomplishment
first
photograph.
of Joseph
Niccphorc
Niepce, either thirteen or seventeen years earlier (the historian Potonnice says 1822; the
dence that
it
Gernsheims give
was 1826). And, four years
evi-
before Da-
announcement in 1839, Fox Talbot in England took a photograph on a one-inch-square paper negath'c
guerre's
placed in a camera. In the year
wodd
when Daguerre
(patenting
had an exhibition that
same
it
gave his process to the
only in England), Hippolyte Ba\ard
of direct positive prints in Paris.
year. Sir
John Herschel,
in
During
London, read
a
paper before the Ro}al Society showing that august bod\-
number of photographs which had been fixed by a method he discovered using hyposulphite of soda (it was immediately accepted by Fox Talbot and Daguerre) — the same h\po still used in every darkroom. a
The two had
aspects of photography, chemical
and
a thousand-year history before the fertile
optical,
minds of
the early nineteenth century completed
evolution,
its
perfecting camera and chemicals to capture and
fix
the
progress of photography was slow. It
had been
observed for centuries that exposure to the sun's rays
tanned the
skin,
and the opal
and
it
was recorded that the amethyst
lost their sparkle in
prolonged exposure to
first
and not
person to prove that
it
was the action of
of heat that blackened silver salts
Heinrich Schulze
light
was Johann
1687-1744) a physician and professor ,
(
at the University of Halle in
Germany. In
1725, while
attempting to make a phosphorescent substance, he hap-
pened
some
to
mix chalk with some
He
dissolved silver.
sunlight
fell
upon
nitric acid that
from the sun's
He
rays.
contained
observed that wherever direct
the white mixture turned black,
it
whereas no changes took place
The
it
made
is
a bottle of the prepared solution
— thus obtaining
means
of the viscous matter, retains the image.
mirror shows the objects exactly but keeps none; our
canvases show
them
them with
the
same exactness and
This impression of the images
all.
diately carried
away
into
more valuable
as
cannot be imitated by
it
mind
He
image was
to try to
make permanent
shook the solution
lost forever.
chemistry that,
and the
and inventions
when combined with a more than a century
little
practical
in
"camera
culminated
later,
"We
1760
prophesied
much
nor dam-
take in their purest source from the luminous
materials
.
.
.
the justness of the design, the truth of the
expression, the gradation of the shades
we
.
.
.
the rules of
leave to Nature, who, with a
upon our canvases
images which deceive the eye and make reason to doubt
whether what are called
What
real objects are
not phantoms."
an extraordinary prediction from a writer of
romances whose imagination was undoubtedly by watching cighteenth-ccntur}- sketch artists work
scientific fired
with the camera obscura! 'I'he original
first
art
bodies, the colors which painters extract from different
in the invention of photography.
A French science-fiction writer in
first
aged by time.
This experiment, however, started
a series of observations, discoveries,
obscura" a
the image
in the bottle
retain
the
the subtle matter dries, and you have a picture, so
perspective. All these
entered his
made
is
on the canvas, which is immesome dark place an hour after
instant they are received
sure and never erring hand, draws
never
to paint.
the bodies far and near, whose image the
it all
sor Schulze published his findings in 1727, but
it
mind
that of a mirror; there are
is
can transmit. But, what the glass cannot do, the
light
The
canvas
photographic impressions on the silvered chalk. Profes-
he secured.
an eye.
in the twinkle of
before the objects they have a
effect of the
first
seen upon
in the material protected
then experimented with words
and shapes which he cut from opaque paper and placed around
and hold
canvas, by
sunlight.
I'he
help of which a picture
Thc\' do over [coat] with this matter a piece of canvas
image permanently.
The
matter, very viscous and proper to harden and dry, by the
camera obscura ma\ be called "a room
with a sunlit view."
and
The
tenth-century Arab mathemati-
Alhazen of Basra, who wrote on funda-
the taking of "sun pictures" and described at the same
cian
time other mechanical devices which anticipated the
mental principles of optics and demonstrated the behav-
telephone, the telegraph, radio, and the use of dehydrated
ior of light,
Roche published a novel Giphantie (an anagram of his first name), in which he described a paradise set in a "tempestuous ocean of moving sands" and located in an inaccessible desert north of Guinea in
in\crted image.
foods. Tiphaigne de la
was given to the elementary
Africa. "It
before the
Garden
of
Eden was
spirits,
the day
allotted to the parents of
scientist,
recorded the natural
He had
rooms or
of darkened
phenomenon
observed this on the white walls in a tent set in the
sunny land-
scapes of the mid-East, the image passing through a small
round hole
in wall, tent flap, or drapery.
obscura was
first
The camera
used by Alhazen to observe eclipses of
the sun, which he
knew were harmful
to the
naked
Before the camera obscura was used in Europe,
mankind."
Guided by the "Prefect," a disembodied spirit, he walked in an immense gallery, entranced with "images equivalent to the things themselves" and other images depicting historical personages ranging from Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar to Alexander and Caesar. The guide ex-
the use of various devices for copying. These machines for in
drawing
(
machines pour
dcssiner, as they
France) were developed by
renowned German,
many
Albrecht Diirer,
own
artists.
were known In 1525 the
made woodcuts
invention signed
four drawing aids— one his
make
D— which he printed in his book Underweysung.
surfaces, as glass.
and paint the bodies upon
on the
retina of the eye,
all
polished
on water, and on
The elementary spirits have studied to fix these They have composed a most subtle
transient images:
eye.
artists
studying the intricacies of perspective often resorted to
plained that "rays of light, reflected from different bodies, a picture
of the
A
of
over
Vasari in his Lives of the Artists credits Leon Battista Alberti with the in\-ention of the camera obscura in 1457, the year
when "Gutenberg
discovered the most useful art
13
\Miat
of printing."
X'asari believed to
be a camera ob-
scura was actually a viewing box in which a painting on
enlarged and reflected back onto the wall inside the
room, unreversed.
was inserted and seen as a transparency, according
Also prior to Delia Porta in describing a camera ob-
to the description which Alberti gi\cs of his invention, in
scura fitted with a lens was Daniello Barbaro who, in his
glass
his Treatise
book on
on Painting.
A clear and
concise description of the pinhole camera
obscura appears in the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
perspective, conceived the idea of fixing a spec-
convex on both
tacle glass,
sides, in a small
opening
1452-1 519 ) though he does not claim to be its inventor. He records in his journal a diagram showing the camera
darkened rooms big enough for a person to enter,
obscura, but his drawings remained secret in his note-
to observe
All these references are to stationary camera obscuras,
,
(
books until deciphered and published
1797— practically three
hundred
b\- J.
The
B. \'enturi in
years after Leonardo's
The camera
obscura was
1544, as the invention of a
first
illustrated in January,
Dutch ph)sician and mathe-
matician, Gcmma-Frisius. Early historians of photogra-
phy ascribed
to
Giovanni
Battista dclla Porta
(1538-
1
first
to publish a long
in his 5 58
and
clear description of
it
(in
Magia Naturalis )
Another writer prior Milan,
to Delia Porta in describing the
who
in
1550 was the
first
to
mention the attach-
of a convex lens to a frame in the
window
of a
darkened room to achieve a clearer image. Dclla Porta was the
camera obscura
as
first
Johannes Kepler,
first
an aid to painting,
first
cop\ing the
To
improve the image he
be
fitted to
later
recommended
that a lens
the opening and a convex mirror placed in
such a relationship to the image that the image would be
First published illustration of a
camera obscura, which
is
By Rainer Gemma-Frisius, sixteenth-century Dutch scientist. -' ^v Cernsheim Collection, London. registering the solar eclipse of January 24, 1^44.
altered for this purpose in the
The noted
in 1620, set
Austrian astronomer
up a black tent
inserted a lens in the hole of one flap,
image that
fell
on the paper attached
in a field,
and traced the
to the flap opposite
the lens.
Portable camera obscuras were gradually designed so that they were easier to carry.
at
than
They measured about
a foot in height,
one of the long ends and
a
ground
with
glass
2
a lens fitted
on the other.
A reflex type of camera obscura was designed b}' Johann Zahn
in 1685.
His box had the additional advantage of a
mirror placed inside at a 45° angle to the lens, so that the
image was
to suggest that artists use the
shapes and lines and then adding the colors required.
14
mo\able or portable camera obscuras were
feet in length, less
dark chamber was Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), of
ment
first
sedan chairs or tents,
1615) the invention of the camera obscura, for he was the
in order
and draw.
seventeenth century.
death.
in a
darkened room.
reflected
he placed a frosted
upwards to the top of the box. Here glass
which could be covered with
tracing paper, so that the image was easily traced. also invented an even smaller reflex-box fitted
with a lens.
It
Niepee a hundred and During
this
Zahn
camera obscura
resembled the cameras used by fifty
years later.
long interim the camera box was ready.
Engraving of a large camera obscura shown witli top and front cut away. A small portable room, it could be easily carried to the scene. The artist then climbed inside through a trap door,
and we see him
tracing,
from behind, an image cast on
one of the lenses. This was constructed in 26^6. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
transparent paper M'hich hangs opposite
Rome bv KircJicr in
onto the top of the paper
waiting only for chemical processing to be perfected in
wall, or
order to complete the invention of photography.
room. In the same
Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
artists
were ad-
dicted to the camera obscura, not only for portraits but for landscapes as well;
equipment.
It
incompetence
These
was a
it
became
fine tool, for
it
a standard piece of
obscured an
artist's
in perspective or in catching a likeness.
disabilities
were readily overcome with the new
In addition to portable tents, sedan chairs, and small
portable camera obscuras, there were beautifully constructed table models for the wealthy,
tranced with the
The
new
who were
en-
is
easily ex-
plained, for light passes in straight lines through the small
hole cut in the center.
The
lines of light reflected
from
between the top and bottom
effect as in a
ened box. rays,
and
box
bends the
but a
and with the
Light, natural or
refracts or
much more
sharply defined
aid of a mirror the
be seen right side up on the ground artificial, is
image can
glass.
the source of photogra-
phy. Before the word "photography" v.as conceived by
John
Ilerschel, the process in\ented b\-
called "hcliography"
— drawing
by the sun
Niepce was
— and
the
in-
vention by Fox Talbot was "photogenic drawing." Portraits, for centuries,
With
and continue onward
century, a
top of the
in a dark-
lens put into the
results;
The
darkened room takes place
a smaller
the bottom of a sunlit landscape will enter the hole in a straight line to the
A
all
will similarly pass
through the center, creating an upside-down image.
same
Sir
artistic toy.
iuNcrted image of the camera obscura
darkened
the top will travel to the bottom of the paper, and lines in
image
apparatus.
set in the
v\ay, the lines of light reflected from
were the luxury of the wealthy.
the growth of the middle class in the eighteenth
demand
for portraits at reasonable prices first
15
Reflex box camera obscura, 16S5
Germany, invented by Johawi Zahn Courtesy Gernsheim Collection
developed the "silhouette," which required only that a
nent. In 1796 he experimented with sensitized silver salts
person trace outlines or shadows cast on a paper and then
to produce images of botanical specimens.
mount The
woody
the cut-out likeness. "ph}sionotrace," invented b) Gilles Louis Chre-
tien in 1786, ette,
worked on the same principle
as the silliou-
but had the added advantage that a small engraving
on copper resulted from the
tracing.
This plate could be
tor
third device intended to permit an unskilled opera-
and a machine
to
do the work of the
was the
artist
"camera lucida" invented by William Hyde Wollaston
un talented, with the
in 1806. This enabled the
prism suspended at eye or landscapes reflected
The camera
level, to trace
on
a
flat
images of persons
portant asset was
light
its
it.
book, Forty Etchings
The
16
Had he
twenty years
earlier, or
Instead, he
light
washed the
nished the picture
when
W.
ammonia
salt,
How
m
a
he could have stopped
on the
sensitive silver salts.
he
var-
Though he examined
the
ncgati\'e with soap, or dry.
a
Scheelc in Sweden
image by only the weakest of candlelight, avail, for
as
had he washed the image
common
any further action of
used
it
was of no
the image gradually grew black. close
Tom Wedgwood
was
to
becoming the
weight and transportability.
he attempted to secure images on prepared paper placed
with the Camera Lucida in
eighteenth-century need for the camera
1800 by
came
Tom Wedgwood Wedgwood), make it perma-
(fourth son of the famous potter, Josiah
who
the
which he
father of photography! In addition to contact printing
North America, praising the instrument because it freed the traveler and would-be artist "from the triple misery oi perspective, proportion, and form." close to being realized in
He copied
insects,
most im-
In 1827-1828 Basil Hall wrote a
Made
to the sun.
fixing agent, a discovery of Carl
piece of drawing paper.
lucida was not a camera at all— its
Travelers often used
aid of a
wings of
placed on paper or leather moistened with silver nitrate
and exposed
heavy solution of
used to pull an edition of prints.
A
fiber of leaves or the
secured an image but was unable to
in a
camera obscura. As he met with no
success,
he aban-
doned further experiments and recorded those he made up to 1802. In that }ear his friend Sir Humphry Davy wrote a paper explaining Tom's experiments and sent to the
Ro\al
Socict\'.
The paper was
entitled
it
"On an
Account of a Method of Copying Paintings on Glass and of
Making
Profiles
by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate
of Silver— Invented by T. It
Wedgwood Esq."
reads in part, "the images formed by
means
of a
camera obscura have been found too in
any moderate time, an
effect
faint to produce,
upon the
nitrate ot
silver."
The man who first successfully obtained an image from
plates to
be
in the collection of the
Royal [British]
Mu-
seum. Mr. Hunt writes, "They pro\c M. Nicpce to have been acquainted with a method of forming pictures, by
which the
lights, semi-tints,
and shadows, were
repre-
the sun was Niccphore Nicpce of France who, in 1827,
sented as in nature; and he had also succeeded in render-
attempted to present a paper to the Royal Society in
ing his heliographs,
London while he was
in
England
visiting his brother
Claude, like himself a dedicated inventor. Since he kept his process a secret, refusing to describe his proposal
panying either
his paper,
on
it
with his paper,
was rejected by the Royal Society. Accomhowever, were several photographs
glass or metal. In
photography's
first
1853 Robert Hunt, one of
historians, reported several of these
further effects of
when once formed, impervious to the the solar rays. Some of these specimens
appear in a state of advanced etchings." It
should not surprise us that these prints resembled
etchings, since
Nicpce actually invented photogravure;
and the examples Mr. Hunt saw might well have been "heliogravures" and not photographs taken in the camera obscura.
Engraving of 1^2^ by Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528), German, sliowing the artist's sighting device for drawing perspective. Courtesy
The Art
and teaching
Institute of Chicago.
17
Tabic camera
ohsciira, i-6q, France.
Courtesy Gerushcim Collection.
right:
Sedan-chair camera obscura, 1711.
Courtesy Gernsheim Collection. center: Guyot's table camera obscura,
1
jjo, France.
Courtesy Gernsheim Collection.
An early nineteenth-century portable camera Courtesy George Eastman House. far right:
obsi scura.
Johann Jlcinrich ScJnilze (i68j-ij^^), German.
Uc
obtained the
on a mixture of
first
images by the action of light
wliite chalk
and
silver, in i'/2y.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
§M 19
Painting showing the
artist's
family
with a camera obscura, 176^. By Charles A. Philippe Vanloo, (i~0y6^). French. Courtesy
National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Engraving of the German
artist
Joachim Franze Beich, by Johann Jakob Haid, mid-eighteenth century,
showing a small camera obscura as part of the artist's paraphernalia.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
ao
7^ ^it.i- X.-j'' I
^
Silliouctte. iyS6,
for portraits profiles
was
Germany.
satisfied
'I'hc
ciglitccnth-century desire
by the simple method of cutting
from black paper. These were called "silhouettes,"
Etienne de Silhouette, comptroller of finances in the court of Louis XV. Courtesy George Eastman House.
after
:-L
.-..
'/ i.t.r/i.'
IMC V. *-<
x %^^
Silhouette.
"Hand cut"
of Charles
Wage, age 2, and his mother.
182^, America. In the early nineteenth century, Rembrandt Peale, the
American painter, made silhouettes which he
called "profileographs." Courtesy
The Art
Institute of Chicago.
Portrait of Gilles-Louis Chretien, 1792, French,
who invented earlier;
the " physionotrace" six years
resembling the silhouette, the physionotrace
had the added advantage of tracing small engravings. Courtesv George Eastman
1
louse
21
William I lydc Wollaston in 1806. This model was made fom years later in London. It consists
Camera
lucida, designed by
clamp, 45° prism, of three telescoping brass tubes, table adjustable peep sight, and spectacle lens to accomodate individual vision. Courtesy
George Eastman House.
A lithograph
of
Wollaston from a sketch
made with the camera lucida, which he invented. Courtesy George
22
Eastman House.
A sketcli
of the Erie
Canal made iSzj-zS
Captain Basil Hall, R.N.
and published in London Sketches
Made with
the
It
witli the
camera lucida by
was copied, printed as an etching,
in 1S30 as
one of Forty Etchings from
Camera Lucida
in
North America, 1827-28,
by Captain Basil Hall. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
Eflfram I7MLII iMMi
>J»^«« tk.r.M-nUal^lyOrl"hll*U
SSSD)
BJf
IIWE
iBIREAT
Tom Wedgwood, the first to conceive the idea of practical photography, in the year 1800. to
fix
He was unable, however,
the image. Courtesy George Eastman House.
3JBIIIE
iDAHAlti.
Humphrey Davy in 1802 presented a paper to the Royal Society in London explaining the experiments of Tom Wedgwood. Courtesy George Eastman House. Sir
23
The
Niepce:
Workrs
First
Photographer
It
gratifying to find Joseph Niccphore Niepce
is
eclipsed for
more than
partner, Louis
honored
J.
M.
hundred
a
\ears b\' his one-time
Daguerre, nou- once again being
as the world's
first
photographer. Niepee not
only produced a picture in a camera obscura; he invented
an
iris
diaphragm
full lens it
to
to correct defects
to be reinvented). Above make the miage permanent.
had
He
he observed
(an iuNcntion forgotten for more than all,
Niepce was the
called these images caught in the
gravure." In the latter, he
made
a
tween a sensitized plate and kept the engra\ing
flat
his "copies
de
sandwich consisting of
an engraving (made transparent with
glass
first
camera obscura
them from
"points de vue" to distinguish
in the
fifty years;
oilj
placed be-
a sheet of clear glass; the
while he exposed the array
to the sun.
The images produced by both processes were referred to as "heliographs." The plates on which they were made were coated with bitumen of Judaea, a substance soluble in ethereal la\
oils,
such as
oil
of turpentine, oil of
cndcr, petroleum, and ether.
Niepce
in
1S13 had already been interested for several
years in improving the process of lithography,
Alois Scnefelder
had in\'ented
in 1796.
which
For Senefeldcr's
hca\\ Ba\arian limestone Niepce substituted a sheet of tin,
upon which
lie
had
his
young son draw designs with
When
a greasy crayon.
He
capped.
ous silver
then began a
salts,
artist's talent
found himself handi-
to draw,
unable
in 1814, Niepcc,
army
the boy was called to the
series of
experiments with
vari-
intending to eliminate the need for an
by maknig light
draw
itself
for
He
him.
plate to the fumes of a few grains of iodine, then remov-
ing
the bitumen varnish to disclose the bare metal.
all
'I'he result
was an image composed by the iodine vapors
which had blackened the
achieved the most satisfactory results with a varnish
men and which became
made
the varnish.
of Judaea dissolved in Dippcl's animal
bitumen
of
on a sheet
solution he coated
oil. 'I'his
make
hours to
from 2 to 4
cupic dc gravure or fully 8 hours to
a
the image on the varnish (or asphaltum, as
it
was also called) was hardened and the picture became visible to the eye,
he brought the plate into a darkroom he subjected the plate to an acid
for treatment. First
dissolved in
oil
bath which dissolved the varnish under the lines of the
Niepce,
who was working toward
and
soluble.
Nicpce then sent the plate
his friend the artist-engraver,
Lcmaitre
incised the lines, inked the plate,
of prints as
(
have used the transparcnc}'
from
,
and pulled an edition
he would have done from any etched or
en-
graved plate. Niepce's most successful heliograph was of Cardinal
d'Amboise earh
it
on paper sensitized with
According to the historian, Georges Potoniee,
can
it
be proved that Niepce obtained a permanent impression in the
camera obscura during the year 1822. However,
only one of his points de vue that definitely I
lelmut and Alison Gernshcim,
exist
still
from the \car 1826. This
is
can be dated
in the collection of
need of
who found
mony on
it
after a piece
born his
trailing that
to
an
become Italy.
and
this
caused the sun
both sides of the view,
a
Inuldmg, taken from his room. Niepcc wrote his son Isidore explaining that
he preferred pewter, since
darker than copper and bright contrast of black
and w hitc
when
lines
remained much sharper.
His friend Lcmaitre suggested the perfect metal,
on copper, which Daguerrc was
plating versally
popular
in the
was
it
polished, so that the
later to
silver
make
uni-
dagucrreot\pc. Nicpce considered
Lemaitre's suggestion the perfect solution, for he
tended to etch the best of his camera views, making
in-
inci-
sions with a burin through the thin silver plate to the
sturdier plate of copper below, to pull
an edition of
to
improxe
and badl\
who had
rich
and well-educated, and
lived in
when Joseph was
His father was a Councillor of the King,
showed
of a noted lawyer. Joseph
a cleric, doffing the collar in 1792 to
Ill
army, seeing active service in Sardinia
made him
health
resign his commission,
he was
in
Nice
as a
returned to his ancestral
home
of scientific investigations, but his
major interest
Scientific research
money
in 1801 to
until
it
devote
all
kinds
was heliography that
he died in 1833.
was costh e\cn then. Nicpce needed
desperately, but, even so, he didn't answer a letter
from Daguerrc, the successful entrepreneur
rama
member
government administration.
himself immediately with his brother Claude to
was
become
in Paris, until a \ear
swered warily, giving no
of the Dio-
had passed. And then he anfacts,
but rather tr\ing to
ascertain the extent of Dagucrrc's experiments which,
according to Daguerrc, had been quite successful because of his invention of a
new camera.
Returning from England visiting his sick brother,
later in that \ear, 1827, after
Nicpce met with the
affluent,
They becomineed Niepce
prosperous Daguerre, twcnt\' years his junior.
prints.
Nicpce continued
making the image
which would enable him
ill
Claude,
at Chalons-sur-Saonc
for the next seven years
He
to light
home
officer in the
picture seems certain to have been taken in 1826,
Exposure took 8 hours,
his brother
interest in inventions even while in his teens but studied
because that was the year that Niepce turned to pewter plates.
all
kinds of inventions, prospering from none.
in 1795.
of the
and zinc
He and
mother the daughter
and
instead of copper
all
a luxurious
iiave pleased even the incomparable Sherlock Holmes. I'his
mcjiiey.
This nega-
modern photoginvention of Fox Talbot
which
There had never been a need to make money, for the
and
and imolving
silver salts.
to
prints
died in England the previous }ear, had spent their patri-
would
of research lasting )'ears
make
In 1829 the sixty-four-} car-old Niepcc was in
Niepce family was
in 1827.
strange that
is
a solution of the prob-
as a negative, to
tive-positive principle— from
to
1797-1870 j who
was then washed
lem of making multiple reproductions, never seems
se\eral \ears later in England.
soft
this
the asphaltum was
as a transparency. It
action of light during the exposure, and, accordingly, had
remained
when
of lavender, the plate
raphy stems— was to be the
'I'his
alcohol dissolved
he did metal, with
a glass plate as
varnish had been protected from the
engraving.
when
visible
distinguishing difference, that
and dried and viewed
produce a pvint de vue.
When
Niepce treated
of glass, copper,
or pewter, exposing the sheet to the light
contrasted to the shiny
silver,
polished silver which had been under the hardened bitu-
his hcliogra\urc
a bit sharper
method,
by exposing the metal
came
partners in 1829, after Daguerre
not to publish his process even though he
felt
he couldn't
25
..f
« iS
\
improve
it
any further. Dagucrrc's
letter reads, ".
.
.
there
and
self-confidence.
Above
all
Niepce had
m
faith
Da-
should be found a way to get a large profit out of the
guerre's abiding interest in photography, his conviction
invention before publication, apart from the honors you
that the process
will rccci\e."
mercial success. Niepce included in the contract the pro-
In October, 1829, Niepce wrote Dagucrrc, offering to
cooperate with hnn "for the purpose of perfecting the heliographie process and to
combine the advantages
A
would be perfected and become a com-
viso that his son Isidore in case
would succeed
to the partnership
he died before the contract expired.
Niepce sent Daguerre a detailed description of
his
ten-year
process, a note
on heliography, completely explaining the
partnership contract was signed by both parties on De-
preparation of
silver,
which nnght
cember invites
result in a
14, 1829, which reads M. Niepce to join him
perfection of a for fixing the
to
an
new method
It
"M. Dagucrrc
in order to obtain the
oping the image, the washing and fixing procedures, and
part,
discovered by
M.
Niepce,
his invention,
new adaptation
and
of the
Daguerre contrib-
camera obscura,
his tal-
who went
also to
appears to have been an uneven bargain, for to the
an uncertain, untried asset and, actually,
all
that
to blacken the image.
demonstrated
Chalons
Paris several days later
man worked on
his labor."
Niepcc-Dagucrre partnership the camera of Daguerre was still
the application of his latest experiments in the helio-
graph—using iodine vapors Niepce
artist."
uted "a
copper, or glass plates, the propor-
tions of the various mixtures, the solvents used in devel-
in
images of nature without having recourse
Niepce contributed ents,
complete success."
his
techniques to Daguerre,
little is
Niepce
to
experiment with iodine
He had
in previous experiments with silver
ill
Niepce was discouraged about the future
of his experiments
and badly
in
need of Daguerre's youth
of their
combination with
in
silver salts as a light-sensitive substance.
Niepce. But Daguerre was a the aged and
known
progress other than that Daguerre wrote in 1831, asking
respond enthusiastically.
the partnership;
left for
and never saw Niepce again. Each
the invention;
was known of photography was the contribution of vital half of
Daguerre
for this purpose.
which only when mixed can be
made
Niepce did not
not been too successful
iodide— a
in exactly the
silver halide
proper proportions
sensitive to light.
opposite page: Portrait of Nicephore Niepce as a
young man, about ijS^.
Artist
unkiwwn.
Courtesy Janine Niepce, Paris, left:
Portrait of
Nicephore Niepce, inventor
of photography, painted by
Leonard
Berger 20 years after Niepce' s death.
Courtesy George Eastman House, Rocliestcr.
27
^
/
/
I iHtf. fijif^iUf'
-/-* i*^
't^itU:
vffzi.r\
4mai4.
vV^fc
/fttfft4.
P%^r*d4Af^
/
/
^S^
t-
-fiMt^j
'
1/
t^^i
>'-^
«
-2.:/^^*'--
A
S' .C
'^nt tjt' y i'C
C ^^^iu^/ti'^^'^'^'^ f^
«;
/./
/•
/
// ^j^A^a^»ff£^ ^8*r*^ife#«##*
/' .1
C/Lt'»4UMV
Letter dated February!, 182-, from Niepee in wiiieli
worked; the Mintcr months are not too favorable.
he discourages Daguerre from continuing negotiations.
I
Taken from Anales
del
museo La
Plata dociimentos
historicos rclativos descobrimiento dc la fotografia, Aires, 1892.
Buenos
Courtesy the John Crerar Library, Chicago.
have considerably improved
on
metal, but the results
good enough, and so you express.
I
The
2
February 1827
received your reply yesterday anuM'ering
25 January 1826.
28
my letter of
The last four months I have not
not prevent
cannot
for yours,
sir,
quite different
satisfy the desire -which
this
since your
more
mode of
and promises you
a degree
my me from wishing you all the success whicli
of superiority over
letter reads:
Chdlons-sur-Saone
I
is
my process of engraving
have obtained are not yet
ought doubtless to regret
for my sake than
application
I
I
youcould hope
engraving method. This docs
for. I
remain vour humble servant
Niepee
**-
ct-'aMit^
y
Signatures of Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis-] acques-Mande Daguerre on their contract of December 14, 1S29. This contract, two letters
from
Niepce
Daguerre, and the contracts of Daguerre and Isidore Niepce were in the possession of Arago. Courtesy the John Crerar to
Library.
NICEPIIORE NIEPCE
The
world's
On pewter,
first
photograph.
1826. Courtesy
Gernsheim Collection, London.
ff^
* 'Mit
'
t^;
31
NiCEPHORE NiEPCE, Cardinal d'Amboise. Print pulled from a heliograph engraving
made
in 1826.
Courtesy Gernsheim Collection.
Tomb of Nicephore Niepce and monument erected in
1933 at death. Niepce's Saint-LoupdC'V arcnnes, a century after
Courtesy Janine Niepce, Paris.
32
DANS CE ViiLACE
WCEPHOPE NIEPCE
INTOuPHOIOGPAPHlE0l82
#.. 33
Rcmuerre
and the Dagiierreotype
Louis-Jacoues-Man'df. inxciit pliotograpln,
Daguerre (1787-18^1) did not lie made it work, made it pop-
but
and made it his own. Within a )ear after its announeement in 1839 his name and his proeess were known in all parts of the world. Honors w^ere showered on him and wealth and security ular,
were
his.
The name
of Joseph Nicephore
Nicpce was
practicall}- forgotten.
was Daguerre, howe\cr, who actualh' made the
It
Nicpee uivention work, using ehemieals that Niepee never hit upon. His ingenious idea was to bring out the
image by the vapor of mercury.
He
with bichloride of mercur)', which
just barely brought out
the image; improved
mercury; and,
it
experimented
first
by using sweet or subchloride of
finally, in 1837, after ele\'en years of experi-
mentation, hit upon the heating of mercur\', letting the vapors develop the image. fectly
He
then fixed the image per-
and permanently by using a strong solution
common
salt
and hot water
to dissolve
away the
of
particles
of silver iodine not affected by the light.
Daguerre's principle of development by mcrcur\- vapor
was
original, a
workable process based undoubtedh on
knowledge he gained from Niepee. Niepee, how e\er, contributed nothing to further the invention after 1829, nor
did his son Isidore. Isidore after
became Daguerre's partner
Niepee died impoverished at the age of sixty-nine
in the year 1833. 'I'he son,
a
new
badly in need of money, signed
contract several years later, stating that Daguerre
was the inventor of the daguerreotype; and he permitted
name
the original
of the firm, Niepce-Daguerre, to
be
Daguerre then interested the
particularl)
scientists in the invention,
Dominique
astronomer,
influential
Arago (1786-1853). Arago, believing a rumor that Russia and England were offering to buy the da-
Fraiifois
guerreotype, reported Daguerre's achievement on Janu-
reversed.
These were the
Academy
ary 7, 1839, to the
steps of Daguerre's process:
and proposed
of Sciences,
that the French government purchase the process. 1.
Thin sheet
of silver soldered onto a thicker sheet of
copper. 2.
Silver surface polished to a perfect finish.
3.
Silver plate iodized
guerre
by fumes of iodine making
it
sensitive to the light. 4.
in
the dark;
Camera placed on
pointed to any object
in direct sunlight.
for
7.
Latent image developed and made permanent b\
the following steps:
cury to
1
b. Plate
spirit
lamp heated the mer-
5o°F.
watched carefully
until picture
was made
quite visible by the mercury particles adhering to
the exposed
silver.
submerged
(after 1839 replaced
in a solution of
common
salt
by hyposulphite of soda, the by
fixing agent discovered
Sir
John Herschel and
immediately adopted by Daguerre). e.
result
it
was an individual picture, a
became
and
it
with him
split this
award of recognition
wrote Daguerre, "You
positi\e.
lights; in direct rays of
a shiny sheet of metal.
and
artistic
that
honor our country."
A
pension was agreed
upon— 6,000
It
the
The image was
tography was the invention of Fox Talbot. Both discovin the
same
Chamber of Deputies on June 1 5, 1839 and passed by a month later. On August 19 Arago made public Daguerre's startling method of obtaining a the
King Louis Philippe
image from nature
the hand of an
artist,
in all its details,
v\'ith
He
first
by public subscription.
was unsuccessful, he attempted to
sell it
tried
When
for a quarter
of a million francs, but to cautious speculators this ap(jf
dazzled the audience
superb daguerreot) pes taken by Daguerre.
Daguerre created considerable
interest,
for
he took
camera and equipment along the
Europe were
all
Arago described the history of photographya
number
tion of the
of errors, such as attributing the inven-
camera obscura
and slighting
to Delia Porta
type process in scientific terms and in clear insight
he predicted
the consequences
it
its
some
importance
would have
detail.
in recording histor\-.
her pride in being able to donate
it
first
has
shown
generously to the
whole world." Arago was apparently una\\are
that, just
days before, on August 14, Daguerre had secured a
fi\e
patent in England. The future looked rewarding.
possibilities.
He
closed his impassioned speech with the words, "France
and businessmen remained cold
its
With
for the future,
boulevards of Paris. But he did not explain the operation to
The
members of the Acadenn of Sciences and the equalK revered Academy of Fine Arts were entranced. Some of
has adopted this discovery and from the
a gamble.
pictures with his heavy
unaided by
drawn by the sun.
a picture entireh'
Nicpce's contribution— but he explained the daguerreo-
)ear.
of his invention Daguerre
to organize a corporation
much
and he
shall allow
francs annually for
making
peared too
we
Daguerre and 4,000 for Isidore Niepee, with half pension for their widows. The proposal was presented to
negative— the negative-positive principle of pho-
this
sold,
world one of the most marvelous discoveries
printed in unlimited numbers, as positives can be from a
To make the most
Isidore
were
foreign nations the glory of presenting to the scientific
present.
were announced
it
for his invention,
the finest intellects of l''rance and of
eries
told
if
not suffer that
will
reversed as in a mirror. It could not be multiplied or
single
invention.
Arago convinced Daguerre that a pension by the French government would be more of an honor, a na-
Arago's report was brilliant.
could be seen only in certain
sun
who acclaimed him and his
since his father's death.
pictorial
Plate then thoroughly washed to stop the action
of the fixing agent.
The
artists,
life to
Plate plunged into cold water to harden surface.
d. Plate
than for
for this invention
Diorama. lie showed views of Paris
the daguerreot) pe process to newspaper editors,
and
Nicpcc he would
tional
Plate placed in a cabinet on a 45° angle above a
container under which a
b)'
writers,
known
better
deducting the amount Isidore had borrowed from him
Lens uncovered 15 to 30 minutes (the best time a picture by Niepee was 8 hours )
c.
of the daguerreotjpe produced a
Daguerre asked 200,000 francs for
and
tripod, set in landscape,
6.
a.
became
his well-established
taken
Prepared plate put in light-tight holder
plate holder placed in camera. 5.
The announcement
sensation. Scientific journals printed Arago's report. Da-
35
months
before,
on March
8,
Only se\eral famous Diorama
financially.
Daguerre was again secure
when
his
seemed destitute. was burned to the ground, he had structure with special huge, a It was the Diorama,
enormous 72-b)-46-foot canvases,
had
that, apparently,
photography. He brought Daguerre to experiment with obscura, and had was well acquainted with the camera create an made sketches from nature in his attempts to illusion of reality. In the
canvases
Diorama he painted tremendous
visitors believed so astonishingly realistic that
in the buildthey were three-dimensional constructions of painting pictures ing' He introduced the innovation of the Diodemands The this canvas.
on both
sides of
rama taxed
his ingenuity,
but he met
its
challenge by
Daguerre and his partner they opened the Pans Diorama, built a similar also a painter of huge canvases, Bouton,
dioramas London. Most of the thirty-one an average showing of they painted for Pans were given sent for viewing in the seven months and were then
structure in
elabo-
such London Diorama. The exhibitions included Switzerland, Sarnen in rate paintings as The Valley of of Fog and Snow Effect Cathedral, Interior of Chartres The Begina Ruined Gothic Colonnade,
Seen through
The Tomb
ning of the Deluge,
for
Grand Canal
which
a sketch remains.
Interest in the
Diorama had been waning;
windows; and he natural light that entered through the some scenes by manipudeveloped spectacular effects
visitors to
lamps
years of the as spots and, in the last five
more Diorama's existence, by using gaslight for even Diorama the opened he novel illusionary effects. When
m of
1822 in Paris he was already well
panoramas 350
stage designer.
paintings
the eye")
feet
known
as a painter
long and 5o feet high and
He had received some acclaim
as a
for his easel
as to "fool in trompe-l'oeil (pictures so realistic .
One
of these paintings,
undoubtcdh
his best.
Holyrood Chapel, earned him the red ribbon of m 1824. He the Legion of Honor when it was exhibited
Ruin was
of
later to receive the rank of offtcier fifteen years
when
the daguerreotype was announced.
greatest creation,
came from
who was
his
own
a petit-bourgeois family.
was the son of a clerk employed on the royal estate education ended at in Orieans. The young Louis' formal an archifourteen. He was apprenticed for three years to
He
where he learned perspective and accurate architecnatural gift tural drafting. This experience, added to his of apprenfor drawing, prepared him for another term
tect
time for three years, to Degotti, the celeterm he brated designer for stage and opera. After this of the designer stage became assistant to Prevost, a noted
ticeship, this
period with
whom he remained
for nine years, until 1813.
Daguerre's work was singled out for praise by the critics was mentioned among actors, singers, composers,
—he
and conductors. The public applauded his elaborate productions and ingenious stage devices. The Diorama was his crowning achievement as the creator of imposing spectacles.
It
was
as popular as the
movies are in our day and met about the same need for entertainment, travel, and illusion. In 1823, a year after
36
government
support for
Pans.
No
m it
funds
1858, Daguerre
it
had been
tried to gain
an attraction that brought were forthcoming. Daguerre
as
Diorama and move to London, and profitable. where the Diorama was still popular threatened to close the
contribution as a painter First official recognition of his
and creator
of the
h.m diorama came N\hen Arago had agreement the m diorama technique
include details of his
the steps for
m
which he disclosed with the government a ruse to obtain for making a daguerreotype. Ihis was pension granted by the Daguerre the greater share of the Daguerre and 4,000 tor government, 6,000 francs for had advantageous, when Daguerre Isidore Niepce. How no plans to reopen the Diorama! daguerreotype procHe concentrated on explaining the ess
This resourceful, colorful showman,
at St. Hel-
of Venice,
operating at a loss xxhcn,
lating oil
Napoleon
and the Solomons in Pans but Temple, which burned with the Diorama
ena, the
and opaque creating gigantic pictures with translucent to control the paints, inventing shutters and screens
m
of
scientists giving demonstrations to
phhmg
the
complicated
and
artists,
sim-
by scientific account given
examples of Arago and exhibiting his own apparatus guerre started to manufacture
the
art.
Da-
for the da-
Giroux. Giroux, a guerreotvpe with his brothcr-m-law, devote his other business to stationer, quickly gave up camera. of the Giroux himself exclusively to production each camera was and Chevalier ground the lenses; by Daguerre, signed and stamped with a senal number, profits of this partnerwho thus made it official. Half the who generously gave Isidore ship were to go to Daguerre,
Niepce Ko per cent of his share. ^,. Giroux published Hie dav after Arago made his report manual. All the cameras he Daguerre's seventy-nine-page manual were sold out in a few had on hand as well as the in went through thirty editions davs. The pamphlet all out it was translated mto French. Before the year ^^•as and Europe of the capitals languages and pnnted in all ,
in the city of
1
New York.
Artists, scientists,
quickly mand the general public
process, shortening the proved and modified Daguerre's
Daguerre was often a subject for artist friends.
This lithograph
by Henri-Grevedon was drawn in 1
S37,
two years before Daguerre
published the daguerreotype process.
Courtesy George Eastman
House, Rochester.
exposure to several niinutcs, so that portraits seemed feasible
and
in
one month became an
actuality.
Samuel F. B. Morse, the
artist and inventor of the met Daguerre in Paris. Morse had written soon after the Diorama had burned down to inform Daguerre that he had been elected an honorary member of
be demonstrated
the National
Academy
of Design in
New
York; that the
Morse had sent home had been published in many American papers; and that, if Daguerre could prevail upon the French government to permit an exhibition of daguerreotypes to be shown in the United States six months before the process would
France, .Daguerre would dcri\e a
"pecuniary advantage." There was no rcpl\ by Daguerre to this letter.
By September
telegraph,
description of the daguerreotype
in
ter "sit
20, 1839,
Morse had
his wife
and daugh-
from 10 to 20 minutes, out of doors, on the roof
of a building, in the closed." This
is
full
sunlight and with the eyes
believed to be the
first
daguerreotype
portrait taken in the world.
These long exposures were
torture. It
became obvious
that the full-size 6i/2-by-8V2-inch plate was too big for portraiture. This its
was remedied inmiediatcly by reducing
size to a quarter plate, bringing the required
time
37
down
to ; minutes.
vented b> Josef
Improved
Max
one
lenses, especially
in-
Pctzval in 1840, a fast achromatic
lens with large aperture, were decisive factors in
making
was that of and bromine with up speeded Mercury faster chemicals. cutting sensitive, more chlorine vapors made the plate portraits possible. I'he conclusive discovery
quarter-plate exposure time
Portraiture
A
became
down
to 30 seconds.
a reality for the multitudes.
prism turned the image around from
reversed attitude, so that the portrait as
one
is
its
left-to-right-
was seen normally,
seen by people, not as one sees oneself in a
decided step forward was the construction, by 1S41, of smaller apparatus that reduced Daguerrc's no pounds of equipment to less than 9 pounds. Still further mirror.
A
improvement was protection for the daguerreotype surface which was fragile and easily scratched or damaged. Ilippolyte Fizeau, in 1840, had the thought of tonmg the
silvery-gray
tone that oxidized into a
Daguerre received honors and acclaim himself, however,
made no
1851,
he
viere displayed.
-jz
Wood engraving. Artist unknown.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
38
x 46 feet,
Br^-sur-Marne about 6
miles from Paris. In 1843 he claimed to have perfected
instantaneous photography, to ha\'e taken a bird in
flight;
but he could not prove his claim. His
last
work was
a return to his
first
and abiding
a trotnpe-loeil painting representing soaring
He
deep vaulting, and stained-glass windows. behind the
altar of a
the small church
b\-
love,
columns, placed
it
simple church in Bry, transforming
his
"magical"
art into a great
Gothic
cathedral.
The
inventor of the dagucrrcot\pe
Solomon's Temple, a sketch
enormous paintings by Daguerre,
He
further contribution to pho-
lived in retirement at
The Diorama
in M'hich
as his in\cntion
tography after publication of his process. Until he died in
tomb, donated by his fellow
about 18^0,
purplisii
conquered the imagination of people evcpiwhere.
image with chloride of gold. I'his not only increased the contrast of the miage; it produced the beautiful deep.
in Paris,
rich,
brown.
lies
citizens of Bry,
buried in a
where he was
interred July 10, i8;i, soon after his death.
in color for the last
Diorama presentation, on view September 15, to March 8, 1839, when the Diorama burned to the sround. Courtesv George Eastman House.
Paris
1S36,
Diorama
ticket,
good
for two, signed
by
Daguerre, 18^0. Courtesy George Eastman House.
Holyrood Chapel, Edinburgh,
oil
Daguerre
He was awarded the Legion of Honor
when
it
s
best easel painting.
painting by Daguerre,
182.^.
Considered
was exhibited. Comtesy Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Louis-JACQUES-MANDE DAGUERRE, The daguerreotype.
Taken
in
the
earliest surviving
artist's studio,
1857.
Courtesy Socictc jranqaisc dc pliotographie, Paris.
40
HISTORIOUE ET DESCRIPTION The
rare title
page of the
first
edition of Daguerre's
instruction manual, with imprint by Alphonse Giroux. Written in
longhand on
DAGUERREOTYPE
its
face by
M. Mentienne, son
friend, the mayor of Bry,
by Daguerre
in
is
of Daguerre's closest
the inscription, "Given to
my father
1840." Courtesy George Eastman House.
FAMi nAtiVEnnts, }m\u,
loviDteui
du Diorama,
o-Titini
lis
la
LsjifiB-d'HcEDmr, nitobte ti piusif^r* Acad'^Sitcs,
tt;.,
tU
1-1
16
PARIS.
MARS
7840
->
-
' --
'"'^ISJ/
,
3
ANNEt
4^~
j
AI.PHONSF, GiHOUX
i:t
I
ir
RUl DU COQ-sMNr-HONORl:. 7,
Oiise r»bri^qurnl lesApparvils,
l»KLI.()YK. l.rBKAUU:. n
»c.r
iif
1,.*
fininsF,
H.
Talent Tlirough Sleep. The press caricatured the daguerreotype from the very beginning. In the periodical Today,
March
after Daguerre's process
1
5,
18^0, less than a year
was announced, Gerard
Fontallard satirized the long exposure necessary.
Courtesy Gernsheim Collection, London.
41
LOUIS- jACQUES-iMANDE DAGUERRE, Paris Boulcvard. Daguerreotype, 1839. Sent by
Daguerre to the King of Bavaria. This photograph
human
(see detail
on the facing page)
is
The original, formerly in the National Museum, Munich, was destroyed during World War U. Samuel F. B. Morse wrote when he saw this daguerreotype, "The boulevard, so constantly filled with a moving throng of pedestrians and carriages, was perfectly solitary, except for an individual who was the
first
taken of a
being.
having his boots brushed." Courtesy George Eastman House.
42
44
Daguerreotypes by Daguerre, made 1859, rediscovered 1955. Dommique-Franqois Arago showed the following three of a group that Daguerre furnished to him in August,
1
859, at the meeting of the
process known.
daguerreotypes.
Academy of Sciences in which he made Daguerre
Two years later he presented the Perpignan Museum
On the back of each
is
written, "Picture
the discovery of the Daguerreotype, given to
Daguerre." above: View of
Paris,
which
M. Arago by his
M'ith
.served to
s
these
prove
very humble servant
opposite page, above: Sculpture,
left: Still
Lifa
45
The
official
law,
Daguerre camera produced by Dagiierre's brother-inAlphonse Giroux, witli close-up of label which reads,
"No apparatus guaranteed if it does not bear the signature of M. Daguerre and the seal of M. Giroux. The Daguerreotype, made under the direction of the inventor in Paris by et Cie. Rue de Coq St. Honorc, No. 7." The camera measured 12 by 14V2 by 20 inches.
Alphonse Giroux
Courtesy George Eastman House.
JEAN-BAPTISTE SABATIER BLOT Daguerre. Daguerreotype, iS^^.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
47
The official Daguerreotype camera M'as used on February 27,
iS^o, by
Bartlielmy-Urbain Bianchi, a Toulouse optical-instrument maker, who
exposed 10 minutes to take the Place du Capitole.
An
hangs on the wall of the paintings
is
city hall of his
home town and the
art exhibition, the first ever
city hall.
The blob
pJudographed,
of black beneath the
from active spectators attending the exhibition who
"ghost" images although the sun bathers and seated sentries their
permanent mark. The image
daguerreotypes. Courtesy George
is
left
only
left
reversed, as in all early
Eastman House.
Camera and equipment designed by Gaudin and manufactured by Lerebours 1
/6
in
1
size.
H^i for taking
and processing daguerreotypes
Outer wooden box serves both
as
of
camera and as
carrying case for following accessories: glass lined coating box,
mercury bath with sliding support, two single plate holders, slotted box to hold twelve
plates. In little
more than a year Daguerre's
110 pounds of equipment had been reduced to
than
48
10.
less
Courtesy George Eastman House.
Daguerreotype camera designed by Josepli Petzval
round
plates 9 centimeters in diameter, with lens he designed
the previous year.
The
all-metal
by F. F. von Voigtlander in
in iS^i for
America, where
it
in
camera manufactured
Germanv was particularlv popular
was sold by
tlie
Langcuhcim brothers of
Philadelphia. Courtesy George Eastman House.
H
The Daguerreotype
Europe
in
The very
first year of Daguerre's in\cntion, enterpris-
ing publishers already saw great possibilities for profit
from the
travel
books with reproductions of daguerreo-
type views. N. P. Lerebours of Paris, an optieian
manufactured daguerreotype cameras the
Giroux camera, hired
official
equipped them with
his outfits,
who
closely resembling
artists
and cameramen,
and sent them
to Ital},
Greece, North Africa, Eg\pt, Damascus, Sweden, England,
and
States.
as far west as
Few
of the daguerreotypists
known by name
for
lost.
\'ernet, romantic painter of battle scenes, ac-
companied artist
he commissioned arc
today, and most of their original da-
guerreot)pes have been
Horace
Niagara Falls in the United
b\ his
nephew, Charles Bouton, and another
photographer, Frederic Goupil-Fesquet, traveled
Lerebours in Eg}pt; on November
from Alexandria,
6,
1S39, he wrote
"We keep Daguerreotyping like lions."
Between 1840 and 1S42 Lerebours published, from the thousands of daguerreotypes he had coinmissioncd, 114 plates in aquatint as "Excursions Daguerricnnes." 'I'hese aquatints
daguerreotypes.
and etchings were reproductions ot
Some images were
traced directly, a pro-
cedure which scratched or irreparably ruined the plates.
silver
Aquatints were preferred to lithographs or wood-
cuts, for
it
was believed that they retained more of the
daguerreotype's original subtleties of tonality and light.
To
his business in
dagucrrcot\pe apparatus, lenses, and
publications, Lerebours
added the
sale of original da-
Tourists, writers, eras with
them on
and
trips,
Two
Europe.
thousand cameras and half a million plates
were sold in Paris alone during 1S47, mostly for portrai-
guerreotypes of travel views. artists
took daguerreotype cam-
not only to secure records but to
ture.
Daguerreotype parlors
in
France and England took
portraits, charging $2 to $5 for plates ranging in size
by
2 to
Gautier wrote that he went to Spain with daguerreotype
papier-mache frames or imitation
the
Joseph P. Girault de Prangy went to the Middle East,
Paris not only
two-year sojourn, with iDcrfect
make illustrations for his and Monuments of Egypt,
Syria,
and Asia Minor. An impressive
selection of his
found
in perfect condi-
original daguerreotypes, recently
been acquired by Helmut and Alison Gern-
tion, has
Photographers often invented cameras for specific pic-
von Martens constructed a camera that
take an exceptionally beautiful two-part panorama of
from the Louvre
Artists
and
wisp— perfect
tourists
Antoine Claudct,
tice in
in 1846.
continued to pursue the
will-o'-the-
pictorial landscape. I'he lucrative
and millions of
silvered plates sold
England.
himself,
whom
demonstrated
He
he
fancy glass dealer in London,
a
for $1,000 the first license to prac-
learned the process from Daguerre
visited
soon after Daguerrc publicly
his invention.
By
the following year Clau-
otype apparatus, and lenses supj^licd him by his friend Lerebours.
Early in 1841 an ex-coal merchant
Beard opened the
first
end
of
throughout
Alexander Wolcott in
named Richard
portrait studio in
chasing the right to use the mirror
the daguerreotype business was in the thousands of camera outfits
in
conducted a profitable studio but manu-
bought from Daguerrc
allowed the silvered plate to be curved, permitting him to
Paris
Richebourg
dct was selling daguerreotypes of famous views, daguerre-
sheim, for their famous collection.
tures. Friedrich
first
factured and handled apparatus for the trade.
daguerreotypes that he used to
book Arabian Architecture
boxes.
years of the daguerreotype craze.
mastered the technical problems of taking pictures.
''fter a
gilt
Fortunes were reaped by the better-known parlors in
apparatus, but his success was negligible, for he had not
returning in 11544,
from
6V2 by 8V2 inches, which were then set in
provide illustrations for future publications. Thcophile
11^2
New York
London, pur-
camera invented by
the previous year. This
enabled him to take pictures with exposures of to
5
5
seconds
minutes, depending on the size of the plates and the
amount
of sunlight. Beard also paid Daguerre for permis-
shape of a truncated pyramid made in Paris by Bourguin, about 1844, with Petzvaltype lens set in a focusing mount. The bronze
A camera
in the
dragons serve only to make
it
heavier
and more
ornate. Quarter plates used: 514 x 4^4 inches.
Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
51
sion to take daguerrcot\pc portraits even
not use the
When
official
though he did
camera.
taking daguerreotypes, but the courts found in favor of
Claudet,
Claudet discovered a
faster
combination of
who w as not compelled
to relinquish his license.
Claudet was de\oted to developing the
artistry
and the
chemicals that enabled him to take daguerreot\pes with the Giroux camera in 2 seconds to 2 minutes, he also
red light, which did not affect the scnsiti\c plate; and he
opened a professional studio for portraiture in London. Both studios were busy all day while the light lasted.
studio to provide a pleasing change from the
Ever}-one in
London wanted
and gladly paid
to
have
for the privilege.
his picture taken
Beard realized that
a
technique of photography.
He
invented the darkroom
concei\cd the idea of using painted backdrops in the
of plain backgrounds behind the subject. Claudet pho-
tographed both in\cntors of photography— Daguerre and
made if a monopoly of the process could be secured; quite inexplicably, he was able to pur-
he was appointed 'Thotographer
chase from Daguerre
Victoria."
fortune was to be
for less than $5,000.
full
The
patent rights for
all
England
following year, through the sale
of license fees alone, he realized
more than
thirty times
his investment.
Beard secured an injunction to
52
Fox Talbot— royalty, and other
Claudet from
celebrities,
and
in Ordinarj' to
in 1853
Queen
Meanwhile, Richard Beard, who seemed to enjoy lawsuits,
sued once too often for infringement of patent
rights, in restrict
monotony
an action \\hich took
decision; although he
won
fi\e }ears to result in a
this case,
he was soon
after
VON MARTENS, Panorama of Paris. Daguerreotype, 1S46. View from the Louvre. Taken with a camera that curved the invented by Von Martens. Courtesy George Eastman House.
FRiEDRicii
plates,
declared bankrupt. During the years he held the patent
England, Beard had licensed
for
whom became
several of
can,
daguerreotypists,
famous, particularly the Ameri-
John E. Ma)all, who had conducted
home town as
many
of Philadelphia before
"Professor Ilighschool," and
a studio in his
he came
who had
to
London,
created ten
daguerreotypes to illustrate the Lord's Prayer. ALiyall
made
other allegorical pictures which brought
him
ac-
it was the high polish of the American daguerreotypes and dramatic, oversize plates that were
claim, but
singled out for praise.
Consort,
who was
He
took pictures of the Prince
avidly interested in photography;
and
soon Mayall had in London two very fashionable studios
which made him independently wealthy.
The art the
first
dealer Louis Sachse brought to
camera made
b\'
Bed in,
in 1839,
Giroux, Daguerre's brother-in-
law.
Within
duced an
less
than two years X'oigtlander had intro-
all-metal, conical-shaped
val lens that
camera with the Pctz-
enabled him to take circular pictures about
3 inches in diameter.
With
the \'oigtl;indcr-Petzval lens
began Germany's high reputation for high-quality optical
goods and camera equipment.
Some of the finest earh daguerreotype portraits were made by two artists-turned-photographer, Cari F. Stclzner and Herman Blow of Hamburg. Stelzner's training as a painter of
miniature portraits
cately delineated daguerreotypes,
is
cxident in his
deli-
which he often colored
by hand to simulate sensitively drawn miniatures on
Both men made daguerreotypes of a terrible threedav fire that demolished an entire section of Hamburg in 184:. A Stclzner daguerreotype of the holocaust— the
ivory.
wodd's
first
news photograph— fortunately
survives.
53
1^
Four aquatints by unknown photographers, published in 18^0-^2 b\
Lerebours
in
Excursions Dagucrricnncs.
Courtesy George Eastman House. above: Nazareth
below: Arch of Titus in
upper
right:
lower right: Great
54
Rome
Luxor, Eg>pt
Mosque
in Algiers
55
Medea,
Algeria. Daguerreotype,
about 18 jo.
The names Delemotte
et
Alary are scratched on
plate
m
lower
left
corner.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
'^iJfA^. e^'"
.Jsr-
View
of the Place de
la
Con-
corde, Paris. Daguerreotype,
about 1850. Daguerreotypist
unknown. In the Aiontmartre and
The image
is
its
distance,
windmills.
reversed. Courtesy
George Eastman House.
'£?^^'l,.--iK!.«MT.1
56
A collapsible camera made by Charles Chevalier in Paris, iS^o, for whole plate, 6V2 x 8V2 inches. Furnished as part
of a complete daguerreotype outfit: could also be used to take paper negatives. Courtesy George
Return of French Troops from Daguerreotypist unknown.
An
Italy.
Eastman House.
Daguerreotype, about 185S.
extremely rare example, with
crowds of people, taken when process had been practically supplanted by collodion negative. Courtesy George Eastman House.
57
c. F. 1
8^2
Hamburg Fire. Daguerreotype, The world's first news photograph.
STELZNER, .
Courtesy
Museum
fur
Ilamburgische Geschichte, Ilamburs.
STELZNER, Obcrlcutnant H. N. Beseler.
Daguerreotype. Hamburg, 1843. Courtesy Staatliche Landesbildstelle,
58
Hamburg.
s^
'^
vV
^<
w«^ >! L\^J
STF.LZNER,
Outing of the Hamburg Art Club.
Daguerreotype, 18^3.
Courtesy Staatliche Landesbildstelle
STELZNER, Caroline Stelzner. Hamburg,
1 8^^ Courtesy Staatliche Landesbildstelle.
59
A clinching argument typist
of the daguerreo-
was that he would "draw" the
entire family for the
member. In
unknown
same
price as
this litljograpli
artist,
about iSjO, the caption
shows the daguerreotypist sketch you witli
one
by an
saying, "1 can
my daguerreotype, you,
your family, and the
little
Xozor."
Courtesy George Eastman House. Dsjuerreolype, vous, voire famille el
k
cnooris d
ete
\\C^
Oh Clarise, take a look at that big machine, it's
as
though a great big eye was looking at
us.
liii Prr'^a.-.'iti Itru
PRISES _ All'
va im
60
...
Clarisse
(ril i|ui
Al'
DAGIERREUTYTE
vols done celtc 6rHnilf miicUiiiP
nous Tfdarde
!
on
dirait
ijii 'il
^'"''.
lA
The Daguerreotype
New Year's Day,
DACUERREOTYPONIANIC
Craze. Lithograph drawn by A. Alaurisset for
18^0.
Camera
fans dance. Gallows for rent to
A man struggles with an unwieldly camera marked "Apparatus for Travelers." A studio advertises portraits for New Year's presents. A man has his portrait made. Dr. Donne, who made the first engravers.
engravings from daguerreotypes,
is
at
work
M'ith his plates
and
presses.
Moving in the distance is a freight train formed by cameras; a camera suspended from a balloon; a ship
is
is
being loaded with camera supplies;
and over all the sun shines and smiles. Courtesy George Eastman House.
61
With a
irror
Memory: The nagiieireotype in Aiiierita
I'liE FIRST
PORTRAITS taken by dagucrrcot\ pc took so long
that the subjects got sunburned. Portraiture was a terrible ordeal, suffered light for
.^s
by
sitting perfectly
much
as 20 minutes. It
wink; the process was so slow that
To
enable the
still
sitter to
in the direct sun-
was permissible to
it
did not matter.
keep his eyes open
m
the sun a
blue sheet of glass was interposed; this did not lengthen the exposure very
much, and soon
equipped with blue
skylights.
all
Daguerreotypes were hand-colored often by artists of
some
standing.
image came
to color the fragile
studios were
like
The
miniatures,
eadiest attempts
after experiments with
painting on the protective glass proved unsuccessful.
Dusting colored powders on a
image
also
gum
brushed onto the
proved too harsh for the
daguerreotype.
The
only solution was
easily
damaged
for trained minia-
ture painters laboriously to tint the face of the daguerreo-
t\pe with as to
do
much
a miniature
caution and artistry as was necessary
on
i\ory.
Dr. John William Draper, in 1839 in
New
York, said
that he had to pose his models for 20 minutes in the sunlight, the face whitened with
closed, to secure full-size daguerreotypes. Draper,
was a professor of chemistry at
who
New York University, had
learned of Daguerre's process by reading the translation to reach
open
powder and the eyes
New York in October of
first
English
1S39, but he
had already experimented unsuccessfully for two years with the photograph as applied to science. He made himself a cigar-box
camera and with
took a picture of a
it
Unitarian Church from a university window.
taken a picture of the same church from his the university.
On
April ig,
i8.:jo,
window
Samuel Bemis
m
in
Bos-
took a daguerreotype of King's Chapel burying
ton
ground
in
an exposure
lasting
was seeking government support to perfect
40 minutes. By mid-1840,
with better equipment, smaller-size plates, and faster
in a portrait studio,
which they
built
on
the roof of the university.
At about the same issued the
first
dollar.
Some
open daguerreotype of hocus pocus,
room, passing to
many
Wolcott was
Others became professors
galleries.
pictures in the mystif)ing dark-
off the faint results as the best procurable;
dagucrrcotyping was a form of advertising or a
sideline to attract customers to their regular business.
In addition to the charlatans there were fine workmen,
whose studios took superb citizens and charming pictures of
practicing daguerreotypists
a bygone day in a peaceful America.
One
patent in the United States for photog-
raphy. This was for a camera with a concave mirror that
learned the craft well enough to
making
portraits of illustrious
time, Alexander S.
make
All sorts of people turned to the daguerreotype to
an extra
chemicals at their disposal, the professors were ready to
become partners
his invention
of the magnetic telegraph.
A month
Samuel F. B. Morse, had
earlier his colleague, Professor
commissions he received intermittently. All the while he
of these was John Plumbe, who, besides being a
pioneer in chain-studio photography, was the
first
to
than with a lens
write and pressure Congress for a railroad connecting the
that refracted rays to the plate.
Atlantic with the Pacific. Soon after he learned the proc-
mitted more light to
fall
The new invention perplate. The image was not
ess in
reversed, but neither
was
reflected the sun's rays to the plate rather
made
on the it
so sharp as the daguerreotype
in the usual lens camera.
Wolcott and
John Johnson opened the world's
New York on March 4,
first
his partner
portrait studio in
—a
New York more often
Morse taught the process
to a
number of interested students, many of whom were to become leading daguerreotypists in the United States, among them Edward Anthony, Mathcw B. Brady, and S.
Southworth. Using a regular daguerreotype
camera, they were able to take studio portraits in sittings of 30 seconds to 2 minutes,
and could cut
this
time in
half by posing the subject directly in the sun.
partnership; he was to utilize photography for scientific
another roof-top studio
life.
in the
Professor
Morse moved
to
Observer building.
Morse's purpose in pursuing the perfection of the daguerreotype was to accumulate portraits of models he could use in painting.
He
was the
first
to take a class
picture, at the thirtieth reunion, in August, 1840, of his
Yale University
from
class.
Morse needed
to realize
some profit
his daguerreotxpe researches, for in the depression
years of 1839-1840
he was spending much more than he
could afford from his small salary as professor of ture
and design
at
New York
supplemented by the
little
litera-
University. This salary was
tuition he received
in
developed the "Plumbcotypc," and hired
copy daguerreotype likenesses onto lithograph
tions of
The
any number desired by the customer.
galleries
from
his
students in the daguerreotype process and by the portrait
unfortunately Pl'imbe
made money, but
was too busy pushing for a national railway, and mitted his managers to plunder the proceeds.
was declared bankrupt, the was on if
his
way
we could
he returned age of
carl)'
galleries
to California.
It
to
fields,
a fitting climax
man found
his
another
more sad; own hand at the
but the truth
Iowa and died by
per-
By 1847 he
were closed, and he
would be
report that this intrepid
fortune in the gold
After only six months Professor Draper dissolved the
purposes the rest of his
He
east,
Dubuque
stones so that the prints could be pulled and sold in edi-
type portraits universally acclaimed as the best.
Albert
Galleries were
and Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and artists to
dull, overcast da}s
opened a five years,
York, Washington, and Philadelphia in the
the west.
On
of 1840, he
During the next
established in such widely separated cities as Boston,
than in London
in
summer
Galleries.
Plumbe National Daguerrcan
thirteen
contributing factor to making American daguerreo-
which occurred
in the
Daguerrcan
series of
New
1840.
Daguerreotypists could operate only on sunny days,
Washington
is
far
forty-six.
Edward Anthony, trained as a civil engineer and uated from Columbia at the age of twenty in learned the daguerreotype process as soon as
it
was
grad-
1838, intro-
work to be found duced the next year. As there was in his professional field, he accepted a commission to take dagucrreotjpes of disputed territory at the Canalittle
dian-American northeast boundary. These were the pictures taken for a
A
government
short time after this,
first
survey.
Anthony and
a partner,
J.
^L
Edwards, were permitted by Anthony's friend and patron. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, to use the committee
room
in
Washington
to take daguerreotypes of distin-
63
guished political
figures.
Adams, who recorded his
these was John Ouincy
in his diary, April 12, 1844, that
sat for three likenesses
dent Tyler and
Among
and
that, as
son John came
he walked out, but
in,
I
he
"Presi-
did not notice
them."
posedly entirely destroyed by single full figure portrait of
who were
i852 except for a
John Ouincy Adams.
the
mark
his
as
Anthony's, the consistent qual-
to interpret the character of each person
someone
of
me
picted leads
Anthony's
well trained, as
Anthony was.
to bclie\'e that these
may be some
of
lost daguerreotypes.
collection includes
documenter of the
Civil
War,
publisher,
the greatest recorder of American
The
first
galleries in
A later chap-
.
man,
this exceptional
historian
and altogether day.
life in his
decade of the daguerreot\pe saw a thousand
New
There were seventy
York City alone, among them that
of
senator
dents Martin \'an Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore,
and Franklin
who was
A.
Pierce; Louis Kossuth,
in the
Boston. Daguerreotype, 1S40.
One
of
the earliest American daguerreotypes.
Label on back reads: "April
Samuel A. Bemis
Hungarian patriot
United States 1851-1852, and the Span-
BEMis, King's Chapel,
first
19,
1S40
daguerreotype
experiment. Iodizing process 2 5
minutes (apparatus new) Camera process 40 minutes,
Wind N. W.
sky clear air dry—very cold for
Lens meniscus. Time 4:50
to
5:30 p.m. Daguerre's apparatus.
N.Y. Plate ordinary." Courtesy
George Eastman House, Rochester.
famous
galler}', later
conducted by
his son
Benjamin,
mirror with a memory." His native Boston competed
with
New York in
refining the silver image.
Yankee
inge-
made possible the excellence of American daguerreot\pcs. John Whipple utilized a steam engine to run the nuity
buffing wheels to give the plates the highest possible
Thomas Hart Benton,
from Missouri; Lewis Cass, senator from Michigan and in 1848 Democratic candidate for the prcsidenc\'; Presi-
64
be devoted to
is
with one "t" and
moved ahead with photography as it developed, and survived for more than half a century. Oliver Wendell Holmes called the daguerreotype "the
in
Further evidence about dates and age of subjects de-
season.
it
Chicago Historical Society. Though these cannot
and the search
SAMUEL
American photography
practitioners in the United States.
prominent national
of the portrait, the dramatic posing of the subject,
The
in
B. Brady (he always spelled
Jeremiah Gurney, a jeweler turned cameraman. His
be positively identified
carr)'
ter will
in
Washington during the nine partner had their galler\- is now
Anthony and
in the
ity
fire in
collection of daguerreotypes of
politicians
years
Mathew
who was
until 1851.
never told anyone what the "B" stood for)
Anthony took pictures of everybody of consequence, and formed a National Daguerrcan Gallery which was on exhibition in New York City. This enterprise was sup-
A
ish-American revolutionary Narciso Lopez
Washington for three years The most notable name
polish, to heat the mercury, to prepare the distilled water
for
washing the
in the waiting
plates, to cool the clients
by running fans
rooms, and also to re\olvc a sign on the
facade of the gallery.
One
of the justifiably
famous
galleries in
Boston was
the establishment of Southworth and Hawes. This
gal-
JOHN SARTAiN, Portrait of Jolin William Draper. After A. Roof, The Camera and the an engraving from
M
Pencil, Philadelpliia, iS6^.
Two
years before the
professor, inventor of the telegraph,
daguerreotype was announced. Professor Draper was
experimenting with pliotograpliy; he
made one
believed to be the
of the
studio on the roof of
from the
usual stiffness resulting from the rigid forked headrests fixed pose often
induced by
filling
out the
hollow cheeks with wads of cotton or by fasten-
ing their jug cars to their skulls with sticking wax.
Albert sor
S.
Morse
New York,
and returned
to
Boston to enter
who The
da-
made by Southworth and lawcs during
the
into partnership with Josiah Johnson Hawes,
mained
a
photographer until
gucrreot\pes first
his
death
in 1901. I
re-
ten years of their partnership are today celebrated
and sought These
as
portraits
some
8V2 by
61/2 inches,
is
his colleague,
New
York University.
of the finest examples of the art.
were most often taken on whole plates
and
cost $5 or more. Competitors'
prices were $1 for a quarter plate, with a free case.
The
fine
daguerrcot\pc was doomed.
longer in America than anywhere hibition in the
Southworth learned the process from Profes-
in
With
Morse
to learn the
Courtesy George Eastman House.
lery's portraits of celebrities are lifelike, free
subjects'
American
Professor Draper, he established a photograpliic
Courtesy George Eastman House.
and from the
first
daguerreotype process.
photographic portraits in 1839 and tlw first successful photograph of the moon the following first
year.
Samuel F. B. Morse. Daguerreotype, 18.^^. Photographer unknown. Painter,
Portrait of
about
.
London
else.
It
had
lasted
At the Great Ex-
Crystal Palace of 1851, Americans
received three of the five medals awarded for daguerreotypes. I'he
French by then excelled
in photograph}'
on
paper.
America soon turned to the cheaper process of the glass negative,
could be
made
from which a dozen or more positives at the price of
was the end of an died.
The
one good daguerreotype.
era; a beautiful
and unique
art
It
had
daguerreotype would never be revived.
65
Portrait of
ED-WARD ANTHONY, Scnator 'I'hoinas Hart Benton.
John V. Farwell, Chicago merchant.
Daguerreotype, 1845-47. Photographer unknown.
Daguerreotype, about 1S4S. Taken in Wasliingto
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
ANTHONY, LEWIS
CASS, Senator
from Michigan and
in
Portrait of fohn W'cntworth. Daguerreotype, 1S4
18^8 Democratic candidate for President. Courtesy
Photographer unknown. Taken
Chicago Historical Society.
before
Chicago Historical Society.
66
in
Chicago
Wentworth became Mayor. Courtesy
Portrait of
Thomas
Sully 0783-1872). Daguerreotype,
about iS^8. Photographer unknown. American portrait painter. Courtesy
Chicago Historical Society.
ANiiiONV, iMartui \ an Burcn. Daguerreotype,
about
iS.::j.8.
Van Buren
but remained a
left
political
the presidency in
daguerreotype appears to have been taken
was about 66 years
old.
iS..^i
power for years. This
Though
it is
when he
not certain, the
picture seems to be one of the daguerreotvpes which
Anthony made which ANiiiONY, Louis koii^uth, Hungarian patriot.
for his
National Daguerrean Gallery,
M'as destroyed bv
fire in
1S52. Courtesy
Chicago Historical Society.
Daguerreotype, iS^i, Washington. Courtesy
Chicago Historical Society.
67
Dagucrreotxpe, Unidentified Gold Miner in California. 5I/4 inches. Daguerreotypist unknown. about 1850. 25/4 X
The
leather
pouch
m which the miner sent the
daguerreotype to a young lady
in Illinois is at
bottom. Courtesy George Eastman House.
"Z^m^ y
<\h^
/iP
J(fs.
68
FRED COOMBS, San Francisco, corner of Clay and Montgomery Daguerreotype, 1850.
Streets.
A sharp eye can see, on the druggist's signboard "opium
for sale" along with paints
and
varnishes. Courtesy
George Eastman House.
69
-i^li^^
'i
—- —
Wood engraving of Gi/rney's Dagiierrean Saloon
in
New York.
Typical of the ornate galleries established in the late iS^os in most of the country's principal cities. Courtesy George Eastman House.
LUTHER HOLMAN HALE, Joscph Da\is. Grandfather of Beaumont Newhall. Daguerreotype, 1850, Boston. Case is of pressed paper made to imitate leather. Courtesy George Eastman House.
70
souTHWORTH AND HAWES
STUDIO, BOSTON,
Ladv Surroundcd by
Eight Smaller Portraits of Herself. Daguerreotype, about 1S55.
Courtesy Metropolitan Aluacuin of Art,
New
York.
SOUTHWORTH AND HAWES Portrait of an
Unknown
STUDIO, BOSTON,
Lady.
Daguerreotype, about 1855.
Courtesy Metropolitan
Museum
of Art.
71
Little
Smoke, Grandtson
of
Shabbona.
Daguerreotype, about 1S50. PJwtograpIier unkno^yu.
Daguerreotype, 1S56.
Illustrates early use of props in daguerreotype.
Taken by an
2% X 3^/4
Illinois
photographer.
incJies.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
Alan
in
two-wheeled
about iS^S. Set
cart.
in a
Daguerreotype,
pinchbeck frame
and leather case. The image is reversed as in most early daguerreotypes. Courtesy George Eastman House.
s.
w. HARTSHORN, Edgar Allan Poe.
Daguerreotype, 18^8. Taken a year before the
much enamored of the
poet died. Poe was
daguerreotype. In 18^0 he wrote, "In truth the daguerreotyped plate accurate in
painting by
Brown
its
is
infinitely
more
presentation than any
human
hands." Courtesy
University, Providence.
73
SOUTHWORTH AND HAWES
STUDIO, BOSTON
above: Harriet Bcccher Stowc. Daguerreotype, about
i
above, right: John Ouincy Adams, President of the
United
States.
daguerreotype
Daguerreotype copy,, about 18^2. From an original
made
in
1
8^8, the year
died. Both, courtesy Metropolitan
when President Adams
Museum
Assembling a daguerreotype. The
of Art.
made of tooled leather, but soon cheaper substitutes became popular, among them imitation leather and plastic cases made of saM'dust and shellac with elaborate pressed-in designs. The glass, the oval frame,
first
cases M'ere
and the daguerreotype were assembled in a known in England as "pinchbeck"
flexible gilded metal frame
and
in
America
as "preserver";
in the case.
74
then the assembly was placed
Courtesy George Eastman House.
souTiiwoRTii AND HAWES STUDIO, BOSTON, Looking
Down Brattle Street
Toward
Brattle Square Church. Daguerreotype, 1852.
image
reversed, as can be seen in
is
Courtesy Metropolitan
Museum
These sunlight silvered wrist
fii'o
Hudson
(5-
of Art.
illustrations
fell directly
show
that,
when
on a daguerreotype the
image became a negative
and the image became
positive.
The silver
Company's awning.
— a turn of the
a fully recognizable
Courtesy George Eastman House.
75
w •
Nm I
i
1^
1
PART TWO Masters of the Vineteenth Century
I
Fox
Tell hot
Pa|)er Negcitives
and
Positives
The daguerreotype held everyone enthralled— painter, engraver, eteher, lithographer, scientist. Its deli-
cate tonality
and immense
detail, discernible
by magni-
fying glass, seduced everyone away from the rougher picture on paper invented by Henry Fox Talbot and announced the same month.
John Hcrschcl, who named Talbot's invention
Sir
"photography" and who tive"
and "positive"
also coined the
words "nega-
to explain the process, considered
the grainy paper print child's play compared with the silver
image.
The
beauty of the dagucrrcot}pc was unique,
pression
on
on paper
its
im-
not to be compared with a photograph
silver
made by any
or a print
Today we recognize
its
fineness
of the graphic arts.
and appreciate
its
grace-
fulness without expecting the photograph or etching to
emulate It
its
qualities.
was Talbot's invention of a paper negative from
which multiple
prints could be
made that became the The daguerreotype,
foundation of modern photography.
was, had had
uniquely beautiful as
it
than a decade after
was invented.
it
its
day a
little
more
Arago's preliminary announcement of the daguerreo-
type on January in Paris,
He
7,
1839, before the
goaded Fox Talbot
feared that,
if
Academy
of Sciences
to publish his process
first.
Daguerre's invention was similar to
liis
own,
his years of
all
work would go
had the noted
Michael Faraday present
meeting of the Royal
stitution in
and
leaves,
of Venice,
London
at a
scientist In-
several of his pictures of flowers,
lace, figures
from
a painted glass,
made by superimposition
all
and a view
of object or en-
graving on sensitized paper. In addition, Faraday exhib-
number
ited a
of Talbot's "pictures representing the
my home
architecture of
On
country
in the
summer
the camera obseura in the
.
.
.
May Be Made to
"Some Account of the Art Which Natural
Delineate Themselves without
the Aid of the Artist's Pencil." In
experiments conducted by
Davy, devot-
to do, but Talbot
what they admitted they were unable
how he accomplished
did not explain
it.
Three weeks
on February 20, Talbot sent the Royal Society
later,
second
letter, in
which he
a
listed further discoveries in
"photogenic drawing" and then gave
full particulars
of
how he fixed the image— in a solution of common salt. In The Pencil of Nature, published in 1844, the first book
illustrated
with photographs, Talbot describes what
gave him the idea of making permanent the pictures that
he saw through the camera obseura. in
He
writes that
October, 1833, while he was at Lake
Como
it
was
in Italy
and was trying
to copy nature with the aid of Wollaston's
camera lucida.
"I
ment
came
to the conclusion that the instru-
required a previous knowledge of drawing which
unfortunately
I
did not possess.
I
then thought of trying
method which I had tried many years before. The method was to take a camera obseura and to throw again a
the image of the objects on a piece of paper in fairy pictures, creations of a
its
focus-
moment, and destined
as
rapidly to fade away. It was during these thoughts that
the idea occurred to me,
how charming
would be
it
if it
fect "miniature picture of the objects before
had been placed." He washing the paper
materials. Paper
he had to do was was the answer
he could submerge salt
and then,
silver nitrate,
a sheet of
when
it
was
for
paper dr)-,
to find the proper
him. in a
dip
it
He
found that
weak solution
of
in a solution of
thereby forming in the fibers of the paper
the light-sensitive chemical,
silver chloride.
He first made
salt
silver chloride
could be more effectively removed, so that the image
would not change soda, which Sir
in sunlight,
by using hyposulphite of
John had found twenty \ears before,
1819, to be the best solvent of silver
Talbot discovered,
ni
salts.
1840— as had Daguerre two
in
eadier— that he did not have
to wait for the
years
image to
become visible. Development of the latent image enabled him to take a picture in minutes where it had formerly taken him hours.
No
longer was
peep through a hole cut
in the
it
him to ascertain when
necessary for
camera to
the image was visible. Magically, the image appeared
when
the paper was developed in gallic acid. After devel-
opment, Talbot used
hot solution of hypo to
fix
the
it,
and
transparent by waxing the paper.
lie
a
image, washed the negative in pure water, dried
then
made
it
contact-printed
these negatives by sunlight on silver
chloride paper, the simple paper that he had used from
the beginning of his experiments.
These types,"
he
improved negatives he called "ealo-
brilliantly
from the Greek meaning "beautiful pictures," but
later called
them
" Talbotypcs."
Quite unexpectedly,
in 1841, the
wealthy Fox Talbot
patented the process, limiting the number of photographers to those
who would pay
daguerreotype had been patented tional recognition
his license fee.
The
England; interna-
in
and a substantial pension had been
given Daguerre in France. Talbot had received
little rec-
ognition in England for his paper process, which he had
and was deprecated
changes
it
After Talbot's invention was announced. Sir John
not patented
effect
which
image by
common
in a strong solution of
themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper!"
in materials, all
fixed this inch-square
or with potassium iodide.
were possible to cause these natural images to imprint Talbot reasoned that, since light could
in
securing in each, after only a 30-minute exposure, a per-
he referred to the
it
Wedgwood and
ing a paragraph to "the art of fixing the shadow," which is
Abbey, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, and succeeded
Herschel suggested to him that the unused
of Photogenic Drawing, or the Process by
Objects
small cameras his wife called "mousetraps." Tal-
bot placed a number of them around his home, Lacoek
made with
of 1855."
the last day of January, 1839, Talbot read before
the Royal Society his report,
The
for naught. Before
the end of January Talbot
when he had published
it
two years before
as inferior to Daguerre's process.
Pique and the desire to reap some financial benefits-
he had spent $35,000— seem to have moved him his process.
This was the
was to secure, exacting prosecuting those
who
first
of
royalties
many
from
to patent
patents Talbot
all
and vigilanth
dared infringe.
Many patents he secured
were
already in existence, such as the
for inventions that
method
of
were
development
copies of engravings, flowers, and lace, but, by the sum-
by means of
mer
the Reverend Joseph Bancroft Reade in 1837 but never
of 1835,
he had experimented with both large and
small cameras.
gallic acid,
which had been employed by
published or patented.
79
In his patent of June
i,
1843, Talbot included hyposul
to license photographers taking portraits for profit. For-
phite of soda as a fixing agent; this had been suggested to
him
He
four years earlier by
also included
same procedure
to check
on
discoverer Sir John
an enlarging process in
I
lerschel.
this patent, the
which Alexander Woleott had been
for
given a patent a few
There was no
its
months
scientific
before.
board
in
tunes had been made in this field: Richard Beard in London had realized $200,000 in one year, and huge sums had been made by Claudet, Mayall, Collcn, and others, and by many photographers in Europe and America. Portraiture by Talbotype
England
time
at that
originality or to appraise the merit of a
ready doomed.
The
and daguerreotype was
who had given it freely new process was a and basically the same— the nega-
invented in 1851 by Scott Archer,
patent. In 1843 Talbot also patented books illustrated
to the worid. Talbot claimed that the
with photographs, for he was contemplating publication
variation of his patent
of his Pencil of Nature. This six-part well as an explanatory text
book contains,
as
tive-positive principle applied to glass instead of paper.
by the author, the history of
his invention and 24 actual photographs of architecture, still lifes,
sculpture,
and scenes around Talbot's house.
During 1845 Talbot published
his
who demanded
criticized
that he relax his
second illustrated
discoveries
He
his patent rights.
The
him
At long
summer
last, in
the
for artists, scientists,
is
its
guilty;
The
president of the
refused to pay license fees.
composition,
jury
if it is
is it
or
is it
not,
first
is
If it is,
the defend-
not guilty."
guilty. They also found and true inventor of the Talbotype;
this they explained as
of 1852, he freed the process
he
not a chemical
found LaRoehe not
Talbot to be the
to relinquish his stifling controls.
and amateurs, but retained the
professional portraitist
LaRoehe
Talbot sued. The jury heard arguments regarding photochemistry which gave the perplexed judge a hard tmie as
ant
Royal Academy and the president of the Photographic Society appealed to
Fox Talbot's monopoly
A
equivalent with gallonitrate of silver?
continued to prosecute and would not
abandon any of
ease that broke
to court in 1854.
Silvester
reagents, in
that others had gi\en freely to the world. This did not
deter him.
was brought
he summed up the case for their benefit: "Is pyrogallic acid, though it may differ in shape, in its actions with
by indignant writers
monopoh- on
The celebrated named
book, containing 23 photographs, entitled Sun Pictures in Scotland.
Talbot was rebuked and
al-
collodion process on glass had been
meaning the
first
to publish or dis-
close the process to the public.
Talbot's hold could have been broken eadier. Sir John
right
ANTOiNE CLAUDET, Portrait of Fox Talbot. Daguerreotype 1S44. Courtesy George
Eastman House, Rochester.
^^^
/^
'"
Jte-—
^^^^
Sketch by Fox Talbot
made M-ith WoUaston's camera lucida,
October 6, iS^^. Courtesy Royal Photographic Society, London.
81
Herschel in 1859
pubhshcd
made photographs on
glass
and had
his findings. Talbot's patents applied only to
fessional dagucrrcotypists, \\'^illiam
gcnhcim
and Frederick Lan-
of Philadelphia, for $6,000.
The Langcnheims
paper.
never sold a single license in the States, where the
John Herschel was one of the greatest inventors of photographic processes. A most important invention of
preferable,
Sir
his that
is still
in use
is
the cheapest, simplest permanent
process for copying drawings or maps, the
common
blue-
tiple prints
and where the
little
demand
faster
and
created for mul-
could be satisfied by lithographing copies of
photographs or by rephotographing the subject or the dagucrreot\pe.
print.
Talbot did strange things. in the
daguerreotype remained unpatented, was
United States
process in England.
six
Courtesy Metropolitan
patented the Talbotype
years after
He sold
FOX TALBOT, Wiltou Housc.
He
he patented the
the patent rights to the pro-
Ccilotypc, about iS^^.
Museum
of Art,
New
York.
It is is
nevertheless to
Fox Talbot
that the entire world
indebted for the invention of the negative-positive
process,
from which
all
modern photography
stems.
FOX TALBOT, Lace. "Photogenic drawing," 18^3. Courtesy Gernshcim Collection, London.
FOX TALBOT,
first
pdpcr ncgutivc, one inch square. Lacock
Abbey, August, 1S35. Courtesy Science Museum, London.
/ Au^^^y^
/PoS'
83
FOX TALBOT, Breakfast Table. Photograph,
usmg paper
18/^0.
Technique,
negative, called "photogenic drawing'
by inventor.
Sir
John F.
W. Herschel's photograph on glass, of his
father's observatory, 1S59.
Courtesy Science
London,
Fox Talbot's two
earliest
Museum,
for all three pictures.
cameras with peep holes, and a
third designed for the later calotype process. Before development
of the "latent image," peep holes permitted photographers to see
when image was fully exposed on
negatives.
85
Fox Talbot's first
Pencil of Nature,
book published with
photographs. Issued in
original six parts
between 18^^ and 18^6, with pictures pasted in by hand.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
FOX TALBOT, The Broom
From
(left)
Pencil of Nature. Calotype,
and Books
iS..^.j-..^6.
(above).
Courtesy
The
Harold White Collection, Bromley, Kent, England.
86
FOX TALBOT, Lacock Abbey
From Pencil
{left)
and The Ladder (below)
of Nature. Calotype, 1844-46. Courtesy
HaroldWhite
Collection, Bromley, Kent, England.
The
^
Fox Talbot's calotype establishment seen from portrait
at
Reading, England, about 18^5. His assistants,
two separate exposures, are copying a painting, taking a printing by sunlight, and photographing a piece of sculpture.
left to right in
from
life,
What the man kneeling at the right is doing is a mystery. Courtesy Science Museum.
89
Paper envelope of the firm of PInladelphia, for the
W. 6- F. Langcuheiin
iS^S,towliom Talbot sold patent
Paper negative and print signed "Made by W. Alarch
90
rights
United States. Courtesy George Eastman House.
5,
(5 F.
1849." Courtesy George
Langenheim,
Eastman House.
w. &
F.
LANGENHEiM, The Merchant's Exchange, Philadelphia. Calotype, 18^9. Signed and sent to Fox Talbot as a sample. Gift of Miss M. T. Talbot,
Lacock Abbcv, Endand. throuiih Harold White, to George Eastman House.
91
Cathedral at Evreux.
Calotype negative, 18^0.
Unknown French
photographer.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
HENRI LE sEco,
Fisliiiig Boats Pulled up on a Beach in France. Paper negative and calotype, i8p. Courtesy George Eastman House.
92
and
Hill
Adamsoii:
The Rreat Onllcibomtion
I'he greatest exponents of the calot\pc process were
two men of Edinburgh, Scotland (where Fox Talbot's patent restrictions did not extend), a painter, David
Octavius Hill, and a chemist-photographer, Robert Adamson. Collaborators for onh fi\'e years— Adamson died at the age of t\vent\ -seven in the )ear 1848— they took more than 1,500 pictures, including some of the finest portraits in the histon,- of
How
photography.
Adamson was
necessary the young technician
the association
is
to
evident from the fact that Hill pro-
duced few memorable photographs
after
Adamson's
death, although he attempted to collaborate with other
photographers
whom
he
directed.
Together Hill and Adamson made some superb tures,
posing people singly, in pairs, or
sunlight, simulating interiors
in
by placing chairs and other
props and backdrops behind and around the figures. subjects held head in a
prop and assuming
lasting
1
is
or posed leaning
a relaxed, natural
The
body against
pose for exposures
to 3 minutes.
Character
tempt
hand
pic-
groups in open
is
made
boldly expressed in each portrait. to hide lined features.
arc left to emphasize the black face, repeated dramatically
No
at-
Often deep shadows
and white masses of the
throughout
all
parts of the
picture, in the hands, in the garments, as well as in the
backgrounds. Detail was sacrificed, for the paper negative
could never compete with the daguerreotype
in securing
seductive detail. Areas of light and dark were handled like the chiaroscuro in a It
was
in
drawing by Rembrandt.
1843 that Hill turned to the use of the camera
when he was commissioned by
the Free
land to paint an enormous picture, the Act of Separation and
monumental canvas delegates
who
Hill
Deed
n'4" by all
Church
of Scot-
5'o", Signing
of Demission.
was to portray
resigned from the
Church
On
this
470 minister-
of Scotland,
on
the grounds that the congregation had the right to choose
own ministers, and then met in general assembly to commemorate their freedom from Queen and landed its
Hill
and Adamson secured
studies of practically
all
likenesses
and character
the delegates in the few short
years of their partnership. Besides these photographs,
they took pictures of celebrated
men and women,
of nobility, sailors, fishermen, and
women,
people
as well as
landscapes of their native Scotland. Each of their pictures
was marked with the unique
artistry of their col-
laborative seeing. I'hey devised a perfect
way of using
creatively the imperfect paper negative. Hill
later
became
a painter of
was an accomplished lithographer; before he was
nineteen he had published a portfolio of thirty litho-
moody,
literary,
romantic land-
scapes.
He
poems
of Robert Burns; these were engraved
painted a series of canvases interpreting the
lished as Tlie
Land
and pub-
of Burns.
In 1866, four years before his death. Hill's culminating
work
to
which he had devoted twenty-two years of
his
and the huge canvas was accepted by the sponsor, 1 he Scottish Free Church. All the ministers can be identified, as can Hill himself, his life
was
wife,
at long last finished,
and the lamented Adamson with
picture
still
hangs
in
The
his camera.
the Presbytery Hall in Edinburgh.
Hill's paintings are
gentry.
He
graphs depicting scenery in Perthshire, Scotland.
not often remembered in discus-
sions of nineteenth-century art. Flis work, with
some few
now
exceptions, pieces like the small painting Leith Pier
would perhaps be
in the National Gallery of Scotland,
entirely forgotten
with
Adamson
It is
in
if it
had not been
photography.
to the everlasting credit of
photographer
for his collaboration
in the 1890s
J.
who made
Craig Annan, a prints
from
their
old paper negatives, that interest was revived in these two
pioneering Scotsmen, whose penetrating portraits are
now conceded field of
to
be some of the
finest ever
made
in the
photography.
D.wiD ocT.wius HILL, Lcith Pier. Oil painting on
wood panel,
1S40,
iiYi X 1^ Vi inches.
Courtesy The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.
95
DAVID OCTAVIUS
IIII.I,
AND ROBERT ADAATSON
above: John Henning and Alexander Handyside Ritchie.
Calotype, about 18^^.
were his associates
above
96
The two noted sculptors, friends of Hill,
the Royal Scottish Academy,
Photograph of a Man. Calotype, about iS.:^6. Both, The Art Institute of Chicago, Stciglitz Collection.
right:
courtesy
in
above: hill and adamson, fames
Nasnn th.
Calotype, i8^y Portrait of the engineer
and inventor of the steam Courtesy
The Art
lunnuicr.
Institute of Chicago,
Steiglitz Collection.
above Hill.
left:
robert adamson, David Octavius
Calotype, about iS^^. Courtesy
Ceorge Eastman House, Rochester.
HILL AND ADAMSON, Portrait of Caloty{:)e negative
a Minister.
and print, about iS^j;
contemporary print made from the original paper negative. Courtesy George Eastman House.
97
HILL AND ADAMSON right:
Mrs.
Anna Browncll Jameson, author.
Calotype, about 1S46.
Mrs. BrowueU's works included Visits and Sketches, a four-vohnne account of her impressions of travel in Germany Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago, Steiglitz Collection
below
left:
Newha\-cn Fisherwomen. Calotype, about 1S45
Contemporary print made from original paper negative Courtesy George Eastman House below
right:
Lord Patrick Robertson. Calotype, about iS^j
and Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen, to wlunr Walter Scott gave the nickname, "Patrick of the Paunch.'
Jurist
Courtesy
The Art
Institute of Chicago, Steiglitz Collection
HILL, Detail jrom Signing of the
Fainting completed in
i
S66. Hill
is
Deed
of Demission.
seen with pencil and sketchbook,
Adanison with camera. Courtesy Gernsheim Collection, London.
HILL AND ADAMSON.
Two rare calotype photograplis of
landscapes, both taken between iS^^
Courtesy George Eastman House. above: right:
100
St.
Andrews.
Ruins of Castle and Sea.
and
18^8.
lOI
Early
Wet
ricite
Photography
experimented, none too success-
Sir Jciiin IIersciiel ful]}, witli glass
instead of paper or metal as a backing
Niepce de
for sensitive silver salts.
of
Niccphore Niepce, perceixcd
St.
Victor, a cousin
in 1847,
upon studying
Sir John's report
published in the Journal of the Royal
Society, that Sir
John had
failed to coat the glass
with
a suitable organic substance to serve as a binder for the sensitive silver.
A
soldier b}- profession but
an amateur
scientist
by
a\ocation, Niepce de St. Victor lost his laboratory in the
Re\olution of i8^S when the barracks
in
which he
re-
sided were destroyed. lie nevertheless continued his studies,
experimenting
first
with starch and gelatin and
then more satisfactorily with whites of eggs.
To
the
white of egg he added a few drops of iodide of potassium
and bromide of potassium plus salt, it
thoroughh u hipped
it
a
few grains of
into a froth,
common
and then strained
through fine muslin. This solution of iodized albumen he used to coat a
sheet of glass and, it
by immersing
it
be used wet or dry a
much
type.
when
it
was thoroughly
dry, sensitized
The plate could the camera, but when dry it required
in nitrate of silver.
in
longer exposure than did a daguerrcotjpe or calo-
Con\inced that
his invention
would have some im-
portance in the world of photography, Niepce de \'ictor
communicated
to the
Academy
his
albumen process
of Sciences in Paris.
St.
in June, 1848,
Immediately
after publication of the proeess, modifi-
cations
and improvements were suggested
up the
sensitized
albumen
so that
it
for speeding
could be used for
make
solved guncotton, ether, and alcohol to (this
collodion
formula had already been known to medicine for
several years)
and blended
with a solution of
this
silver
taking portraits and figures, as well as architecture and
iodide and iodide of iron. This mixture was coated on a
landscape.
clean glass plate, which was then immersed in a solution
To
eliminate the grain and other imperfections in
of distilled water
and
and exposed wet
silver nitrate,
in
paper, L. D. Blanquart-Evrard conceived the idea of
the camera.
coating paper with albumen for positives. After de-
collodion was
velopment, he dipped the print
than albumen or any of the other photographic methods.
in a solution of chloride
of gold, to achieve a range of cold pleasing tones in
browns and grays
make
as well as to
more
the image
permanent.
plate
still
and the
for
more than
forty
was astronomical. All over the world hundreds of
millions of eggs were broken
Mow
albumen paper, which
for
most popular paper
lasted as the
open annually
for the
were un-
bakeries.
who had improved
Blanquart-Evrard,
who
never mentioned
the calotype
'I'albot as its original
inventor, established in Lille, France, the
method
production, assembly-line
ployed about 40
girls,
each of
He em-
of printing.
whom
mass-
first
was trained to
1S51 in France the
first
album
of views with original
photographs, and in the following year was the
first
publish a book, Egyptc, Niibic, Palestine et Syrie,
to
illus-
trated with original photographs. This was an exceptionally attractive
volume consisting of 125
brilliant prints
from paper negatives taken by Maxime noted writer turned photographer,
who
Du Camp,
a
toured the mid-
East for two years with the brilliant author and
critic,
Gustave Flaubert.
The paper
provement before processes,
it,
like the
fell
into
daguerreotype and
all
other
limbo with the advent of
Scott Archer's invention of the wet-collodion process.
Gustave Le Gray,
the gelatine dry plate was marketed commercially.
in 1851,
immersed the paper negative
wax until it was completely impregnated, and then dried and sensitized the paper. The negative was now in
now eliminow be kept up
his invention
without restrictions and
died impoverished at the age of forty-four in 1857. His
name today
is
hardly
known even by
commercial photoengravers
all
was necessary to develop the plate
caused
considerable
the waxed-paper process, Gustave Lc Gray experimented
with collodion on glass and claimed to have invented the collodion process— but this was several months after Scott Archer in
London had announced the
of collodion for
albumen on
formula
Chemist, March, 1851.
in TJie
glass
substitution
and had published
his
Scott Archer, a British sculptor and photographer, dis-
since
this all
preparations of the plate had to be done in total or semi-
Not only was it necessary for the photographer move with cameras, tripods, lenses, chemicals, glass
darkness. to
plates of various sizes to
measuring pots and darkroom;
A
all
fit
trays,
his cameras, distilled water,
he had to lug along
of this paraphernalia
handcarts
also a
weighed about 120
was invariably used for developing,
tent
although wicker baskets, boats, railway
cars,
were at times transformed
wagons, and
to
serve
this
purpose.
The
wet-collodion process was immediately applied to
portraiture. In America,
where the daguerreotype held
and demand longer than anywhere in Europe, a patent was issued for "ambrotype" portraits made in in fashion
the adxantagc of being \isiblc at
dry. In addition to inventing
mountain
particulariy
difficulty,
the
two weeks and then used
still
directly after ex-
posure. In extreme climates of desert or
nated; and, above
the negative could
who
Since the ether in the collodion evaporated quickly, it
transparent; imperfections of the paper were all,
the innumerable
over the world
use his invention of the wet-collodion process.
pounds.
negative experienced one further major im-
could have fortunes for
not to be superseded until more than thirty years later
per-
a specific operation. Blanquart-Evrard published in
He
made untold
Scott Archer!
himself and his heirs, for the wet-collodion process was
Archer announced
to
proeess was faster
seconds exposure in direct sun-
3
generous was
and
early
The new
patented his invention and
when
form
be developed while the
to
resulting subtleties of tonality
whites, the yolks either being wasted or sold to tanneries
process but
moist.
required only 2 or
It
light,
had
equaled by any existing processes.
The consumption of eggs years,
The
same
sizes as
daguerreotypes and advertised as Inning all
times, not, like the
mirror-like surface of the silver image, only in certain lights.
Ambrotypes (from the Greek were negative portraits on
glass
for "imperishable")
deliberately underex-
posed to make a faint image. These were backed up with black paper or velvet or sometimes painted black.
As the image was
reversed,
it
was often the practice to
lay the glass negative face-down
on the paper or velvet
103
to
make
it
appear
as a protecting co\er, the entire in
Thebes, and fragments of architecture peering through
W^ith a sheet of glass
as a positive.
the backed up waters of the Nile at Philae.
assembly was then placed
an elaborate designed "union"
case,
uhich made
How
it
and resourcefujness
resemble even more closely the costlier daguerreotype.
who
Three photographers
took superb pictures
m
Frith of England
The Middle
the Alps of Switzcriand, were Francis
much faster summer da}"
and the Bisson brothers of
darkroom tent had
East was part of
P" ranee.
demand
for
photographs of Egyptian antiqui-
than the usual 10 minutes in
England. E\er\'
would often reach 110 degrees, and
sufficient negatives to
\arious-
tremendous plates measuring 16
more than 800 miles
to the Fifth Cataract,
at
I,
r lIOT'M'rR A
make
original
of his experiences.
From
Europe and
a selection of extraordinary
book on
photographs and descriptions
his three trips to
Egypt and the
also
made
twenty-four photographs
illustrat-
ing Longfellow's Hyperion, his finest photographs are
those he took the
the monumental sculpture submerged in the sands at
A
these hardships Frith secured
graphs covering his extensive travels throughout western
took
Gizeh. the Temples at Karnak and Luxor,
PK.\<'Tir
all
Land Frith published a total of seven books. Though he assembled many more portfolios of photo-
magnificent pictures of the Pyramids and the Great
Sphinx
Despite
Eg\pt containing
beyond
He
the present border of Egypt and the Sudan.
entirely.
LIol)-
by 20 inches. Starting from the Delta, he went up the river
tem-
At times the
pictures for publication the following year in a
also a talented photographer, P'rancis h\ith of London,
for
inside, at
sudden sandstorms would pockmark the plates or ruin
demand from which A publisher who was
up the Xile taking pictures with
The
ether, held inside the airless
tent
they reaped considerable
one
be carefully husbanded.
were suffocating. I'he heat of the desert outside the
them
sized cameras,
in the stifling
tent,
photographers to appease this public
in i8'56 traveled
to
took on a hot
it
movement
peratures of 130, the collodion boiled.
ties and \iews of the Nile River and of the Holy Land. Publishers in Europe and England sent expeditions of
profit.
fortitude
required of Francis Frith to get
fumes evaporating from the
the Grand Tour during
the latter part of the nineteeth century, creating a
constant
it
What
them! In the dry heat of Egypt the wet-collodion dried
\\-ith
the collodion process, one in the deserts of Egypt and the other two
spectacular a series of pictures!
first
years with his
camera on
his trips
PHBE.
Advertisement for albumen paper, about i860. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
Glace albumen paper FINK,
WHITE AND PEARL. (BtTPBRlOB COLOR
AKD
prNIBE.) Gelatine or Blood
JNo "HjEJJST^FjR utt/'^-S'^h'^is ^
'"::x^.^
Will not Blister or soften in the Solutions,
and
is
by i-hangcs of temperature. No speeial formula required. Prints Brilliant and Tones easily.
not aflectcd
Price, per
104 If
Per Doien, SI .OO
Ream, S38.00
you -want a reliable paper, send yo\ir orders to
DOUGLASS, THOMPSON & QiTTod
A.
Doooum.
229
&
CO.,
231 STATE STREET, CHICAGO.
Niepcc de SaintA'ictor. Photographer unknown. The inventor of the albumen process, from a photoeopy of an albumen origmal, about Portrait of
1S4.S.
to the old,
be seventy-six years
zero cold of the Alps and, after development, were
photographers using the collodion process,
washed with melted snow. Despite the imperfect coating of the plates, which accounts for the uneven quality in
Middle
East. Frith
hved
to
dying in 1898.
To some
Courtesy George Eastman House.
the photographs of the mountains are superbly
the hot light and hardships of the desert were not com-
the
parable to the cold light and hardships of the mountains.
designed and dramatically composed in bold areas of
It
became
a feat of endurance to take pictures in the
intense cold of ice and
approximately the Alps.
1
Some
of the finest piiotographs of
scenes ever taken are the
and
snow on windswept peaks
at
6,000 feet, in the heady atmosphere of
his brother,
work
mountain
of Louis Auguste Bisson
Auguste Rosalie. In an album owned
by Eastman Mouse the pictures contained are
all
marked
with a stamp in red ink on the lower right corner, "Bisson Freres."
Entitled
Mont
Blanc and
Its
the
Glaciers,
twenty-four photographs range in size from 9 inches by 15 inches to 12 inches by 17 inches. I'hey were
made by
the brothers Bisson in i860 on a mountain-climbing expedition
when
they accompanied
and Empress Eugenie
Emperor Napoleon
to Switzerland.
The
plates
III
were
coated with collodion which bareh flowed in the below-
skies,
black and white.
The
brothers repeated the ascent the
following year, setting out from
and a band of porters
Chamonix with guide
to carr}- their
They reached the summit
photographic gear.
in the early morning, broke
out the equipment, heated the collodion over weak
lamps in the
bitter cold, sensitized the plates,
pictures, developed
or froze, then
water.
From
took the
them before the collodion hardened
washed the developed negatives
in ice-cold
managed to and started down
the top of the mountain they
get three pictures, repacked their gear,
the dangerous descent.
Lower down the dedicated men
again assembled the camera and equipment for several
more
excellent views on the open glacier.
Louis Auguste Bisson was
known
to
have made da-
guerreotypes as early as 1840, portraying a smiling infant,
105
Portrait of
George Cruikshank. Wet-collodion
process, 185^. Photographer caricaturist
a
and
wit.
daguerreotype exhibition
licld
of Paris. In the
in
Paris
in
Ambrotype, iS^y The
inventor of the wet-collodion process, which revolutionized
Courtesy George Eastman House.
mourning procession, and the bridges
first
Portrait of Frederick Scott Archer.
unknown. The English
1844,
photography. Courtesy Science
Museum, London.
boldly emblazoned "Photographic \'an," he took pictures of the fortifications, ships
and
stores, installations,
Frangois Arago singled out one of Auguste's daguerreo-
battlefields, officers,
types for an award.
attractive behind-the-lines canteen operators seen in
The
architecture
and
chemistr)-,
who
war,
who doubled
The
heat of the Russian peninsula in the Black Sea,
artist
but became a pupil of
Dagucrre the year the process was announced and in less
than a year opened a studio with his brother.
It is
not for their daguerreotypes, however, that the
Bisson brothers are remembered, nor for their landscapes, architectural subjects,
and copies of paintings that
they used to illustrate books, but rather for their fearless assaults
on
Mont
any
Auguste studied
Bisson brothers were the sons of an
specialized in heraldic painting. Louis
and men, and some of the most
Blanc when they secured a mere hand-
coupled w
illi
as nurses for Florence Nightingale.
the necessary long exposures, created hard-
ships in preparing the short-lixed collodion glass plates,
which often kept Fenton from taking photographs during the several hottest hours of the
da\-.
Despite
all
discomforts and the sicknesses epidemic in the area,
Fenton succeeded less
than four months.
came the
more than 300 negatives in trained painter, Fenton over-
in securing
A
obstacle of his big cameras, which prohibited
ful of exceptionally beautiful pictures.
instantaneous pictures, by encompassing in his ground
Another courageous photographer, the first to cover a war under fire, was Roger Fenton, who photographed the
glass
Crimean
106
War in
185;.
Equipped with
a
darkroom wagon
vast subjects
and wide
vistas
creating engaging
compositions. These are often dramatically theatrical,
sembling the romantic painting of the period
in
re-
mood.
Equally theatrical are his posed portraits of the fashion-
He
ably appareled generals.
bush" seated around
Photographers the world over turned to the use of the wet-plate process.
The
Indian Mutiny of 1857 was
corded by F. Bcato, a photographer
Campbell
(later to
whom
re-
Sir
John
become Lord Clyde) included
in his
took a
snowshoes
series of
in
moose and
buffalo hunters in "the
a tent, trappers
snow made
of salt
and guides wearing
and white-fox
Indian boy with a loaded toboggan,
all
fur,
an
held rigid in most
complicated poses inside his Montreal studio, where he created elaborate settings praised as
more
realistic
The
faster
and
than
command when he stormed and subdued Lucknow and
those actaially found in nature.
other centers of the massacre.
wet-collodion process freed the artistry and imagination
William Notman famous
in the 1860s
became
for his wet-plate pictures of
internationally
Canadian pioneers.
of photographers,
clouds, rolling waves,
and a ship
in
first
time,
motion have been stopped with "instantaneous"
artist,
photographer, and inventor of the
waxcd-papcr process. Courtesy George Eastman House.
left
astounding records of their
day throughout the entire world.
GUSTAVE LE GRAY, Scascapc. Wet-collodiou photograpli, 1S56, For the photography. Le Gray was an
who
versatile
A.
MACGLASHOx, Bullock ^\^ago^
photograph, 18^6.
in
Melbourne, Australia. Wet-collodion
One of the earliest photographs taken
later collaborated briefly
in Australia.
MacGlashon
with David Octavius Hill in Edinburgh in 1S62. Courtesy George Eastman House.
108
v^ jSr'
/
Two wood engravings of the pJwtograpIiefs pack, jo to pounds
120
of equipment, during the wet-collodion period. In the
iSyos the Scoville trademark was overprinted on the engraving
made
earlier in
France. Courtesy George Eastman House.
log
n. B. FIELD,
Shabbona. Ambrotype, 1S57.
Portrait of the cighty-two-ycar-old Indian cliief.
Courtesv Chicago Historical Socictv.
Ambrotype with bhick backing on one half show its negative-positive character. Courtesy George Eastman House.
to
MAXiME Du CAMP,
Colossus of
Abu
Simbcl, Egypt.
Calotype, 18^0. Printed by Blanquart-Evrard.
Courtesv George Eastman House.
no
:y>i-S«:*=^^^^^
^-f^';^-"^
.i^,^j>^i
-i^'^'i^^^
^'I
[:asa»a»^v'^"~v
112
FRANCIS FRITH. Wct-pldte photogruplis. above: Entrance to the "Greek Temple," Luxor, Egypt. 1S56. opposite page, top: Assouan, Egypt. 1S56.
Both, courtesy
The Art
Institute of Chicago.
opposite page, bottom: Pyramid of Cheops and the Sphinx,
Gizch, Egypt. 1S5S. Courtesy George Eastman House.
113
-N
^1
FRITH. Wet-plate photographs, 1S56. left:
Hypostylc Hall, Luxor, Egypt.
below: Approach to Philac, Egypt.
Both, courtesy
The Art Institute
of Chicago.
"5
BissoN FRERES. Five photographs of the Alps. Wet-phitc process, i860.
Taken by the Bisson brothers M'hen they ascended Mont Blanc, accompanying Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie. Courtesy George Eastman House. above: Halfway Point. right:
Entrance to the
Valley of Chamonix.
116
middle:
Mont Blanc. The Range of Mont Blanc.
bottom:
Vmv of the "Garden"
top: Ascension of
from
Mont
Blanc.
117
ROGER FENTON Wet-plate photographs of the Crimean War, 1855. above:
upper right:
The
Fort at the Entrance to Balaclava Harbor.
Graves of Crimean War dead. A "Cantini^re" in the Crimean War. right:
All, courtesy
118
George Eastman House.
,,,M|TiIll»'''.^
m
119
120
FENTON. Wct-plate photographs, iS^^. left: Balaclava Harbor during the Crimean War. opposite page: Portrait
Group of Crimean War Officers.
Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
-'i^-ag^inrw.;
/'/^oiogmp/.s, i8s7-s8. Taken during Indian T°'i?t^'''' above: The Fish Boat and the King's Yacht on Ri\er Jumna
Mutmy
right: Destroyed Barrack of General Sir Hugh Wheeler. Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
121
WILLIAM NOTMAN Four photographs of the right:
early
1
86o's. Aloutrcal,
Colonel Rhodes' Indian Boy.
below: Trapping the Carcajou. opposite page, above: opposite page, below:
Moose Hunting. The Hunters' Camp.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
122
Canada,
123
Hesler:
Pioneer
Alexander Hesler, was considered
a pioneer
in tlie 1850s
daguerreotypists." In 1S51 frontier
tory
photographer of Chicago,
"one of America's greatest
he was photographing the
on the upper Mississippi
where he took
Falls of St. Falls. It
was
he exhibited
in the
connection with
this last picture,
Chicago studio two years
in his
that
photographer was
an autographed
which he sent
es-
Minnehaha Senator Charles Sumner
Falls given
edition of
him by
his
of Massachusetts was
poem Hiawatha.
the inspiration for his
first
acknowledged that
to Hesler,
the daguerreotype of friend
which
later,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
nationally.
in a letter as well as in
Iliawatlia
I'erri-
Anthony, Fort Snelling, and Minnehaha in
his early reputation as a sensiti\'c
tablished
Minnesota
fuh-size daguerreotype plates of the
I'he daguerreo-
type was bought by the Senator's brother from Hesler either in
Chicago
happened
to
or, as
meet
in
one
story has
it,
while they both
Minnesota.
In his journal dated June 22, 1854, Longfellow records, "I
have
upon
at length hit
a plan for a
American Indian which seems the only.
It is
to
into a whole."
weave together
On
to
poem on
the
be the right one and
their beautiful traditions
June 29 Longfellow decided to
call it
Iliawatlia.
What
seems possible
sidering a Lleslcr's
poem on
captivating
named Minnehaha
is
had been consome time and that
that Longfellow
the Indian for
daguerreotype
Falls gave
of
the
poetically
him the impetus
to begin
and complete what was
become one
to
most
of his
cele-
In 1852 the twenty-nine-year-old Hesler was using his
daguerreotype apparatus in Galena, five years since
had been
Illinois. It
Madison, and taking
Minnesota Territory. Though born a
boy when
Wisconsin, and for the
he was considered
a
moved
his family
rest of his life
trijj
to Racine,
(he died in 1895]
midwestern photographer, conduct-
The
first
of
He He opened another. He added a miniature his staff. He learned paper photography, the
wet-collodion process, and the stereograph, which en-
abled
him
he could take any kind
to advertise that
of
photographic commission from a portrait in miniature to
one more than In 1855 he
many
prizes
in
New
lived to maturity. In 1857
he took the famous
Abraham Lincoln
later
at the
American
Institute
York. This was the
and a\\ards he was subsequently
first
of
to receive
whom ruffled-
used as the fron-
He
book by Nicolay and Hay.
photo-
graphed Lincoln in Springfield and in Chicago. His gallery
One
was a rendezvous for
politicians
and
wet-plate picture he took in i860 of
celebrities.
unbearded
ar.
Lincoln was discarded, but fortunately prcser\ed and recently found.
It is
now
Historical Society and,
produced
for the first
in the collection of the
by
their permission,
is
Chicago here
re-
time in any book.
In later years Hesler was to win fame for such photo-
graphs as Picturesque Evauston, but this was in the da\s of art photography and carbon prints, which lost
b\-
then had
the intrinsic beauty and honesty that Hesler had
instilled into his early works.
His best photographs were
taken before the Chicago Fire of 1871.
life size.
won an award
Annual Fair held
learned child photography by personal ex-
tispiece of the
these he established in late 1853 on La Salle Street.
painter to
He
perience, for he was the father of eight, four of
hair portrait of
Montreal,
in
ing studios at various addresses in Chicago.
prospered.
photographs, particularly for his portraits of
it
of the Wisconsin legislature in session before his
he was but
his
portraits
learning the art in Buffalo, practicing
for a couple of years in
to the
for
children.
brated works.
Many
of these
early efforts survived,
but unfortunately the original letter
sent bv Longfellow
believed to have been burned in the
is
great holocaust.
ALEXANDER HESLER, The Mississippi River
Ben Campbell, Galena, Illinois. it>^2. The daguerreotype lias been printed in reverse so that the name can he read. The Ben Campbell was built in 1S51 and burned the summer of 1S60. Packet,
Daguerreotype,
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
"^J 125
HESLER. Ambrotypes, iS^^-^S. right:
Sidewheel Steamboat Planet.
At dock
in
Chicago River.
above: Grain Elevator and Freight Cars. At
mouth
of
Chicago
River, Chicago, Illinois. Both,
courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
126
iiESLER, left:
Levee at Galena,
Daguerreotype, 1852. passenger packet, at
The
Illinois.
U.S. mail
and
New St. Paul was built
New Albany, Indiana, in
packet Nominee, built in
upper Mississippi in
1S52.
iS.^S,
The
sank in the
iS^.^.
above: Panorama of Chicago. Wet-plate
photographs, about iS^8.
Two
of eleven
views forming a complete circular
panorama of Chicago, from dome of City Hall and Court House, summer of 1S5S. All, courtesy
Chicago Historical Society.
127
.'n?©®^4.g> ^,
Nos. 22, 24, 25 and 27 La Salle Street, This
is
and includes
the most eiU'c&ivc cstabli?hnieut of the kind in the worlJ, every branch of
DACCKItREOTVrES ANU AMBKOTVrES Of EVERY STYLE AND SIZE.
From
tin'
smallo't MiiiKiUire, to
I'luin, siiiiiliir,
I-m
iimr''
llic ful]
Uantifiil
lift-
*uc, or full
ami
Uic
Thry are furnished
Portrnil.
lori^izMi
Irultitiil tln\n
rinci-l ."^Lit-l Iliifirtivinga.
MINIATURES PAINTED BY MR. WINTER, WUo 9tau')s unrivftlr-'l in hi-; iTunrh of Hil- art. OIL POBTBAITS. OF ALL BTYLES AND SIZES. BY MR. (Who
has painteO
wiili
lunrkcJ
illuT
gaguemolnpcs Can have
Ibein
COPIED
from
or
jii--ccs6 in Fiiiroj^.'. tin'l l.ilc
or l)iigin;rrfot\
\u-
stan-U
K
J^mbrolupfs of ^bscnt or
of any
&iz«.
wilh
nil
C.
MEBCK.
nt (lie licml of liis profession,)
.1\
Ini
"J?
f cccasclJ
the fidelity and licauty of
life.
rcsiK-clhilly invittd lo c:tU ami see fur llionisvhca. ,^E&* All kinds of Ariis.!?' Daguerrcolyiif, Anibrolypf and riiOtui;rafliic Orders suliciled aud promptly ullcudcd to. the Juwirat prices.
A.
ix'mls. The public are
Goods
for
srtle,
at
HESLER.
HESLER. Daguerreotypes,
each
2% X 3^/4 inches, Chicago, about i8^^. right: Portrait of Ida Ilcslcr.
above: Portrait of the Photographer and His Wife. Botli, courtesy
128
George Eastman House.
HESLER, Portrait of
Abraham
Lincoln.
Previously unpublished photograph, Chicago, iS6o.
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
129
The Stereoscope: Pictures in Pairs
Sir
Charles Wheatstone,
in 183S, described the stereo-
scope, which he had imciitcd
111
an attempt to re-create
mechanically the natural
phenomenon
\ision. In binocular vision
each of our eyes receives a
different image. Tliis
is
binocular
of
important to our perception of
depth because, although our brain combines both images into one, tliat one unified sionalit)
could by
and distance itself.
the eyes two
image con\e\s three-dinien-
as neither of the
two
images
fiat
In a \iewing device Sir Charles offered
flat
spective, each as
drawings of solid objects, each in perit
might have been seen by a
different
dimen-
eye, expecting to create the illusion of the third sion. It
worked none too
nouneement
successful stercoscopy
calotypes of
satisfactoril}. \\
itli
the au-
of photograjDhy the perfect solution
still lifes
seemed
at
to
hand. Fox Talbot made
for Sir Charles' invention, w^hen the
shiny surfaces of the dagucrrcot_\pe were found to be unsatisfactory.
1849 that Sir Da\id Brewster invented a stereoscope with two magnifying lenses separated by It
was
111
2 1/2 inches, the usual distance
between the eyes
beings; he limited the height to 3 inches, to handle. Brewster
showed
a
number
in
making
human it
easy
of pictures in-
cluding a binocular portrait of his good friend Dr. John
Adamson, but could
get
no English optician or photog-
raphy iiouse to manufacture and market his stereoscope.
Duboscq
Jules
in Paris the following year
undertook
globe were available in shops or by mail at the nominal
the eonstruction of Brewster's stereoscope and the prepa-
prices of today's picture postcards ranging
ration of daguerreotypes to
to a
fit.
London
In the Crystal Palaee Exhibition of 1851 in
the
Duboseq and
(Duboseq's father-in-law) stereo-
Soleil
prosper by offering for sale cartcs-de-visite of
type stereo images.
pictures.
enabled him, he
United
all
States. In Philadelphia
over Europe and the J.
Mascher
F.
early in
1853 received a patent for a simple folding stereoscope
made
and two
of a leather box holding two images
Queen
Wendell Holmes was entranced with the travel The details, evoking the illusion of reality,
Oliver
ously popular
met by photographic houses
from a nickel
studio of John Mayall continued to
Victoria and Prince Albert.
scope was exhibited with a fine collection of daguerreo-
The stereoscope became tremendwhen Queen Victoria and Prince Albert admired the display and evinced interest in this new form of photography. Not only did Duboscq and Soleil in Paris manufacture the stereoscope; the demand was
The
quarter.
wodd had
the
said, to
be "a spectator to the best views
He
to offer."
years for the Atlantic
wrote three
Monthly, the
first
two
articles in
in 1859 entitled
"The Stereoscope and the Stereograph,"— the latter word coined to describe the stereopicture. Holmes urged his readers
to
with him, by stereoscope and the
travel
imagination, to the remotest parts of the world "to view the wonders of the Nile, the ruins of Baalbeck,
Ann
a million prism stereoscopes of the
Hathaway's cottage, the rawest Western settlement and
Brewster type were sold by 1856 in England alone.
The
the Shanties of Pike's Peak" (photographers with their
London Stereoscope Company, which
wide
stereoscope cameras had penetrated the frontier for
lenses.
More than
from
selection of stereo slides to choose
quarter each, advertised,
offered a
at about a
"No home without
a stereo-
scope," and offered a viewer for sale at less than a dollar. Sir David Brewster, by 1849, had also invented the
binocular camera but had not had
produced. Until
it
photography supply houses
which appears
he
writes,
in pictures
"The
were used to make stereo pictures. The two-lens camera
to record "the next
English optician
who was
1853 by an
followed immediately by
many
European manufacturers.
Duboscq and
Soleil
with their new camera,
In 1855
made
change depots
and operation of
and he concludes, "we are
for slides,
.
.
.
but before another
lens,
in
received an award in 1849 at the exhi-
Academy
of Sciences
and
in 1851 his officially
1855 he of stereoscopic daguerreotypes of which in
it
will
be recognized that
a
.
slides
a headache.
and
He
it
.
.
took only twenty-five to give one
designed and
stereoscope instrument, a light,
made
a
hand viewer
more
portable horizontal board slotted to receive the
stereograph slides and a small handle below to hold the device up to the eyes.
Some few
small modifications were
made
china painter, a hunter with flower in buttonhole hold-
sliding carrier- but the basic design for the
ing a dead hare, and a pensive
the
man
with head in hand.
London Stereographic Company reality; few homes were without a
was practically a
scope and a batch of
slides.
Hundreds
slogan stereo-
of thousands of
stereographic slides depicting nearh e\cry corner of the
practical
consisting of a
three magnificent, penetrating portraits survive: a lady
By i860
ex-
look-
thousand
working
Using the new binocular camera
a series
would be "imperial, national
already
of optical
daguerreotype of an eclipse of the sun had been praised.
there
photog-
still life
Warren Thompson, an American, had
Me had
cume when
city stereographic libraries,"
new epoch in the history of human progress dates from the time when 'He Who ne\er but in uncreated light. Dwelt from eternity Took a pencil of fire from the hand of tlie angel standing in the sun and placed it in the hand of a mortal'." Holmes by 1861 said that he had viewed a hundred
in Paris at least six years while
raphy.
\\ould
and
European War" and that the time
generation has passed away,
a
the round and, in the lower right-hand
bition held at the
and so makes its illusions perfect." Holmes predicted that the stereoscope would be used
among them
corner, their Brewster stereoscope.
been
would leave
took stereoscopic daguerreotypes
telescope, globe, planetary system, telegraph instrument, in
over the world, and
all
ing into stereoscopes as pretty toys
equipment consisting of an hourglass, binoculars, an alphabet
taken
out or render imperfectly, the photographer takes infinite care with
pictures simultaneously was produced in
Holmes then
very things which an artist
1853 either an ordinary camera set in a groove moved sideways for the second exposure or two single cameras
with the lenses separated by 2V2 inches taking two small
in the East).
called attention to such a uni\'ersal thing as a clothesline,
in
the history of the stereoscope— such as the
most
practi-
cal stereoscope Holmes gave to the world. E. & H. T. Anthony Company of New York and Langenheim Brothers of Philadelphia commissioned
photographers to take not only \icws but pictures of events of the da\
,
which thc\ then sold along with those
131
they imported
from Europe. Untold numbers were
bought. Hohnes's suggestion to develop public stereo
was never aetcd on.
libraries
It is in
our generation that
these stereoscopic cards are considered of historic im-
portance and are
now
being collected.
Interest in the stereoscope
The
first
went through
popularity of the later
the carte de
fifties
The Holmes
Stereograph card, 1859.
From
was superseded by sixties.
In
making of stereographs. This latest of fast color film.
the
CourtesY Geonie Eastman House.
A fancy Brewster-type stereoscope, made in England about The
was opened to view stereos on metal plates. The bottom was opened arid the top lid closed to view stereo transparencies on glass; the stereoscope was then held up to the light. 18^0.
lid
center: Daguerreotype case with lenses for viewing stereo pair. Patented
by Stull, Philadelphia, iS^^. Both, courtesy George Eastman House. far right:
Folding pocket stereoscope, 1855, made in England by J. F. Mascher, Philadelphia, patented the identical
W. E. Kilburn.
construction early in 185^. Courtesy Gcrnshcim Collection, London.
132
re\'ived for several
now made
of alumi-
is
true today, with the fool-
proof special stereo cameras, electric viewers, and the
"Anthony's Instantaneous Views."
right:
was again
num and, again after the turn of the century until Wodd War I, the stereo was popular at various times. All photo-
EDWARD ANTHONY, Broadwav, New York. series:
it
stereoscope was
graphic processes as they developed were turned to the several waves.
fabulous fashion of the
visite, a
the next two decades \ears.
FERRiER AND soLiER, Paris Boulevard. Detail of one part of a positive stereographic pair on glass, i860. An extraordinary early instantaneous photograph. Courtesy George Eastman House.
133
IPI»
?^
i^^
^•^ i!
w I.
'.>
A\i
& H.
ANTHONY,
STAFF CAMERAMAN,
E.
View
New York.
of Broadway,
T.
One part of a stereographic pair, about Collection of Dr. G. L.
i860.
Howe, Rochester.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
135
kv'
A jeweled stereoscope with Arabic inscription set in lid,
t'^m
made by Emmanuel Loudon,
'^^^
*JBi*-7i.:,:
,i»*-'"='
right: Oliver
WcndcWUohncs. Wet-plate photograph,
iS6^.
Photographer unknown. Courtesy George Eastman House. far right:
The Holmes stereoscope, manufactured by Joseph L. Bates, Boston, 1865. Courtesy Bcitinuant Newliall. Rochester.
136
1S62. Courtesy
Gernsheim Collection.
Stereoscopic daguerreotype firm that Sir
first
made by Duboscq and Soleil, Paris optical
manufactured and marketed the stereoscope invented by
David BrcM'ster (one
is
shown in lower right corner). Their product,
purchased by Queen Victoria at London Crystal Palace iS^i, started world-wide interest
in
stereophotography. Courtesy George Eastman House.
137
138
WARREN THOMPSON, American. Three stereoscopic daguerreotypes, Paris, 1S55.
above: Lady China Painter. opposite page, top: Pensive
Man.
opposite page, below: The Hunter
Who Brought His Props.
\
Courtesy George Eastman House.
One part
of a comic stereographic pair.
About i860, France. Photographer unknown. Courtesy George Eastman House.
1
ANTHONY. Stereograph,
From
i
S59-70.
the
series:
"Anthony's Instantaneous Vfeivs." top:
Fourth of July Regatta,
New York.
center: Fourth of July Regatta,
Preparing for the Start. Botli, collection
Dr. G. L. Howe,
Rochester, and courtesy
George Eastinan House. bottom: Looking up Broad\va\
from the Corner of Broome Courtesy
Street.
Museum
of
the City of New York.
140
top:
UNDERWOOD AND UNDERWOOD,
publishers, Colonel
of the
Rough
Theodore Roosevelt
Riders. Stereogruph,
about i8g8. Plwtographer unhiown. Courtesy George Eastman House, center: Interior of C. A. Marsh's
Drugstore, 3d
Avenue at 125th
Street,
New York City. Stereoscope, 1S65. Photographer
Courtesy
Museum
unknown.
of
New York, bottom: W. E. Bowman of Ottawa, the City of
Illinois,
and
his
Wagon. Abouf
Photographic 1S70.
Collection Dr. G. L.
Howe.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
141
Nadar: The //
Titian of Pliotograpliy''
Many
painters, printmakers, and sculptors in France
reacted violently against photography and
its
incredible
popularity. Condemnations were showered upon press articles
and
caricatures.
economic threat to the
Not only had
artist; its
it
it
in
become an
claims as an art torni
were resented. Baudelaire in the Revue Franqaise, 1859, wrote
must
see that photography
is
again confined to
"We
its
sole
which consists in being the servant of science and art, but the ver)' humble senant like t\ pograplu and task,
stenography which have neither created nor improved literature."
What
a far cry from the triumphant shriek of Paul
Delaroche on painting
is
first
dead!"
The camera was a
threat.
The purpose of art was being
changed by the public's demands
more
nesses,
"From today
seeing a daguerreotype,
for
more
e.xact like-
perfect rendition of detail. I'he camera
supplied the people with what they wanted.
Good the lens
new
artists
domesticated the camera. Corot said that
made him view
nature dilTercntly.
technique, combining
arts to create a
new kind
it
with
his
work
He
used the
m the graphic
of print, the c/fc7ie verre.
covered a sheet of glass either with black paint or w
He ith
albumen, uhich he exposed to sunlight to make opaque.
With
a st\lus
he then scratched a design on the coated
surface of the glass
He
tive.
and used the
finished state as a nega-
then printed an entire edition on sensitized
photographic paper, respecting the finished product as he
would
his etchings.
ticed also
The
cliche-vene process was prac-
si.xty-sixth
was the unimaginative
celebrated appeared not as caricatures but as perfect
re-
than their emo-
found the atmosphere so cordial that they met there regulady. Nadar photographed them all: Manet, Corot, Dumas, Monet, Baudelaire, Georges Sand,
who found
Delacroix, Sarah Bernhardt, Daumier, Dorci, Beriioz,
abandoning pencil
Wagner, and an uncountable number of others. He invariably signed his prints, as an artist would his etchings
who
artists,
superficial appearances of things rather
and interpretations
tional responses
camera a crutch and
and brush
painted the
of nature,
aid, often
for the heavily detailed pictures they could
make with chemicals and memorable work
lens.
in either
These inept
artists left
artists turned to photography and used Those who did are remembered as artists with the camera. "Nadar," pseudonym for Gaspard Felix Tournachon, was such an artist. Daumier caricatured
in his lithographs, ridiculing
as spiritless
it
and
satirizing the bourgeoisie for their attitude
the
new
toward
invention. Nadar, however, he respected as a as
an
artist, for,
of the camera,
despite the mechanical quality
Nadar concentrated on
and emphasized the psychological subjects.
He made
subject as
much
salient feature of
face
and gesture
characteristics of his
the pose exj^ress the character of a
as did the face,
and he made every
body and face stand out by permitting
no props or backgrounds
attested by the fact that the great painter, Ingres, sent to
French
is
classicist
Nadar every person whose
like-
ness he wanted. According to Ingres's biographer, E.
de Mireeourt, Ingres painted
his
remarkable portraits
from these photographs without having a need subject to be present. Artists called
for the
Nadar "the Titian
to the
camera by way of the theatre; he
was a playwright. As an painter of portraits.
Daumier
As
artist
he was a well-respected
a journalist he
as a caricaturist for Charivari.
thirty, in 1850,
worked with
At the age
of
Nadar was the darling of the boulevards,
celebrated for his wit; but neither theatre, salon, nor journal offered
him
sufficient livelihood.
udiced against photography, like
most
his brother Adrien's studio in 1852,
Though
artists,
prej-
he joined
but the partnership
soon ended in the law courts. In 1854 Nadar published Le Pantheon Nadar, a huge lithograph composed of 280 caricatures; this
an
sharply delineated daguerreotype
realistic,
day that he emulated rather than the work
earlier
who were
of later photographers
hazy
striving for the fuzzy,
effects dear to the Impressionists.
painters were as
was the
first
in a
proposed
set of four.
Impressionist
obsessed with sunlight and the most enthusiastic photographer. The
much
out-of-doors as the
occupying seen
solid objects
The
reality the painters trans-
their palette of misty color into a hazy,
formed with
created unreality of shimmering beauty. jected their work, as did the
The
public
academic painters and
re-
their
coterie of critics.
Nadar turned over his studio
for the
first
Impressionist
took daring and courage to flaunt
Exhibition
111
the
Salon and the press, but this action was typi-
official
1874.
It
the Radical Republican, Nadar,
who
fifteen years
eadier had refused to follow Napoleon III with his
balloon photography because he had not believed
m
the
Emperor's Franco-Prussian War.
Nadar was the first aerial photographer, taking pictures successfully
from a balloon
failed, for the gas
m
1856. His
first
efforts
seeping out of the balloon caked the
collodion on his plates.
Nadar had
to coat
the wet-collodion plates, crouching in a
of Photography."
Nadar came
of
cal of
to interfere with the person.
were the photographs of Nadar
extraordinar)'
was the
It
creatively.
photography
or lithographs.
medium.
Too few good
How
Octavius
of note
sold during his lifetime.
man and
id
Hill: to photograph his subjects before drawing their caricatures. Nadar's great portraits of the literati and the
volumes of Galerie de Contemporain. Nadar opened his own photography studio on the Boulevard des Capucines. Writers, artists, and composers
none were
it
had Da\
idea as
Corot seems to have been more attuned to
the process than the others; he finished his
little
upon the same
by Delacroix, Daubigny, Rousseau, Millet, and
plate on his seventy-eighth birthday, though
in the
hit
productions of his original photographs, in the expressive
others, but
It
He had
and develop
little
darkroom
in the swinging, lurching basket of the balloon.
set
up
He
took a dozen views of Paris. In 1863 he built the
wodd's
which measured 90
largest balloon,
ameter and was named "The Giant." aerial passenger service
ascent
The Giant
He
within France, but on
lost
control
feet in di-
tried to initiate its
second
and came down
in
Germany; the passengers were dragged for miles before the basket caught and held. The siege of Paris was an ideal opportunity for Nadar and
aerial
September
means
of
photography to play an important role. On 18, 1S70, the capital was left without any
communication with
the
outside
wodd.
143
Through Nadar's aloft within less
instigation the balloon
Neptune was
pictures with artificial light.
the 131-day siege,
fifty-five
and
balloons
Paris
left
20-minute exposures as early as i860.
Nadar
with
carrier pigeons. 'I'he birds returned
be ninety jears old, dying in igio.
earlier
he turned o\cr
who continued
his studio to his
the pigeons arrived in their Paris dovecots, the
was placed between
a stenographer to record the ensuing conversation verba-
cylinders were
opened and the
two sheets of
glass
film
and projected onto a
made
tails.
worked on
French
the same principle as the eighteenth century's magic
The
lantern.
carrier
Nadar was
A.
also
one
all
first
GREviN, Nadar the Great.
scientist
as
questioner, interviewed
The photographs showed the man to Nadar's queries The stenographer's notes served
as captions for the original pictures.
1870.
many who came to Nadar was a subject for cartoons and caricatures his day. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
artists,
boulevardier, popular with the
his studio for portraits, in the press of
the
Marie Eugene Chcvrcul on the eve of
on "The Art of Living."
photographers to take
Wood engraving, about
to use his father's
own. Together they created
enthusiastic response of the aged
during the siege.
of the
officially his
his 101st birthday in 1886.
pigeon-balloon post kept Paris in
contact with the world
it
tim and with Nadar
screen. This
process of enlarging a picture by projection
NAJIAII LC GHA1ID(I>;
144
son
pseudonym and for Le Journal Ulustre a feature which has since become standard in photojournalism. Paul, acting as cameraman with Paul,
M. Dagron
—rolled into minute tubes and affixed to their
Friend of
lived to
Thirty years
with microscopicalh' photographed messages on thin collodion film— a special process conceived by
When
took electric-light pho-
tographs of the catacombs and sewers of Paris in about
than a week. Prussian guns could not
reach the heights at which the balloon soared. During
passengers, mail,
He
Woodbury reproduction name was Gaspard Felix him: "Your name isn't
NADAR, Portrait of Edouard Manet. After a of a wet-late photograph. Nadar's real
Tournachon.
A contemporary said to
Tournachon—it's 'tour-nadar.' You stick in a stiletto and turn for a
Tournachon liked the word, and took its latter half pseudonym. From Nadar, Galeric contcmporaine, 1870.
it."
NADAR, Portrait of Sarah Bcrnliardt. 1859. Both
photos this page, courtesy George Eastman House.
145
NADAR. Four photographs, Portrait of
courtesy George
Eastman House. George Sand. After a Woodburytype reproduction
of a wet-plate photograph.
all
From Galerie contemporaine,
1870.
Portrait of Charles
de Lesseps.
Wet-plate plwtograph, 1S60.
146
Portrait of Franz Liszt, iSS6.
Dumas. Woodburytype reproduction
Portrait of Alexander
After a
of a wet-plate photograph.
From
Galcrie contemporaine, i8~o.
147
COROT, Lc Petit Berger. Negative and positive of cliche verrc, about 1S5S. One of the sixty-six he made in this
medium. Glass was coated with paint or albumen; the drawing was scratched
in with a stylus; the design formed in the emulsion M'as used as a negative; an entire edition was then printed on photographic
paper. Courtesy Metropolitan
148
Museum
of Art,
Sew York.
NADAR, Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Wet-plate photograph, about iS6o. Courtesy George Eastman House.
149
NADAR, ekvanl
la
Pholo^raphie a
la
kuteur
de
I
Ar
iiONORE DAUMiER, Nadar Elevating Photography to a High Art.
Shows Nadar as an aerial plwtographer, and free Nadar was from the usual earthbouiid photography studios spreading all over Paris. Nadar did not take
Lithograpli,
May,
suggests
Ins pictures
from
1S62.
how
a tripod as
shown; he either attached the camera
to the side of the basket or put the lens through the
XAD\R, Portrait of Ilonore Daumicr. 1S77. After aWoodburytype reproduction of wet-plate photograph.
Both photos
^
150
ifc^g..
this
From
Galerie contemporaine.
page courtesy George Eastman House.
bottom.
NADAR, Aerial
View of Paris.
Taken from the Courtesy Gernsheim Collection, London.
Print from wet-plate negative, 1S59.
swinging basket of a balloon over Paris.
'^:
«
X\^\
PAUL NADAR, M. Chcvrcul. Wet-pldtc photographs, i8S6.
The first photo
interview.
M.
Chevreul, on the eve of
Nadar on "the art of living Courtesy George Eastman House.
his loist birthday, talks with a Inindred rears."
\^.
152
'
-SB;
153
The Ubiquitous Carte deVisite
The career of Etienxe Carjat
(1S2S-1906)
ran
strangely parallel with Nadar's. Carjat was also an artist, a caricaturist,
journal
and
a writer as well as the editor of the
Le Boulevard, which
flourished for several years
the 1860s. In 1S62 Dauniicr's caricature of
in
Nadar
taking aerial views of Paris from a halloon appeared in Carjat's publication.
Carjat ran a photostudio as a hobby, taking time from his
other interests to photograph celebrities— famous
men and \\omen he met in tinguished people who were Nadar, he attracted people the
warmth
his role as editor
in all
walks of
in
portraits,
but
his studio.
many
He
in the
figure
through
he had no
of these are considered finer expres-
who enjoyed
Second Empire
any others.
as
a considerable reputation
photographer and sculptor was
Adam-Salomon (1811-1881). Photography was time work with him also; he used the camera for income and alwa}S charged the highest photographs were remarkable for
tiieir
he used to model the planes of the
prices.
lighting,
His
deep
effect of
in cla\'.
Adam-Salomon
1
part-
extra
which
face, creating
shadows and highlighted ridges to echo the modeling
dis-
therefore produced fewer
sions of the sitter's character than
Another
life
of his personality. Unlike Nadar,
assistants
and
his personal friends. Like
also
made photographs
that dcliber-
resembled sevcntccnth-ccntury Dutch portraits.
ately
These chiaroscuro photographs, hands compose the white other form of
art.
The closer his approximation
and photography. The highest it
photography went fifty
in
both
critics of
art
praise a photograph could
resembled a painting.
With Salomon
on a tangent.
took more than
off
It
years to bring the art of photography, a graphic art
its
own
right,
the camera does
A
from
more
the
back to the honest purpose its
which
in
with Nadar and Carjat in
the front rank of his profession. Petit was born in 1S25;
by the time he was seventeen he was an accomplished dagucrrcotypist and, by i860, in partnership with a
named
man
Trinquart, he was conducting a studio titled
'Thotographie de Deux-Mondes." stored there 229,000 negatives he
It
was said that he
had taken
twenty years. Petit was appointed
Disderi earned millions and he spent millions.
He
of thoroughbreds.
de
ceased as suddenly as
visite
up novelties tricks
on
pictures
official
than
in less
photographer
photographers, in order to compete with
lithographers and etchers, tried to
make
In 1857
ever larger and
Adolphe Eugene
Disderi (1819-1890?) patented in Paris the "carte de
camera with four lenses that made eight small
photographs measuring 3V4 by 2^^ inches on a
full-size
by 8V2 inches. These eight photographs,
each on an average-size 4-by-2Vl!-ineh visiting card, sold for about $4,
less
than half the price a portrait photog
rapher usually charged for a single
silk
full-size print.
who, though uneducated, did things
with a flourish that captivated
Emperor Napoleon
commoner and
marching
III,
at the
king.
The
head of
his
troops to Italy for another of his "prestige wars" with Austria, stopped his army,
while he and his
staff
which waited on the
ately every person in Paris
The had
photographs made by Disderi. rose to the occasion. full
street
walked into Disdcri's studio to
for carte-de-visite portraits.
He
story spread. to
have
sit
Immedi-
carte-dc-visitc
What a showman!
Disderi
dressed extravagantly. His wide
beard he draped over satin blouses of shrieking colors
which he bound
at the waist
he wore short hussar
with enormous
trousers.
Dressed in
belts;
below,
this outlandish
costume, Disderi took pictures in his studio with dramatic, imperious gestures. flocked to his studio.
southern France and
The crowds
He opened
still
for cartes
existed, such as
and ceramics. Nothing worked.
He
could
others in
loved
it;
they
a second studio in
London and Madrid.
had been driven
created; the price of the carte de visite
down
to $1 a dozen.
Four
War
years later the Franco-Prussian
caused the
dethronement of the Emperor. The Second Empire
He
collapsed and so did Disdcri's entire fortune.
He went
bankrupt. at Nice,
was
it
to the Riviera.
said,
tourists for a pittance.
Through the
of his astounding days in Paris.
The
was
walked the beach
it
He
lens
he saw
visions
died with his dreams,
must have been
in the
summer
he was not seen on the beach again.
carte de visite revolutionized photography. Mil-
lions of people, as the craze
went
He
with a camera, taking pictures of
to
swept England and America,
have their portraits taken. Studios also sold cards
of the royal family
and
Tens
of thousands
Queen
Victoria and
of the famous.
of cards were sold of the pictures of
the Prince Consort taken by Mayall in 1861. Cartes of celebrities
United
The
enjoyed the same kind of popular sale in the
States.
carte de visite
was a standardized, stereotyped
kind of picture. Most often a
Disderi was a colorful, self-confident, publicity-conscious salesman
demand
began. Disderi thought
to revive his flagging business or touted
sioned to photograph the raising of the Statue of Liberty.
plate of 51/2
it
photography which already
in
a pauper, forgotten;
visite," a
was a lavish host; he acquired
princely habits. In 1866 the insatiable
of 1890, for
more imposing photographs.
He
bought houses and horses, elegant mansions, and stables
of the Paris World's Fair of 186S, and he was commis-
Portrait
and the Empress appointed him
not compete with the cheap competition that he had
best work.
little-known photographer of high caliber was Pierre
Petit, in the i86os considered
III
court photographer.
oflScial
emulate an-
areas, patently
praise his photographs received
receive was that
head and
in wliich the
Emperor Napoleon
showed
full figure,
the picture
column, or
a person standing next to a
a table
piled high with books, in front of a heavy, velvet drapery.
The head was
so small in relation to the card, about
14 inch to the 3 V2 or
that
it
4 inches of the
total length of card,
required but a second to hold the pose and was
therefore
most often
a likeness in focus.
however, usually revealed
little
The photograph,
of the subject's character
through lighting or pose. At the prices charged no vidual attention could be given the small carte de
There had
to
indi-
visite.
be some way to save the untold thou-
sands of cards which piled up from family and friends
who
either called
and
left cards or
birthdays and holidaxs. visite
exchanged them on
The answer was
the carte-de-
album. Some albums sold at nominal prices and
others were very elaborate,
pensive leather.
bound
The album became
in fine, tooled, ex-
a required feature,
the perfect conversation piece for every 'Victorian parlor
and drawing room.
155
MULNiER,
Jules Brcton,
French Painter. From Woodburytype
reproduction of M'et-plate plwtograph,
i
S82.
From
Galerie
contemporainc. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
ETiENNE CARjAT, Portrait of Charles Baudelaire. From
Woodburytype
of wet-plate photograph, 186^.
From Nadar,
Galcrie eontemporaine, 1870. Courtesy George
CARJAT, Puvis do Clia\'anncs, French Painter.
Woodburytype reproduction of wet-plate photograph, Galerie eontemporaine. Courtesy George
itiyS.
Eastman House.
From From
Eastman House.
157
^
^
The carte-de-visite camera patented by Disderi in 18^^. Eight exposures were obtained on a 61/2 x SV2 inch plate. The print was then cut up and mounted on cards approximately
4x2 V2
the size of a visiting card. Courtesy George
Eastman House.
%
159
inches,
Disderi and the strange garb he affected.
engraving caricature by
Wood
Van der Acter, which Disderi
used as an advertisement in the Paris journals
London.
of iS6i. Courtesy GcrnsJicim Collection,
A rare cartc-dc-\isite album by various photographers of the late i8^os
and
early iS6os in France.
the page to which the album
is
photographs of the Emperor Napoleon are by Disderi,
bottom
i6o
right
bottom
left
is
Opposite
is
opened, with four
III.
The two
at
top
by Mayer and Pierson, and
by Alpert. Courtesy George Eastman House.
A
ii\\\
/ /
r
J
?.»:' PATENT
3
C
left: JOHN MAYALL, Oiiceo Victoria and the Prince Consort London, iS6i. Carte-dc-visite. Courtesy GernsJieim Collection,
below: Portrait of
Queen
Victoria. Photograpli
on
silk,
about 1866.
Photographer unknown. Courtesy George Eastmaii House.
Another page from the upper upper lower
left:
right: Ingres, left:
carte-de-visite
album,
Delacroix, by pierre petit
by disderi
Horace \^ernet, by disderi
lower right: Courbct, by pierre petit
Courtesv George Eastman House.
163
Album card inviting contributions, Courtesy Gcrnshcim Collection.
Lithograph props by R. de Moraine, which photographers used
in
attempting to revive business after the cartc-de-visite
craze suddenly stopped. Courtesy
164
George Eastman House.
186^.
A French fashion plate of i8^j, featuring a camera. Lack of cliaracter models and the proportion of head to body shown here became the ideal of the cartc-dc-visite. Courtesy George Eastman House.
in the
'3k
165
Julia Mari>aret CI
Cameron: Portraits
Oiitof-Focus
Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was endowed
Julia
with a combination of eecentrieities, energy, and inspiration that
prompted her
to
photograph great Vietorian
personahtics and enabled her to reflect their
and character better than any trated
spirit,
portraitist.
power,
She concen-
mind as own depth of feeling about them. Titans day they were — among them Tennyson, Darwin,
on
their heads, reveahng their depths of
she revealed her of their
Browning, Longfellow, erick
Sir
John Herschel, George Fred-
Watts, Anthony Trollope, and Thomas Carlylc.
seemed ludicrous; her "head hunting" was without parallel and was not confined to celebrities. She would It
pursue perfect strangers, "kidnap" them, pose stock
without a head
make them
long as 7 minutes, and repeat the torture again and again until she
was
still,
satisfied.
rest, for as
Once Robert Browning, admonished to command-
wait for her return and overwhelmed by her
ing personality, sat for three hours while she busied herself in the It
darkroom.
was the soul of the subject she was
after.
The camera
provided her with the ideal instrument to record the facial characteristics of her intellectual heroes.
Her studio
was her gallery of the sanctified; she created ikons to worship. tively
Her photographs
uninteresting,
more than fuzzy not worship.
of plain people were compara-
merely records containing
little
likenesses of persons she obviously did
Mrs. Cameron was never known
The forms
landscape.
of the land
and
photograph a
to
of grow ing things
did not satisfy her as did portrait subjects as a vehicle for expression of her feelings.
However, her
illustrations
poems and of her own complex
of Tennyson's romantic
She learned
allegories pleased her artistic sensibilities. illustration
from her mentor, George Frederick Watts;
her allegorical
photographs, like Watts's
Her
forte, as
portrait.
we
see
allegorical
today, was the direct, close-up
it
She permitted no retouching, no enlarging; only
contact prints were
made from
Cameron's sister and brother-m-law, Mr. and Mrs. Thoby Prinsep. Watts was the original "man who came to dinner": invited for two weeks, he stayed more than twenty years. Then, to prove how much he
lived with Mrs.
enjoyed their company, he built a house on the
Isle of
Wight, near Mr. and Mrs. Cameron; the Prinseps stayed there with him for an additional several years. Watts sought protection against loneliness and melancholia in
and sentimental.
paintings, were tasteless
lady at Little Holland House in London, where Watts
her enormous wet plates
which measured 8 by lo or 12 by 15 inches. A Herculean task, hardly a proper one for a strange, wealthy woman
the family
of others. Mrs.
life
Prinsep, conducted
m
Little
Cameron's
literary
and artistic salon around the painter, whose afl[airs she managed, and made a red-doored studio available to him in her house.
She arranged the marriage of the
not too particular about her dress and habits— often there
sevcn-year-old
Watts
were thumbprints, dust spots, cracked
a marriage
and editions of uneven
glass negatives,
to take
prints.
a dedicated artistic "primitive" with a camera.
She was
Her photographs
are out of focus, not deliberately soft
Mrs.
sister,
Holland House a
forty-
to the sixteen-year-old Ellen Terry,
which lasted long enough
Mrs. Cameron
for
one of her most beautiful photographs.
Watts was the major influence on Mrs. Cameron as a photographer. Aspiring to become England's Michelanhe had become a philosopher with
a paint brush;
he
focus— this was later to become the vogue in photography
gelo,
—but
moralized in frescoes on public walls and in tremendous
literally
not sharp because the lenses she used
made
could not be
photograph sharp
to
compromised with the
size of the
details.
Had
she
camera and substituted
had she pulled back from the subject so every movement and tremor would not have
a smaller one,
that his
registered, or
had she concentrated
the light possible
all
on the subject rather than the small amount of top
light
she permitted to enter her small glass studio, the photographs would have been sharper and the
have been subjected
sitter
would not
to the misery of such lengthy expo-
had she had any consideration either for subor herself, she would not ha\c been Julia Margaret
sures. But, ject
lavish idolatry of
eminent poets, painters, and
writers she disclosed in her portraits.
she
felt
were their
unsmiling; lasting
it fills
critics
ciety.
but an open book where those
who have
be not only a painter but a prophet and teacher
to
also
meant
and members
Nothing fazed
beautiful— by
She
photographed
rarely
of the Royal Photographic So-
her.
She persisted
in taking
immor-
painted the ultimate truth.
The
him for lengthy literary mesDeath Crowning Innocence, and When Poverty Comes in at the Door, Love Flies out at the Window- small ideas and puny emotions, blown sages
Victorians revered
on such themes
as
up through saccharine scntimentalism.
to Carlyle's hero worship, seems
to coincide with the early aims of
George Frederick
Watts, the celebrated Victorian painter. In
many
his early por-
them sensitive, ^^'atts attempted to paint traits, the soul. Mrs. Cameron knew paintings and painter well, years before she took up the camera. She met him reguof
instilled this
and he
conception in Mrs. Cameron. Her photo-
tographed such allegorical subjects as Faith, Cliarity, Peace, forts,
six
)
Cameron photographed
her children (she had
her grandchildren, her maids, her
nephews whenever able,
the
ef-
not her portraits.
Mrs. ,
Hope and
Love and Faith. Watts praised these
and she used them
Isle of
Wight,
sisters,
and her
celebrities or strangers were not availas subjects for
illustrations of 'I'cnnyson's poetry. In
tal photographs of men's heads.
Her philosophy, akin
who
today than those painted by Watts. She posed and pho-
is
she considered
spiritual.
eyes
can read strange matters." Watts was considered
to see
each the face
finest attributes. In
that
litera-
believed "a picture
graphic allegories are no more respected or remembered
the body or hands of these men. She followed no one's style. She was attacked persistently for her bad technique
by
is
bad
She presented what
the plate. She was intent on securing a
expression
which she
Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Watts
ture.
after all
really
Literary ideas replaced plastic ideas for Watts;
Cameron.
Her
romantic canvases. These paintings were
in
her photographic
18-6 she moved to
Freshwater Bay, to be near Tenny-
Her friendship with him and his famih- had started in the same way as many friendships she had sought. She would begin with a gift of an Indian
son, then Poet Laureate.
shawl, then several da\ ivories,
jewelrv,
s
later
another shawl, then carved
and bric-a-brac— all
this
from India
167
where she had been born and where slic liad married a well-to-do jurist and plantation o\\ ner; she had come to England with an inexhaustible supply of silks and artifrom the East. Though her gifts may have embarrassed the recipients, even the most irritated e\entually facts
and counted on the friendTenn\son and his Cameron. ship of the ebullient Mrs. poems were her inspiration for allegoric and illustrative gave
in, sat for his portrait,
photography. Mrs. Cameron's
first
volume, containing
twelve photographs illustrating Tennyson's Idylls of the
cess of
Germany and
the Princess Royal of England."
Photography was competing
\\
ith
the brush and using
moti\'ation detrimental to both.
Cameron suddenly
In the latter part of 1875 Mr.
cided to return to Ce}lon.
he borrowed sea, the first
The
a son's o\ercoat
time he had
left
story goes that
and
strolled
de-
one day
down
to the
the grounds of his house in
twelve years, and the sight of the ocean
filled
him with
a
yearning to see Ceylon again and to be with his two sons
who were managing
his plantations.
was a perfect departure
for
Mrs. Cameron. Quite
King and Other Poems, appeared in 1875; a second \olume with an additional twelve photographs
incongruously she tipped the railroad-station porters with
was published. Both received
portraits of
little later
critical
acclaim in the press
"as they had been executed at the Laureate's
and dedicated by gracious permission to the
HENRY HERSCHEL HAY CAMERON, artrait of Julia Margaret Cameron, iSyo. Taken by Mrs. Cameron's son. Comtesy Gernsheim Collection, London.
X68
a
own request Crown Prin-
It
Carhle and Tennyson, saying that she had
no more money. Some of these pictures are seen on the station walls.
still
to be
CAMERON niomas Carlyle,
JULIA MARGARET above: Portrait of
about 1 S6y. Out of focus, plate cracked
and spotted.
Characteristic of Mrs.
Cameron's equipment right: Portrait of
arid technique.
Charles Darwin, 1869.
Both, courtesy
The Art
Institute
of Chicago, Stieglitz Collection.
169
CAMERON
JULIA MARGARET
above: Portrait of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
June
3,
1869.
right: Portrait of
Ilenrj'Wadsworth Longfellow,
1S69. Longfellow visited
Tennyson on
the Isle of Wight, and was prevailed upon by the insistent Airs. portrait.
Cameron
One of the
to
sit
for his
rare portraits in
which
she included more than the head.
opposite page: Portrait of Sir John Herschel.
Wet-plate photograph, 1S67. The pioneer
photography and noted astronomer seventy-five.
One
of Airs.
Cameron's
greatest photographs. All, courtesy
The Art
Institute
of Chicago, Stieglitz Collection.
170
in
at the age of
"^ '%
^
:*^
'
-W^Tt*
.^
'""mfm-.f
L-*'
<:*•
Terry, 1864. JULIA MARGARET CAMERON, Portrait of Ellen married recently The famous actress at age sixteen, then the painter G. F. Watts, more than thirty years her to
senior.
172
Courtesy Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
CAMERON The Foolish Virgins. Allci^oricdl photognipli, about 1865. above left: Summer Days. About 1865. An early pliotograph of JULIA MARGARET
above:
servants left:
and
friends' children.
Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
Portrait of Joseph Joachim, 1S6S.
violinist, to
The famous
whom Brahms dedicated his violin concerto.
Courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago, Stieglitz Collection.
173
Rejiander,
Robinson
and
'Ai
t^'
I'liotoj^raphy
The
art of the sentimental \'iciorian age was the
idealized storytelling genre or allegorical painting, as be-
loved in the academics of the Continent as
was
in
atmosphere of
art
it
England.
Thoroughly grounded
in this literary
was Oscar G. Rejlander (1813-1875) of Sweden, who studied painting and sculpture at the Academy in Rome. His subsequent stay in Paris served to confirm his ap-
proach to painting; his portraits glorified the
sitter extra-
vagantly and his complicated allegories became ever
more inxohed. He went to England when he married an
woman and
English-
decided to pursue photography for a
liveli-
hood; but he continued to paint portraits sporadically
and
several of these
were exhibited
at the
Royal Academy
over the years. Telling about his conversion to photography, Rejlander writes that he took
all five
lessons in
one afternoon,
the ealotype, the waxed-paper process, and a half-hour on
the collodion process.
saved
me
a year or
He
more
then writes, "It would have
of trouble and expense had
I
attended carefully to the rudiments of the art for a
month." Despite this inadequate training
in
technique, Rejlan-
der opened a studio. \\ hat he had learned of art and particulady the keen eye he had developed in observing
people benefited him greatly
Rejlandcr continued with combination printing, but
photography when he emulated with the camera the
never again attempted such a complex picture as The
unique facets of character in
vast theatrical
and
in
he had made with
literary allegories
made
In 1856 he
from
composite
a
by 16 inches,
print, 31
thirty different negatives. It
sation.
Two
Paths of Life.
made from
the brush.
was an immediate sen-
This allegorical picture. The
Two
represents a venerable sage introducing
from one
of St.
straight negative.
John the Baptist he
The Dream
(i860)
This was a strange allegory
charged with Freudian meanings. Five years later he was
Paths of Life,
two young men
The Head
only two negatives and
still
enmeshed
in the pictorial
aims of "high-art" photography. Ever the experimenter,
to religion,
however, he developed the double exposure and the pho-
while the second
tomontage, superimposing one negative on another to
young man rushes madly into the pleasures of the world, t\pificd by various figures representing "Gambling,
make a modern-appearing multiple-exposure photograph entitled Hard Times. From these experiments he realized
Wine, Licentiousness and other Vices, ending in Suicide, Insanity and Death." In the front center of the picture
considerable recognition but
into
life.
The
serene, philosophical
charity, industry,
is
a figure of
Thus was
virtues,
"Repentance with the
this allegory described
Praise was it
and the other
one turns
heaped on the
was refused admittance
Emblem
when
it
was
although
print,
an exhibition
in
traits
first
shown.
studies of adults
Scotland
for
being too
was purchased by Queen
it
\'ictoria.
Neither sensual, natural, nor moral, the allegory appealed to the Victorian romantic,
minded.
Had Hogarth been
Marriage a
la
Mode,
who was
and painting
alive
tion
with
photograph of Dodgson holding
made
a big lens
a
and
a focusing cloth.
was a long time before photography stopped looking
to painting for guidance.
Henry Peach Robinson (1830-
who
turned photographer in
with desired effects painted in and undesired effects
the year 1858, followed Rejlander into the vehement con-
The
still
hold the
Impressionists were rediscovering nature and the
changing light on form and color while the
Rejlandcr had had fast film and a candid camera in
hands, he might have da)-.
His
Fading Away, made from
picture of a dying
girl
five negati\es.
This was a
seated in a chair and sadly watched
and mother while father looks out of an open window; it had printed on its mat a verse from Shelley's by
sister
Queen Mab,
the Victorian studio.
record of his
troversy over combination printing by exhibiting a picture,
artist-photographer lost himself in the false art prevailing
and
fellow pro-
poses and contrived scenes from retouched nega-
effect of
If
artists,
particularly of children. Rejlander
and
1901), a talented painter
"arty" photographer enthralled.
his
found praise from the Reverend
took some unforgettable pictures of
It
painted out, were loved in their day and
in
of children,
Dodgson— Lewis Carroll— who came to study Rejlander. The creator of Alice in Wonderland
his epic
arti-
and children. These pictures
tried to convey,
sensitive
Rcjlander's combination photographs made up of
tives,
he
fessors,
work
with nude and clothed
Charles L.
literary-
or his Harlot's Progress, his
artists
His main source
was from making por-
convincingly enacting his poses and embodying the emo-
would not have been stomached.
ficial
and from supplying
Hope."
in
little profit.
for the rest of his life
of
nude. Show n the same year at the Art Treasures exhibition in Manchester,
income
of
left a
penetrating and valid
artistic training
register the intensity of
caused him to seek
emotional feeling he ob-
served in the swarming streets of London.
collodion process caused
him
The
to direct people to
slower
assume
and re-enact the emotions he observed and mimicked
Must then
Which
Without
Which That
that peerless form
love and admiration cannot view a beating heart; those azure veins.
steal like
streams along a
lovely outline,
which
As breathing marble,
is
field of
snow;
fair
perish?
for
them. Charles Darwin, seeing these posed but nonethe-
The
"art photograph," as
Robinson described these
emotionally charged portraits, approached Rejlander
elaborately fabricated pictures, was severely criticized for
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Rejlander made twenty-eight photographs of men, women, and children, whom he
misrepresenting the truth, but the Royal House was im-
less
to collaborate
on
a
book,
directed in displaying various emotions; for several of
these
he posed himself. His
he was not interested tions of
in
plates
were too slow or
else
animals—no pictures of emo-
nonhunians appear
in the
book.
pressed with combination prints and purchased Fading
Away. The Prince Consort gave Robinson
a standing
order for one print of each such photograph that he
would make. Robinson became not onl\- the leading pictorial photographer of England but a prolific writer of manuals and
treatises
on photography. His
first
book.
175
OSCAR
G.
REjLANDER,
Two Gcotlcmeii Taking Wine. Composite
photograph, about i860. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
Two Patlis of Lifc. Composite picture, 51 16 inches, 1S56. Made from thirty negatives. Courtesy George Eastman House.
RKjLANDER,
.\
^
176
'
.'A
Pictorial Effects in
Photography, was published
toward the end of his
life
he pubhslied Picture Making
by Piwtograpliy and Art Pliotograpliy; translated into
many
in 1869;
three were
ail
languages and printed in
many
edi-
not accomplish the desired results pictorially.
could
Ik produced some charnung
single-negative pictures
neither sentimental nor "high art."
These were
realistic
pictures posed but not obviously so, unretouchcd,
and
with an honest intent to portray the character of the sub-
tions.
Robinson became the most bemedaled photographer
ject.
In his later writings Robinson derides the soft-focus
commen-
of his day. His hidebound, academic rules of balanced
exponents and he
composition and his pedantic preachments to photogra-
dation that one of his prints did not look like a photo-
mean and ugly"— "correct
phers to "avoid the
the unpic-
He
graph.
writes,
offended by receiving the
is
"Wliy should we
try to
make our
pic-
turesque"— "mix photography with drawing," and to
tures look like the results of other arts?"
and he con-
atmosphere constructed inside the
cludes, contradicting his earlier writing in
which he
prefer the artificial
studio to the world outside have
had
on
have
pictorialists to this day, as
poetic
a stultifying efTect his sentimentally
Robinson continued
to write
and lecture on photog-
making
of a photograph in-
stead of the honest taking of one. His influence was felt
photographic
"What
writing,
circles
retirement in 1888,
everywhere, especially after his
when he became vice-president of the
Royal Photographic Society.
He
discontinued his advo-
cacy of composite pictures, suggesting the use of multiple negatives only in emergencies
when
single
negatives
them
as
other."
artificial
with the
realistic,
the photographer has to do
pictures with the
titles.
raphy, always stressing the
in
vored the mixing of the
means
at his disposal,
and
is
to
fa-
by
make
to present
having been done with those means and no
He
closes with these words,
photography
as
an
art
"The
limitations of
have not been definitely
fixed."
Robinson's later admonitions, however, seem never to
have been read by
his followers. Contradictions served
only to confuse the rule. It
was the
and then used
-Mm^Stf
who work by rote and photographer who read Robinson
pictorialists,
rare
his tools creatively.
178
REJLANDER above: Hard Times. "Spiritistical photo" printed from
two superimposed
plates, iS6o.
opposite page, above:
an
artist's
The Dream.
iS6o.
A crinoline hoop,
mannikin, and a troubled dreamer,
Mead of St. John the Baptist. Composite photograph from two negatives, about iS6o. All, courtesy George Eastman House. opposite page, below:
179
REJLANDER. TluCC pllOtOgrapllS, 1S73, for Cliarles Darwin's book,
Expression of the Emotions.
Courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago, above: Sneering and Defiance. h'ft:
Fear [Self-portrait)
riaht: Grief.
180
f
REjLANDER, Tlic Chicago Fire. iSji. Courtesy George Eastman House.
i8i
REjLAXDER, Portrait of
The
Re\'crcnd Charles L.
Dodgson
(Lewis Carroll). 1S63. Courtesy GernsJieim Collection, London.
182
LEWIS CARROLL above: Portrait of Alice Constance Westmacott. 186^. left:
Portrait of
Mary
right: Portrait of
Millais. 186^.
Ailecn-Wilson Todd. 1S65.
All three, courtesy
Gernshcim Collection
183
HENRY PEACH ROBINSON. TwO COmpOsHe photOgMphs. below: W'licn the Day's
Work is Done.
opposite page, below: Caroling. 1SS7.
Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
184
iSyj.
RALPH W. ROBINSON Portrait of
Henry Peach Robinson. 1897
A portrait of the photographer's father. Courtesy Gernshchn Collection.
i«5
ROBINSON, right: Dawn and Sunset. Composite photograph, about iSS^. Courtes}' George Eastman House. below: Pencil sketch, about i860, for a
composite picture. figure
is
One
already pasted
photograpJuc in.
The three
or four other photographs necessary to complete the picture
would have been
joined and rephotographed; such prints were sold as M'orks of "high art."
Courtesy Gernsheim Collection. opposite page, top: Fading Away.
Composite photograph, 1S58.
Made from
five negatives,
the joints
The Prince Consort was so impressed with such photographs tliat Robinson was given a standing subtly hidden.
order for a copy of every composite print he made. Courtesy Royal
Photographic Society, London.
ROBINSON
Women and Children in Country. Composite photograph, fune, i860. CourtesY George Eastman House.
186
Brady: Cciiiieranicin of
War
the Civil
It
is
often forgotten that Mathew B. Brady, the most
representative photographer of his day, took his portraits of the mighty istry that
and
he had
tlie
first
famed with
a sensitivity
and
art-
learned to put into pictures with a
Wilham Page, tweh'e years his whom Brady met when he was only sixteen years
brush. His teaeher was senior,
old in 1839. lie had just left his birthplace of Lake
George, Warren County, traits
New
York. Brad\- painted por-
under the guidance of Page while
itinerant limners
from Saratoga
to
the next \ear Page took Brady,
thc\- traveled as
New York City.
still
Early
encouraging him to
be a painter, to meet and perhaps study with his former instructor,
Samuel F. B. Morse. Instead of signing up
for
courses in art, Brady enrolled in a class which Professors
Morse and Draper were conducting on the daguerreotype process.
Brady's energy was boundless; he experimented with
the lenses and the chemicals and
oughly proficient
He had
in all of
the
many
made
himself thor-
delicate operations.
to learn daguerreotypy completely for although
his slight, 5-foot-6, square-shouldered, trim figure
dowed with
was en-
inexhaustible energy and initiative, Brady
was cursed with exceptionally weak and
ever-failing eyes.
There are no pictures extant showing Brady without glasses; year
by year he was
fitted
with ever-thicker lenses.
In 1841 and for the following three years, to
1
make
money not only
to pay his tuition at the university but
also to aceumulatc capital so that he could open a
gallery,
Brady owned a factory which manufactured cases
and dagucrrcotypists.
A
for
dated June 17, Collection the Boyer of Eastman House, adin 1843,
jewelers
letter
dressed to A. S. Southworth in Boston, describes a ease he
is
manufacturing and
offers for sale.
undoubtedly written and signed by
The
new
letter
is
Mr. James D.
Brad}-.
sidered
it
money
well spent for a prestige piece
He
continued to gather daguerreotypes not only of
statesmen and soldiers but of practically
professors, engineers
The
players.
people
and
ings
bad eyesight that kept him from writing. Mr. Horan's conclusions are that no truly ascertainable signa-
journals, newspapers,
ture of Brady has been isolated, though sarily
have been
his signature
on a
to as appearing
on a paper of
his
bill
what must
Mr. Horan
calls
neces-
attention
of sale of a piece of land in 1869,
bankruptcy proceedings
in
1873 and
below the lithograph which was made of Brady by Fran^ois
d'Avignon
in 1851; all are quite different.
seems to be a positive signature of Brady of
What now should
18-J.3
in their
recorded for posterity in elusive quicksilver
Brady was able to read but not write or whether, perhaps, his
people in the
architects, opera stars
who made news
nent through
was
all
public eye, including actors and actresses, doctors and
Horan in his recently published, highly readable biography of Brady, Historian witli a Camera, asks whether it
and con-
templated issuing another volume.
its
vapors. Brady
and
and chess day were
made perma-
his assistants
took
thousands of portraits which were used for wood engrav-
and lithographs
known
to illustrate pages of the pictorial
and books,
until the nation's best
was "From a Daguerreotype by Brady." In 1847 Brady opened a branch gallery in Washington where it became the practice for the President and his by-line
cabinet and
members
one time or an-
of Congress, at
other, to entrust their heads to Brady's "immobilizer," as the torturous
Both
head clamp was
galleries thrived
called.
with business. Brady never
pla>cd more energy, working every
moment
dis-
while there
favored his ailing eyes and practically never wrote to
was light, despite his weak eyesight. Though he colored and tinted daguerreotypes, some on sensitized ivory, he
anyone himself once he could afford
sent forty-eight black-and-white images on silver to the
pro\c that Brady could both read and write. However, he
to hire secretaries.
Following the practice of Samuel F. B. Morse, Brady
opened a skylight-roofed studio on Broadway and Fulton Street in 1844. He had just reached his majority. That first
year he was awarded a prize at the American Insti-
tute in
New York for a daguerreotype;
the following year
he reaped more recognition by winning a gold medal; and later.
Brady then began to
historically
important pictorial
the top award was his a year
accumulate the most
record of the nation's statesmen and celebrities for a
period of nearly
Adams
from President John Ouincy
fifty \ears,
to President
Andrew Jackson
died on June
1845, Brady dispatched a photographer to the
Nashville to
in
take several
United
8,
Hermitage
daguerreotypes
Hickor}', seventh President of the
Old
of
States.
One
of
Eastman House by A. now published in a book for
these was recently donated to
Conger Goodyear, and the
first
is
time.
Brady conceived the idea of publishing books of nesses of the notables
who
sat for his
Brady published The Gallery of
like-
camera. In 1850
Illustrious
Americans
with twelve lithographed reproductions, elc\en
made
by Francois d'Avignon,
whom
from
his daguerreotypes
he paid $100
a stone.
Lester to write, but for the writing.
The
acclaim and, though
The
it is
text
impressive it
he commissioned C. E.
not stated
was
Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851. His
awarded a medal and singled out by examples of this style of art."
work was
critics as
"noble
By 1853 Brady had almost forsaken the daguerreotype ambrotype photographs made by the wet-plate process. He relied more and more on his assistants to man the
for
cameras— the
strain
on
his eyes
was too
tiring.
He started
to specialize in "imperials," enlargements of 17 by 20 inches, often life-size heads tinted or painted by artists
on Brady's
staff.
This process
made
a
photograph more
costly than the usual oil painting procurable in the days
William McKinley.
Just a few days before
London
how much he
volume received
a financial failure,
paid
critical
Bradv con-
before the Civil War. Orders for imperials by the wealthy and powerful were balanced by the mass business during
the carte-de-visite craze as hordes of customers crowded his
two establishments. As another source of income
he and
his assistants
operated a school of photography.
In 1S53 Brady opened a
new gallery two flights above Thompson's saloon on Broadway. It was decorated at enormous expense with "satin and gold paper on the walls,
embroidered draperies over the windows, an enam-
eled chandelier hanging from the ceiling
and the
floors
carpeted with superior velvet tapestry," according to the editor of
Humphrey's
Journal,
who
concludes, after de-
scribing the "superb rosewood furniture," by writing:
"On
the wall
we
find the Daguerreotypes of Presidents,
Generals, Kings, Queens,
men— men
Noblemen— diid more
and women of
all
nobler
nations and professions."
189
In 1S56 Brady paid the fare to bring Alexander Gard-
ner from Scotland to
when Gardner
New
York.
free-lance photographer, the
working team.
An
From then
Brady to eover the
left
until 1S63,
Ci\il
War
two men made an
as a
ideal
experienced photographer, especially
in the wet-plate process
and
in enlarging,
ganized Brady's establishments to
make
Gardner
or-
impressi\'e, deli-
monumental portraits. manager of his WashingGardner In 1858 Brady made ton gallery. Brady's business flourished. Early in i860 he and
cately retouched
moved
his
New York
profitable
gallery for the third
and
Always located on Broadway, this time he
Tenth
Street,
opening the most ornate,
fashionable gallery of the day.
The
mighty covered the reception-room able
came
to
add
tinguished, and
last time.
mo\cd
elegant,
to
and
imperials of the
walls.
The
fashion-
their pictures to the roster of the dis-
all flocked to Brady's after the visit of
27, i860,
FRANCOIS 1S50. First
that Brad\' himself took on February
changed the entire course of
d' AVIGNON, Portrait
of
Mathew B.
his life.
Abraham
Brady. Lithograph,
published in Tlie Photographic Art Journal, January, 1851. Courtesy
190
this picture
the Cooper Union speech
United States." Brady's
two }ears
made me
"Brady and
later,
President of the
portrait of the
tall,
unbearded
lawyer introduced Lincoln, through the illustrated press
and Gurrier and
and inner
tings Lincoln It
Ives prints, as a
man
of profound dignity
strength. I'his was only the
first
of
many
sit-
was to give Brady.
was with Lincoln's election and the beginning of
the war that Brad\ lost interest in collecting a gallery of
document through War. His historic pictures
the illustrious and determined to
photography the entire Givil
enabled people to follow the course of battle, to be witness to scenes of actual conflict,
and
to feel the devasta-
tions of war.
Brady
visited Lincoln,
piece of paper, ga\'e
him
who
\\TOte "Pass
his blessing
Brady" on
a
but no money, and
cautioned him that there would be no
money forthcommoney when
ing for such a project. Brady did not need
the Prince of Wales.
One photograph
Lincoln said of
George Eastman House, Rocliester.
By the time it was o\er he had spent more than 5ioo,ooo, and owed $25,000
the war started. his fortune of
BRADY STAFF, Portrait of Mathcw
About
1865.
By one
B. Brady.
of Brady's assistants.
Courtesy Gernsheim Collection, London.
more
to
Anthony's for photographic materials. But, in
the beginning, Qwry
man from buck
was
at
Gettysburg and Richmond; and others whose
Brady's establishments.
known, remembered by a credit line given names below pictures in albums published after the war, were Coonley, C. N. Barnard, Louis H. Landy, T. C. J. F. Roche, W^illiam R. Pywcll, David Knox, Samuel C.
Brady
Ghester, and D. B. Woodbur>'.
had
to
have
his picture taken
and
private to general
ordered cartes de visite
by the dozen; the entire day there were left to others,
camps and bivouac
areas.
Brady took many of field;
lines before
The cheap and popular tintype who took literally millions in army his best
men
with him into the
by war's end he had financed twenty teams which
had covered
practically every
theater of war.
major engagement
in every
wagon
of pho-
Each was equipped with
a
tographic material which the soldiers dubbed a Is-It?" \\agon.
with the
Alexander Gardner and
Army
of the Potomac;
his
"What-
son James were
Timothy H. O'Sullivan
are
The Gonfederate Army's most prominent photographer, George F. Cook of Gharieston, was one of Brady's helpers.
Brady himself took the rout at Bull Run.
number
first
pictures of the war, the
returned with his
wagon and a
of negatives which the press hailed as "reliable
records," buying
graph
He
them
illustrations.
for
wood
engravings and litho-
Again beneath most pictures, this time
of \\ar, appeared the credit line
"From
a photograph
by
191
Brady."
He had
organized the
first
newspicture agenc\-.
The War Department suddenly saw the \ahie of phoM. Barnard to the Engi-
tography and assigned George neers to take pictures of terrain. Barnard's best
army
companied General Sherman on It
his
march
and the as
he
ac-
bullet,
in a
and prepare
wagon which
glass plates in the semi-darkness for
cumbersome cameras
like the
8-by-io-inch view camera, his
men
invited a marksman's
loo
popular stereo and the
slow to stop action, Brady
trained themselves to see
\\hich reflected the action frozen in death.
battlefield, littered like
The
an upturned wastcbasket, shower-
ing papers and pictures amidst the ungraceful, sprawling
made
dead,
imagined
for poignant pictures of readily
fierce action.
to the sea.
took strength of purpose and disregard of danger to
coop oneself up
and
installations
war pictures were made
still lites
Oliver Wendell
he took
mementoes
terrible
of the war,
flicts
New York.
of
Holmes saw Brady's own
Antietam and wrote
at
.
.
.
pictures that
"These
in the Atlantic,
of one of the most sanguinan,- con-
we owe to the enterprise of Mr. Brad\Wlio wishes to know what war is, look
at this series of illustrations."
and take grim
was the
It
sale of stereo cards
which Gardner hoped
MIC« uiU] mi, bf llw- f m>l«.i->n vbi.-li •cjiUrtrJ twcnlnp U»c?urn.t»
tlii»«> "Vi^-,
i-xptTWii-t ha" »ti"«rB <*«' itiliW*
in-
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OTW » xtty iu-^f tn-A "f
r!f
mort-T.
at
ilic
Bttt howif rer
wirfac*.
riToctiw tmr
fire il<^
p»rlm»^l« in*y be. and whatewr u>.-iivU,v it
may
t«
ilial
our
c xttnjMi I'll tori) t
*x!ii!'iti-ii,
t'ttixMio
It
i*
aA
w» ta~^\y hwcjil
Iho Jti'oiirinK dPiiiotil. I'ijtiu.
In
btiilil
awny
l>y
I.«i>i]nii,
oiImt K'lropcan tlliM,
ATid
(•iiII«gnitloiwar«'Ofrjre«*ciitTrnp*. It
is
(Mm
1>M«^
..w
«..
tt«« j'>l-l«. "l«"n
lliiw
wl>t'I> »*"•
«>«* of
biinictl i»»ay. in
UkK-h flr*.
in AfpXU.
«'>"*fn trilb-wl
i-*
l-'ilJIor*
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l» Itw ''"•t"^' "'«' "*
.«
"•""< »< .
-*
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Uk! »vrt U* t-y* hM. llw r"«. M»y 1--
U
.Ha^t^wkftH-it l" t** fi>'*
wM
l*!-*. Iw Miticfly f li**
nliMiM torn Iheir
^t'xittion tn Ihc Mv-rlimi of ini!*
lire*
.li^iraJilc
11II.1
1-^»'«.
nttribiilalilo
tu n viirirty or
|.ri,--_il
U cf i6l
that In the --cir*
ioriK.naion» a .llBcroiiro of mir*
.»f
aitims lo *«'»T otvM.*Ily V* **'•»
-^-w 'j^tiiUm
m inwwnw
will
thU u«tnrc—« '^ evident that, in tho (^"n* .levlliw.Mnd wilt Un* AfHw wUl l* "Wlthi
U-liwl up.>n bBiMinir« «I
t.mc.n-nU mt.^i m.-lcu.|p<*enrt.k»ofnre. "W* n.rtiW bf'^fcdto •««
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T
Vy
BRADY STAFF, Bradv's
Galler)'.
n^^-
Wood engraving from a photograph, about iS^^.
Brady's ornate and elegant establishment was opened on Broadway above
Thompson's Saloon,
1
855,
where he placed his own sign and a huge camera.
Engraving made from "A photograph by Brady." From Glcason's Pictorial Magazine. Courtesy George Eastman House.
192
JCu>il/r^kj. ,
i.j_
'Yi+O
//
.Au vUjku>vi^. l^tA*-
'/'
W.^ /
J'te^aCli
I
?^ /fi*¥
(.tie
.
*:
t^AZ-a-'^./'
f
i>-<^
-i-
^
y,^-'^^-
c^A ("ilT-/"
7.li
<3
signed by him, dated June ly, iS^^,
vMJL "ij'<^/' /i-u yiv
f
A /effcr definitely by Brady and wlien he was making jewelry and
daguerreotype cases in
New York.
Courtesy George Eastman House,
Boyer Collection.
,/
I
OlA. If^-^OT^*
'Y^^ /k^^^ <-
/?ii^ /'^ /4^
-^
ty/'>i^-^
'/
;i^
./^^^^^
.^^
^-»L.-t^
/
Jf
.
would be a source of income when he opened in
Washington
them
a year after
to separate
is
he
left
Brady.
plies.
Some
for services as
money Brady owed
of the prints
it.
he owed Anthony
Gardner took
the war Brady must have given in lieu of salary
caused
not definitely known, but
matters could well have been behind
Gardner money
his gallery
What
for
for sup-
Brady during
him when they parted
owed. These photographs appeared in
albums along with pictures
identifiable as Gardner's or
matter what happened, Brady's resolve never
les-
sened; he persisted in recording the nation's greatest conflict.
His
galleries
in
New
York, without him,
portraits of visiting celebrities; this
Richmond was
Tim
He and
his
teams took thousands
and penetrating documents. Grant's march on a
nine-month campaign. T. C. Roche and
O'Sullivan were along most of the time, exposing
themselves again and again in the midst of bombard-
ment
to get a picture.
Brady came
diately after the surrender.
E. Lee,
He
to
called
Richmond
innne-
on General Robert
whom he had photographed in Washington, and
convinced the revered leader of the Confederate Arm\- to pose with his son and his aide, Colonel ra\lor; they sat
his son's taken after they left Brady.
No
Brady's war pictures. of grave
made
income supported
on the back porch of Lee's home on Franklin This
is
one of Brady's greatest
Street.
historic photographs.
Washington the returning armies again lined up at Brady's for pictures to compare their war-lined faces In
193
case, made in New York, and signed On opposite page is a detail of the name.
Rare daguerreotype
M.
B. Brady.
Brady was
opened
in this business
his first gallery.
from 1S41
to 18^4,
when he
Courtesy George Eastman House.
with the proud face of youth Brady had captured
when
they sat tor him the day they donned their uniforms.
General Sherman and his
staff
came
for a
group picture
but without General Blair. Brady or one of his assistants
took the general at a later date, and pasted the
one took the time
to find out;
meanwhile an untold num-
ber of glass plates were broken, irreparably scratched, or lost. still
A
deli-
The in
first
catalogue in 1897 disclosed 6,000 plates
good condition.
third representative group of negatives, the Brady-
berately posed and perfectly proportioned picture onto
Handy
the board already imprinted with his name.
of Congress for $25,000, paid to the
The excitement and still.
in
New
His wife, Julia, was
wanted pictures.
ill;
To
pay Anthony's
Washington
conic to Washington in 1866 at the age of twchc seeking
was no market for war
bill for
supplies
Brady
relin-
quished a duplicate set of his war negatives; he sold his
work, and within two years Brady had fine portrait photographer.
York studio and some real estate he owned. The War Department, in July, 1S74, P^^'*^' ^ storage bill Brady owed amounting to $2,8.^0, for which they
number
of photographic negatives of war
views as well as pictures of prominent men. General
Benjamin
F. Butler questioned the
title to this
property.
(later President)
and succeeded
He and
War
Department's
General James A. Garfield
evaluated the collection at $150,000
an appropriation of $25,000 paid to Mathew B. Brady on April 15, 1875. How many pieces were in the collection? For twenty-two years no
194
in getting
Handy
made him
ran the
into a
gallcr)-
in
Washington, continuing Brady's practice of securing the distinguished and the fashionable to
New
secured a large
two daughters of
at Brady's stood
Brady was broke. People
to forget the war; there
was recently purchased by the Library
Levin C. Handy, Brady's nephew-in-law. Handy had
of the postwar period in
York died down; business
collection,
sit
for portraits.
made his home with 1895 Brady, now practically
After the death of his wife, Brady
nephew.
his
blind, to
New
of his
One
day in
was run over by a vehicle.
He
recovered and went
York City, where he was planning an exhibition 15, 1896, two
war photographs, but on January
weeks before the show opened, he died.
Mathew
B. Brady
with the great
whom
Ci\-il
lies
buried in Arlington Ccmcten,'
War heroes whom
he photographed
knows as li\ing men primarily because of one man whose most honorable medal was and
a by-line
the nation
"Photograph by Brady."
'jsmw-*^'^!
BRADY STAFF, Portrait of Andrew Jackson. Daguerreotype, 1S45. The seventh President, in the year of his death. Taken at The Hermitage in Nashville, where Brady had sent a team to
make sure
that
Old lliekory
would be included in his proposed Gallery of Illustrious Americans. Courtesy George Eastman House, a gift of A. Conger Goodyear.
195
MATHEW
B.
BRADY
Due dcChartres. iS6i. Due de Chartres, grandson
above: Portrait of the
Robert d'Orlcans,
of
King
Louis-PIiilippe of France, Captain in the United States
Army
1S61-62.
He took the oath
of allegiance
but served without pay. left:
in
West Field. 18^8. Taken when Field laid the transatlantic cable
Portrait of C\rus
the year
between the United States and England. opposite page,
Taken
in
left:
Portrait of Jefferson Davis, i860.
Washington the year before Davis became
president of the Confederate States.
opposite page, right: General Ro1:)ert E. Lee and 1S65.
At
left
is
Staff.
Major General George Washington
Custis Lee, son of General Lee; at right Colonel
Walter Taylor. One of five photographs Brady took of Lee on the back porch of his house on Franklin Street in Richmond. All four, courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
196
197
ALEXANDER GARDNER, President Lincoln and General McClellan on the Battlefield of Antictam. Wet-plate photograph, October 1S62. Courtesy George Eastman House.
Two
tintypes,
one of an unknown corporal
in the
uniform of the Union Army.
the other of the only identifiable Negro soldier of the 200,000 Sgt.
J.
L.
Baldwin of
Company G,
who served—
^6th U. S. Colored Infantry, organized August. 1 S63.
Photographer unknown. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
198
\.'
\A
^Ji^^i
ricf^
GARDNER, Portrait of Lewis Payne. Wet-plate photograpli, about 1S65. Conspirator in the assassination of President Lincoln. On the night of April i^,iS6j,he attacked Secretary of State William H. Seward with a knife. Courtesy George Eastman House.
199
200
left:
BRADY STAFF, Ruins of Richmond, Virginia. April
12, 1865,
by an unidentified Brady team. Courtesy George Eastman House, below,
left:
Generally
timothy
Known as
below: GARDNER,
ii.
o'sullivan. Quarters of
Fort
I
lell.
Homc of a
May,
Men in Fort Sedgwick,
1S65. Print by Alexander Gardner,
Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg.
Wet-plate photograph, 1S65. Both, courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
->^ a^-
^
'
'*!.
%
% *•»,
^^.
^
t^-t;^
.rr^^
^-r'^-^^.*^ -
-.•v^
:
'w^-
>'*-'^
4lf:M
7^
'
below: brady staff.
On Deck of a Union Warship. Wet-plate
photograph, 1S64. Stamped "Brady" on mount,
it
was taken by
an unknown team Brady sent out to cover the navy. opposite page, above: o'sullivan, Pontoon Bridges Across the Rappahannock Used at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Wet-plate House, photograph, December, 1S62. Both, courtesy George Eastman Drill opposite page, below: brady and Gardner, Ambulance by Zouaves. 1S62. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
.-^.y
r'!^',.
^
.».J.— _w-™
203
Pioneers
West
of the
With the cry of gold in
1849 and the race for
it
across
the countr)^, a dagiierrcotjpist, Robert H. Vance, trun-
dled along with his equipment in the \\ake of the miners
with their
tools. It
evident that
is
Vance was
in California
during 1849 and 1850, for in 1851 he brought to
York
hundred
three
New
daguerreotypes
whole-plate
of
miners panning gold and a number of magnificent views of California's sccner)'. scribes
and
A
contemporary account de-
praises the daguerreotypes
that he sold the collection to Jeremiah
and then reports Gurney for much
less
than the $3,700 he spent in securing the
and
their fitted plush cases.
The St.
collection's next
owner was
J.
W.
silver
images
Fitzgibbon of
Louis, himself a daguerreotypist of the expanding
frontier,
who showed
final disposition of
\'ance's
work
in his galler)'.
The
the collection remains a mystery; no
more than seventy-five years. Vance learned the wet-collodion process while he was
trace has existed for
in the East, substituting
an ii-by-14-inch camera for the
smaller daguerreot\pc and returning to California to
open a studio
in
San Francisco.
An album
of sharp prints
taken in 1859 on ii-by-14-inch plates, attributed to
\'ance and recently acquired by Eastman House, depict
temporary camps along the sand and rock bars and mining operations in dried river beds.
Another album of
original
photographs published
in
1856-1857 by Herre and Bauer at the
office of the
San
Francisco Journal are pictures by George R. Farden of
wooden
the the
tall
streets,
intimate parks, views of the sea, and
four-story buildings of the lively city on the
White House
O'Sullivan photographed the
Canyon de Chelly, one of name is a distortion from
ruins
pictures.
at
The
the Navaho, Tse-Yee, mean-
The
ing "within the rocks."
most superb
his
drying up of the wells be-
Pacific.
cause of a drought which lasted for most of the later
One of the really gifted cameramen who photographed the West was I'imothy H. O'Sullivan, who had been with Brady at Gettysburg and Richmond and who had
thirteenth century
seen three
He had
full
years of misery through
survived, but not even
him back
lured
New He
glass.
into the sophisticated atmosphere of the
studio. Celebrities in
ground
liis
Brady himself could have
and
though he had been born
cities,
York, held no more fascination for him.
the sight of unexplored lands and out-of-the-way places. in 1867,
sponsored a geological explora-
tion of the fortieth parallel, to be directed by Clarence
King. O'Sullivan was
years of the expedition.
grandeur in the
What
He
took pictures of nature's
falls, lakes, rivers,
of the towering Rockies, feet inside
photographer for the three
official
and mountain ranges
and he went down hundreds
mines to take pictures by magnesium
an impression they made
as the
ot
made
sidelight cutting across the striated wall. It
striking
a brilliantly
is
which are
on a ridge seventy
set in a semicircular cave
above the canyon bed. Below, two barely discernible
men
men
hold a rope attached to two other
standing on
the roof of the ruins.
Not much
known
is
pedition
conducted
Wheeler.
It
is
by
now-promoted
the
Captain
believed that he worked off and on for
Alexander Gardner that both
of O'Sullivan after the 1874 ex-
in
Washington.
definitely
It is
known
Brady and Gardner recommended him for a
job as chief photographer in the Treasury Department, for
which he was hired. months,
scant record
fell
He worked
in
and resigned.
ill,
Washington about
Two
years later the
O'Sullivan's death, January 14, 1882,
lists
age forty-two, perhaps forty-three. His exact birth date
What
take his cameras into the steaming jungles of Panama.
was never certain.
For a year he was with the Commander Selfridge expe-
body, suffering with tuberculosis, was a courageous
dition,
map as
which the government had sent out
to survey
and
a possible ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien,
the Isthmus of
Panama was then
called.
Insects,
swamp fevers, impenetrable jungle, and wild beasts were among the hardships that he encountered, and often made it as difficult to secure pictures as it had been during the war. O'Sullivan endured
it all
and was not
deterred from his purpose. Using an ii-by-14-inch cam-
he made hundreds of negatives,
era as well as a stereo,
turning
them over
to
Commander
years later incorporated
The next
them
Selfridge
who
four
into his official report.
year O'Sullivan was again in the West. Thor-
oughly trained in the rough
life
required by expedition
photography, he was immediately signed up by Lieutenant George
M.
Wliecler,
who was
directing a series
of surveys in the Southwest. O'Sullivan
was to make
two subsequent annual expeditions with Lieutenant Wheeler, skipping 1872, when he went East. The very first
year O'Sullivan
made more than
negatives, using large cameras to retain
three
all
hundred
the detail pos-
given
envisioned wall seen floating above the ancient dwellings,
six
to
cliff is
prominence and the texture emphasized by the
nation saw them
came down from the mountains
the Indians abandon their hal-
dwellings.
flares.
reproduced in the illustrated press! In 1870 O'Sullivan
cliff
In the O'Sullivan picture the overhanging
feet
sought continued adventure through his camera:
The government,
lowed
an alertness to the \\ ill
is
art of the
certain
that in his sick
is
spirit,
camera, and an indomitable
to leave a li\ing record of the terrors of
war and the
splendors of nature.
A
contemporary of O'Sullivan who lived
a year less
than a century, from 1843 to 1942, was William Henry Jackson.
He
rapher's studio.
become
He
a
War. His Vermont photog-
served the year 1862 in the Civil
enlistment over, he resumed work in a
He
left in
1866 for
St.
Louis, \\'hcre he
bulKvhackcr of an ox train crossing the plains.
sketched, worked as a hired hand, tried prospecting
when he was
in California early the next year,
and then
hired on to drive wild horses back east as far as
Omaha.
Here, in late 1867, his career as a photographer really
began
in
partnership with his brother Edward,
out from their
opened
a studio,
and returned
home town
of Peru,
New
who came
York. Tlicy
but Edward soon tired of photography
to farming.
In 1869 Jackson took a series of pictures along the
Union
Pacific railroad, trading
board
\\ith the section
photographs for bunk and
hands.
He roamed
the country
sible in contact prints of the majestic scenerj' of the
with his camera, going to Salt Lake City and the Black
canyons of the Colorado River.
Hills of
In 1873 the Wheeler survey explored Arizona, where
Wyoming,
some out-of-the-way
taking side station
trips,
and returning
where he caught
to
a train for
205
Omaha and
his gallery. Dr.
Ferdinand V. Hayden of the
colors
when he
did not photograph, was pleased to find
New
York
Thomas Moran, accom-
United States Geological Sun'ey of the Territories hired
the famous
Jackson in 1870 to join a three-month expedition from
panying the expedition to paint Yellowstone's scenic
August to November,
at
no pa\ bnt expenses and
per-
mission to keep the negatives with the proviso that prints be
made
available to
Hayden when he
requested
tists,
Jackson
photographed along the Oregon-Mormon
the North Platte River where a dry gorge was
named
members
of the part\ were divers scien-
geologists, topographers,
and
naturalists,
who
re-
corded in cold reports what Jackson photographed so beautifully.
them.
trail,
marvels. Other
artist,
Nine
for the people of
of his photographs saved Yellowstone
America, making an area of 3,578 square
miles into the countPi's
first
national park.
through Bridger's Pass, then on to Pike's Peak and
Harden bound nine of Jackson's best photographs, including Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, The Great Falls, and the
Denver
Crater of the Grotto Geyser, into individually gold-
Jackson Canyon in his honor, along the badlands of Wyoming, the Uinta Mountains, down the Green River
in the cold
liked the sign
life.
He
and snow of an deliberately
up with Dr. Ha\den
the following year.
He
early winter. Jackson
went
as official
plus 200 nuilc
Washington
to
photographer for
closed his studio in
Yellowstone was the expedition's in 1871. Jackson took
to
field of
Omaha.
embossed volumes
The
Senate.
bill
Grant signed
operations
an 8-by-io-inch and a stereo camera
pounds of equipment, mostly packed on
Dr.
his
"n\po." Jackson, who sketched and painted water
nation's
it
for
passed
each
member
b\' a
good margin, and President
March
1,
of the
1872, removing one of the
wonders forever from commercial exploitation
for private gain.
The
third expedition of Dr.
Hayden extended
tion of Yellowstone, but Jackson took off with
:h^"5!^
'^
House and
explora-
one
assis-
ROBERT
H.
VANCE, Wet-plate photographs, 1S59.
View of Maine Bar from the East. View of Poverty Bar to Oregon Bar. River-Bed Mining in California. Both, courtesy George Eastman House, Rocliester. left:
above:
207
208
f^,r^ ^
R. FARDEN, Three Views of Sail Francisco. Wet-plate photographs, 1856. Courtesy George Eastman House.
GEORGE
tant and three different-sized cameras for the Great
The Mount
Teton Range near the head of Snake River. In the snow and cold at 11,000 feet he took some superb panoramic
Mountains lies
views of the Three Tetons as they towered above him.
shape of a cross 1,500 feet
named
The
highest, 13,858,
feet
above Jackson's Lake, the second natural
after Dr. Ilaydcn,
was 7,000
site
named
In the 1873 expedition Jackson directed a botanist, an
On
now
he again
of the
August
also a national park, in the
after
him on
that
San Juan Moun-
Butte of the Mesa Verde was
trip.
The
following year, 1875,
visited the region; this time, in addition to his
usual cameras, he hauled along on an extra
mule
a cam-
ic\
era capable of taking negatives 20-by-24 inches. ^\niat
Rocky Mountains. At the
foot of the
skill it
mountains Jackson photographed the eroded sandstone shapes of Monument Park and the Garden of the Gods.
On
in length
front-range
Peak, Pike's Peak and Torrcy's Peak, the
summits
here
in a hundred-foot crevice in the
tains of Colorado. Jackson
ing from Long's Peak in Estes Park, Jackson took a series close-ups of Gray's
Red Table
The snow
weathered and deserted chff dwellings of the Mesa
named
and
in the
and 700 feet in width. the same expedition Jackson photographed the
entomologist, a cook, and two assistants as a unit. Start-
of connected views, panoramas,
Holy Cross, located
permanently frozen
Verde,
after the dedicated photographer.
of the
of Colorado at 14,176 feet.
24, Jackson
photographed
for the
first
time
required to coat c\eiily a glass plate two feet wide,
expose, and dc\clop,
all
while the collodion was
in a
still
maximum
of 15 minutes
moist!
Jackson's impressive record, according to a catalogue
209
TIMOTHY II. o'suLLivAN. Tluee wct-platc pliotographs above: Panama-Limon Bay at High Tide. 1870. right: Sclf-Portrait. From a stereograph, 1870. Taken during the Selfridge Daricn (Panama) expedition, opposite page: Black Canyon, Colorado River. 1871
The
photographer's boat and equipment.
All three, courtesy
George Eastman House.
210
SSSJ-Jl
many of his old prints and comnew pictures for promotional photographs made people aware of the
of his photographs published in 1875 which covers his
roads of the west bought
seven expeditions with Dr. Hayden, consists of 973 stereos, 308 negatives 5-by-8 inches, 107 ii-by-14, 526
missioned him to take
and 12
8-by-io,
2o-by-24. I'he best day
he could expose
purposes. His
breathtaking beauty to be seen in America; and trips to
only thirty-two negatives. Exposure was by hand tap, the
the national parks became one of the country's grand
smallest of openings used to gain the sharpest of defini-
tours.
tion
demanding 15 seconds exposures.
The a
year 1876 Jackson devoted to the construction of
model based on
his
photographs of the
for the Philadelphia Centennial. lost one.
for Dr.
The
Exploring the Pueblos of
tured commercially for the
first
time.
Mexico, again
The
manufac-
plates
What
breaking experience to see a year's results black from the developer!
dwellings
cliff
next year was a
New
Hayden, he used the new dry
all
a heart-
come out
manufacturer's guaranty
did replace the defective plates free of charge.
millions of photographs of
Old Faithful and
later.
he sold famous views of nature on
stereoscope cards, large prints suitable for framing, and smaller sizes to book publishers for illustrations.
equipment have never surpassed the pictures taken by Jackson with his messy wet plates and unwieldy cameras.
Not the w-onders
of nature but rather soldiers, buffalos,
and the landscape of the "Big Open," as he called the prairie and badlands between the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers,
were the subjects for the unique pictures of
the frontier taken by Laton Alton Huffman. Ihiffman
became post photographer at Fort Keogh, Montana
'I'cr-
ritory, in 1878.
Jackson opened a studio in Denver three years All over the world
The
the other wonders of Yellowstone taken with advanced
The
rail-
In below-zero temperatures
Huffman followed the
sol-
diers dressed in their indispensable buffalo coats as they
drilled in knee-high snowdrifts. officers,
men,
scouts, trappers,
He
photographed the
and famous Indian
chiefs
with nostalgic names, Sitting Bull, Spotted Eagle,
Moon, and Rain
Two
sands in just one corner of
in the Face, either in his studio in the
fort or in their buffalo-hide tepees
w^hich
graphed the
surrounded by their
squaws and children. In 1880
falo.
ing "buffalo by
recorded on
May
12.
willful destruction of the prairie-lording buf-
Later he photographed hunting parties shooting
elk,
antelope, bear, and other game, but by 1883 the loping
camera was with him photograph-
bison killed for hide and tongue was only a topic for
a studio in Miles City,
the thousands in every direction," as
with their hcavv
alone, for hides
Mon-
Huffman opened
tana, but for days the
Montana
brought around $2.50 each. Huffman photo-
Three
rifles
had
he
conversation around the
In his Miles City studio
years later the hide hunters killed off
fire.
hundreds of thou-
celebrities as
Huffman photographed such
Calamity Jane, Teddy Roosevelt, noblemen
^
^— %?! *^*^ o'suLLi\'.\N.
Ji
Wet-plate photographs.
above: Lieutenant Wheeler's Expedition
O'Sullivan was the
official
in the "^'oscmitc.
1
Sji
photographer.
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. 1873. Wheeler expedition. Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
right:
212
'/Hirx
from Europe already pursuing the legend of the red man,
steader in his sod hut, the barbed wire and the plow,
and unnamed
and the closing of the open
eolorful visitors to the
wide open cow
town. Cattlemen and eow punchers sat for his camera,
cowboys
named in honor of Huffman and 'i'. H. O'Sullivan to rank along with Mt. Watkins in Yosemite National Park, Mt. Millers in the Henry Mountains of Utah, Mt. Haynes in Yellow-
fighting a losing battle with the sheep herder
stone National Park, and the Canyon, Butte, and Lake
mostly in the open. to secure
He roamed
with them on roundup
an honest and impressive graphic record of the
straight-backed, pigeon-breasted, unglamorizcd
who were
prairie forever.
for the land.
photographed
Huflfman saw the changing it
frontier,
and
honestly and with insight— the home-
Geographical memorials should be
L. A.
named
in
honor of
W.
H. Jackson,
photographers of historic and
all
artistic
commemorating
prominence.
()
SULLIVAN
left:
Church
of San Miguel, Santa Fe,
New Mexico.
Wct-pldtc plwtograph, iSj^. Wheeler expedition, opposite page: Ruins of
White House, Canyon de Chclly,
Arizona. Cliff dwellings abandoned in the thirteenth century.
Two explorers in
the bed of the canyon attached by
rope to tM'o others standing on the roof of the ruined house.
Wheeler
expedition.
Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
\v. H.
JACKSON,
The Rio San
Juan, Colorado.
Wet-plate photograph, about iSy^. Courtesy George Eastman House.
215
JACKSON, above: Train and Steep Grade
in the
Canyon
of
the Rio Las Animas. Wet-plate photograph, i8y6.
Courtesy Division of Colorado State Archives and Public Records right:
Old
Faithful, Yellowstone National Park.
Wet-plate photograpli, i8~o. First picture taken of the geyser. Courtesy George Eastman I louse.
210
•s.
V--
L"a»««'
below: jackson, 18-^. Courtesy right:
W.
II.
Mount of the Holy Cross. Wet-plate photograph,
George Eastman House.
Jackson in the Rockies. Wet-plate photograph, 1873.
Photographer unknown. Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western Collection.
218
Latoii Alton Huffman's studio, in Miles City,
Courtesy
220
W. R. Felton, Sioux City, Iowa.
Montana, about
iSSo.
LATON ALTON HUFFMAN left:
Typical Sheep Herder.
idkcn
in
Miles City, Montana,
jjhoto studio, about iSSo. bi'low:
Guard
A[ount,s in Buffalo
Coats. Wet-plate photograph, I'ort
Keogh, Montana.
Both, courtesy Mrs. Ruth Huffman Scott, Miles City,
Montana.
ff.
^
.sSXi
HUFFMAN Montana, 1S79. above: After the Buffalo Run. North the Tongues of Buffaloes. Montana, 1S78. right:
Taking
Scott. Both, courtesy Mrs. Ruth Uuffman
HUFFMAN, Red-Armed Panther, a Cheyenne Indian Scout. Fort Keogh, Montana, 1879. Courtesy Mrs. Ruth Uuffman Scott.
222
HUFFMAN right:
High Bear, an Ogallalla Sioux. About
it
Courtesy Mrs. Ruth Huffman Scott. below. Sioux Chief
Hump and
His Favorite Wives.
Miles City, Montana, iSSo. Courtesy
W. R. Felton.
Miiybri(l<»e
and EakiiisPlioto<>rcipliy
of Motion
One
of the great contributors
to the iincntion of
the motion picture was born in England as
James Muggcridge, but changed
uhat he bclie\cd was
its
true
name
his
Saxon
Edward
early in life to
spelling,
Eadwcard
Muybridge (1830-1904). He migrated to the United States and is first mentioned for a series of large photographs he took in Yoscmite in 1867. effects printed in
from admiring
The
superb cloud
from a second negative received praise
critics
awarding medals
in International
Exhibitions; and twcnt\- of these composite photographs
were
in the first
guidebook to Yosemite's wonders.
In 1868, less than a \ear after the United States go\-ern-
mcnt purchased Alaska from the was sent along as force
empowered
official
Russians, Muybridge
photograhcr with the military
newly acquired
to take o\er the
terri-
tory formally.
Ex-Go\crnor Leland Stanford the traditional
horse had its
all
running
ston,-,
four feet
gait.
in
1872, according to
bet a friend $25,000 that a race oflF
the ground at one time during
Muybridge, who had an established
rep-
utation as a photographer, was hired to photograph
Occident, a famous trotting horse
Despite
/
a fast shutter that
in Stanford's stable.
Miu])ridgc had in\-cntcd and
white sheets covering the track to give extra
light,
the
wet-plate process of that time was too slow to give proof,
but there was sufficient indication that the ex-Go\-crnor
was correct, and Mu\bridgc was asked to continue.
He
was not to resume
five years. In
his experiments,
1873 he photographed the
Modoc
ing amidst the lava beds in the
however, for
guerrilla fight-
Indian
War
was the celebrated French painter of cavalry and
tion, as
battle scenes, Ernest Meissonier.
On May
at
14, 1880, the
the California-Oregon border. I'he next postponement
presented the
was caused not by an assignment but by a scandal and a
jected
murder that sent him he
several years until
Panama and Guatemala
to
felt safe to
return to California.
In 1874 Muybridge shot and killed his wife's lover.
was acquitted by a
which accepted
jur}',
his
who
said,
"He was most
work he would not take
He
as evidence of
Muybridge's temi3orary insanity testimony given by former employer
for
his
eccentric. In
view
a picture unless the
Within the California code of honor Muybridge was justified, but it was wiser not to tempt fate and he left the country.
on a
San Francisco Art Association
photographs of a galloping horse pro-
first
large screen
by
magic lantern.
a special
so realistic, a reporter covering the
It
was
program wrote, that
the only thing missing was the clatter of hoofs. Animated
movements
cartoons and the
photographed
be played
time to
in perfect
first
motion
music could
had been projected on
it)
Muybridge had actually
screen a decade earlier, but
sented the
of a dance (the sequence
in frozen poses so that the
picture.
This "zoogyroscope," or "zoopraxiscope" as he
suited him."
a
pre-
worked on the principle of an old
later
toy, the zoe-
called
it,
trope.
The Muybridge projector used two glass
disks,
one
one direction and
Late in 1877 the truthfulness of a wood engraving based on a Muybridge photograph of the trotter Occi-
containing twelve images revolving in
dent was questioned, since the photograph was admit-
direction,
tedly retouched. In June 1878 ex-Governor Leland Stan-
Muybridge did not pursue motion-picture photography. Improved machines were to be developed by Pro-
ford invited the San Francisco press to witness
Muy-
bridge photographing a trotting horse and a racing mare.
Twelve cameras were
set up,
each
fitted
with a drop
a
second slotted
fessor
E.
From each
was stretched across the
track, acti-
Muybridge.
a fine wire
as a shutter.
Marey, G. Demeney, and the Lumiere
J.
shutter triggered by a spring or rubber band.
vated by the iron rim of the wheel of the sulky, which
caused to revolve in the opposite
Thomas
Brothers in France, and by
United States,
camera
disk,
which served
all
of
whom
A. Edison in the
acknowledged their debt
Photographing animal and
to
human locomotion was
closed an electrical circuit, thereby releasing the shutters
Muybridge's main
one
grant from the University of Pennsylvania, where he
after another.
The track was amount of light
maximum The ground
prepared to concentrate the for the fastest exposures.
and
interest,
for this
stayed for three years until 1887.
The
he received a
eleven volumes
published that year under the auspices of the university.
salt;
every-
Animal Locomotion: Electro Photograpliic Investigations of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements,
thing was in the brightest sunshine; and, though
Muy-
cover Muybridge's photographic experiments from 1872
was sprinkled with powdered lime; the background screen was intensely white, co\'ered with rock
bridge
still
used wet plates, the collodion had been
For photographing the handsome mare
Sallie
Gardner
twelve fine black threads were placed across the track, striking her breast high
and
The
releasing the shutters.
resulting photographs proved conclusively that the four feet of a galloping horse are all off the
ground only when
The
English mezzotints depicting pink-coated riders galloping
hobby
stretching straight ahead
hind, were
now
horses,
with
and the hind
the front feet
feet
extended be-
seen as quaint and the representations
of centuries were refuted. Artists
all
over the world rec-
ognized that personal obscr\ations, no matter
how
keen,
could not compare with the instantaneous vision obtainable by camera. Frederic sell,
famous painters
of
and
and
consist of
Remington and Charles Rus-
cowboys and horses, were
more than 100,000 photographs.
animals shown are not only the domestic dog,
cat,
horse, but also moose, elk, bear, raccoon, lion, tiger,
monkey, and
Most
birds.
of his photographs of
humans
are nudes, a
num-
ber depicting cripples in abnormal movements, anticipating a great
demand by
photographs for
they are bunched together under the belly.
astride
to 1885
The
speeded up by "ripening" or aging.
Muybridge
live
artists
who would
substitute
models.
retired to
England, but returned
briefly in
1893 to lecture on animal locomotion at the Columbian Exposition's "Zoopraxographieal Hall" in Chicago. He published the
never
left
Human Figure
in
Motion
England again and did
in 1901,
little in
but he
photography
the rest of his days; he died at his birthplace, Kingston-
on-Thames, in 1904. It is
not generally
known
that
Thomas Eakins (1844-
influ-
1916), today accepted as one of America's great nine-
Mo-
teenth-century painters, was also an ardent photogra-
enced by these revelations of Muybridge's Horse in
225
pher.
The
stark realism
and honesty with which,
in his
painted portraits, he brought out the inherent strength
and character of the
subject, Eakins tried to achieve as
w ell when he photographed. His strong tion of clever
and fashionable
copying photographs
He
his rejec-
him from
his
more than
younger
a
decade
later.
Both
detailed photograph
he made
portraits
as artistic truth. is
an
artistic
cor-
The blunt,
end
in itself;
the painting constructed stroke by stroke reflects his ex-
is
photograph of approach to
medium
A for
member
A
brilliant anatomist,
Eakins had studied
animal anatomy for scxcral years
human and
at Jefferson
Medical
College; he embraced enthusiasticalh- the opportunity to collaborate with
Muybridge. They soon
Eakins's scientifically trained
mind
differed.
readily obscrxed that
twelve or twenty-four separate cameras could not follow
more accurate method, using
a single camera. In front of
his sister
is
art, stressing
Eakins's
realistic,
humanistic
within the limitations of each spirit of
him, for "he would bring out
all
those
have been trying to conceal
traits
more accurate method
its
lens re\'olvcd a disc with a hole in
of charac-
for years."
recommended
of measuring the horse's gait
of
i
It \\as
Eakins's contention that the
throughout an entire action could be followed more than the separate actions photographed by Muy-
bridge's multiple cameras.
A man
walking, polc-\'aulting, running, a
model jumping
EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, Horsc I'rottiug at 36 Fcct per Second.
From a wood engraving after a wet-plate pliotograph
which permitted
sequence of movement relating one shape to another
easily
prompted him
it
simpler and
a series of superimposed distinguishable images to be
taken on one plate.
the subject.
to correspond with Muybridge. In 1879 he
Syj.
Exposure: i/iooo second. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
226
Eakins was appointed a
of the supervising committee.
He preferred a
Eakins's keen interest in photography
a
interest people in raising funds
to continue his experiments at the Uni-
the speed of a subject exactly.
the dignity and
I
He also helped
Muvbridge
his skillful draftsman-
friend of Eakins once said that he would not pose
ter that
to lecture.
for
of Fine
Muybridge
inherent in both the painting and the
knowledge of anatomy and
ship. \\liat
Academy
Arts, the oldest art school in America, invited
versity of Pennsylvania.
favorite
Miss Marj- Adeline Williams, "Addie,"
respond to what he conceived
pert
Eakins, as head of the Pennsylvania
1882 (the year she died) and painted their child-
friend,
realistic,
and
painting portraits.
photographed and painted
sister in
hood
when
will
likeness kept
which, however, Muybridge did not adopt. In 1884
or lifting an object,
all
woman
became fit subjects
II
12
11
11
K{
15
1ft
1^11
lU
13
It 15
1ft
17 18
/O
MUYBRiDGE, Hoisc Sallie
in
ij
11
15
1ft
i:
5
1
'/'
Motion. Wet-plate plwtograpJis, iSjS. The horse
Gardner, owned by Leland Stanford, runnmg atai
.40 gait over
Palo Alto track, San Francisco, June 19, 1S7S. First successful photographs of
moving
illustrate
horse.
The
negatives were
made at
intervals of 27 inches to
consecutive positions assumed during a single stride of the mare.
The vertical lines are 2- inches apart;
the horizontal lines represent
elevation of 4 inches each Exposure of each negative, less than .
1/2000 second; twelve cameras used. Courtesy George Eastman House.
Camera used by Muybridge to stop
in
i8y8
image of running horse.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
227
8
9
li
for Eakins in 1884.
Professor E.
J.
He
Marey
did not publish his pliotographs.
of France,
whose camera
principle
of revolving discs for fast photographs Eakins modified
and used, did publish similar experiments with the multiple
plate.
shapes of a nude figure superimposed on a single
None
Duchamp translated similar painting, Nude Descending a
experiments into an
enough,
oil
which created
is still
often
a furor of protest and, strangely
Eakins continued his experiments with nude athletes
and models
as well as
with horses in motion. In
18815
he
lectured at the university with a projector he either in-
vented or borrowed from Muybridge. Having succeeded in establishing the principle that a single
pictures of a subject in
this
in
they were both successful; both contributed
through their experiments to the development of the
motion
picture.
Eakins, the
graphic
art.
motion from
camera taking
a single viewpoint
228
to
for re-
master draftsman, he compared a
and
fine
therefore that
felt
best of paper. Accordingh
still
,
photograph it
to
deserved the
he printed on costh- platinum
paper capable of retaining the most subtle and delicate tones.
As an of his his
artist
life;
as a
own.
by Muybridge for showing sequence photographs made on Courtesy George Eastman House.
camera
be respected and
continued to use the
photograph was
tained as a fine-art print, such as an etching or lithograph.
A
Zoogyroscope. Motion-picture projector invented 18S0
glass discs.
artist,
A
a master drawing
\ilified.
His
his experiments.
purpose, like Muybridge's, was to analyze motion, and
of the photographs published created a stir
of protest. In igi2 Marcel
Siciircase,
was a preferable way, he gave up
Eakins was neglected until the
photographer he
is
only
latter \ears
now coming
into
MuvBRiDGE, Figure Hopping. iSSj. Sequence of eight stages of movement, simultaneously photographed by multiple cameras at three different positions. Courtesy Cooper Union Aluseuni Library,
New York.
229
MUYBRiDGE, Figure
in
Motion. iS8y. Sequence of twelve stages
of moverncnt, simultaneously photographed by multiple cameras at three different positions.
Courtesy Cooper Union
Museum Library.
MUYBRIDGE, Fenccrs. Twelve sequence photographs, Philadelphia, October ii, 1885. Published in Animal Locomotion. Courtesv George Eastman House.
230
6
m^f' f
^.
THOMAS
F.AKiNS.
Three platinum
prints.
Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, above: Two Girls in Greek Dress. About 1880. opposite page, above: Portrait of
About left:
Mary Macdowell.
1886. Sister of Mrs. Eakins.
Nude Model. About
1880.
233
1
b|k^M^Mv'
EAKINS above: Portrait of William H. Macdowell. print.
About
Albumen
iSgo. Macdowell, an engraver, iras father-in-law
of the artist. Courtesy Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
opposite page, above: Portrait of William H. Macdowell.
Oil painting, iSqi Courtesy Randolph-Macon .
College, Lynchburg, Virginia.
234
Woman's
EAKINS left:
Margaret
in
Skating Costume. Oil painting,
i8yi Courtesy Philuclelphia .
Museum
of Art.
above: Portrait of Margaret Eakins. Glass positive, 1882. Courtesy Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
235
236
EAKINS left:
Pole X^aulter. Wet-plate photograph, 188^.
Courtesy Metropolitan below,
left:
Oil painting, 1912. Philadelphia
a Staircase.
Museum
of Art,
The Louise and V^'alter Arenshcrg Collection.
of Art.
Man Walking. Wet-plate photograph,
iSS^. Courtesy George
MARCEL DuciiAMP, Nudc Dcsccndiug
Museum
Eastman House.
Footlights,
and
Skylights,
Tintypes
There were more than ihree hundred galleries in
there,
New York
though he was soon to close
Broadway
photographers'
City alone by 1870. Brady was
in order to
still
his establishment
on
concentrate on his Washington
practice; Giirney's widely know'n gallery flourished,
and
that of Frederick, his former partner; but the three most
New
elegant galleries in
York operating
in the seventies
were those of Napoleon Sarony, William Kurtz, and Jose
Maria Mora. All later
three— like Falk, who opened
his gallery a
decade
— specialized in photographing celebrated actors and
actresses. I'heir pictures of the in turn attracted socict\
studios.
glamorous and beautiful
women and
A considerable profit
first-nighters to their
was enjoyed by
in the sale of cabinet-size (4-by-5'/2-inch) visite
carte-de-
(3%-by-2 '/4-inch) portraits of the nation's promi-
nent theatrical personalities, dressed their
all galleries
and
most popular
roles. F.ach gallcn,-
in
the costumes of
accumulated thou-
sands of negatives and sold innumerable pictures through the theater, hotels, the mail, and various other channels,
pacing a small royalty, actress.
vertising
any, to the pictured actor or
considered such good ad-
by management and performer that a commis-
)ion for posing
Of
if
The photographs were was
rarely exacted.
the three galleries, Sarony's was the best known,
Mora's the most profitable, and Kurtz's the most
artistic.
William Kurtz, born
who had
adventurer
German
in
Germany
artist-
army and had fought with the English army
War
during the Crimean
a lithographic artist
Civil
was an
served his time as a boy with the
America's Civil War. In
New
ing his
in 1834,
York
and with the Union Army London he had been trained
and had a
Upon
as
open-
soon after the close of the
gallery
War, he introduced
also taught art.
in
method
of lighting,
modeling
the subject's entire face through an arrangement of tinreflectors,
foil
photography.
which became known
A
"Rembrandt"
as
sensitive portrait photographer,
actor in a pose best portra)ing a role without forced effects or
awkward
stiflfncss.
The warm, dramatic, and excitable personality of Sarony made a profound impression on his sitters. Those who did not respond or fall under his spell he refused to take at
all
or turned over to one of his assistants. I'honias
Nast wrote, "He made everyone he photographed look like all
Sarony
.
seemed
to catch the
e\'cr\
Sarony
picture
.
.
.
trick of expres-
and pose."
sion
He worked
Kurtz
the same feeling was in
.
.
his sitters
hard to get a picture that
satisfied
him.
He
dispensed with elaborate or painted backgrounds, elimi-
dressed up in a hussar's uniform. (His father had been
nated incongruous costumes, and used contrasty, simple
an
backgrounds
in order to secure as
wide a range of tonality
with the wet-collodion process.
as possible
The
subtle
Rembrandt photograph became enormously respected and popular among competent photographers, who were able to control and capture the nuances of lighting and
modeling demanded by
this style.
Kurtz received man)-
prizes for portrait photography, including the highest
award of the International Exhibition, Vienna, Jose
Maria Mora, born
photography
in
in
Cuba
tional training in the intricacies of the
diately
of
own
and
in 1849, studied art
Madrid, but received two
Sarony before he opened his
in 1873.
years' addi-
camera from
gallery in 1870.
Imme-
he prospered, and became famous for his pictures actresses whom he posed with rich accesso-
renowned
front of painted scenic backgrounds. Mora's repu-
ries in
officer in the
had migrated
Black Hussars of the Austrian
after the battle of
'I'herc the future
after
Watedoo
Army and
to
Quebec.
photographer had been born and named
Napoleon, whose death had taken place the same
year, 1821.)
When pugilist,
Sarony photographed Jim Mace, the English
he sparred with the delighted champion
he had found
until
a pose acceptable for the camera.
Sarony always complained that Sarah Bernhardt never arrived early
He
enough
to take
ad\antagc of the best
light-
photographed her as the dying Camillc— a representa-
tive pose, since,
plays she
on her
first
American
tour, in the eight
performed she was dead by the
final curtain
in six.
A
few days
to the
after
customs
Oscar Wilde made his famous quip
officer at
New
tation grew with his designs for his painted backgrounds.
have nothing to declare except
York's port of
entr)', "I
my genius," he was
stand-
Soon he had hundreds of them standing one behind
ing in his get-up of knee breeches, although without the
another ready to be used for any kind of effect from
gilded
drawing room to log cabin, from desert to mountain top,
camera.
with appropriate props to complete the picture.
W.
L.
Seavey introduced painted backgrounds for
photographers; these quickl\- became standardized as accessories for the trade, along with ports, retouching stairs,
and
machines,
false
automatic head suppianos, balustrades,
chairs.
Photography's most famous chair was Napoleon Sarony's, in
which consummate actors and
played to his camera as to an
Little it," all
Corporal and
and held
ject's
at the
just as
1
same time
to "smile
vise-like
size as the
minute required, they clamps, asking
and look pleasant"
off and on from 1859 to 1904, Sarony photographed posed before and after his long nap.
Winkle
The many-times-marricd Adah
Isaacs
Menken, who
brandy and champagne," according to Mark Twain who
\\niere other photographers forced the sub-
head and body into
The elder Sothern, Sarony photographed as Lord Dundreary in Our American Cousin, the role he was performing at Ford's Theater the night Lincoln was shot. The ever-remembered Joe Jefferson, who pla\cd Rip \'an
When
indomitable, hollered "Hold
for the 15 seconds to the it.
same
to carry, in front of Sarony's
loved dogs and "fed them cubes of sugar soaked in
the exact pose, the precise expression, was struck, the imperious five-foot-one-inch Napoleon, the
he was wont
and
actresses sat
immense audience.
lily
them
(a cartoon
of the period was captioned "You may resume your natural glum look in just a moment"), Sarony caught the
watched her do it, came to Sarony's in London in 1864 when Napoleon worked there for his prosperous brother, Oliver, who ran a successful galler\- and photograph suppl\- house. In New York Sarony again photographed
Adah Menken
the )ear he opened his gallery in 1866.
costume she wore in Mazeppa, daringly exposing her legs and limbs in tights. At the climax of the play she was bound "naked" to the back
She posed
in the elaborate
of a wild horse "which galloped
up
a succession of run-
239
ways to the top of the theater while audiences roared
Moran, and the writer,
their tribute."
a novel.
Showman and
picturesque figure, Sarony printed his
flowing signature in red ink on c\er\' size photograph that left his
gallen,-,
and
structure he painted his
across the facade of the fi\e-stor\
name
in
huge
script.
He
stocked
including
sleighs, sleds, altars,
stuffed
birds,
tattered
tapestries,
Buddhas, armor, and sculpture, over
which an Egyptian mumni}- stood guard
at the
head of
the slow-ascending hydraulic elevator just big enough accommodate him and one customer. He picked from
to
this theatrical treasure
house the props he needed for his
lithographer
In
May
1896 Sarony sold at auction
this
hodge-podge curio collection. Six months
tremendous later
he was
members of the I'ile Club, William M. Chase and Edward
Hopkinson Smith. Smith wrote Horn, in which Sarony
of Oliver
known
an
it
artist-
to his fellow "skylarkers" as "the
Pole'" brings to the club a
countess— obviously a takeoff
inspired by Sarah Bernhardt.
Trained
as
an
artist in Paris for six years
turned to photography, Sarony continued to graphs and paint canvases
all
before he
make
litho-
his life, puerile efforts re-
sembling the commercial hack work of the period. Of years spent in I
photography he complained,
must pose and arrange
'I'hcy will
my
pictures.
F.
figured as the character Julius Bianchi; in
the building with a fantastic assortment of curios and antiques
The Fortunes
have me. Nobod\' but
art in the
If little
for these eternal
photograph
I
me will
do
"all
his
day long
photographs .
.
.
[but]
all
value as nothing."
Sarony underestimated his
life's
work and displayed
pride in the art of his camera, the itinerant tintype
man
with the black box at
dead. Pall bearers were fellow
"professor," the ever-present
the reputable painters
beach, carnivals, and congested streets, or located in
Napoleon Sarony in Hussar's Uniform. Taken by Sarony' s assistant, about iSjo. Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
240
nMJ^j^.
Surony's advertisement for cartcs-dc-visite.
Courtesy Museum of the City of
special
The poor and
tintype galleries near the board walks of the
country,
knew
that the pictures he took
iron, lacquered
The
New York.
whites
and
came
sensitized,
had no
on thin sheets of
artistic
value at
all.
out a dull gray and, though black
patent leather, oilcloth, and enameled papers were tried as substitutes, the
never lost
its
cheap single positive picture on "tin"
popularity.
The
results
could be seen in a
few minutes; the pictures were permanent; and, though
can,
Hamilton
lowly tintype was invented by an AmeriL.
who
Smith, in 1855,
called
"melainotypcs" from the prefix meaning black.
were also called "ferrotypes" meaning introduced to as
American
sold
Europe
in
ferrotypes,
iron.
them They
They were
the 1870s, and were advertised
mounted on
more cheaply than any other
a
paper cutout, and
existing photographic
image.
the tintype became a family heirloom along with the
was fortunately preserved in a fancy, tooled album; so also were the enormously popular "gems," which measured less than an inch. Not consid-
earlier daguerreotypes.
ered
easily scratched, they
costly anibrot\pcs
on
were glass.
less fragile
Assembled
than the more in a
union
ease,
'l'int\pcs in miniature appeared on rings, brooches,
pins, cufflinks,
and were the
first
taining pictures of the candidates. for tintype
political
tie
buttons con-
A patent
was granted
photographs to be attached to tombstones.
The
distinctive tint\pc
art, tintypes preserved for our day the honest and untouched face of the unsophisticated who posed for
this picture
and not
ing, unique,
for public or posterity. Tiie ingratiat-
and unidentified tintype image often cap-
tivates the spectator.
241
SARONY Joe Jefferson as
Rip \an Winkle.
Before and after
liis
long nap.
Cartes-de-visite, 1869.
Courtesy
Cornelia Otis Skinner,
New York.
GURNEY. Cartes-de-visite, iSjo. right:
far right:
Mark Twain. Edwin Booth.
Courtesy Cornelia Otis Skinner.
242
gi
Nt«f
amtaiit
i
S ST. LOUIS
PHOTOGRArHIC STOCK DEP
)VED
CLIP >
ciii:.n\
Tlir
oiijt:
tlin|n;
ll
I"
rrvcrvil
of the i'r"i'jr-, IhIwxi ti llu-
•r^llitiH-.
Sole Agt. '.
rub vclvrtwn,
Lithograph of drawing by Sarony for sheet-music cover.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
1.
rtrrilar Birk. 1**\
Uk*
(
lulr nllh
M
t'o
<
t'Slirrpily for lli« ph«|n;cniih'T. having fhe 'lUMlity. tiny 3te Ibe lica|**I goo.js in
'i
HLiniKO
D>liiit«
Uio lo.irkcl.
Wp
'
bwk miJ
«
Nrw
S^
HitntlaoiuK
Aeeowory.
fn
UNION SQR N
Y
SARONY, Otis Skinner with Edith Kingdon in a
Daly Company Performance. 1SS5.
Courtesy Cornelia Otis Skinner.
LILLIAN RUSSKLIill
lilt'
"Ilri:;:m'l-"
FALK, Lilhan Russell. Cabinet-size photograph, 1889
Courtesy George Eastman House.
244
pj
3^0
ft'.
LOTTA.
707
BROADWAY.
N.Y.
AiORA, Lotta Crabtree.
Cabinet-size photograph, about iS8^.
Courtesy George Eastman House.
SOT+^tBlV.
SARONY,
eSO
BROADWA Y
SARONY, E. H. Sothern as Lord Dundreary.
About
1SS5.
Courtesy Cornelia Otis Skinner.
245
/^
246
SARONY kff: Oscar
Wilde.
18.82.
opposite page, above:
Menken
in
Adah
Isaacs
"Mazeppa." 1SS6.
opposite page, below: Sarah
Bernhardt in "Camille." 1S80. All three, courtesy
George Eastman House.
247
Miniature albums for the "gem" tintypes, measuring
%x
V-t
inches, about iSSo
Courtesy George Eastman House.
248
A group of four tintypes, about i8So. Photographers unknown. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
249
//
The
'Uetective
Camera and the
Kodak
In 1S71 Dr. Richard
Leach Maddox, an English
physi-
cian and amateur photographer, substituted gelatine for collodion. This
new
plate, published
on September 8
process, the gelatine-bromide dry in the Britisli Journal
of Photography, permitted free use to
Unfortunatch' the plates. Tlie
until 1878,
new when
first
all
interested.
dry plates were slower than wet
invention was not generally adopted the improved, ready-made plates, by
then faster than any other process, could be bought com-
and dc\cloped
at
Before 1880 most amateurs and practically
all
mercially, stored, exposed leisure.
professional photographers
at
will,
had abandoned the unwieldy,
messy, demanding collodion process in favor of the costlier
but more advantageous
A
dr^' plate.
pioneer maker of gelatin
dn,-
plates in
America was
George Eastman, \\ho worked during the day Rochester, New York, bank and at night coated plates
man
by hand with the
in
a
glass
liquefied, sensiti/cd gelatin. East-
soon improved the uniformity of the plate by
in-
venting a machine to do the coating. In 1879 he patented the machine in England and the follow ing year secured
same invention in the United That same year E. and H. T. Anthony, the largest a patent for the
States.
dealers
of photographic materials in the countn,', were handling
Eastman
dn,- plates.
Prices of cameras were cut as
thony's ad\-crtised "dr)-plate
photography
An-
for the mil-
lions."
A
small 4-by-5 camera with a lens, a tripod, and
Eastman dry
a dozen
be bought tor
plates, could
as little
In 1881
Eastman
left
the bank to devote
full
time to
expanding dry-plate factory, which, throughout the
previous winter, had been sending the packaged dry plates to Anthony's in anticipation of the spring
summer
Most
of these were manufactured by the Scovill
Manu-
Company and by Anthony, companies which merged to become Ansco. Some of this sleuthing
facturing
as $12.25.
his
"detective cameras" to the strange box without bellows.
and
went bad. They
these plates
All
business.
later
to
be a candid-camera man.
Social etiquette of the 1880s
and i8gos would hardly
was necessary
if
one wanted
sanction a stranger's approaching a person and asking
him
to pose; a formal introduction
was obligatory
just
quickly lost their sensitivity. Complaints poured in to
to ask for permission to photograph. Efforts to circum-
Anthony, who sent them on to Eastman. His next move
vent these
made him friends and staunch supporters among cameramen ever\whcrc. First he located the cause of the trouble;
cameras were disguised
then he replaced
secret
all
defective plates with corrected ones.
During the next two years Eastman improved the plates, increasing the sensitivity of the
phers swore by his products.
Eastman's rapid gelatin
Eastman continued
new system plate.
He
He
prospered.
and Anthony's looked forward
larger plant sales of
emulsion and
its
any kind of climate. Professional photogra-
stability in
built a
to greater
plates.
of photography to supersede the gelatin dry
He went back to using paper as a base and invented of paper. After
roll
exposure and processing, the paper negatives were treated
with castor
make them transparent— just
oil to
Talbot's calotypes had been dipped in early forties.
These
plates for clarity.
negati\'cs did not
Eastman then
oil
as
back
Fox
in the
compare with
tried coating the
glass
paper
with two layers of gelatin. After developing and fixing the bottom layer was dissolved in
warm
water, leavmg
the image on the sensitized upper layer of gelatin, which
was then dried
The
Eastman be
called
fitted to
The
in
contact with a sheet of heavier gelatin.
greatest virtue of this it,
was
new "American
its flexibility.
A
roll
film," as
holder could
any existing camera, even one hand-held.
fast dry plate of several years earlier
had made
possible the hand-held camera, thereby eliminating the tripod. Instantaneous
snapshot had
raphy the
come
field
photography was an
into
its
own.
No
of the professional
actualit\
.
The
longer was photog-
and the dedicated
amateur willing to undergo the hardships demanded by the wet plate. Box cameras held in the hands of gumshoe
amateurs trjing to catch candid pictures gave the
w.
F.
of
DEBENHAM, Dr. Richard
man who
L.
in a
number
of ways.
Hidden
in
a derby hat one camera was advertised as a "practical
camera that
shillings in
camera"
London.
in the
defies detection"
A Frenchman
form of
and
marketed
sold for 42 a "detective
a pistol, strangely belie\ing that
the operator would go unnoticed pointing at a person
what obviously appeared
to
be a gun. More discreet hid-
den camera instruments were
fitted
into binoculars,
books, read\-for-mailing packages, coin boxes, canes, and
his experiments, searching for a
a machine to prepare and coat a
difficulties led to strange solutions: detective
Maddox.
Portrait,
name
about 18S0,
invented the gelatine dry plate in London, i8yi.
Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester.
cravats— the lens in the cravat camera masqueraded as a
stick pin,
and the shutter was operated by
a string or
bulb
held in the pocket.
Eastman
in
1886 designed and patented a box camera
with a standard tives, a
roll
holder for forty-eight 4"-by-5" nega-
focusing lens, and what he termed an "alligator
shutter," but
it
The No. fitted
did not work too well.
Two
years later
day and
he developed the perfect amateur camera of its coined a word which has been synonymous with "cam-
1
Kodak was not
2V4 inches in diameter. the
a pinhole camera. It
with a lens and masked to take a
roll.
When
the
One hundred
roll
camera was mailed back
was to
fully
was
circle negative
negatives were on
exposed the entire
Eastman, who returned the
camera reloaded plus the negatives and one hundred mounted prints (or as many as were not blanks) from the
first roll, all
for the
sum
of $10.
The
original outlay
a little over 6 inches long, 3V2 inches wide,
was $2 5 for the first loaded camera. Ever}' purchaser became an avid amateur.
4 inches high. Anyone could operate it to the Kodak Manual, was able to: 1. Point the camera.
was George Eastman's slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest," that accounted for what was to
era" ever since, "Kodak."
The Kodak was
a small box,
and less than who, according
2.
Press the button.
3.
Turn the
key. 4. Pull the cord.
(?^^
/(i^(/^M^
^
George Eastman. 1^%^. Photographer unknown. Eastman made this print on his new film, February 8, iS8^, and wrote
"Made on paper with
a soluble substratum
developed after transferring." Signed across the Courtesy George Eastman House. 252
lapels.
It
become the
first
world-wide folk
art.
Eastman on Board Ship. Taken 1880 with No. 2 Kodak identical with one Eastman left: PAUL NADAR, Gcorge Eastman. Paris, 1890. Both, courtesy George Eastman House. above: fred church, George
liolds in his hands.
253
254
4^' manamas^ssa^ Kodak camera, invented iSSS by inches diameter. Photographer unknown. George Eastman, left: GEORGE EASTMAN, Paul Naclar. Taken with No. 1 Kodak in the Place de I'Opera, Paris, 1S90. Both, courtesy George Eastman House. above: Enlarged print from No. original size 2
i
',2
255
Eastman Kodak Company advertisement, 1892 below, left: Model No. 1, Kodak camera, 18S8. left:
A circular negative on roll film was used, below: "Hat" detective camera, about i88g, for sale in
London at two
All, courtesv
"My and
I
piiliircs ri;j,'aril
llavint'
iihlaini'.l
ijiialitv
anil
lir
uL'lit
were
ihf
K
a
srrus
quantity
hack
Irnni
'all
taken
in>ilik'
puluri-i
i-.\
a
wiili
as rcsp
any
(inx-nlanil
my
rur
liavc
in
lu-i-n
Smi;li
ihr
;uiil
George Eastman House.
K'li.ik'
wliiili
tliai
guineas, with fitting.
S>'iMi(l rrL''"n.
R.
K
l"i
^l.^,
r
S
N
THK BBinSB IOc-.-aL ALMANAC ADTBRTISKHKNTS.
S90
KA5TMAN KODAK
CO.,
ADAMS
& CO.S
'HAT' DETECTIVE CAMERA. Takea
(PATENT.)
PUtu
4'x31.
42/-
Net
NCLUDINQ FITTING
A*4lHC
A
pr«ctic»l «»cr«t
raady for ui>c. Inaumcrable
Camera
*H» Fig tfoA.
FJg. 150A. that ilefies
worn
Is
v*iih
comfort, and
is :Uwa>'i
been luade to construct Cameras that may l>e carried tAiil> aud secretly alxiut the uer«on but whilst posseuliig many piiints of ingenuity, it ha; llie sue ol" tlit plate is usuall> nc hithetto been only pofi-iiUe to dass ihem ^* i(h toyv. Hal Cimer.i lakcT. plaiei 4} X tV Urifcr than a postage stamp, but, -is will be %ocu, our tbiu making 11 .i really u&eful In'^tmment, and one which in capable of prv>ducin^ -.ery good work. LEN8.— Thii 14 a rapid rectiline*r of special construct ion, working at /'tt. at which »p«i'turc it covers ^ qu^trter pUic iiuirfly to the corners, and renders cveryihiug in focui from about a distance of % feet and upwards. altei)ipt» Itave
;
'
SHUTTER.
-Thii worky tfciwecn the two lenses, and prnnils of time as well
a<
ii)%ianianct)U» cvposures being b^iveo,
FITTING TO HAT. -They b« eiiperience«i in fittmi; to hat. titling ouriclve% tree of charge.
are »*nt out correctly fix:us*ed. and no .litfiruUy nenl But if preterred, upon reteipt ol' hat, «»: undertake thr 'l>ic figures above -.how the appliraiiori.
WEIGHT. the lens
256
and
Kven with
The Camera alone weighs 1) o>c&. only. It is nut aectT«s«ry to can) ihutter, as this itiay be iminetliately placed in jx>sition by a bayonet joint and stiutier, the weight is only *\ o». A Focussing S<.T<-eo is alsc one [tark Slide.
lcn*i
uppJted, and
Price £•% 2s. kci. Including fitting.
Kxlra Dark Slides, 4/- each.
A
ncjt leather casu-
.M.L (.iOODS .\T
ik
supplied for the lens and shutter
I.OWKST STOKE PRICES.
s((>\ii,i.s
.\M\ii:rK
sim:(I.\i;iiI':s.
33
THE SCOVILL DETECTIVE CAMERAS. 'W^^!<»
^^l
%
above: Detective cameras for sale in
1
886
by the Scoville Manufacturing Company, top:
A pistol camera for candid photographs,
about i8S8. Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
257
PART
T
Wasters of the JVlodern Era
Stieolitz: in
An
Aiiieritan
Legend
There are some early photographs by (
Alfred Sticglitz
1S64-1946) that are poetic gems, superb pictures which,
more than graphic
fifty
art.
impact— barren
own
years later, hold their
Repeated vicwings do not trees
works of
Munich road
bordering a
vember, 1885; Paula intently writing a the sunmier of i88g; a Fifth
as
dull their esthetic in
No-
letter in Berlin,
Avenue horse
car at the
terminal in the snowstorm of 1893; sparkling wet streets at night taken in
cate,
1896
m
front of
budding leaves of a young
New York's
tree,
Plaza; deli-
and an unconcerned
sweeper on a soft street in Spring Showers of 1902; and, closing this portfolio of everlasting appealing photo-
graphs. It
The
memorable ill
Steerage of 1907.
was not that
Sticglitz did
not continue to take
pictures. All his long life
he saw the wodd
terms of the camera. Photography was his basic me-
dium as an artist though he let his personality expand by becoming editor and writer, pioneer art dealer for avantgarde artists of two continents, and champion of constantly changing photographic-art
movements.
In the beginning, in 1890, when he had just returned to his native land after eight years in Germany where
he had forsaken the study of engineering phy,
New York first exerted
revealed through
its
for photogra-
power over him.
He
then
his pictures his imaginative response
to such exciting visual stimuli. It
was not reportage that
he created with
ingly honest; through his
technique
sive
mere
work was strikcultivated eye and comprehen-
his camera, although his
went beyond the limited
it
validity of a
was to say in later years, "I have found
my
subjects within sixty yards of
my
door," and he spoke of
He
intoxicated amateurs."
cramped
is
a slight degree
.
.
.
.
.
.
it is
were revolutionary. Those were the days of sentimental
between sharpness and
genre pictures, composite and "high art" photographs,
is
which Dr.
please yourself,
tography had attacked in London but w liich were criteria of excellence in
New York's
hung
their artificial images
still
the
camera clubs, where
the line in every annual
cfn
During these
years, 1890-1895, Stieglitz tried to
make
himself financially independent by conducting a photo-
engraving business. to intrigue him;
The photogravure process was
he considered
this
always
mechanical reproduc-
tion process second only to an original platinum print.
Every free
moment
He
took straight
he did not retouch, enlarge, or indulge
in
1887 had given Sticglitz his
first bit
of
who
encouragement
by awarding him two guineas and a
silver
was the
was to win
first
of 150
medals
early 1890s, at a time
tion of the
Stieglitz
pic-
any cam-
In this he followed Dr. P. H. Emerson,
era tricks. in
with
Sticglitz stalked the streets
hand-held "detective camera."
tures;
an
medal. This
when he was advocating
in the
the aboli-
.
and, in differentiating
he wrote,
do what
for business
to see
if
"If the
for
work
amusement
will pa) ." Stieglitz
photography accepted
championed sharp and diffuse photography. Whistler's heady remarks worked oppositely on art
in
America. His nocturnes, har-
monies and arrangements,
his organization of patterns
and compositions based on Japanese prints, more important than the subject. The ideal raphy was to be achieved through
became
in
photog-
soft focus, intense,
whites and velvety, deep-black shadows
brilliant
rough,
all
prepared drawing paper.
specially
monogram was emulated;
butterfly
colored
on
Whistler's
so were the pastel-
mounts and the distinctive gold frame he deand visitors were unstinting in their praise
signed. Critics
of photographs believed to
A
be copies of paintmgs.
complicated gum-bichromate process had been discovered in which the photographer could apply sensitized
pigment with
up weak
a brush, building
areas or painting
out and washing away undesirable sections or details.
medal system.
Stieglitz joined the Society of
and became editor of
.
work sharply,
overwhelming desire
younger photographers
arty salon.
his
as
," .
diffusion,
for scientific purposes if
photog-
possible to
impossible in most subjects to
your values as you wish
in his
is
the powers of selection and rejection
are fatally limited ...
the "exploration of the familiar." In 1890 these thoughts
H. Emerson, the author of Naturalistic Pho-
indi\'iduality of the
control of the picture
alter
P.
called attention to the limita-
"The
tions of photography:
rapher
record.
Sticglitz
tographic imposters, pickpockets, parasites and vanity-
Amateur Photographers The American
their publication.
Amateur Photographer. He advocated pictorial photography and recommended a new annual photographic salon without prizes or medals.
The
Society and the
New
Robert Demachy of
bichromate process article v>as
a
who adopted the gumin a Camera Work
Paris,
later,
wrote
on the straight versus the modified print that there
"no
limit to
photograph
may
a
what
work
may
a
photographer can do to make
of art
.
.
.
meddling with a gum
1897 to form
The Cam-
print
era Club; Sticglitz was elected vice-president
and editor
out the meddling there will surely be no spark whatc\'cr."
York Camera Club combined of
its
publication.
lished his
of
first
in
Camera Notes. That
year he saw pub-
portfolio of photographs. Picturesque Bits
upon
In England a row had been shaping up in the form of
tographs
H. Emerson held that vision
and that
rior to all
Then he
soft focus
soft-focus
other graphic
arts,
art
art supe-
surpassed only by painting.
either attended Whistler's
was confusing
He
corresponded to natural
photography was an
ture or spoke with Whistler,
"Ten O'Clock"
who convinced him
lec-
that he
with nature. Emerson rc\'crscd himself.
wrote a black-bordered pamphlet entitled Dcatli of
Naturalistic Photography,
A
Renunciation.
A
master of
vituperation, he defined "photographic Impressionist" as "a.
Stieglitz at the
term consecrate to charlatans, and especially to pho-
not add the
vital spark,
though with-
opening of the "Photo-Seeession" exhi-
bition in 1902 said, "It
New York.
pure photography versus pictorial photography. Dr. P.
or
a negative or
is
justifiable to use
any means
paper to attain the desired end." Pho-
now resembled
charcoal drawings, mezzotints,
water colors. Several \ears later Stcichen wrote, "Camera
photography can never compete with
the
brilliant
Winslow Homer's brushwork [marine paintings] but in every other way of pictorial reality, it is superior, especially so when color will have \irtuoso performance of
been perfected and a phonograph record of the waves
added
to it."
had resigned the editorship of Camera Notes and had founded Photo Secession along with John G. Bullock, William B. Dyer, Frank Eugene, Dallett Stieglitz
Fuguet, Gertrude Kasebier, Joseph T. Keiley, Robert
S.
261
Eva Watson Schutze, Eduard J. Steichen, EdStirling, mund John Francis Strauss, and Clarence H. White. The official organ of the group was Camera Work with Stieglitz as editor and publisher and Keiley, Fuguct, Redfield,
and Strauss
The purpose
as associate editors.
as outlined
in the prospectus of Photo Secession was "to hold to-
gether those Americans devoted to pictorial photography ... to exhibit the best that has
members
that profession until recently Its
and above
all
Institute
of Chicago, Stieglitz Collection,
unless otherwise noted.
ALFRED STIEGLITZ, November Days. Municli,
262
iS.Sj.
vied with paintings and draw-
members
by Matisse, Marin,
Weber, Rousseau,
Hartle\-,
Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Picasso, Braque, Pieabia, Dove,
and O'Keeffe, sculpture b\- Rodin and Brancusi, Japanese prints and African Negro carvings. Many of these artists were shown for the
first
time
in
America, years before
to dignify
any American
museum purchased
don. In 1905 Photo Secession opened the Little Gallery, designed by Steichen, at 291 Fifth A\'enue in New York.
The Art
ings
its
purposes were similar to the Linked Ring in Lon-
are courtesy
tographs by the
Armory Show
looked upon as a trade."
All photographs in this chapter
was the director. For the next twelve years pho-
the shattering
been accomplished by
or other photographers
Stieglitz
cusi or a painting
and long before
of 1913
a sculpture
The first Matisse exhibition, held at
291 in April, 1908,
had been arranged through Steichen reviled the "wild
by Bran-
by Picasso.
man." "His idea
is
in
Paris. Critics
that \ou should in
STIEGLITZ,
Winter on
Fifth Avcnnc. 1S95. Courtesy
George Eastman
I
louse, Rochester.
263
STiEGLiTZ, Siiow-Cappcd Mountains.
About 1887.
painting get as far away from nature as possible," wrote
graphs ranging in treatment from pictorial realism to
Chamberlain of the Evening Mail, and Elizabeth Gary
imitation painting were installed on specially prepared
of
The New York Times
said of paintings
Matisse, "ugh' and distorted,
many
of
by the Fauve
them amounting
to carieatures without significanee."
The Camera expelled
exhibited Matisse,
whom
regarded as an "areh Satanist" and a "menace to
but under
An
important battle had been won, for
dignified recognition. Photographers rejoiced, Stieglitz,
who
footed
all
its
bills
and found
himself short of funds, 291, the Little Gallery, devoted
artistic
more time to art exhibitions that helped defray expenses. Camera Work also devoted more space to reproduc-
al-
tions of artists' works plus articles
several overtures.
In 1910 the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo,
and
they
morals." Stieglitz never let the club reinstate him,
though they made
were purchased for the museum's perma-
nent collection. official
Club, of whieh Stieglitz was a founder,
him because he
walls. Fifteen
New York,
of
all
and
a box-score reprint
that the newspaper art critics wrote about any art
fell
to the persuasive blandishments of Stieglitz, turning
exhibition at 291. Reproductions by photogravure of
the
Museum
paintings and photographs appeared regulady.
over to Photo Secession for an international
exhibition of pictorial photography. Five hundred photo-
264
photographers, particularly
Stieglitz
in
Some
America and
Emerson
in
England, preferred
this
commercial form of
printing for any large edition of prints. lived contention of Stieglitz at this
It
was a
short-
time that only one
hand, which
will
always go
its
own
Shaw, did not lessen the photographic
perfect print could be got from a negative, thereby
whose
claiming uniqueness for a photograph as for a painting.
platinotype and gum-print processes.
The
fifty
uniformly printed issues of Camera
Work
portraits
in the pages of
Maurice Maeterlinck, Sadakichi Ilartmann (whose
page
)
,
first
Robert Demachy, Ben-
jamin de Casseres, Frederick H. Evans,
J.
B. Kerfoot,
Gertrude Stein, and a host of other writers on modern art or
photography. Shaw, writing an appreciation of
A. L. Coburn, compares his
efforts to Bellini, Hals,
and
Holbein, whose "st5les he can emulate at will," and he closes with,
"he
is
free of that
SiiEGLiTZ, Paula. Berlin, 1SS9.
clumsy
tool, the
human
way and no
artistry of
title for
artist
appeared
Camera Work; "Pros and Cons" was
Frederick H. Evans.
"The Rubaiyat
Coburn
remain rich and delicate examples of the
Arguments about what constitutes an
contained special articles by George Bernard Shaw,
pieces were signed Sidney Allan
single
other." Exaggerated claims for photography, even by
of
J.
a
B. Kerfoot wrote
Kodak McFilm." Shaw
in
"The Un-
mechanicalism of Photography" cautioned the exhibitors of the
had
London Photographic Exhibition
(for
which he
originally written the article as a foreword to the
catalogue) as follows: "Let nobody suppose that the critics
Monet
who
stood for Sargent against Bouguereau, for
against \'icat Cole, nearly twenty years ago, are
STiEGLiTZ,
now
The Terminal.
iS'Qj.
going to stand for the photographers
who
nnitatc
Monet against original photographers." What and who was original was aired in every issue,
Sargent and
and
Stieglitz,
brilliant editor that
writer, photographer,
and
artist
he was, gave eaeh
the right to discover
new
and personal paths. It was a costly publication. I'he finest of paper and type faces, hand-pulled gravure reproductions
on "nee
silk"
paper tipped into each
issue,
expensive individual designing of each page,
and
made
it
hardly profitable to publish. The original price was $4 for an annual subscription of four issues. Tow ard the end it
was $8 a
year, but,
pended, there were
by 1917, when publication was susthan forty subscribers. One of
less
who
attended Mitchell Kennerly's Gallcr}-, where there
were exhibited
i-j.5
of Stieglitz's prints from 1886 to 1921.
The
press extolled their virtues. In the catalogue Stieg-
litz's
statement read
in part,
"My
ideal
is
to achieve the
ability to
produce numberless prints from each negative,
prints
significantly alive, yet indistinguishably alike."
all
photographed parts of the
Stieglitz
hands,
feet, breasts, buttocks, torso.
These
human
body:
portraits with-
out faces were followed with photographs of clouds
which
Stieglitz called "equivalents."
He
started out to
prove that the merit of his photographs was not depen-
dent on the
sitter's
personality
and appearance or upon
the influence Stieglitz exerted over him. In photograph-
the country's most distinguished magazines had folded,
ing clouds by sunlight and moonlight or shimmering
and soon 291 closed its doors. Stieglitz photographed his
leaves
gallery,
friends: the artists of his
John Marin, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley,
Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles
Demuth— clear and
pictures, brilliant characterizations.
interval
incisive
For the eight-year
between the closing of 291 and the opening of
the "Intimate Gallery" in
room 303
of the
Anderson
and blades of
grass,
he endowed these with the
equivalent emotion and excitement he had instilled in
the portaits of Stieglitz
artists or in
the buildings of
New
York.
continued to extend his concepts of photog-
raphy, re-evaluating his work according to the contem-
porary requirement of using the
the
new Intimate
full
negative sharply. In
Galler\ he sponsored
and exhibited
Gallery in 1925, Stieglitz arranged exhibitions of his
the work of Paul Strand, a photographer of brilliant
New York galleries and held three
promise he had added to his roster. In 1924 Stieglitz married Georgia O'Keeffe. That same year the Boston
artists'
works
in various
retrospeetive exhibitions of his
own
photographs.
The
contributions of his career were impressively clear to
266
all
Museum
of Fine Arts acquired twcnt\-scvcn of his pho-
STiEGLiTz, \^enice Canal. 1894.
STiEGLiTz, Steerage. 1907.
268
tographs and the Royal Photographic Society awarded
am
him
although under certain circumstances certain pictures
the Progress Medal.
In 1930 he opened
Avenue
in
room
An American
Place at 509 Madison
1710. His camera lay idle
most
of the
not a salesman, nor are the pictures here for
may be
acquired."
Stieglitz
was
a powerful
time; he had suffered a heart attack and rarely left the
annals of American
He saw the artists whom he had handled become
endary character of
gallery.
accepted internationally and their work enter the na-
major museums.
tion's
Stieglitz never ceased his efforts
to demonstrate the genius of his artists, but his sales
methods were decidedly untraditional. client out of his gallery ness,
I
am
and explained,
He put a possible "I am not in busi-
not interested in exhibitions and pictures,
I
tr
art.
and
positive personality in the
became
In his lifetime he
a leg-
whom a collective panegyric portrait,
a eulogy, was published twelve years before his death.
Today myriads ica's
of people recognize
him
pre-eminent photographers, as
they view his prints in
all
museums
O'Kccffe donated for posterity the
as
one of Amer-
over the country
to life
which Georgia production of
Alfred Stieglitz.
STIEGLITZ,
'i^«
sale,
The
"Acjuitania" Lca\ing Harbor. 1910.
m
mumm^k STiEGLiTZ, Paris. 189^.
270
271
«.4.
^'.'4
'•*».;>
*>
STiEGi.iTZ,
Spring Showers. iqo2.
STiEGLiTZ, Reflections at Night. 1S96. Collection the author.
273
•^
STiEGLiTZ, City of Ambition.
274
»_
STiEGLiTZ,
U;,-
IIII' iiu.:i
W
1 R
1 s I
r>
i\
r
,
1^ II
I I ^
!
1 1
114
1^1 '
1
!l
III 1 1 .
li
ill
3i"
klLJ
New York City.
1
951 Looking north from 509 .
Madison Avenue.
STiEGLiTZ, below: Georgia O'Keeffe. 191S.
Wearing Hat. 1930. below: Georgia O'Keeffe's Hands. About 1919.
opposite page, above: Georgia O'Keeffe opposite page,
>/•%
277
*^tM.m?m
STIEGLITZ, John JNIarin. 1920.
278
STiEGLiTZ,
Lake George.
1
954.
??=ifcft,
^^fi^^^
279
Steiclieii:
Painter,
Photo«rai)her,
Curator
Edward Steichen was born raised in
in
Michigan
and
in 1879,
Wisconsin, for the family soon moved to Mil-
waukee. At the age of fourteen he came to Chicago to see the art
and photography exhibitions
at the
Columbian Exposition. He was going to be se\'eral years he sent canvases
During the next Institute's
He
World's
a painter. to the Art
annual exhibitions, but not one was accepted.
took a job as illustrator in a lithography plant.
He
made snapshots of people and photographs for advertising. One sold. Again he submitted pictures to the Art Institute of Chicago. This time they were photographs
and they were accepted by Sticglitz
a jury that included Alfred
and Clarence White.
Stieglitz
impressed with a photograph entitled Stieglitz
bought two
piece" (a term art
j'cars later
critics
and
and White were
The
Pool, which
called a "master-
accused photographers of using
quite casually).
Milwaukee could not hold Steichen much longer
He went
this bit of
encouragement.
New York
soon after the turn of the
after
to see Stieglitz in centun,'.
The
fol-
lowing year he was in London photographing George
Bernard Shaw, preceded by his friend Alvin Langdon
Coburn. Shaw was an amateur photographer of three years standing.
Why
had he taken up the camera? In
1949 he urote Helmut Ccrnshcim, in answer to this question, "I always
wanted
to
draw and
paint.
I
had no
literary
ambition:
useless.
aspired to be a Michael Angelo, not
could not draw well enough to
1
and the instruction
satisfy myself;
than
I
But
a Shakespear.
So when
into the market
dv)'
bought
I
plates a
I
could get was worse
and push buttons came
box camera and began push-
ing the button. This was in 1898."
Then
but for the portraits of Theodore Roosevelt and William
Howard Taft
a national
magazine paid $500 each for the
privilege to reproduce. In the
first
issue of
Camera Work,
January, 1903, Steiehen wrote a statement on "ye fakers,"
claiming that
all
artists
take liberties with reality and
make a picture. In the second issue of Camera Work, three months later, eight of Steichen's photo"fake" or
Steiehen was in Paris. In 1902 he entered two
paintings in the Paris Salon and sent also a
bunch
of
graphs were reproduced plus a tribute to him and his
photographs labeled drawings, but the jury rejected these
work written by the Japanese-Irish-American art critic, Sadakiehi Hartmann. Stieglitz published a Steiehen sup-
just
before the opening
— not,
they explained, because
thev were not so good as the paintings but because they
plement
feared an avalanche of photo entries.
photographs by photogravure, one in two colors, and in
Steiehen photographed Rodin flanked by his sculptures of Victor
Hugo and The
Thinker.
He became
fast
his family.
He
friends with the
dynamic sculptor and
photographed
Rodin's work, including the monolithic
Balzac which, again
when
all
fifty
the
years later,
Museum
bronze cast and installed
it
of
he was to photograph
Modern Art
acquired a
in the sculpture garden.
Steiehen returned to the United States in 1902.
He
in the April, 1906, issue,
the following issue published a three-color reproduction of a powerful portrait of
In 1905 the
G. B. Shaw by Steiehen.
London Salon
art?
Let the answer be, 'Yes,
man
Steiehen as Steiehen
to Stieglitz.
is
to the cause of pictorial
smudge
of the
photography by Alfred
Stieglitz
The
forgotten, for
it
was
his pioneership
and made
which
a Steiehen pos-
Robert Demaehy wrote, "The best seen in the
gum
and Kuhn's
.
.
.
results
I
have ever
process are Steichen's, Puyo's, Watzek's
they have always reminded
me
forcibly
of fine engravings, fine etchings, fine lithographs and fine
and
wash drawings."
usual price was $50 or $60 per print.
An American
Stieglitz exhibited
photographs.
to
sible."
a price for photographs. Advertisers not only
thumb.
and be
rendered
cleared the tangled ground
insure the print against the slightest
And, some
Steiehen.'
will spring forth
The services
bought prints from him, paying him $50 to $100 each. Stieglitz demanded respect for photography and he de-
printer's
if it's
day doubtless another
must not be
paid handsomely for the use of photographs; they had to
reviewer, A. C. R. Garter,
wrote on seeing the Steiehen show, "Is photography an
designed the Photo-Secession Gallery at 291. Stieglitz
manded
reproducing sixteen
and
sold Steichen's paintings
art critic, Fitzgerald of the
New
York
PETER POLLACK, Edward Steiehen. Three photographs taken with
mm. Minox camera, 1955, during installation of the Family of Man exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art, Ncm' York. a
9^/2
\
Evening Sun, seeing a similar show a "I
am
bit later,
ignorant whether Eduard [he spelt
until after
World War
I]
Steichen
is
it
wrote,
with a "u"
more painter or
was again
In 1908 Steichen
in France, this
time for a
Not content to be painter and photographer, he became immersed in the study of plants, not only photographing them but actually breeding flowsojourn of six years.
which he was awarded a gold medal by the Horti-
States.
I
changed
his
He
life.
returned to the
During the Second Battle of the Marne he was
appointed technical adviser of the army's
maximum burned
aerial
photo-
tuals
and the
Sharp and
join
was required; photographs had to be so
clearly defined that everything could
depended on
it.
be recognized from I'he
Army
taught
Colonel Steichen a new way of photography.
Institute
of Chicago, Stieglitz Collection,
unless otherwise noted.
right: Sclf-Portrait.
Gum print,
igoz
The Pond. Steichen's first important
photograph. Stieglitz wrote on the back, "Original platinum print
282
him
to
bought from Steichen
for $5.00 in 1900."
socially
prominent who came to pose.
Conde
Vanity
He made commercial
photographic
1923 Frank Cro\\ninshield induced him to Nast's staff as photographer for Vogue and
Fair.
Wedding gowns and
silver,
toothpaste and
cold cream, matches and watches, a rich variety of the nation's
most highly touted products
and appeared
All photographs in this chapter
opposite page:
now
Elegant fashions and industrial advertising became his
past.
EDWARD STEICHEN,
a masterful technique, enabled
forte in photography.
photograph was a thing of the
The Art
and the faintest, most subtle gradaand black. He put away his brushes, paintings. What he knew of art and design,
combined with
art pa}-. In
are courtesy
sought perfect control to achieve
the keen eye he had developed in painting portraits,
prints; the
aerial views. Lives
He
realism
his
gum
brilliant detail
white cup
tions in white, gray,
graphic services. Here was the end of the arty, fuzzy
He photographed a
and saucer against a black \elvet background more than
portray forcefully the diverse personalities, the intellec-
cultural Society of France.
Worid War
took a year out after his discharge to experiment
a thousand times.
photographer."
ers for
He
with straight photography.
in the slick
sat for his
camera
magazines along with his por-
/
r.1^.
Jh
i
^
i
^ »4,'
'*'
t^
'"^IS^^
41
^2J
V •*% «j^'
STEiCHEN, above: Rodin with His Sculptures 'Victor
284
Gum print, 1902. Gum print, about 1905.
Hugo" and "The Thinker."
right:
Clarence White.
traits of life.
the lettered and the celebrated from
His photographs of the twenties
a pictorial record, like Nadar's
The United
War
II
States
Navy
and
all
walks of
thirties
and Brady's
form
in their day.
in the early days of
World
waived age limitations for Captain Edward
USNR.
Steichen,
exhibition,
His "Road to Victory" photography
which was shown
in
Grand Central
Station
soon after Pearl Harbor, was a powerful force in unifying the nation's
will.
There was no one better
qualified to
organize a department with an avowed purpose to photo-
graph the entire war at take.
The
record of the
no matter how long it would men he commanded adds up to
sea,
a remarkable pictorial account of every
He
arranged photography exhibitions by creative pho-
who
tographers
Through
acceptance ings
and
used any camera or style they chose.
among
prints.
tograph}-;
critics
No
example
in free
raphers.
He
photography
doflfed his
for the
uniform to serve
Museum of Modern
as director of
Art,
New York.
along with paint-
made
for pho-
insisted upon.
eligible for exhibition.
Onh' This
Beaumont and Nancy Ncwhall, Steichen's Museum of Modern Art, and carried forward by him is now followed by progressive museums
predecessors at the
all
over the country.
"The Family
of
Man," the most popular photography
exhibition ever assembled, was selected by Steichen from
graphs on a theme
magazine and press photog-
form found
gurated by
Steichen fought his valiant battles with film carried by of the nation's prized
art
expression for creative photography inau-
among two
some
an
visitors
no academic form was
Navy that will be a boon for all future historians. An army colonel in World War and a navy captain in World War II, the high-ranking officer Edward 1
and
as
excessive claims were
"good" photographs were
engagement of
the
photography
his eilorts
all
million prints sent in by photographers from
over the world. This creative exhibition of photois
still
touring the world. Seen by
innumerable visitors, the resulting paeans of praise reflect to the glory of a leader in present-day photography,
Edward
Steichen.
STEiCHEX, above: Alfred Stieglitz.
Gmn print, igi 5.
Morgan. About 1903. Steichen's most famous portrait, commissioned by the artist Carlos Baca-Flor, whose portrait, painted right:
from
J.
P.
this
photograph,
lies
forgotten in a storage bin.
The
on the arm of the chair resembles a poised dagger held hand. Courtesy Metropolitan
286
Museum of Art, New
in
highlight
the financiers
York.
Atget and the Str^eets of Paris
Two at a
YEARS BEFORE THE TURN of the twentieth century,
time when the woolly, the soft-focus, the
polished,
and the
overpictorial were the stales
arty, the
most
likely
to receive recognition in the journals of the day, Alfred Sticglitz in
New
Eugene Atget
York, Paul Martin in London, and
in Paris set their
thentic photographs of
cameras to capture au-
what they saw
in the places
where
they lived. Atget brought honesty into focus for an
mate and
inti-
he
direct record of the man\-sided Paris that
explored. This record has for straight,
smce become the
inspiration
documentary photographers everywhere.
Atget turned to the camera
in
i8g8,
forty-two years old. For a decade he
had
when he was tried to
be an
France and
actor, playing bit parts in the provinces of
He seems hardly the matinee-idol man who had shipped out as a cabin
the suburbs of Paris. t}'pe, this
taciturn
boy at thirteen and had followed the sea fifteen years before putting
on grease
for
more than
paint.
With the decision to leave the stage came the necessity of finding work to support himself
and an
ailing wife ten
He tried painting for a year; this was not He wanted to record everything that he
years his senior.
the answer. felt
was of importance
inadequate.
He
in Paris; for this the
brush was
acquired a bulky, heavy, view camera
with a simple and not very sharp lens; tripod on w Inch he
mounted
it.
it
never
left
the
For the next twent\-nine
he died
3'ears, until
as possible Paris.
He would
eling by bus in to capture the districts
knew
fingernails
chemicals,
in 1927,
Atget reeorded as
whatever appealed to him in carry this
all
realistieally
his
beloved
cumbersome equipment,
trav-
seasons of the year, often before dawn,
morning this
on the
light
silent streets. All
wizened man, hands and especially
permanently blackened by photographer's
who was
seen standing in a long, stained over-
coat, pockets bulging with plate holders for his big -jVi-
by-gVi-inch negatives.
His camera was
little
suited to stop action. in the
nineteenth century during the
first
He
photo-
atmosphere of the
quarter of the twen-
Decaying chateaux and miserable shacks were his
EUGENE ATGET,
monuments and
iron grilles, balconies style of
empty
and
markets, staircases, fagades, circus fronts in the flowering
Art Nouveau, cobblestones and curbstones of
streets, reflections in store
windows and dressed
mannikins. All these he photographed with lemarkable clarity of detail,
making
a graphic historical record of his
personal and often poetic vision. Critics have since ferred to
He
him
as "the
Walt Whitman
re-
of the camera."
asked people to pose; for with his camera even the
slightest
graphed architecture steeped
tieth.
subjects,
movement would
cause a
though he didn't mind ghost images architectural or inanimate subjects.
hawkers of the streetwalkers. In
streets,
blurred
image-
in his pictures of
He
photographed
umbrella men, ragpickers, and
one photograph a streetwalker stands
Street Circus. Paris, about iqio.
289
doorway of a house, obviously pleased to pose in fox-fur neckpiece, high lace boots, and the pert short skirt of her profession. Atget saw beauty in all manner of things, places, and people. He made a precarious livelihood by taking commisin the
new
her
sions from authors; for one author of a book on prostitution he made photographs of brothels in Paris; for the a documentary series of photo-
French Archives he made
graphs of historical buildings and medieval statuary; and
he made a\ailablc photographs of
to the artists of Paris
On
a thousand subjects.
floor of the building
the ground
pher, but his direct use of the camera of Fenton, Nadar,
and Brady,
something original about some overlooked aspect of Paris he was commissioned to do something
or until
work grows out of the from the
official
Man
it is
art of painting. I'hat
was never exhibited any
subject;
in
memor\-, substitutes for detail
drawings or pictures
of mood and atmosphere
scene that the
was painting.
artist
of a given
And
Berenice Abbott, in 1927 while
Man Ray in
pilv
working without bothering about fame;
Henri Rousseau,
Van Gogh,
Atget was honored by the so,
Marcel Duchamp, and
circle of admirers.
He
men
Modigliani, and Soutine.
artists as
was Rousseau;
especially
Man Ray
Picas-
joined his
served the Surrealist painters with
authentic documents related to their conception painting incongruous elements in juxtaposition.
honored him
like
in 1926,
when he was
of
They
seventy years old, by
reproducing two of his photographs in
La Revolution
Surrcaliste, their official organ.
Atget's vision afl^ectcd painting, but his photographs
were not influenced
b\-
raries or of the past.
He
the paintings of his contempo-
imitated no artist or photogra-
All photographs in this chapter are
courtesy George
290
Eastman House, Rochester.
Paris,
photographed Atget
hair slicked
down
for the occasion) shortly before
died. After his death she rescued
most of the 8,000 or
life's
work. She bought
a superb collection of about 2,000 negatives
landlord, brought
life,
(still
long coat but quite unexpectedly with face washed
prints,
Atget had that incredible quality of character inherent in some great artists who willingh' spend a lifetime hap-
why his work
Ray, painter and photographer, introduced Atget
so negatives that constituted his
he
well be
any photographic salon nor given
see his photographs being used by the artists. His photo-
and
His
recognition.
to the Surrealists.
in his
else.
not something derived
may
\\orking for
artists'
in the tradition
ing one subject until he was satisfied that he had said
where he had a fifth-floor apartment and darkroom was a sign, "Atget— Documents for Artists." Braque and Utrillo were the first to walk up and buy some of his prints at the most reasonable prices; he was so proud to graphs served as the
is
lie continued photograph-
them back
wrote enthusiastic
to
from Atget's
New York, made perfect
articles
and a book about
and arranged international shows
his
of his photographs.
All contemporar}- documentar)- photographers are in-
debted to Berenice Abbott for preserving the tribution Atget so inspiring
made
vital con-
to photography. His pictures are
and powerfully honest that they have the
quality of transporting the viewer to the time, place, and
mood
of the image. Atget reveals the perfect instant that
best expresses the image he felt so deeply;
emotional capacity that of our day.
He
is
is
it is
Atget's impact
that inborn
on the seeing
the spirtual ancestor of today's best
documentary photographers, who
carry forward \\ith
and better equipment his passion for honest, straight photography, endowing the image with explicit faster
fullness
composed from accidental arrangements
ual elements.
of vis-
2
^
ATGET, Uml^rclla Peddler. 2910. 291
ATGET below. Welllicad. Paris, about 1910. right: Paris Scene. 1905.
,
^"-^J^.
^
^^.^ '•^i
>»J
ATGET in Doorway of Brothel. About Shop Window. Pans, about igio.
above: Girl right:
294
igzo.
295
Uiis aiul Hine:
Social
with
Idealists
the Caiuera
JACOB
RllS
A.
Like the pamphlets of Voltaire, the photographs of Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914) helped to
The revolt was in New York in
start a revolution.
1S87 against the wretched
slums, the degrading tenements, and the venal corruption that permitted this miser>' to exist. Riis
reporter for
The Evening Sun, America's
was
first
a police
journalist-
photographer. His writing was con\incing, but his camera
was decisive
in
making
his
work an
incontrovertible,
powerful weapon. Riis knew the underprivileged. In
1890 he wrote
How
observations
his
the Other Half Lives, a book about the
in
overcrowded,
American Coninionwealth had
and
diseased,
Lord Br\ce
criminally dark tenements which
in
his
called "the conspicuous
failure of the city."
Riis
was one of the
duced in the United of
first
to use flash
States.
when
powdered magnesium and potassium
first
manufactured
appeared to be a
as
pistol.
it
was
intro-
This consisted of a mixture
cartridges
Because
to it
chlorate;
be used
brought out
in
it
was
what
many
a
concealed weapon of those he would photograph, Riis
soon substituted a fr\ing pan to hold the powder which he ignited by hand. It burned in a blinding flash and exploded in the
air;
Riis
photographed and, amid the camera and tripod and
resulting dense smoke, grabbed
way he photographed the Alulberry Bend
ran. In this
Hideout under East Side
He
a bridge,
monstrous horrors in the tenements.
five-
and
six-story
wooden
firetraps
shafts.
A
bathtub. or
more
typical block
A
York
in
permanent semi-darkness
for
an average of
5 cents
New York
his native jails.
I'raincd as a carpenter
poked
his
camera into every unsavory
His pictures and
stories
appeared
in
street, into
The Sun;
noisome
New
horror of police lodg-
called his attention
earlier, in 1870,
from
comnnssioner of
when
Riis
to
them.
had arrived
Denmark, he had spent They had grown grimier since
that day; the few pennies charge remained the same.
eastern cities
the most unattractive, unglamorous facets of the great city.
Riis
nights in the reeking
an
hour. Riis
when
Twenty-five years in
average of twelve hours a day
as police
City, abolished the
ing houses
room. Sweatshops abounded in the tene-
who worked an
lectures;
to see nine
Children of the Tenements and
1902;
Theodore Roosevelt,
air
housed 2,781 people and had one
ments, where no child-labor law could protect the children
m
He was
Theodore Rooserelt, the Citizen in 1904.
half million people lived in the slums, nine
to a
Slums,
the
were
without Hght and ventilation except for twilight
which he used
and books.
he wrote magazine books published altogether, including Children of the Poor, 1S92; Out of Mulberry Street, 1898; Battle with
continued to gather evidence, in words and of these
slides
articles
Gwwier Gang.
pictures, of the
Some
photographs he made
Lodgings in Pell Street, and The
years, until in
of his
JACOB
New
York
A. RIIS,
The
and
from one job
writer,
he wandered America's
to another for the next seven
1877 he found work as a reporter on
The
'i'ribune.
Street,
The
Childrens'
Only Playground. 1892.
It
was
made
his
as a journalist \\ith
pen and camera that
tremendous pioneer reforms. Through
Riis
his un-
tiring efforts rear tenements were destro>ed, child-labor laws were amended and enforced, a truant school was
established,
and desks became compulsory equipment
for children in the schools.
One
of his greatest triumphs
documentary evidence the truth of w hat he was
writing.
He would never have considered his pictures works of art; he would not have indulged interest
would have extended
guarantee a clearer, this
dedicated
man
more left a
in
such discussions. His
to techniques that
would
detailed picture. Ncxcrthclcss,
mighty
series of pictures moti-
for a
vated by the depth of his humanitarian feelings. Their
bunch of toughs. A year later an appreciative city built a park and settlement house on this site, naming it in his honor. Today housing projects, schools, parks, and playgrounds all over the country are named to com-
purpose accomplished, his photographs remain persua-
memorate Jacob A.
Museum
was the elimination of Mulberr)- Bend, a
It is
Riis the
hangout
Riis.
photographer
who
concerns
us.
He
used
the camera only to illustrate his stories, to prove with
All photographs in this section are original Riis negatives, courtesy
si\e
and moving pictures deepb' appreciated e\ery time
they are exhibited. Riis's son. Dr. Roger William Riis,
presented 412 of his father's glass negatives to the of the City of
rection of curator Miss Riis's
of the City of
York, where, under the
New York.
.^*R
'>^
di-
Grace Mayer, exhibitions of
photographs are often shown.
made by John H. Heffrcn from the
Museum
New
Riis,
above: Bandits' Roost, 591/2 Mulberry Street. 1888.
opposite page: In Sleeping Quarters. Rivington Street
Dump. About
iSgz.
299
h
T.
Riis,
above: Little Susie at
opposite page, above:
Her Work. About
Home of an Italian
One of earliest flash pictures in left:
1888.
Ragpicker.
the United States,
1
Sgo.
Reporters Office, 301 Mulbcrn,- Street. 1SS8. Riis
served here as a police reporter for the Evening Sun.
301
Riis,
above: Necktie
Workshop
in a Division Street
Tenement. iSgo.
right: A Class in the Condemned Essex Market School with Gas Burning by Day.
302
190:2
LEWIS
W. i//NE
and
flash
through
The unending polemic regarding art and photography that raged among the members of Photo Secession and in the pages of Camera Work touched Lewis W. Hine Hine
gun.
trial
He
and
learned control of his equipment
error as
he took photographs intended
to dramatize the school's program.
He
gave up teaching to become a full-time photog-
rapher.
He became a free-lance conscience with a camera.
Ellis Island,
New York's
was a trained sociologist who learned how to use the
immigrants
first
camera in order to satisfy an urgent need to take honest
photograph sad-eyed "madonnas" surrounded by their
(
1874-1940) hardly more than
it
did Jacob A. Riis.
pictures telling forceful truths about intolerable injustices
which he saw
all
around him.
port of entry where millions of
saw the "promised land," drew him to
bundles and children.
He
followed them through the
gates into the overcrowded slums, the
swarming
streets,
Lewis Wickes Hine was born in 1874 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; as a boy he worked long hours a day in a
and the
what he was to photograph later. He studied at the State Normal School in his home town, then attended the Uni\ ersit\- of Chicago and New
its new citizens by the nation's largest and richest The magazine Charities and the Commons published these pictures in 1908. The same year the magazine's editors hired him to make a complete, sociological
factory, learning first-hand
York University, from which he received
a master's
In 1901
Hine went
to teach at the Ethical Culture
m New York. Two years later he acquired camera
All photographs in this section are courtesy
he put into
sharp focus as a social indictment against the conditions offered city.
study with his camera of miners'
degree.
School
impossible, ensla\ing jobs. All this
lives; a truthful
comprehensive portrayal of their housing, health, dren, education,
George Eastman House, Rochester.
and death, which was published
as
and chil-
The
LEWIS w. HiNE, above: left:
Group
Cotton Mill. 1909. midnight on Brooklyn Bridge, 1909.
Little Spinner in Carolina
of Newsboys.
Taken with
flash at
Pittsburgh Survey. 'I'hree jears later he was appointed staff
photographer for the National Child Labor
Com-
their health, their habits,
lished as
the United States. Iline returned with a series of appal-
tective child-labor law
young
that shocked
as eight years old
the country.
worked
Children
in cotton mills
as
tending
machines, were hired as coal breakers in dangerous mines,
and sold newspapers
These
in freezing
weather
starving, exploited children
had
an education or hope for the future.
what they
said
and estimated the
ing his vest buttons.
He
I
late at night.
little
chance for
line took notes of
children's size
by mark-
kept a sociological record of
he encountered. The
all
human documents, were
mittee to investigate child-labor conditions existing in
ling pictures
and
nation reacted immediately. His vivid photographs, pub-
World War
overseas as
A pro-
was passed. Mine had made the
camera into a formidable weapon In
strikingh- clear.
for social progress.
he was with the American Red Cross a photographer, and after the armistice he I
remained with Red Cross Relief to feed the desolate and help the wretched in the Balkans.
He
returned to
big camera.
New
He was
York
in 1920.
He
a sociologist; not
sordid and slums, not
all
\\orkers
still
all
lugged his
America was
were exploited and
305
enslaved.
He
people from
and
believed in his country; he believed in the
over the world
all
built this country.
Men and
at
Work,
He
vigorous
in their work.
A
who came
to this land
took hundreds of pictures of
men
with pride in themselves
positi\e statement
was
to
be made.
when
the last girder of the mooring mast was riveted, Hine had himself swung out on the end of a crane. His
legs
twined around the hook, a clumsy 4-by-5 camera in
both hands, intent only upon capturing the historic mo-
ment on
What was more positive than the Empire State Building then being erected? He was hired as its official photog-
streets.
rapher. All the languages heard in the tenements were
fine
heard here
men his
also.
Floor by floor Hine photographed the
building the nation's
tallest skyscraper.
toasted
bread alongside them in the forge used to heat
His photographs ingeniously
reflect
rivets.
the men's attitude
towards the work and the building. "Topping
306
He
Out Day,"
his film,
he knew no
fear.
No
one
take his picture hanging perilously over
The
v,as there to
New
York's
men's job was done. Hine had a scries of
photographs, not a mere record glorifying labor.
Hine, humanitarian with a camera, wrote his
own
best
explanation of his purposes: "There were two things
wanted
to do.
be corrected. appreciated.
I
I
I wanted to show the things that had to wanted to show the things that had to be
iiiNE, left:
below. Breaker Boys Inside the Coal Breaker. 1909.
Tenement Dweller Carrying
in
County Coal. Chicago,
igio.
HiNE,
bclo-\v:
right: Italian
Sidewalks of
New York.
1910.
Family Seeking Lost Baggage.
opposite page:
Madonna
Ellis Island, 1905.
of Ellis Island. 1905.
309
HiNE, above: Derrick right:
310
Men, Empire
State Building. 1931.
Riveting the Last Beam, Empire State Building. 1931.
'''.--".: A'^'^
I
A
At
i;^^
Ceiithe Celehrities
ciiid
Anoiiymous TluoniJs
Arnold Gentiie (1869-1942) thought he hud invented the candid photograph about a
what he
actuall)- created
is
as
lialf
century ago, but
formahzed
as the portrait
technicjue he so valiantly fought.
For
thirty years
Three Presidents
he took pictures of the world's
sat for
great.
him: Theodore Roosevelt, Wil-
and Woodrow Wilson; two of the wealthiest men: John D. Rockefeller and An-
ham Howard nation's
Taft,
drew Mellon; many international
celebrities of the stage
—Bernhardt, Pavlova, Isadora Duncan, Kllcn Terry, Greta Garbo, Eleanora Duse; and the highborn every-
With his camera he traveled the entire world. Gen the (it was not an honorary title; he received
where. Dr.
a doctorate
from the Uni\crsit\- of Jena
for
work
philology in 1S94, before he was twenty-fi\e }ears
in
old')
was an urbane bachelor, six-foot-two, charming, and an accomplished linguist. With his beautiful head and courtly
manners he was considered one of the most
ar-
tistic candid photographers of his time.
But
The
his
was not candid photograph}'
only thing candid about
shutter
when
it
as
we
see
it
today.
was that he snapped the
the sitter didn't expect
him
to.
What
Genthe tried for was "art" photography; his purpose was to
make
graphic
A
the photograph resemble one or another of the arts.
familiar
nude was
a copy of
some ancient Greek
he
torso;
called
American
girl's
it
"living sculpture."
whom, were most
an
was skillful when it was made to Venus dc Milo. Portraits, no matter successful \\hen they
made
were mistaken
became muted
soft focus
with velvety blacks and
he took from the chiaroscuro paint-
Rembrandt and Caravaggio or from lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec; he created what became known as the "Genthe style." ings of
he was a
radical with a camera, for
respect an artist has for his equipment, creatively.
traditions, the
He broke with
he gave
it
the
and he made
it
the muscle-bound
uniform sharpness, the characterless
stiff
poses that were the characteristic of photographers of the day, especially in San Francisco, first
Genthe indulge studios
where he opened
his
around the turn of the century. Nor did
gallery
and
in the practice prevalent in
commercial
arty photographic circles of retouching or
was
important
portraits.
the age lines of his
sitters
Through
for printing,
were eliminated.
who
portray the subject set in the midst of his profes-
Genthe made
selective, a
photographs in which the subject
Henri Charpentier, the chef, cap, holding a pot lid
is
master in modeling with
light,
always attempting to capture the poetic mood, thereby
is
a series of
surrounded by props:
seen wearing a huge white
open over
Childe Hassam
a stove;
stands beside an etching press. I'hcsc were
made
in the
studio and bear the imprint of Gcnthc's academic roman-
ticism—he spirit of
strove,
he
said, "to
show the mind and the
the person."
His greatest pictures he took in rived, in
189.11.
when he
San Francisco's Chinatown, and, a
than a decade
later,
when he photographed
quake which destroyed San Francisco.
It
is
first ar-
more
little
the earth-
for these ex-
ceptional, honest pictures, deeply charged with feeling,
rather than for the
he
will
Genthe
style of art portraiture that
be remembered.
San Francisco's Chinatown
drawing on a negative.
He
his
sion's symbols. In the twenties
Emphasis was on
him
all
and the use of mat paper
further developed in our day by magazine photographers
brilliant whites, ideas
for
suffuses
film, lens, lighting,
soft
on the beach were
water colors.
work
moonglow
A
to resemble soft-ground etchings or
charcoal drawings; landscapes in effect
Still,
creating his conception of a romantic picture.
In several portraits he indicated ideas which have been
for mezzotints. Pictures of dancers
deliberately
portrait of
profile
resemble that of the of
A
sixty years
moved from
ago was a trans-
made when
it
was
the opposite shores of the Pacific.
It
was
planted Canton; few changes were
All photographs
m this
chapter courtesy
The
Art Institute of Chicago.
ARNOLD GENTHE, Pigtail Parade, San Francisco. About 1897.
313
]m
q
an Oriental
city within the city of
thousand black-clad
men
shuffled silently in the sandal-
streets, streets
wood-scented
San Francisco. Ten
as the "Street of the Sing
with such descriptive names
Song
Girls,"
"The
Street of
many the Gamblers," "I'he Street of the Butchers," and shuffled others including the "Devil's Kitchen." Genthe along with the denizens of the familiar figure. Unobtrusively
with
its
fast Zeiss lens
from
district.
He became
slipped a small
he
a
camera
his pocket.
the superstitious Chinese, young and old, the camthe evils era was a "black devil box" which contained all the when them of the worid ready to pounce out on
To
box
clicked.
Genthe took the only complete record extant of Chinatown and the strange people and places that flourished
m
the dissolute, beautiful city with their Oriental flavor of the Pacific Coast. He took photographs of the derelict dope addicts and murderers, the rich, silken-embroidered
costumes of the merchants and their children as they ballived within painted frame buildings supporting conies festooned with flower pots and gay, multicolored lanterns hanging in the cool courtyards. It
was
all
wiped out
in
one angry day, April
18, 1906,
the day of the earthquake of San Francisco. Genthe's
powerful pictorial record remains, a remarkable series of documents made }ears before the word was ever used in
connection with photography in America. The day it happened Genthe's studio fell apart at the first
tremor. Fire wiped out everything a
little later.
By
time picture taking with him was automatic. He borrowed the first camera he laid hands on in a store he this
found open.
It
was a simple box, a 3A Kodak Special.
He
stuffed his pockets with film and he roamed the devas-
tated city from Fisherman's
Wharf
to
Nob
Hill, shoot-
ing pictures of the collapsing, dynamited buildings, the
consuming
Genthe
fires,
and the dazed, wandering people.
lost his studio, his
library of three
equipment, his precious
thousand volumes, but he fortunately Chinatown pictures. Will
saved the negatives of his Irwin, a writer with
whom
he
later collaborated
on
a
book, had prevailed upon Genthe to put his Chinese
GENTHE, Street of the Gamblers,
Chinatown, San Francisco. About 1S96.
315
negatives in a vault.
scathed and
now
They came through
the
fire
un-
are in the Archives of the Library of
Congress.
Genthc was
From
San Francisco
to stay in
five
more
years.
1911 to his death in 1942 at the age of seventy-
three, his studio
was
in
New
York, on the top floor of a
building in the heart of the shopping
district.
He roamed
the world taking pictures of people and places, in his soft-focus
Genthe
st}le,
founder pictures he had first
In
not like the cadicr sharper, pro-
made
in
San Francisco when he
took up the camera.
In his autobiography written late in
"Today
I
my part
as
art
and
enviable reputation as
celebrities in all fields;
one of the pioneers
which has done [I
he commented,
"lift
medium
it
in the
regret, for
development of an
to spread the gospel of
photography from the me-
had become
to the dignity
status of a real art."
It is
strange— a lifetime
great names,
man
much
so
helped]
chanical, lifeless
and
life
have only gratitude, untouched by
beauty ..."
traits
New York Genthe gained an
a photographer of tycoons
here he perfected his internationally popular technique.
were made in the in
names
as a portrait
photographer of
and Arnold Genthe's most memorable first
decade of
his life as
por-
camera-
San Francisco's Chinatown, where there were no of importance, onl\- anon)
mous
throngs.
GENTHE, below. Chickcn \^endor. right: Street of the Balconies,
Chinatown, San Francisco. About 1S96.
yt>ii^ .a> ,
318
.^v^'W^fP-'
IV
I
•»^
-SSBSSS^ ^^f
t
a
r^l
f
';J 'i
320
GENTHE, below: Greta Garbo. About 1925.
About 1920. Eleanora Duse at the Age of Sixty-four. 1 923 far left: right: Margaret Severn. About 2920. left:
Isadora Duncan.
/ «5
•^•^?-3W5t-i
;
> e'''
321
Edward
A
Weston:
New
Vision
Very few creative photographers were trained as cameramen. Most were artists, others teachers, engineers, musicians,
writers,
w hich gave them as
sociologists,
little if
following professions
any aesthetic
satisfaction.
mature men they became photographers
and explore
a personal
way
Often
to experiment
of seeing, to create their kind
of a picture.
Edward Weston told
saw
is
the exception, the rare creative pho-
knew his destiny. He me m his cabin near Carmel, California, in 1952, "I my first exhibition of photographs at the Art Insti-
tographer
\\
ho
as a bo) definitely
tute of Chicago exactly fifty years ago It
and from that moment on
Three
when I was
sixteen.
my whole life. I made father buy me a camera
changed
I
was absorbed with
years later, in 1905,
he was
it."
in California can-
vassing door to door, hauling a post-card camera,
taking pictures of babies, funerals; a dollar a in
family
groups,
dozen was the usual
price.
He worked
commercial studios, he studied and mastered the
cacies of the
and
marriages,
intri-
darkroom. Portrait photography was to be
his livelihood.
He
married in 1909 and in the next decade fathered four sons. In igi 1 he opened a portrait studio in Tropico, California.
He specialized
in portraits of children
started to use natural light inside his studio.
became
a
name
to reckon with in portrait
and he
Soon Weston and
pictorial
photography. Honors were heaped upon him; he was
London Salon and,
elected to the
demonstrated and lectured on
shows added to
home, he
fied.
but his soft-tocus "arty"
lifes
photographs, so acclaimed by the amateur and the cam-
him fcclmg empt) and
era clubs, left
knew
unsatisfied, lie
that the pictures were tricky, but what qualities he
wanted
Had
to capture with his camera,
he
did not know.
still
plants he
maguey
of
One-man
techniques.
iiis
his reputation
eloser to
paring his former work with the portraits and the pictures
visits
now
photographs.
Mexico's pyramids and
and people
scape, sky,
for
new
demands
of his growing family.
Weston generated
Under the
stnii-
a creative response
He broke with his former successes; he no
within himself.
returns with his son Brett.
is
Bohemian
is
rough, the smooth
He
experimented
and
shadows by mixing
found he could express himself era;
he was as original with
artists
arti-
and he photographed fragments
of the figure rather than the entire as
his
an
human
He
body.
with the cam-
artist
chosen
medium
as the
he respected and he did not have to emulate
their
.
.
.
Ohio, he
in
made
is
alive,
the
first
of his
is
stone
is
one from
photograpliic beauty."
His stimulating friend, Diego Rivera, wrote,
"Few
are
modern plastic expressions that have given me purer and more intense joy than the masterpieces that are frequently produced in the work of Edward Weston the
.
There
is
not in Europe, by
dimensions
styles.
Beginning in 1922
flesh
the beauty which these photographs of Wes-
ton's possess,
light
smooth,
are placed at a cleariy defined distance
another
and natural
is
hard. 'I'he things have a definite proportion and weight,
antics.
He created heightened ficial
texture, the physical quality
rendered with the utmost exactness, the rough
constantly with the extreme close-up and the abstraction. effects in
City.
to California he
He holds an exhibition of his Museum of Guadalajara. The
Weston's photographs the
steady means of income; so his conservative friends and
to his camera.
Mexico visit
photographs in the State powerful painter of protest, Alfaro Siqueiros wrote, "In
of things
Weston went back
He
before he snaps the shutter, and for his income he care-
longer submitted his pictures to the salons. But he had no
family frowned on these
still
visions with his camera,
In September, 1925, after a brief
ulus of abstract art
satis-
photographs to perpetuate the peak of his emotional, artistic seeing. He is seeking the precise pinpoint in time fully tends a little portrait studio in
financial
not
for
music, and contemporary literature, he might have con-
tinued to photograph "exalted portraits" to meet the
is
small towns, searches land-
not been for the San Francisco Fair of 1915, where Weston was introduced to modern art, creative it
He
He goes back to experiments, photographing of the toys and objects found in the house.
.
.
.
far,
.
.
a photographer of such
Edward Weston
is
the American
artist,
one whose sensibility contains the extreme modernity of
dramatic compositions revealing the clear forms and
the plasticity of the North and the living tradition of the
rhythms inherent
Land of the South, Mexico." The third of the triumvirate who
American
111
industry.
the great manufacturing plants of
1 he abstract designs
to
the substantial reality of architecture which
be found in
Weston
dis-
closed in his photographs immediately influenced pho-
tographers
who
still
and
exploit his conception.
New York
August
2, 1923, on board ship from Mexico, Weston makes a first entry 111
his
to
Day Book.
"Certainly it is not to escape myself that I am Mexico bound ... I am good friends with myself. Nor do I hunt new subject matter, that is at hand out the back door
anywhere ...
I
feel a battle
ahead to avoid being swept
away by the picturesque, the romantic." Three weeks later in Mexico City he notes bition
attended b)
is
woman.
I
his exhi-
"men — men — men — ten
one
to
have never before heard such intense and
understanding appreciation."
approaching an attainment ego of several \cars ago
I
in
thought
scrupulously scrutinizes
all
am now
photography that I
only
in
my
had reached long
ago. It will be necessary to destroy, unlearn
He
installed
and rebuild."
he had produced, com-
Weston's exhibition of photographs
in
New York City. book Weston kept in Mexico, reads, "Give me peace and an hour's time and I create. Emotional heights are easily attained, peace and
One
entry in the 1926 day
time are not," and a
later entry the
same
year, "I
have
been slow developing, perhaps laying the stronger foundation. Almost forty and am now beginning to realizeto see."
Cezanne's old complaint in his exact word "realize." The cry of a creative artist used when he could not satisfactorily
B) January of next year he records, "I
fathered the Mexican
Renaissance, the one-handed Jose Clemente Orozco, did not write about Weston, but five years later he arranged
St.
complete a painting as he
sat in front of
Mont
Victoirc in southern France, now, unawares, used in
the same way by
Weston
trying to create his kind of a
picture before the mountains of Mexico.
Weston and the
loved the country, the landscape, the people,
art
worid of which he had become a
vital part.
323
but Mexico couldn't keep
liiiu;
roots were to the
his
north. In January, 19-7, he writes, "During these three
mouths
since returning to Cahfornia
...
for myself
am
I
have done nothing
I
not yet an integral part of these
surroundings, one foot
in
is still
t\\'o
Mexico" and
sidered fine in
have two new
"I
mer he added
loves,
month
a
bananas and
later
shells."
He saw
changing in the
light.
became
new
his
convert
wife, Charis. it
money went
his 8-by-io-inch
in shapes,
and
piece of film he
something monumental
mountain
icals
he had reduced
as
of a figure.
He had
a
created an
with his camera, willfully isolating his sub-
artistic entity ject,
mtmiaey
to the
just
deliberately selecting film, lens, paper,
following
summer he and
son Brett closed a
his
San Francisco and moved
carried twelve holdfilm for
for the finest details possible.
made
Each
count. Nothing was left to chance.
my ground glass before exposure must exactly how my finished print will look,"
look on
I
know and see Weston wrote.
He
didn't wait for a picture, for the light to change,
come
or for animals or people to "If
into or go out of a scene.
must wait an hour,
I
and go on, knowing
I
am
I
put up
ni)'
camera
likely to find three subjects just
pic-
and the
sea
creating pictures in the vastness of nature through his
tried in
tures of tangled tree stumps, eroded rocks,
Point Lobos which his poet friend,
had
\'alle\-.
They
some canned Most of their
view camera he was soon out taking
had
south to Carmel in the mountains near Monterey.
at
a car, a tarpaulin to
same hour." For the purposeful Westons the money went far; $2,000 took them 33,000 miles. Weston \\as "realizing,"
portrait studio they
his S-by-10-iuch
I
He explains,
before he exposed.
The
"When
and chem-
to complete a photographic image he envisioned
They bought
only contact printing. Big camera, small shutter stops,
and contact printing
as
free for a year
camera. There would be no enlarging,
power of Weston had conceived
and a vegetable
was
which could take twenty-four pieces of cut
designs which critics called erotic symbols. I'he selective of a shell
He
anyone but himself and
for
for photography.
New
movements
$2,000!
goods, and they were off for Death
ers
textures, interrelated rhythms,
photographer to receive a
into a darkroom, sleeping bags,
sculpture in growing forms everdiscoveries in seeing, surface
first
no pictures
portraits,
That sumvital to his
rounded forms, deep
consider to be his greatest pictures.
became the
Cuggcnheim Fellowship.
—no
he records,
radishes, eggplant, canteloupes, artichokes,
cabbages, and peppers. \'egctablcs artistic life.
made what many In 1937 he
nudes, "which go beyond those con-
Occano with
black shadows, and myriads of textured sands; here he
Mexico."
A fertile artist does not lie fallow long. By April he had photographed
In 1936 he discoxcred the sand dunes at their long undulating shapes, soft
described
as
"strange,
With
Robinson
Jeffers,
and
storm-
introverted
had a beauty that stamped itself on his emotions, resulting m a series of his most exciting photo-
as
good
ground
in the
glass
—a
The
ously captured.
took him
profound
emotion instantane-
artistic
following year he saw the results;
of 1938 to print his 1,500 negatives; the
twisted." It
it
graphs of nature.
Guggenheim Fellowship had been extended to make this possible. His wife, Charis Wilson Weston, had kept a
In 1932 Ansel
Adams, then
a pianist with
portfolio of pictures, Willard
an amateur's
Van Dyke, Imogen Cun-
ningham, several other young independent photographers interested in sharp focus, and Edward Weston,
formed
a
group they named "f64" after one of the small
shutter stops tures. It
which allow
was a stand
in the
a free,
and
what he
sensuous contact with nature.
Thoreau kind
of
life.
He
took his
The
with
as
much
vistas instead of close-ups,
attention paid to the forms and the com-
position as he had to a single pepper or to a
324
but
nude
figure.
sea.
He
does not de-
he makes pictures of
his
near his shack or on the rocks near the sea close by.
make photographic new ediwhen Grass which Whitman's Leaves Walt of
In 1941 he was commissioned to interpretations
all
over the nation to illustrate a
published contained
monumental
and
had a few customers. Often he would take the subject
tion of
ing things,
sees;
Fellowship over, back he went to his kind of
shooting orchards and
geometric patterns of grow-
The
honest, unretouched portraits for which by this time he
camera into the huge ranches of southern California fields,
photo-
direct translations of nature portraying his sensitive
reactions to desert, mountain,
mountains of the West against
The group held its first exhibition of straight photography in the De Young Museum in San Francisco. The exhibition won the respect of photographers everywhere. Within a year Weston withdrew from the group to
his
photographs he took are for the most part spontaneous
scribe or record
try.
Carmel
was published along with ninety-six of
graphs two years later as California and the West.
for straight, clear detailed pic-
the plague of the pictorial salon rolling across the coun-
live at
log. It
all
The war
years
fifty
he spent
of his photographs. at his cabin in
Carmel photo-
graphing with his big camera the graceful, living sculptural
forms of his
many
cats as they entered
and
left
All photographs in this chapter courtesy
Edward Weston,
Carvicl, California.
EDWARD WESTON, HaKcd Cabbage.
1930.
through their
own
little
four sons were in service.
Lobos, was under
Army
hands, the undaunted
One of his
and Cole to print editions of prints from
favorite views, Point
jurisdiction. Restricted, the pro-
photographer worked with objects, animals, people.
lific
He had with
once written, "Limitations need
full creative
not interfere
expression."
Health, never one of his problems, suddenly became his
major concern when he
fell
ill
with crippling Parkin-
son's disease. Unable to hold a camera in his trembling
326
Weston
door he had cut for them. His
directed his sons Brett his original
negatives resulting in albums of his superb photographs.
On
January-
i,
1958 (while this chapter was being
Edward ^^'eston died, aged 71. As a photographer he has done much for our da\-, shaping the ideals and purposes of photography. His best works are prowritten)
foundly spiritual interpretations of nature, photographs in his
own
distinct style.
WESTON below: left:
Nude on
Beach. California, 1936.
Pepper. 1930.
.s
328
WESTON, above: Dunes. Oceano, 1936. opposite page, above: Dunes. Oceano, 1936. left:
Rock Erosion.
1942.
329
f
^^^Bl^
5i¥*.Ayycr:if»;^T
.S^i
i->.^l
>'3 »-«OTa»,iC'^K2L.:
llv
ed
WESTON, Gulf
Oil.
Port Arthur, Texas, 1941.
331
tm^.
^'m^::^
WESTON, above: Church Door. Hornitos, 1940. left:
Field of Lettuce. Salinas, California, 1934.
333
Reriiiciny
ciiul
the B(UihcUis riu)toj>rci[)hy
tor Desiiin
It
was during the
1920s that photography
today.
The depth was American,
'lypicall)-,
the breadth
the Americans pursued
discipline in
itself.
poems— crisply
The
came
depth and breadth that
attaining essentially the
great
of age,
it
shows
German.
photography
as
a
American photographs are
focused, beautifulh composed, produced
wholly by photographic means. Their integrity and their intensity of vision have order.
German}'
been a contribution of the
in the 1920s
had
its
own
first
representatives
of such a "straight" photographic school, notably Renger-
Patzsch, but her most important contribution was to ex-
tend the boundaries of photography into abstract and applied photography. In the
Bauhaus
at Dessau, the great school for artists
and designers and the center
for basic
experiment
in
e\ery field of the visual arts, the camera was valued as an
instrument for creative imagery. These images were used as
elements in constructing designs for exhibitions, pho-
tomurals, posters, advertising, layout, and typography;
became a new photographic \ocabulary used to communicate ideas. Such uses, commonplace today, were first concei\ed b\' the Bauhaus group before 1930. Since then applied photography has become firmly woven into thc}-
our daily
life.
The moving
spirit in
the Bauhaus photography was
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, born in Hungary, 1895.
Moholy
taught at
came
tlic
to tlic
Bauliaus during the years rq23 1928. lie
United States
and from that time
in 1937,
until his death in 1946 was director of the New Bauhaus, Chicago, later called The Institute of Design and now a
Wher-
division of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
ever he was,
Moholy taught
that the photographic image
should be a fresh, original interpretation of visual experience.
He
photography without regard
stressed
Americans created
profound impression. The aesthetic group were written for the
by
catalogue by
Edward Weston, and
this
in the
official
main coincided
with those of Renger-Patzsch and exponents of the
New
Realism {Neue SacJilichkeit )
who
crystal-sharp, literally accurate
photographs but also for
strove not only for
an intensified realism that had the feeling of
life.
Albert Renger-Patzsch had, in 192S, published Die
for story
{The World
or landscape, and advocated the use of mixed techniques
Welt
and manipulations:
one hundred of
distortion, enlargement, blanking
a
beliefs held
1st
Sclion
his
own
Is Beautiful),
photographs.
containing
These
w^erc
out, montage, double exposure, double printing, negative
straightforward and unretouched pictures of nature pro-
and worm's-eye views.
duced by purely photographic means. The poetic realism
effects, bird's-c\e
Moholy himself inspired by
many
created
abstract photographs,
— and in turn inspiring — abstract painting. lie
was among the
first
without using the camera, known abstract photographic print objects
as the
made
b\-
and objects of varying degrees
artistic interest in
He
Leica camera, invented by Oscar Barnack in 1914 and
reawakened
placed on the market in
He produced
other
the
flexibility to all
pioneering workers.
overprintings, frequently emplo\ing forms taken from
radiography and microscopy. Through his experiments
with light and the photographic image in
Germany and
America, he became one of the greatest influences on
modern design
The
all
over the world.
tional exhibition of
was held
more than
in Stuttgart, 1929,
Deutsche Werkbund, an chiefly
und Foto"
tradition-shattering "Film
interna-
a thousand photographs
under the sponsorship of the
arts-and-crafts organization led
by the Bauhaus group. This exhibition included
the photograms of j\Ioholy-Nag\-, the similar "Rayo-
graphs" of
Man
Ray, and the
new photographic
visions
of the Bauhaus; aerial. X-ray, news, advertising, scientific
and
photographs notable for form and movement;
and the "straight" photographs of an American group including
Edward and
Brett \\'cston,
Edward
Steiehen,
Charles Sheclcr, Imogen Cunningham, and Berenice
defined and classically
German
The
sharply
composed photographs
of the
Abbott, and of a similar
ALBERT RENGER-PATZScii,
group.
Germany
in 1925,
It
brought new
brought changes to
contemporaPi^ photograph}- and dealt a telling blow to
through negative images and multiple
startling effects
for the great reception accorded
"Film und Foto."
on
photomontage, often adding fanciful
touches and Surrealist incongruities.
perception strongly influenced European read-
and prepared the way
ers
a flashlight,
of transparcncv'
to secure a single print.
common
Weston group at The scope of modern photography was further extended by "miniature" photography. The 35-millimeter
photogram: an placing opaque
a sheet of scnsiti/ed paper, exposing with
and developing
made
to create the kind of image,
of these exaggerated close-up views of objects of our
Iciclcs at a W^atcrfall. 192S.
Courtesy the photographer, Westphalia, Germany.
V
the pictorial school by enabling photographers to see
commonplace spectives, and
new and bolder pernew freedom in treating
e\'er\day objects in
gave them a
it
shapes and forms in space.
The
miniature camera espe-
changed the practice of photojournalism. Behind-
cially
the-seene glimpses of internationalh- famous political personalities at
League of Nations conferences
1920s \\cre taken
b}'
the brilliant multilingual lawyer,
Dr. Erich Salomon, one of the
camera
for
news
in the late
first
to use a miniature
was said of him, "there are
pictures. It
League of Nations con-
just three things necessary for a
ference, a few Foreign Secretaries, a table
and Dr. Erich
Salomon." Magazine and press photographers have since followed his unposed candid-camera st\le as an ideal.
(He was
chambers of Auschwitz.)
to die in the gas
Dr. Paul Wolff, another early Leica enthusiast, taught his students
how
to select the
see
most
effective angle, wait
movement
for the precise instant, stop
and compose simultaneously.
I
lis
photograph)— although without
ture
at
its
peak, and
principles of miniahis
outmoded
aes-
thetic intention of achieving a soft, salon-type photo-
graph—are
still
adhered to by the best of photographers.
The great photographers in Germany during the 1920s were men of rare abilit\' and intellectual breadth who taught that a heightened perception of form and beauty
could be developed consciously through camera vision.
They ardently advocated painters
that photographers as well as
and designers be allowed the freedom
ment in order to establish new identities Under Hitler, crcati\e development in
to experi-
for their art. art
and photog-
raphy was interrupted in Germany. Neither experimentation nor free expression
teachers
and
the country. lishing for
was permitted; and the leading
practitioners in
When
all
house of Ullstein with
which men
branches of the
arts left
the Nazis destroyed the great pub-
like Dr.
its
three picture magazines,
Erich Salomon, Alfred Eisen-
stacdt, Philippe Ilalsman,
and
Fritz
Goro took
cele-
brated news pictures, brilliant photographers and editors
went
to France, England,
zines that all
of
the
and America to found maga-
have since become world-renowned. Almost important Bauhaus personalities— Walter
Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Herbert Bayer, Lyonel Feininger,
and others— eventually came to the United
States,
where they continue
on the
visual arts.
to exert a powerful influence
J 336
RENGER-PATZSCH, Pottcr's Haiids. 19-9- Courtesy the photographer.
-'^iS.K^^-v'^"
RENGER-PATZScii, abovc: Thistle Blossom. 1929. Crabfisher. 1929. Courtesy the photographer. left:
LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY, abovc: right:
340
Nude. Negative
PliotograiTi. 1926.
print, 19-9.
Courtesy
Courtesy George Eastman House,
Museum of Modern Art, New
York.
341
342
MOHOLY-NAGY, abovc: left:
From
Fishboiies. 1930. Courtesy
George Eastman House,
the Radio Tower. Berlin, 192S. Courtesy Museum of Modern Art.
343
MOHOLY-NAGY, bclow.
Jcalousy.
Montage, 1930.
right: Stairway in the Bexhill Seaside Pavilion. 1956.
Both, courtesy George Eastman House.
344
DR.
ERICH SALOMON
above: Stanley Baldwin and Prime Minister
Ramsay MacDonald
During a Press Conference. London, September, 1931 One of the .
first
iriformal photographs taken at the Foreign Office.
right-
King Fuad of EgT.pt and Entourage
in Berlin State
Opera Box
of President Hindenburg. 1930. Both, courtesy Peter Hunter,
346
Amsterdam.
w
'. .
_
set'-
A-
SALOMON, above:
It's
That Salomon Again!
Paris, 1931.
Aristide Briand points to the photographer who, he
would get right:
into a secret session of the
Reception
in Berlin, ig^i. British
MacDonald explains the theory
had bet,
French Foreign
Office.
Prime Minister Ramsay
of relativity to Albert Einstein.
Einstein expounds on his hopes for the peace conference.
Both, courtesy Peter Hunter, Amsterdam.
348
Roy Stryker Dnciimentciiies for Covei niiient
and Industry
During the depression Roy E.
Strjkcr, an
inspired
teacher, used photographs as visual aids for teaching the entire nation
something about the somber, seamy
exist-
ence endured by Americans residing in rural slums. In 1935,
when
Professor Rexford 'I'ugwell was head of the
Resettlement Administration (R.A.), he called on
iiis
former student, Roy Striker, to head a new photography
Farm
project intended for the
Security Administration
(F.S.A.), the alphabetical successor to R. A. Stryker left
the sheltered academic
life
where he had been teaching, politicians, idealists,
and
of
Columbia
University,
for the three-ring circus of
brain-trusters then starring in
the marble tents of Washington, D.C. Strykcr's objective
was
human problems which
to investigate
and record the
beset millions of people li\ing
on impoverished, drought-stricken land. spotlight
on the conditions
whicli President Roosevelt ill
clothed and F.S.A.
ill
became
He
turned
a
of the lowest third, that third
had
referred to as
"ill
housed,
fed."
a vigorous factor in presenting the
truth, creating indignation at the plight of the migrant
worker, and propagandizing for a break in the destructi\c grip in
which economics and the elements held the
marginal farmer. In the early days
Roy
Str)ker sacrificed
quality in his desire to secure accurate photographs; too
many
pictures in F.S.A.
files
are
mere documents with
as
much
feeling for photographic beauty as a photostat.
These are crowded
the
Fortunately,
whom
and
of
sensitivity
combined with
Stryker hired,
for the farmer
and
with detail, insensitive,
keen interest
his
liarsh.
the
photographers
his
own sympathy
in providing effective
pictures for the nation's press, produced in time a series
of truly remarkable
documentary photographs. These are
dramaticall) organized around a central idea, they are
how
penetrating interpretations of
no posed
land. Stryker permitted
or darkroom manipulations.
He
people fared on the
shots,
no
tricky angles,
talked with his photog-
timethem on the geography, history, and the proposed story. Only after thorough
raphers—six was the most F.S.A. employed at any
John Steinbeck credits Dorothea Lange's studies of the Okies and other migrants with inspiring his classic novel Grapes of Wrath. It was Stryker's desire to secure a record of
which the nation was enduring. Reproductions
books as Forty Acres and Steet
also to illustrate such
Herman Nixon, Washington Nerve Center, by Edwin Rosskam, and Land of the Free, by Archibald MacLeish, who wrote in his preface, "The original purMules, by
pose had been to write some sort of text to which these
photographs might serve
economics of
was the stubborn inward
Some
known names
of today's best
documentary
in
journalistic photography joined his staff— Ben Shahn (now more famous as a painter), Edwin Rosskam, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstcin, Carl Mydans, Marjorie Collins, Russell Lee, John \'achon, Gordon Roger Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, and Jack Delano. They took a composite picture of the country
that was a revelation to the nation of
Stryker's photographers
photographed a cow's
had found it
it;
prints
had
the "sub-
that
soil
their troubles. Rothstcin
skull against scrub grass
he then moved
on sun-parched
Both
how
existed.
it
several feet to
made
for a better
were sent to the papers.
One
where he
photograph
background.
commentary. But
as
li\
can documents that the result was a reversal of that
American PJiotographs by Walker Evans, published by the
Museum
Evans took
of
Modern
for the F.S.A.
Richard Wright collaborated
Stryker did not overlook the positive facets of America.
He
sought for a full-rounded picture, and said to his
photographers,
"Do
sided picture of
its
of the
not forsake the country for a one-
poor
A representative
in rural slums."
German Embassy
looking for photographs ot
"typical" Americans intended for the Nazi press was
shown by Stryker only photographs full employment in industry.
of prosi^erous farms
and
In the eight years of the existence of F.S.A., more than
200,000 photographs entered F.S.A.
making
subject matter from courthouses, crops,
the celebrated expose of an election year, 1936. Stryker
churches, criminals, and farm workers
admitted that the photographer had moved the
Library of Congress).
said to
an investigating committee,
point of the picture dying; and don't
me
was pitchforked by an
irascible.
and Jack Delano was
jailed
in Pennsylvania
skull
and
hell,
the
that the photographer got out
moving 10
of the drought area by
man
the
that there's a drought. Cattle are
is
tell
"What
New
feet."
John Vachon
Deal-hating farmer,
by a security-minded police-
who stopped him from photograph-
symbols of that
terrible
for today harbingers of if
time
in
America; they become
what ma\' beset the nation again
the people are not wary. Arthur Rothstein's photo-
graph of an Oklahoma farmer and his children fighting their
way through
a gritty
duststorm never
fails to elicit
an emotional response, nor does Walker Evans's grave, a picture of a saucer burial taken in
child's
Alabama, or
Jack Delano's Negro family in a rural house in Georgia.
ranging in
and culture (all
now
to
in the
Stryker inspired the photog-
the integrity of truth."
He
did not insist on a picture of
squalor, of sickly, impoverished people.
What
he asked
document as opposed to the pictorial, romantic, false, or smug. He wanted a direct, honest record of a particular society and its environment, with an informawas
for
a
tive rather
Stryker
F.S.A. photographs remain great pictures today,
Roy
files,
raphers "to give their fraction of a second's exposure to
ing a steel mill.
Some
pictures
with Edwin Rosskam on 12 Million Black Voices.
editor spotted
became
many
Art, included
the discrepancy and Striker was accused of deliberately distorted propaganda pictures; the skull
so great
ingness of these vivid Ameri-
plan."
and
merged third"
w'ere used
not only in the nation's newspapers and magazines, but
suggested books to
indoctrination did they go out to take their pictures.
social sig-
nificance, a vital picture of the hectic, harrowing days
than a fanciful approach.
and F.S.A. went
tion soon after the
war
to the Office of
started. Str\ker
War
Informa-
recommended
unsuccessfully that his realistic procedure in photography
be applied to the war of
him and
his
effort.
The
dull pictures required
crew were too confining; he soon
take the opportunity offered
him by Standard
New Jersey. He was to organize for Standard of
documentary photographs recording the
of oil in the life of America. file
It
left to
Oil of
Oil a library
essential role
was to be a
available to Standard Oil's house organ
free picture
The Lamp
351
and to
schools, libraries, publishers, editors— all
for a
home,
courtesy credit line. Stryker used the
same method
that he had used at
became an extension F.S.A.; his of the pioneering program that he had developed for the government. He hired some of the best photographers who had worked for him on F.S.A. and sent them to work
for Standard Oil
Standard Oil installations
all
over the worid, from the
hot sands of the Persian Gulf to the permafrost of the Arctic Circle. The resultant photographs were of great technical efficacy
and dramatic
artistry,
and again
clearly
A
miser-
revealed men's relation to their cn\ironmcnt.
352
able climate, a lonely outpost, a man's relation to his his work,
industry and
oil
and its
his fellow
men— every
aspect of the
operation was recorded.
Harold Corsini learned
all
he could
in
New York about
weather conditions, geography, Eskimo mores and Es-
kimo far
history in anticipation of a ten-week stay in the
Northwest
territon,' of
Canada— Stryker
always seeks
Edwin Rosskam immense refineries in
resourcefulness in his photographers.
and
his wife, Louise, portra\cd the
Louisiana with insight and
artistry,
purposefully select-
ing parts of pipes, tubes, tanks, and towers to capture
mo\ing compositions. John \'achon took
a superb pie-
^
,i.f
above: Arthur rothstf.in, Farmer and Sons
Walking in Dust Storm. Cimarron, Oklahoma, California. 1936. left: DOROTHEA LANGE,
1936.
353
All photographs in this section courtesy the Librar}' of Congress,
Farm Security Administration Collection, Washington, D. C.
below: russell lee, Southeast Missouri Farm, Son of Sharecropper Couibing Hair. May, 193^ right:
354
ben shahn, Rehabihtation of Chents, F.S.A. October, 1935.
ture of derricks rising out of the sea in Venezuela,
Todd Webb's
and
picture of Pittsburgh spells a city's surging
There was now better equipment, more time
for pre-
liminary study, and better pay for the cameramen. Stryker enthusiastically directed
them
prehensive picture of the tremendous
in securing a oil
oil
plays in the
economy
com-
industry that
everyone could understand. Their pictures of the
which
is
far
removed from the one-sided muckrak-
ing of Ida Tarbell a generation earlier. Public-relations purposes financed the
power.
role
a truth that
vital
record reality with
tive
photography
for
Standard Oil, and does so
the steel industry (Striker
historic penetration in
depth
made by Roy
industr}', as to
now
presently head of Jones
is
Laughlin Steel Company's photo
tribution
program of posi-
is
file),
for
and
but the truthful,
the unique personal con-
E. Str)ker to photography in
photography
in
government.
355
-r(¥f»^
^ ^'
356
r
below: left:
walker evans, Graveyard
in Easton, Pennsylvania. 1936.
JACK DELANO, Interior of Rural House. Greene County, Georgia, 1 941 walker evans, Child's Grave. Alabama, 1936.
opposite page, below:
All photographs in this section courtesy the Standard Oil
358
Company of New Jersey.
above: Charles roikix, Reef in Barataria Bay, South of \c\\ left:
(
)rleans.
iQ-fts'.
JOHN VACHON, Wcstem Venezuela— Tia Juana Field. 1944.
359
1**'
.<«.
above: harold corsini, Refinery. Baytown, Texas, 1946. left:
EDWIN AND LOUISE ROSSKAM, Oil Train on
Prairie.
Cut Bank, Montaiui,
iq^^.
361
TODD WEBB Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1948.
363
Adams
Ansel
Interpreter
Nature
of
In a time
when
so
much
in
modern
art escapes the
understanding of the great majority of humanity, the incredibly skillful photographs of Ansel
Adams
tremendous appeal whenever they are exhibited nation's
exert a in the
museums.
Adams's best photographs represent the aspirations held
by innumerable
pictorial
cameramen
of
all
the
world, amateur and professional. Ansel Adams's distinction
is
in the sensitivity
into his photographs
over his edge.
and
medium through
He
is
and poetry that he introduces in the control that
his
formidable
he maintains
scientifie
knowl-
the founder of a complex "zone system of
planned photography." This system separates
tonal
values of subjects according to "zones" or le\els and, after readings are taken with a light meter, provides the
photographer with step-by-step guidance in exposure,
development, and printing, to achie\'e a predetermined structure of tones.
Adams,
in addition,
nature that of forms,
make
is
ever alert to arrangements in
for dramatic masses, counterbalance
and subtle tones,
as well as for stability of de-
sign to control the over-all image. In his best photographs
each element ture,
is
considered in relation to the whole pic-
which shows
his instantaneous interpretation of the
ever-changing, accidental play of light on landscape.
Several of his finest photograplis go far
and the teehnicalh'
purely visual
izations of nature that border
Were
perfect.
beyond the
These
are ideal-
on the profoundly spiritual.
not for his inherent deep feeling for the exalted
it
landscape of the West, feeling that he
into his
instills
works, his photographs would be merely the best obtainable in picture postcards.
the sensitive, interpretive
Adams, who constructs
seeing of Ansel as
It is
photographers of ordinary vision. Copyists
him
to follow
photographs
his
him
pictorial architecture, that carries
far
beyond
who attempt
inevitably secure only superficial, over-
of the Rockies; a nineteenth-century
attachment, a soul-searching impressive manifestations.
Romantic
poet's
most
affinity for nature's
Themes and conceptions
that
could be interpreted perhaps more readily in abstract
music he attempts to interpret
pictorially.
that he has seen immediately in
A
entirety
its
panorama he
feels to
require a prolonged subsequent reading for the yielding of
importance, like the sustained listening to a
its full
symphony. As the camera catches the landscape with its single eye, he freezes movement, relating diversified ob-
dramatized imitations of his work, and miss the vision of
jects, textures, and tones with an almost musical point and counterpoint, and compressing deep space into a flat
the mysterious, living forces in nature that inspires
sheet of film, usually 8 by 10 inches.
Adams
Adams
in all seasons of the year
and night
to
to transpose
moments
To
compose what he
and
at all times of
pictures of specific landscapes
day
and peak
sees to sensitized plates at the
of his perception.
the
visualize the final print.
my
pianist
the concert stage for the camera
in
twenty-eight years old).
He
com-
poses photographs with a musical rationalism and repeti-
on
tion: slight variations
a
theme
in
photography. There
a similarity in his compositions: foreground,
peaks,
and
sky, a
harmonious balance of dark,
lighter shades of gray, with only rarely a
trable black.
Adams
mountain light,
and
deep impene-
always mindful of perspective and
is
My creative concept
response to the subject before
back of
mathematical patterns from music (he was a gifted
is
his
me
is
I
work must
based on
in space,
and on
the aggregate of emotional and intellectual experience
geometry of composition Adams supplies
who gave up 1930 when he was
About
wrote, "Before exposure of the negative,
If
me
in time."
communication were the only
beautiful, recognizable,
Ansel
criterion in art, the
and evocative photographs of
Adams would be considered the most significant The enchanting, aesthetic power
creations of our time. of
Adams's
finest
photographs remains
repeated viewing. Each photograph to
be seen
as often as
one would
is
effectix'C
despite
a perfect rendition,
listen to a recording of
a virtuoso musical performance.
To
enable a wider audience to see his pictures than
horizon, of patterns in horizontal and diagonal lines, of
that which usually attends his exhibitions,
Adams
strong verticals and repeated triangular forms.
developed a means of reproducing his prints
in halftone
Recognition of the object
is
always important in Ansel
Adams's work organized though
in decorative pat-
it is
terns with countless details. Abstraction
and transforma-
tion of the object, the core of strikingncss
and power
modern
Adams's pur-
pose.
art
and photography, are
Adams's
textures
later
and patterns
alien to
in
photographs conceived in all-over of leaves, ferns, trees, stones,
and
boards can be compared to musical sonatas and fugues.
They
are less
complex
in
composition than his
earlier
engravings, using special inks, reminiscent of the quality
demanded by
Stieglitz
and Emerson
a generation ago.
Nineteen books and extravagantly produced portfolios of his photographs have been published to date— /o/in
Muir Trail, Four Seasons in Yosemitc, My Camera in National Parks, and several "how to do it" books, fine halftone reproductions of his
In 1944 he
made
own photographs.
at his
tary pictures of the Japanese-Americans e\acuated
to nature
is
he would be bogged down
lever, for
without
scientific
system of photography.
it
like Scurat in the last centur)',
could become an
Ansel Adams's poetic
artist
who
What
in his
enables artists
with his belief that anyone
learned his "Pointillist"
ence of applying color, and like Ansel
Adams
in
sci-
our day,
with his zone system of composition planning, to reach creative heights
is
their
power
to rise
above their own
self-imposed, confining formulas.
Adams
has an unappeasable appetite for the grandeur
for
the photographs, wrote the text, and,
inspired by soaring symphonies.
deep response
tlw
the most part excellent technical treatises illustrated with
elaborate pictures of imposing mountainous landscapes
I lis
has
own
expense, prepared an exhibition of documen-
from
West Coast to the flat desert expanse of Manzanar Valley. The six-foot photographs, which were exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art, became a rallying force for all who, in the name of justice, wished to the
help loyal Japanese-Americans to regain their rightful positions as peaceful citizens.
Several years earlier
Adams had been appointed photo-
muralist for the U.S. Department of Interior, and, in
the same year, had assisted at the
Museum
of
Beaumont Newhall to found Modern Art the first department de-
365
voted to photography as a fine II
he served
as a consultant in
art.
During World
War
photography to the Armed
Services.
At the war's end Adams fornia School of Fine Arts in
started classes at the Cali-
San Francisco for advanced
amateurs and professionals, teaching his own scientific of unmanipulated straight photography and
system his
own
aesthetic philosophy. This credo was based
thoughts of
Stieglitz,
who
graphs in 1936, and of
first
on
showed Ansel's photo-
Edward Weston, who was an
influence in the eariy days of their association in the
group known
as f.64.
Grants from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1946 and in 1948 permitted him to photograph the
and monuments in Hawaii, Alaska, and all over the United States. Today, with his teaching, he operates studios in San Francisco and in Yosemite and takes assignments from national magazines— Lffe, Time, national parks
Fortune, Arizona Uigluvays, etc.— if the work appeals to him. Industrial firms have commissioned him to photo-
graph and produce portfolios of considerable beauty and prestige. A series of his photographs with text by Nancy
Newhall were issued
as impressive
pamphlets on Death
Valley and the Mission of San Xavier.
A
skilled
writer
Ansel
musician, an erudite naturalist, a gifted
and teacher, and an exuberant, warm
Adams
personality,
willingly embraces the term "photogra-
pher" as belonging to a noble profession. This profession,
he once wrote,
"is
deserving of attention and respect
equal to that accorded painting, literature, music
and
architecture."
All photographs in this chapter courtesy
Ansel Adams, San Francisco, unless otherwise noted.
AKSEL ADAMS,
Mount Williamsou,
from Manzanar, California. 1943.
366
367
ADAMS, above: From Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Wasliington. 1948. right: Church at Bodega, California. 1953. Courtesy American Trust Company, San Francisco.
368
r-'
ADAMS, below: Roots. Foster Gardens, Honolulu, Hawaii, right:
19-/S.
Autumn. Great Srnoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee,
1948.
a:-^
:«^fc'
^^^ Vl^ iS^ Lfc^, f«;,
,;?''<''
"'/h.:
?M^
:M<
}m 'i*f ?-"^
mm ..^m. 4^;.>"'*
'r^f.'f
"
Ifis^
"«
'-
'
;^^?^
ADAMS, Moonrise.
Hernandez, 1
New Mexico.
941.
y^jir^-*i^-"^-j>^ -*•
-^?^r^.-^>*^"''-v*^ -"^ 373
,«(*"
i^. 4>,
"».
Ab ADAMS, above: Rain. Coast Range Hills, California, 1950. Courtesy Mr. Jack left: The Face of Half Dome. Yosemite Valley, 1927.
Stiball.
375
Doisneau:
Humorist with a Camera
Robert Doisneau has the true Parisian's habit of strolling—but never aimlessly. He is always alert, his camera always set for the light and the site, ready for use. He walks seeking the incongruous, the ludicrous, the humorous, the ironic,
a
and the
among
rarity
satirical to
be found in
life.
He
is
cameramen, a photographer with a
puckish sense of humor; what he secures in his seeing is
often really funny, really witty, with nothing forced
or faked. tion
is
Amusing
situations
a goose farmer
who
is
a range to his
on
who beams
one snapping
leave, as
he
at
human comedy:
resembles his force-fed geese; a statue
nude secmingl)' shivering
soldiers
into focus; his reac-
automatic— he laughs and shoots the picture
the same time. There
of a
come
sits
a
in the
snow; American
photograph of
a
second
in the lap of a Maillol sculpture of
a nude; Saul Steinberg, the
American
artist,
posed in a
curio shop that recalls his celebrated drawings.
In London's Hotel Claridgc the droll French photog-
rapher tried to capture the way
men
looked at \\-omen,
but was utterly defeated by the discretion of the British.
He was more successful
at the Crillon in Paris; the appre-
ciative reactions of the boulevardiers
made
the series a
successful stor}- for the illustrated weeklies.
Doisneau's wit lectors fascinate
is
never sardonic, never caustic. Col-
him but not those who attend art aucnames or hedges against inflation.
tions to bu\- prestige
Tliose
whom
he pliotographs are
original eccentrics;
collects useless objects such as electric sockets
one
and old
Romi's gallery on the Left Bank he photographed expressions of people
who suddenly
discovered a female figure,
which he methodically arranges and displays with pride as he wears a wig made of corks; another, a
nude but
doorman in a Montparnasse night club, prides himself on his artistic taste, dressing up with monocle and astrakhan fur headpiece as he poses in front of his littered
comical expressions which were published in the world's
bottle caps,
collection of questionable canvases.
Doisneau's Paris
he follows the
is
not the
as
she peers series of
press.
He
"Romi,
received letters from
Paris," all asking to
all
over addressed simply,
buy the painting.
His pictures are in a really universal language, the
tourists' paradise,
sight-seeing buses
from the rear
through a window drapery. Doisncau caught a
for stockings, painted
and
though
joins the interna-
situations appeal to people everywhere.
porters wait for a pedicure
shop
Postmen and
to open; a sentinel in
tional groups to seek entertaining situations that usually
front of the President's palace holds bayonet poised as
go unobserved and unrecorded. In
he intently ponders a bunch of balloons; in a three-sided
Bastille,
Doisncau trained
dancer who,
when
a night
his Leica
on
a
club near the
blonde apache
flung across the floor, rested her weary
elbow on the knee of
a delighted elderly tourist while
his wife glowered at "such goings on."
These whimsical tableaux he often
wrestling
mock
match even the
battle.
Doisncau writes of are exciting;
anticipates.
In
referee joins the grimacing
his work, "Tlie marvels of daily life
no movie director can arrange the unex-
pected that you find in the street."
The
concrete streets
ROBERT DOisNE.\u, Portcrs and Postmen
Waiting
for Pedicure
Shop to Open.
377
1953.
of the workingnicn's suburbs
know him
as well as the
the Middle Ages and writes, "Every
paving stones of Pans. Blaise Cendrars, one-armed poet
tention to the small people of
and writer of piquant
tradition,
prose, writes in the preface to
Doisneau's book Banlieue de Paris {The Suburbs of Paris),
"He
is
an astonishing
little
guy.
an artisan worker joining the other
and stained-glass-window makers, Cathedral."
was born
Beauce
The
association
is
as
I
imagine him as
artisans, sculptors
ple
too
in the spiritually inspiring cathedral city of the
in
1912 and was raised in the shadow of
eled windows. Cendrars considers Doisneau a
378
its
jew-
man
of
for a
Frenchman the
who
pays at-
goes back to the
tradition
is
always
the Middle Ages of the small craftsman. They are the same people, the people in today's suburbs and the peo-
they build Chartres
quite valid, for Doisneau
and
artist
tiic street
who
built Chartres."
humble
to
He
concludes that Doisneau
make any comparison
of his
is
work with
those of the artisans, but, writes Cendrars, "as a sculptor \\
ith a
he
fills
camera he builds up character and atmosphere
.
himself with irony and laughter so your heart
captured. Spring
is
blossoming
in all the
.
is
gardens and the
All photographs in this chapter courtesy
Rdpho-Guillumette Pictures, Paris and New York.
DOiSNEAU, below: Side Glance. 1953. left:
Winter.
1
947.
flower pots of the concierge are gay ...
it is
when
a clay
there's kissing in the streets."
Doisneau took
thousand pictures of people kissing—
a
while walking in the
amusement
bile, in
streets, riding in tricycle or
subway
parks,
automo-
along the
trains, boats
Seine: a spectacle of love in which uninhibited French-
men
indulge everywhere. Another series of photographs
was of the bread
Doisneau caught bread
carriers;
Frenchmen's hands carried
in
under
as a cane, as a pointer,
the arm, on the head, on the back of a bicycle, broken in two, nibbled on while strolling— hardly ever covered by
wrapping paper or
a bag.
His gifted off-beat seeing
also evident in his journal-
assignments. For international picture magazines
istic
he has taken such diverse
costumed party seen economic trial
is
in
photography was
Three years
Renault automobile company
later
machine
he
him complete
all
which he was
master}- of a wide
He
Rolleiflex.
but
he had
earlier left the
also
an expert.
kinds for the next several years taught
by the time the war started
soldier,
the inflexible routine
left
parts as
art of engraving, in
Assignments of
and the
and the
with the camera
his first experience
for the
of photographing
minute
costly, social
in a generation
of small manufacturers in France. Indus-
life
when he worked in 1935.
most
stories as the
Venice
of cameras, but
\'ariet\'
his favorites
were the Leica
camera while
carried a
a foot
photographs of the oc-
in the Resistance his
cupation and the liberation served as a springboard for his
reputation in the front ranks of photography in
France.
Doisneau
is
a
who
seasoned professional
always gives
money's worth to editor and patron on any of
their
his
assignments. His two real loves, however, which keep liim
from traveling much, arc Paris and
fast film
and
lenses
he takes them
these pictures go into books;
five
its
With Many of
people.
as they are.
books have been pub-
lished to date, although not as yet translated into English.
These
are not the romantic, picturesque,
and enchanting
by
tourists as sou-
picture books of Paris brought back venirs. Doisneau's explorations
with his camera show his
city exciting, honest, gay, alive, tivity
380
and breadth
of
and
direct with a sensi-
humor distinctly
his.
DOisNEAU, Tourists and Apache Dance. 1952.
^%^-*-*
'
t|».
DOiSNEAU, below. rigJit:
382
The
Blind Accordionist. 1953.
Saul Steinberg. 1953.
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384
DoiSNEAU, below: Superior Animals. 1955. left:
Cat Show, London. 1954.
385
DOiSNEAU, above: Catch-as-Catch-Can. 1952. right: Sentry in
386
Front of President's Palace. 1 951
387
Duncan:
Dayitl
Lensman
of
the Marines
David Douglas Duncan, an ex-marinc whose reckless exploits with carbine and camera had earned him the title
"The Lcgendar\- Lensman"
ried only a
World War
in
camera (for Life magazine)
War. He marched with the marines
in the
of the encircled
withdrawal
First Di\'ision, his old outfit, in their bitter
from the border of Communist China
II, car-
Korean
to the
Korean Sea.
Icy winds of below-zero temperatures froze his gloved fingers
and
his
camera
against his body.
shutters,
When
and he thawed both out
he could
feci that the
shutter
was working again he would quickly take a picture or two.
He had
he could put
to protect each it
roll
aboard a plane for
of exposed film until
New
York
to be proc-
essed in Life's darkroom.
Communist as they
snipers picked off the soldiers' bent bodies
marched
across icy
mountain
trails
and the snow-
packed valleys of the ravaged peninsula into the cold
wind mile
after mile
Yalu River. Along
from the Changjin Reservoir
a road
he took
a picture of
at the
dead
feet
frozen solid and sticking out of a jeep.
The he was
intimacy of the soldiers' struggle was in front of
table faces as they
his.
Often
them, photographing their unforget-
came
into range.
During
of fighting in small pitched battles
vivid scenes
he waited beside
them, catching their expressions as a trigger was squeezed or a
hand grenade thrown. They kept marching back
Commanding
toward the sea and freedom. eral Oliver
Smith
officer
Gen-
said, "Retreat! Hell, we're just fighting
and the fighting men cheered,
in another direction,"
and went on doggedly.
held,
Duncan took
men comHe came up close to take a picture of a man cr\ing, of men with empty, staring eyes, as mentally beat as they were physically exhausted. He took memorable pictures of men in hand-to-hand comclose-up shots of the eyes of
him.
l^letely oblivious to
incredible adventures in guerrillas
who marched
World War
up a base and harass the Japanese troops behind campaign he fought alongside
to set
the
lines. In this sixty-day
the
fierce,
After
bush\-haired Fiji Islanders.
more than
where
now
in the Pacific theater
his
kind of war.
He
with his cameras. This was
flew twcnt)-eight missions over
bat, the killing at point-blank despite the misery inflicted
Okinawa, three of them
which he attached under the wing of
make
that
his
sympathy and honesty
photographs some of the best taken
in
any war. 5
to
in the ten terrible days of with-
i,
drawal, the First Marine Division lost
more than two thousand men. Duncan and his camera became to those marines what Ernie Pyle and his typewriter had been to
World War
the G.I.'s of
Duncan
II.
A historian
with a camera,
secured an epic picture of American military
heroism. His imposing photographs of the retreat were
published in a book. This
photographs of the troops'
is
War, along with
first
attack on the
his earlier hill
of the
Pusan Perimeter and of the landing of the transports Inchon. These are pictures of the troops in
way
fighting their
full
last
at
strength,
to liberate the heavily fortified city of
Seoul before the debacle at the Chinese border.
was the
man
the beach at
off
Duncan
Hungnam when
the
retreat ended.
Duncan instinctively takes truthful, telling pictures. The factual, the emotional, and the spiritual are fused of war, as
into stark symbols
Gardner's Dead Rebel
graphically intense as
of the Civil
War.
His photographs are uncaptioncd, but the pungent prose of his essays matches the graphic power of his seeing.
He
rockets over Japanese positions
writes in the preface, "This
book
is
an
effort to
D.F.C.
a
a P38.
One
of his best
its
He
secured
eight 5-inch
on Okinawa. This earned
known photographs taken
time was of a defecting Japanese lieutenant
at this
tank
in a stifling, plexiglass belly
a spectacular shot of a Corsair firing all of
him
Outnumbered
he was sent
a year in the South Seas
to Washington, where he wangled orders for travel any-
by the elements. Duncan photographed the inexhaustible courage of the marines with a
with Fijian
II
across the island of Bougainville
an
in
American plane, talking into a microphone as he guides an American attack on his own former base.
Those roving papers allowed 2d range
over the Pacific.
all
He
Lt.
David Duncan to
was the only marine pho-
tographer aboard the U.S.S. Missouri during the signing of the historic surrender in
Tokyo Bay. He returned
to
the States in 1946 covered with ribbons: another D.F.C., three air medals, six battle stars, and a Purple Heart for
wound
a flak
rceei\ed in a flight in which the pilot o\'er
whose shoulder he was snapping his shutter was
killed
by
a bursting shell.
Early in 1946,
in
still
uniform and on terminal leave,
Duncan joined Life magazine's staff, and three da\s later he was bound for Iran to co\'cr the Azerbaijan incident. From Persia he went to Palestine to photograph the growing Zionist-Arab tension, then to Bulgaria for a view
behind the Iron Curtain. By the end of 1947 he had photographed the partition of India and Pakistan and the
Hindu-Moslem
whom
a wife
riots,
and was back
he had married
in the States
in Cairo.
with
During the
fol-
lowing eight years with Life, he was on assignments in
completely divorce the word 'war' as flung dramatically
practically ever\^ country of the
down
taking pictures of small and big wars, incidents, happen-
off
the highest benches of every land, from the
his last cigarette,
his guts
rifle,
and
who
taking his last puff on perhaps
ings,
and revolutions. His
perhaps forever, before he grabs his
Life,
and dealt with the Greek
look in a man's eyes
is
his dreams,
tion above him."
He
and attacks an enemy
posi-
includes four hard-hitting, terse
reports describing General Douglas MacArthur's visit to
first
the Korean front and questioning his gamble in
military strategy that accounted for the dc\astating retreat.
Duncan
describes his flight in an Air Force
attack mission (the
first
ever
made by
jet-
a \\ar correspon-
dent), a snafu attack by R.O.K. troops, and the marines' first
action in Korea.
Duncan's exploit
the Egyptian Re\olt,
in
his
stories regularly
appeared in
War, the Gaza Strip, the \'ietnn'nh affair, Hindu j^ilCivil
grims, Japanese sculpture, Egyptian archaeology,
and the
Islamic religion.
How
did this intrepid peripatetic photographer-writer
become what he
is?
Born
in
Kansas City, Missouri, in
1916, he was an ardent collector of snakes by the time
he had finished high school and he had rambled jalopy
all
In 1933
Korea was a continuation of
Middle and Far East,
in a
over the United States and parts of Canada.
he entered the Unixersity of Arizona
to study
archaeology, with visions of following field expeditions
389
over the world.
all
A Kodak folding camera
he used
a present
for the
first
time on
gi\
a
en him as
fire
whieh
destroyed the hotel in 'Tucson.
He
unknown man
turned out to be the
crowd;
in the
it
photographed an
seum fish,
of Natural History, catching giant squid
whale-sharks and marlin, and for a hunting trip to
Columbia
British
of Inter-American Affairs to
ning of his being in the right place at the right time with
interest of
camera ready.
on
his
way
A
to study
year of drj-bones search
and he was
marine zoology and deep-sea di\ing
He
man
by Lerner.
also sponsored
In late 1942 he was sent by Nelson Rockefeller's Office
notorious criminal, John Dillinger. I'his was the begin-
his
and sword-
to take tions.
hemisphere
solidarity.
photographs for the
He
make photographs
first
in the
Mexico permitted him
time of defense
installa-
continued on through Central America,
sur-
to
vived a plane crash in the jungle, but was hospitalized for
broadcast over a radio from the bottom of the sea while
an emergency operation when he arrived in Panama.
at the University of
Miami.
was the
first
wearing an open diving helmet. His undersea pictures sold, bringing
him the
first
money he
realized as a pho-
While the
doctors were sewing
local anaesthesia
tographer. Until then he had gladly given his photo-
dix as well.
Though
graphs away just to sec them published.
da\, and he
wanted no more of
than forty bouts
middle and weltenveight, \vinning
as
most of them on decision. The same )ear
it
under
his left side
didn't hurt him,
it
his
appen-
might some
hospitals.
In 1956 he quit Life to join Collier's and go with John
Duncan boxed more
In 1936 the lean and wir)- six-foot
up
he asked that they take out
Gunther
to Russia.
When
Collier's closed,
he sold to
photograph
Life the color pictures he had taken of Russian art
of a fishing scene was awarded second prize in a national
treasures, to the Saturday Evening, Post the brazen por-
his
he had taken close-up with
snapshot contest. After graduating from college with an
traits
A.B., he was off immediately on a friend's two-masted
hierarchy,
schooner headed for deep-sea fishing in the Caribbean.
a
Wliile he was climbing a limestone
cliff
on Swan Island
south of Cuba, hunting iguanas, the rock gave way, cutting his right upper
hook and rough
arm and
sail
With
wrist.
thread he sewed up
Doctors later praised the stitching. set of pictures
about
turtles in the
to National Geographic.
He had
A
a barblcss fishtlie
nasty gash.
signed article and
Caribbean were sold
found
his profession.
During the next few years he roamed
all
over the
Nova Scotia to Argentina, alcameras ready. By now these were Leieas
and
to
cover— all from
flash of the
Kremlin
Look magazine another photograph this
For many months,
one
for
trip.
in 1957,
Duncan
li\ed in Picasso's
chateau in Cannes, producing a unique picture profile of the great Spanish artist recently published in the
United
States.
"Luck\" Duncan, chronicler with
man-combat
a
camera of man-to-
wars, will perhaps, in the
coming age
push-button warfare, photograph only art and
second
loves.
of
artists, his
But when American marines take
to the
again anywhere in the world, David Douglas
Dun-
western hemisphere, from
field
wa}S with
can (how editors love that alliterative name!) will be
his
equipped with the graphed the Airways.
He
Majan was
fastest lenses available.
ruins of
official
Yucatan
cameraman
for
He
photo-
Pan American
for the
Michael
Lerner, Chile-Peru Expeditions of the American
The uncaptioned pictures David Douglas Duncan All, courtesy Life
390
Mu-
wJiich follow were taken by
in the
Korean War during 1 950.
Magazine, copyright Time Inc.
among them,
patiently securing with his cameras a sym-
and distinguished pictorial recwhat these determined men endure
pathetic, understanding, ord, telling the world for freedom.
.af^gji^
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403
Biassai's
Probing Vision
Gyula
IIalasz he was christened.
place Brasso, Transylvania.
he
is
Brassai, a
To
Frenchman. That
though he has taken the town his
name. French
}ear 1S99; the
in
is
as
he would have
which he was born
literature, painting, theater,
he loves
city of Paris
The
the world of photography
as did his father,
who had
it,
for
and the studied
Sorbonne and had become professor of French
at the
He
literature at the Universit}- of Brasso.
brought the
They
future photographer to Paris at the age of four. lived there a vear
of the city.
He
and the bov,
too, fell
under the
was taken to the popular theatre,
spell
to the
Champs-Elysees, the Grand Boulevard, and the Bois; he
saw the horses and
carriages, the
Luxembourg Gardens and restaurants
where he
sat
people parading in the
eating in the markets and
with his father. This was the
year that formed his future.
Twenty years
later lie
came back,
after
two
years' study
at the
Eeole des Beaux-Arts in Budapest and an addi-
tional
two
years' study at the
Strangely, for the next eight
nalism.
To
pin
he borrowed
a
down
Art
3'ears,
Academy he
in Berlin.
left art for jour-
certain aspects of Paris after dark
camera from
a fellow
Hungarian, Andre
Kcrtesz, a well-known photographer in Paris.
"Why tions?"
I
didn't you sketch recentl}'
photography?"
what you wanted
as illustra-
asked Brassai. 'A\niy did you turn to
He
"How me of a
answered,
reminds
pliy
me. She was
in love
who
interested in photogra-
Duncan once
told
man
with an extremely wealthy
she
hired for her an accomplished
played perfectly as an accompanist to her
whom
dances but
became
story Isadora
He
called Lohengrin. pianist
I
she detested. His face drove her to
my list
in
it
of books." Nevertheless,
it
contains an inval-
uable collection of his essential pictures probing the night life
of Paris, curiously unsalacious despite the subjects.
Here his
is
a photographer with daring vision, profound in
understanding of people and their environment, of
the prosaic, the incongruous, the ridiculous. His unfail-
such distraction that she had a screen placed between
ing eye discovers his kind of a picture.
them when she
glimpses
One
worse.
Her
practiced.
grew steadily
disaffection
day they found themselves in
a carriage sit-
down
He
shows us
the side streets and alleys he knows
mately; he has been called "the eye of Paris."
inti-
It is
ting opposite each other, face to face; there
was no
revelation of every stratum.
The
carriage
Brassai has said, "lies in the selection of the subject."
avoiding him.
came
was a rough, curving road.
It
an abrupt stop and she was catapulted into
to
arms. She said to me, to
'I
rooms
I
Brassai left the city by subway.
my
life.
In fact for years he
had
fields
another part of Lohengrin's
in
Brassai era.
was
I
ended the
understood "
mc and
the cam-
once detested her."
He haunted
the streets entranced with what he saw
through his camera.
What
he saw was too
a
moment,"
He
took cover in the
from the low-flying planes that were machine-
gunning the roads
castle.'
"So too with
story,
creative
that the Nazis entered Paris, June 13, 1940,
it
stayed there;
be the greatest love of
The day
his
"The
much
for his
as he walked and hitchhiked his way Cannes 400 miles away. He would perhaps have sat out the occupation on the Riviera had he not happened to
to fall into conversation
with a fellow tenant of the
apartment building they shared
in Paris.
He learned
that
pencil or brush; only the camera, he knew, could capture
the basement where he had hidden his negatives was
the whole fantastic world of Montparnasse.
not waterproof.
he went night
after night for
months, for
ing stones, the bridges, the tourists, lived in the district a special for
meaning
truthful
he met
for
in his
him and
was there
It
years.
The
pav-
and the people wiio
wanderings,
He
his lens.
all
took on
was searching
photography. In 1921, from among the
thousands of pictures he had taken, a publisher put
to-
gether a book, Paris dc Nuit, which rapidly sold out. reviewer wrote,
"Among
A
the thousands of photographs
that could be taken from the
same point of view, there
is
one, signed Brassai, that gives the impression of freshness, of
something new born through
its
style."
Publishers, impressed with the success of this
wanted Brassai Brassai said
to
do London,
he didn't want
to
Berlin,
become
Rome
book
at night.
a specialist in
any
one kind of photograph}', that he had exhausted the
theme
of city streets at night.
He started to photograph how they lived, people
people indoors, what they did,
him and his camera. make no comments with my camera," he says. "My
dancing, people kissing, unaware of "I
camera
sees all the different kinds of people
impartiality transfixes are, the apaches,
eccentrics.
them on the
negative.
and with
Here they
the male and female homosexuals, the
Whatever
camera sees— this
is
I
see
and
I
feel
about people the
became his second book. It was supposed to ha\'e been a big book with text by M. MacOrlan, but a mercenary publisher issued hastily an inadequate, plastic-
bound, popular-priced booklet, Voluptes de
am so ashamed of this volume I
Paris. Said
never mention
security of a decade's
work became
more important than his own safety. He returned to and rescued his negatives. During the occupation his kind of photography was
Paris
curtailed,
proportioned
figures,
emphasizing continued rounds and
curvaceous forms of the nude.
who
to Picasso,
said,
the camera, Brassai?
you exploit
a silver
"Why
in
He showed
mine."
An
1945 at
these drawings
did you give up drawing for
You have
Renou Scgonzac bought one. The
was held
He drew Amazon-
and he resumed sketching.
a gold
mine and instead
exhibition of his drawings
et
Colle Gallery; the
fish-eye
artist
view of the camera
can be detected as an influence in his sketches of the
nude
heightened triangular composition with
figure, a
limbs and thighs exaggerated as in some ancient sculpture.
An
edition of his drawings with a
fertility
poem by
Jacques Prevert was published. Later he executed im-
mense
straight
ballet,
"Le
photographic backdrops for Prevert's
Rendezvous,"
praised in Paris
which
were
and London where the
considerably
ballet
was seen
for several years.
During the occupation he turned experimenting
nude
figure.
also to sculpture,
in three-dimensional stone carvings of the
The
sculpture taught
the result."
It
Brassai, "I
The
bulky flowing forms and solidity of
him
to see figures in space
and
to
achieve a similar rounded effect in his two-dimensional
photographs. Brassai, like the well-rounded
has been able to create in llistoire
de Marie
is
all
man
the
of the Renaissance,
arts.
A poem
a Surrealist-Existentialist
entitled
work
in
405
mood
of night Hfe in
In Spain several years ago he and his camera secured
prefer the eye of Brassai.
an absorbing chronicle, a vast photographic panorama
wliich he attempts to produce the Paris
"by
not by eye."
ear,
I
Marie, "I'here's
writes, in his preface to
Henry Miller
not a subject of which he has not some knowledge ...
wall covered with scribbled drawings can absorb his at-
Venus dc Milo." York's Museum of Modern Art, during 1956
much
tention as
New
of Spanish life published in France as Seville en fete.
A
as the
In the
summer
in
of 1957
He
for the first time.
he was
photograph}-, but at the
America
same time
photographs of
ent,
something distinctive with
may
result. It is a
graffiti,
and
animals, birds, faces, gallows, hearts
arrows,
show and two black hollows
empty
sockets of starnig death heads. Ever the con-
graffiti
summate
that inevitably
become
craftsman, Brassai waited for the cross lighting
I
visit,
dc photographic, he
must
motion
which
is
now
being circulated in American
theatres. It concerns itself with the
movie
animals; there
is
movements
ful
he made
picture;
movement
of
a ballet sequence of the intricate, graceof chimpanzees
and
of giraffes' necks
swinging from limb to limb, going in and out of focus,
and creating weird patterns of
In discussing
flight.
photography and the cinema, Brassai
cinema of
is
movement. The photograph
movement;
it
is
is
still
"I'he true
said,
the contrary
always the stopping of movement.
The screen is always an image in transition, and we demand that it transform itself unceasingly. I'he fixed image and the arrested image of a single movie frame, is the rectangle of the plastic art where always has been inscribed the artist's drawing, painting
and now photography. Each rectangle and adapts itself to Brassai conceives
flawless
rectangle of his Leica as
on the square
and engraving
the shape of the
it."
compositions within the
and Voigtlander cameras
film used
photographs there
lives in
is
values, tensions created
a
by
as well
his Rolleiflex. In all his
sensitivity
to
between objects
patterns, in
color
space and an
accent of rhythms controlling the entire image. selects
and
carefully
which he considers
arranges
as the isolated
He
stimulation
the visual
image, ever related to
the outward dimensions of the picture. Brassai works differently
photographer. His work
is
from the usual documentary
more
static; into
the instan-
taneous he injects his unique element of meditation, of revery.
He
seems not so
much
interested in the flux
imageThe White
and action of a given picture as in holding the as in
Crosswalk on the
Unibrella.
406
Rue
de Rivoli or
said,
1
hope.
A new
book
moves me."
"To keep from going
virginal eye of the amateur.
their
Paris zoo,
it,
to record life in the places
forget your professional outlook
matic shadows on the wall. a twelve-minute film in the
good way
a living series of pictures of what
lose your
another graphic art Brassai attempted was the
discovered
In a lecture Brassai gave before the Societe frangaise
of the late afternoon sun to secure detail and deep, dra-
Still
I
discovered color. I've done something differ-
I
the scrawls and carvings he found on the walls of Paris. Symbols of what the )oung in the streets think, the
exhibited a series of Brassai's
United States
in the
have always opposed color
said, "I
own
self.
names and
The
Do
great Japanese artists
changed
even twenty times in
renew themselves ...
right that the originality of that
come
you
not lose that eye; do not
their status ten or
their ceaseless efforts to
stale
and rediscover the
first
it is
not
vision should be-
a trick of the trade, a formula a thousand times
repeated."
All photographs in this chapter courtesy
Rapho-Guillumette Pictures, Paris and
BRASSAi,
A Drawing and
New York.
'l\vo Sculptures, ici^yicjj^j.
407
BRASSAI
below. Backdrop for Ballet "Le Rendez-\-ous," ig^-
Made from photographs by Brassai. right: Two Apaches, Paris. iQ^-j-
BAL
,r-r-f'-
^^
BRASSAI, below: Picasso. 1939. left:
Le Pont des Arts in Fog and
Mist, Paris,
1
c)^6.
I
V-'
J
BRASSAI, below. Exotic
Garden
in
Monaco,
left: "Bijoux" in Place Pigalle Bar, 1952.
1946.
BRASSAi, bc'/oir; Crosswalk
on the Rue de
right: W'liite
Rivoli, Paris, 1935.
Umbrella on the
Ri\-iera, 194S.
BRASSAi, Streetwalker. 'Two views, jg^^.
416
y/
\
v<
V
'^
V N ;^fK:
,t-.v.;,;M.:;,
N
The
niscerniiig
Lens of Eisenstaedt
The
test of time
work of
is
as essential
photography as
art in
iii
deciding what
is
a
in lithography or etching.
Repeated viewing of most prints quickly makes them
seem is
dull
and
trite.
Too often
with
a picture
new
relationships of content or composition to
covered. Such a picture obviously serves
an to
all its
details
immediately and completely remembered; there are no
illustration or technical
be
dis-
purpose
its
experiment and
is
as
quickly
be forgotten.
Many trary ing.
photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt on the con-
become
increasingly provocative with each view-
His best works
stir
the best of prints in
memory
the
the senses and emotions as do
all
the graphic
arts;
they haunt
and draw one to view them again and again
in order to find fresh associations,
Their strength
lies in their
new
interpretations.
simplicity of design. Eisen-
staedt's portraits clearly reveal the spirit
and character
his subjects whether celebrated or unrenowned.
scenes likewise, in their intimacy, ticipant, giving
him
make
of
His
the viewer a par-
a feeling of being actually present
beside the photographer in a picture of 1932 showing a lovely dark-haired girl seated in
an adjoining box of
the beautiful fi\c-ticrcd La Scala opera house in Milan. It is
his
a suspended
moment,
baton and the
lights are
festive social scene.
just
before the conductor
lifts
lowered on a most appealing,
There are authenticity,
and honesty
reahty,
He
stacdt's photographs.
them wherever they
are, in
ever they are doing.
They
forget that he
is
feet 4
small size— he
his
cameras- he
him
best.
it is
exists, at
He
small
his
make him
He his
them
puts
un-
approach that serves
him because he is ready
discerns their character quickly
reacts accordingly.
He knows
like
what-
at ease
candid portraits and suggested he try to emulate the style of Dr. Erich Salomon, an eariy exponent of the miniature camera.
Perhaps
is tliere.
inches— and
his psychological
People are ready to
to like them.
works.
5
whatever hght
uses Leicas exclusively— help
obtrusive; but
in Eisen-
docs not pose people; he takes
and
by the way he
ecjuipmcnt thoroughly: he evalu-
Eisenstaedt bought a small camera, forerunner of the a fast lens but required focusing with a magnifying glass on the ground glass. He took \arious assignments, often wearing white tic and tails which he had fitted up with pockets to hide the small plate holders
the camera demanded.
It was during one of these assignments that he took the memorable picture of Mariene Dietrich attired in male top hat and tails.
On December
ates the light subconsciously, rarely consulting his light
meter, instinctively works
with his body until he
he
is
is
and covers
fast,
ready to shoot.
relaxed; the subject forgets him.
instant
is
at
and
he weighs.
It
is
his decisive finger secures a
marked with
indelibly
When
talks softly,
the precise
hand Eisenstaedt becomes acutely
to all the factors that artistry
He
unique
his
camera
his
sensitive
moment of photograph now his
style.
of his pioneering efforts with small cameras after he
mastered pictorial photography. There
is still
of his early, soft, painterly feeling for dense
be found
soft whites to
of today.
The
m
had
something
shadows and
his frank, realistic pictures
blending of the pictorial and the candid
makes him the towering photojournalist consciously working for the ing his story to
vertical
its
page of Life magazine, and
tell-
weekly readership of more than twenty
million people.
field as a
week
most great photographers, entered
mature man. The year was 1926— he was
ing school, he had been given a
Kodak which he
after used intermittently without
any purpose other than
there-
1916 he was drafted into the
In
German army. Badly wounded
during the offensive in
Flanders, he was invalided out of the service, not to regain use of his legs for
more than
a year.
The well-to-do
Eisenstaedt family was ruined during the postwar tion,
and the recently hospitalized veteran took
selling buttons
several years hall
and
infla-
a job
belts to the wholesale trade.
he carried
and opera house,
his
sample
for
case,
For
attended concert
he loved music, and talked
about philosophy and art at the cafes where, one evening, a friend introduced
him
to pictorial photography.
learned soft focus, bromoil, and to
make photography resemble
drawing. to
He sold his
all
He
the darkroom tricks
a painting or a charcoal
buttons only for income with which
buy more equipment. He
sold an "arty" print to an
editor of the Berliner Taseblatt
1929, Eisenstaedt quit buttons
later
he was
in
who showed him
several
and
a professional photographer.
Stockholm
to co\er the
A
Nobel Prize
ceremonies, securing an intimate informal picture of
Thomas Mann standing slender and assured at a podium; a magnificent
moment
he was forced
to flee the
known
in the great novelist's life before
Nazi
terror to preserve his in-
became Europe's
best
press photographer during the next several years,
accepting
all sorts
of assignments, including a flight of
the Graf Zeppelin to Brazil, and then he too escaped
from the Nazis. For the Associated Press in 1935 he covered the Ethiopian preparations for the Mussolini-manufactured war with
Italy. Eisenstaedt took more than 3,500 negatives using three Leica cameras fitted with 35, 50, and 90 mm. lenses. His pictures of the Queen of Sheba's descendants
his reputation internationally, particulariy a
close-up picture of the calloused,
prone Ethiopian
twenty-eight years old. F'ifteen years before, while attend-
to take snapshots.
3,
good to become
enhanced
Eisenstaedt, like
the
belts for
tellectual integrity. Eisenstaedt
Eisenstaedt's grew out
'I'hat brilliant, precise style of
had
Leica. It
mud-eaked
feet of a
soldier.
In December, 1935, he arrived in the United States
pleased but surprised to learn he was deeply respected for his pioneer efforts in candid press
photography.
In November, 1935, Time Inc., after considering calling their proposed new publication Show Book, named it
Life magazine
its first
and hired Alfred Eisenstaedt as one of photographers. On the more than 1,300 assign-
ments since then he has covered of a story both large globe.
More than
and small
fifty
e\er)'
conceivable kind
in every corner of
of his photographs have
the
made
Life covers.
People on a circular or square staircase have always appealed to him.
He repeatedly
variations of
nurses,
it,
finds this
composition or
midshipmen, hotel employees.
Perfect spacing and proportion invariably result in a series
of diminishing concentric circles
or squares-
compositions which dramatically presents his diverse subjects.
Eisenstaedt has iimatcl\
the photojournalist's most
419
important requisite; he
when something
there
is
is
happening. lie takes the overall picture as well as the salient detail; together they
movers and shakers he place. Consciously
with a picture
purpose
his
feel like participants. tify
picture story.
is
to
This ability to
make Life's readers make people iden-
the high standard of professional
is
photojournalism reserved for a rare few veloped personal Al\\a}s
The
and the
he brings the viewer along with him
be an eyewitness;
to
make the
takes, the personalities
who have
de-
styles.
the perfectionist, Eisenstaedt goes to any
lengths to get his picture.
He had
hours to the bridge of the
Queen Mary to photograph Once he was led blindfold
himself tied for
six
the height of a storm's fury.
to a gambler's hideout in Tokyo.
Another tunc
his life
Mau Man
was endangered
as
he photographed the
Terror in Kenya.
He
endured the enervating rain
forest
Dutch Guiana, which he explored for weeks with his camera. Tenacious and fearless when pursuing a story, he exhausts every angle with infinite patience to achieve of
kind of picture.
his
In general co\crage of news stories as in his portraits,
he
is
the complete master of his
veritable field of
Who's
like
medium. His
right, will
I
I
photograph a king and he
am
equally a photographer in
is
a
a king in his
my own
only be able to photograph people
them and they
if
respect you."
All photographs in this chapter
courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
420
file is
of the world in practically every
endeavor. Eisenstaedt once wrote about taking
portraits, "If
own You
Who
you
right.
truly
ALFRED EisENSTAEDT, Ethiopian Judge. 1935.
^
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422
EiSENSTAEDT, bclow. Feet of Ethiopian Soldier. 2935. left:
Spectators at Trial in Ethiopia. 1935.
nr!^ ft*'
^'^m^.M-^
.;\?*7J
EISENSTAEDT above: Jan
Masank and Eduard right:
424
Benes.
ig-jj-
Augustus John. 1951.
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i
EiSENSTAEDT, abovc: La Scala Opera tlouse. Milan, 1932. Roosevelt Hospital 1957. left: Nurses Attending Lecture,
427
wm
^
EISENSTAEDT Mussolini. ^954-
428
I
^^
EiSENSTAEDT, above: Joyce Gary. 1951. left:
Gondolier, Venice. 1947.
431
and
Callcihcin
Magic
of the
Coiiinioiiplace
HARRY CALLAHAN Harry Callahan, \\hom one rapher of the obscure and of
two
termed "photog-
critic
tlic insignificant,"
grows out
traditions of pliotograph)', the interpretive
the constructive.
The
first
influence
is
and
the tradition of
Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Walker Evans, interpreters of the commonplace, who transform into aesthefound
visions anaesthetic objects
tic
tables,
nature— vege-
eroded rocks, etc.— and in the man-made scene-
and
fences, signs, dilapidated houses,
The second and
in
Man
influence
is
dirty city streets.
the tradition of jMoholy-Nagy
Ray, creators of photograms, nonobjective
images created in the darkroom by combining and arranging shapes on a piece of sensitized paper and using a flashlight to expose.
In Callahan's pictures there traditions, the documentar)-
is
the fusion of these two
and the
abstract.
He
di-
gested and integrated these influences into a personal vision, seeing things adventurously
and saying them
suc-
cinctlv with his camera.
Callahan opens our e>es to the familiar and the com-
monplace: beautiful.
sights of
An
dust; a desolate park
and
no beauty
in
themselves he makes
upturned waste basket silhouetted
bench
a concrete step in the
in the
in winter; a water fountain
snow; a lowly weed consisting
of three delicate, tapering lines subtle as any seen in a
The photographer must
master drawing;
often an alert photographer will
With
his
all
taken with straight photography.
camera he captures an intimate
portrait of
dent repeat
His pictures do not show us more and more of nature,
many cameramen. Callahan
shows us
he makes photographic discoveries by
less;
deliberately
duction, by simplification, and by isolation. nificant
image becomes important.
He
the technical problems of his medium.
The
re-
insig-
has conquered
He
experiments
buildings, of
In
all his
experiments Callahan retains contact with
buildings are rarely
still
life of
on a window sill. The building commands us to what the photographer saw, the proportions, the play planes, the gradations of tones. The awesome, the
edibles
of
the resultant textures.
original graphic statements.
flection, a fluttering piece of lace curtain, a
impose images, thereby achieving repeated patterns of in
which he makes
peopled with inhabitants
see
movements
the artistic acci-
shown with people; they are who do not show their faces felt— through a window rethemselves make who but
The
with multiple exposures or moves his camera to super-
varying tones and interplay of lines and
make
itself.
Callahan has a profound feeling for the facades of
the inanimate, which he makes emotionally effective.
like those of
take advantage of the accident;
fearsome, and the tawdry behind the facade arc sensed
only upon deeper penetration of the photograph.
The
emotional intensities in Callahan's photographs come
The exact image cannot be foreseen when a camera is moved or a plate exposed several times, but
through with a
the accidental effects can be anticipated and controlled.
zon line in place and perspectives respected. The finished
reality.
Callahan
is
still
kind of reticence.
not slavishly devoted to nature, with hori-
H.\RRY
CALLAHAN
A Weed.
1951.
433
photograph
is
the criterion. This
a trivial natural
is
neither a picture of
form nor a record of
dramatic slum
a
dwelling. Unlike Walker Evans's photographs of criticism, Callahan's pictures carry
no
social
social message.
His pictures supersede the source of his inspiration: the overstressed
and the overdramatic are
essence of the subject remains.
filtered out; the
He stresses
single aspects
of nature to reveal his artistic purpose: lines simple, straight, tiple
and
of varying breadth, skeins of lines or mul-
superimposed
lines in various tones, whites per-
mitted to peep through various shades of black and gray.
Callahan
is
concerned to control patterns, textures,
rhythms, contrasts, and composition, but, bejond technique, he
is
involved with an intuitive and sensitive
in-
terpretation of his subject.
In Callahan's multiple-exposure pictures of buildings,
much
as in
Cubist paintings, the background and the
foreground no longer suggest perspective or depth. subject
is
deliberately
changed by superimposing
The
several
images on the negative so that a repetition of forms appears, multiplied
namic movement
The image, no
and dislocated but making
for dy-
in the space of the picture plane.
matter
how
camera view, and there
is
hackneyed,
no
commands the
altering after exposure.
Callahan's work repudiates the pictorial, but his photo-
graphs are never total abstractions.
He
stops short of
eliminating subject matter entirely. Through his intrinsic artistry
and unique
vision
he has advanced the tradition
of photography. All of his subjects to date have
United
States, mostly in
been taken in the
Chicago where he
is
head of
the photography department of the Institute of De-
Technology. In 1957, Callahan received a $10,000 grant from the Graham Fellowship, the largest sum ever awarded a photographer sign of the Illinois Institute of
for experimental study.
All photographs in this section
courtesy Harry Callahan, Chicago.
CALLAHAN, Dcarbom
434
Street,
Chicago. About 1955.
gji|^fc;^|||lQlillL_\l
M
ir^iir
CALLAHAN, below. right:
A Plant. About 1951.
Chicago Loop. Multiple exposure, 1952.
fc^i ':
'UK
i-
\
rm:-
CALLAHAN, La Salk
Street, Chicago.
About
_.f.^;i4>^t.- -A. '.<^-^
195^.
438
M
m
i_M:i
440
CALLAHAN, left:
Tree
bcloM':
in
W^ccds
in
Snow. About 1951.
Winter. Multiple exposure, 1956.
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442
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CALLAHAN, Airplane Hangar. About 1955.
443
m this section courtesy Aaron Siskind, Chicago.
All photographs
AARON
AARON SISKIND New
Siskind, just turned
York
City.
fifty
For the past
Degraded Sign.
iVcii'
years old,
several years
was born
in
w ith
he has been
his camera,
however, does not com-
pete with the brush nor does he attempt to emulate or imitate painting. His
work
is
an idiomatic photographic
teaching at the Institute of Design (founded by Moholy-
expression of the avant-garde conceptions of
Chieago Bauhaus, now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology), where he has been one of the
painter
Nagy
as the
powerful influences on the students
proponents of modern
art
and
who
York City, 1951.
through their paintings suggest ideas to the photog" rapher. Siskind
Aaron
SISKIND,
are today's avid
One
great
difference
how
room; no matter
One of his wall. To him it
Siskind has not always photographed in his current
the
make
image
his
abstract there
is
art.
and
in a dark-
a foothold in
motifs, to which he often returns,
reality.
design.
photographer
between
that Siskind does not
is
modern
is
is
never just a wall; the various forms
won
recognition as a docu-
seen in the wall
mentary photographer, especially
for his series depicting
wall asserts
come ali\c. Defaced and marked, the itself far more than a blatant neon sign. It
York's Harlem, Martha's Vineyard, and Bucks
commands,
like
abstract idiom.
New
He
originally
He now
County, Pennsylvania.
says
about
this
long
apprenticeship in craftsmanship and realism, "I found
I
wasn't saying anything. Special meaning was not in the pictures but in the subject.
I
something that existed only
in
He that
began to
feel reality
was
in ancient Creece,
that have
meaning
seeks to capture meanings, not so
much
artists displa}' in
turned for this "new reality" to abstract images
on roughly textured
walls with
in
lowly
work now bears
objects
ordinarily
ignored.
striking similarity to Abstract
bined with meaningful words or primitive writing.
Expressionist paintings of our day, particularly to those
which Siskind
canvases that emphasize big unrelated forms, nongeo-
the
metric abstractions, or strong textures and patterns in
subdued almost
to black
porary aesthetics with
a
and white.
camera.
It is
contem-
The photographer
suggests plastic ideas to the painters, just as
modern
such as Willem de Kooning, Robert Mothcnvcll,
Franz Kline, James Brooks, and the
444
to children. Siskind with his
the originality young
Siskind's
artists
where ever}one was interested
late
Jackson Pollock
in
the
message, or like a school }ard wall covered with messages
our minds and feelings."
he found
colors
the marked walls of the public gardens
camera
the message as
making drawings
pudoined chalk, comletters
resembling some
Wall images have their own reality, becoming a photograph. He sees
wills into
human clement in these images and instills it in his pictures. He responds to the shape, form, and mood of a wall
and
glass,
to the feel
and
sight of
weathered wood, jagged
peeled paint, rusted metal, sand and seaweed, and
to the effect of
time and the elements on concrete, paint,
paper, plaster,
and
Here
is
brick.
invention through selection of nontraditional
visual stimuli. Siskind searches for photographic inspira-
tions in the useless dregs of the city, rejecting the usual
formal and accepted motifs. to
discloses the excitement
and
in the relationship of irregular blobs
be found
whoris, accidental lines,
broken
He
The
patterns.
hewn
roughly
textures,
and
comes
ah\e
inconsequential
His photographs are personal experiences developed between him and the subject, but the
through
his artistry.
photograph
an object apart from the subject. a created graphic print. The composi-
lives as
The photograph
is
tion he selects has to light
and no more,
finds as
is
without rearranging
lies,
it
is no elimination or retouchmade. Siskind photographs what
for there
ing once the exposure
he
have complete unity, the required
it.
Though
the
photograph may be nonrepresentational there are movement, repetitious and complementary forms, textures varying from delicate and soft to harsh and violent, gradations of light and shadow, and an over-all design to control the finished result as a
This
is
true of
the subject
all
an
is
work
of art.
of Siskind's photographs,
oily
whether
paper bag, lichens on rocks,
weathered billboards, or rusty metals. They are works of art wrested from a surrounding world of junk and chaos. His work transcends the subject, but recognition of the subject heightens the emotional response to his artistic interpretation.
Though
Siskind's cryptic ideas
may be communicable
to comparatively few, the image, with
faces
and
its
structural unity,
many.
He recently
graph
as a
new
meaning and
its
may
its
readily
sensuous
sur-
be enjoyed by
said of his work, "I regard the photo-
object to be contemplated for
own
its
own
beauty."
Siskind has the rare gift of converting and transforming a subject into a stimulating expression of his vision, a picture it
in the
born
in the
own
imagination as he discovers
abandoned rubbish heaps
of the city or in the
unimpressive manifestations of nature.
SISKIND, Paint
4^.6
on Brick Wall. Chicago, 1948.
447
siSKiND, above: Oil Stains right:
448
on Paper.
New York City,
2950.
Stone Fence. Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, 1954.
siSKiND, Billboard.
Mexico
City, 1955.
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siSKiND, above: left:
Scrambled Fence. Harlan, Kentucky, 1951.
Peeling Paint on Wall. Jerome, Arizona, 1949.
453
siSKiND. below. Side of right:
Old Barn. Gay Head, Massachusetts,
Rock by Ocean. Gloucester, Massachusetts,
ic)47-
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Mar<>aret
Bo Hike White: Recorder
I\oviiii> €11
Margaret BouRKEA\'mTE of any given story, isolates
graph to the totality of
dynamic
creates a
and then
tlie
She
is
it
is
is
visual
is
alive
communication
as she
for the great
and deeper meanings
ficially
of capturing the
is
li\cs
aware
when
the
with meaning. Her purpose
readers; inmiediate recognition for those
way
social
the work they do, the
aware of their appearance
taken
how
about
says to her.
of their personalities; the fraction of a second
picture
She
complete
enNironment and the
to picture the
Ixickground of her subjects, the\ li\e.
each photo-
visual insights not only
the subject looks but about what
She seeks
relates
story she cn\'isions.
journalistic photo-essay, a
communicating
story
discovers the objecti\e reality
it,
image
for the
body
of Life's
who
see super-
more sagacious. Her
calls forth
varying levels of
emotional response; her essays are of complex dimensions,
work
new is
trolled
and
experiences in journalistic photography.
Her
a sort of candid eavesdropping, consciously con-
by the shape of the
Life's readers
ticipant.
35mm
film she uses.
complete the picture; each
Both she
feels a par-
Recently she wrote, "In some cases you
have stepped right into the
li\cs of
feel
)0U
the people }ou are
photographing." It
has been so since her
magazine.
The original
first
cover on
picture
stor}- for
November
23, 1956,
Life
was
her photograph of the overpowering, repeated concrete
Dam;
forms of Fort Peck
in the lead story of
she depicted intimately the workers'
town atmosphere
of the
Montana
lives in
nine pages the
boom-
construction project.
This dynamic treatment was an important factor in
was a new Her reputation had been gained as
setting Life's style of photographic essay. It style for her as well.
an
industrial photographer, taking unusual perspectives
from which she was photographing the bombed
city of
Cologne. She shocked the world into awareness of Nazi
human
maniacal destruetiveness with her pictures of
camps and of the dead
starvation in the concentration
in
the grisly gas chambers.
Margaret Bourke- White writes
and
crisply
brilliantly,
complementing her photographs. She
perfectly
tells
a
Dear Father-
of skyscrapers
story succinctly without editorializing. In
stacks,
land, Rest Quietly the pictures give graphic dimensions
and grain elevators, steel mills and smokemachine gears and dynamos. "She transformed
the American factory into a Gothic cathedral and
wrote one
fied the gears,"
A
glori-
graduate of Cornell University, where she had
studied biology and philosophy, she found her terest in the
camera,
first
for bankers, architects,
progress, lishers, level.
and then
industrialists,
making limited
as a photojournalist for
magazine pub-
developing photojournalism to a high personal
Henry R. Luce hired her
as a
Fortune eight months before the 1930.
life's in-
commercial photographer
as a
and
The
Two
to the verbal descriptions of her feelings.
other
books of her war experiences illustrated with her pictures
critic.
first
photographer for appeared
in
Germany
to
issue
following year she was sent to
were published during the
War
Halfway
to
The war first
began her
travels;
one of the
assignments she accepted was to photograph Gandhi
to spin before
Mahatma at his you want
photograph the Krupp Iron Works and then, on her
thought to
own, she went
rapher
to Russia to take pictures of the Soviet's
1949 there was
in
Freedom. over, she again
made
in India. Gandhi's secretary
"If
Shooting the Russian
conflict.
and Purple Heart Valley; then
to
he permitted her
to
photograph the
wheel. She later wrote of this experience,
photograph a
why he
spins.
man
spinning, give
some
Understanding for a photog-
as important as the
is
her learn patiently
equipment he
uses. ... In
Five Year Plan. Without escort or assistance she photo-
the case of Gandhi, the spinning wheel was laden with
graphed factories
meaning;
far
from the
cities,
securing a percep-
for millions of Indians
it
tive record of the ruthless initial industrialization plan
the fight for independence which
attempted by the Bolshevik government.
led."
Fortune and Life magazines have sent her everywhere
on the globe,
a million miles, she estimates,
quarter of a million negatives. tive
woman, danger
A
A chic, soft-spoken, attrac-
stimulates her; she controls her fears
through immersing herself photography.
producing a
in
the sensitive seeing of
camera steadies her hands and purpose
She was on hand with her camera during the the
Hindu-Moslem population, and the
stan. Stark, contrasting pictures of the
birth of Paki-
dead put out
in
moneylender's ostentatious house decorated with erjstal
and family
Moscow, which the Nazis bombed at first by the parachuted magnesium flares, Margaret BourkcWhite, the only American photographer in Russia, set
lovely sensitive portrait of a
up her cameras on the roof
office
of the hotel opposite the
hectic,
the streets of Calcutta to be devoured by vultures; a rich
as a scalpel does a surgeon's.
In
successfully
frenzied days of the "Great Migration," the exchange of
chandeliers, gilt mirrors,
light of
was the symbol of
Gandhi
girl
portraits,
and a
wearing necklaces of
beads and British coins.
For Margaret Bourke- White a return home
to Life's
but to ready herself for another assignment.
is
light.
Racial tensions and conflict about "apartheid" brought
photog-
her to South Africa in 1950. In Johannesburg she went
rapher accredited to the United States
almost two miles into the earth to photograph sweating
immediately
Armed Forces and war when the troopship she
Negro miners
Kremlin to take her pictures by In
World War felt
II
this
she was the
the taste of
suspended eerie first
woman
was aboard was torpedoed and sunk en route to North Africa. This
cameras; five
was not the only time she was fell
into the sea
which she was doing a
story
when
to lose her
a helicopter
on U.S. Navy rescue
their
way up the boot
when Nazi
flyers
following year over Kansas she flew 42,000 feet
tech-
to break the
jet
plane to photograph another
sound
barrier,
picture of white vapor
fought
Germany. She barely escaped attacked an unarmed observation plane into
The
high in a
She covered the American infantry men's two-year in Italy, risking her life to get pictures, as they
temperatures that registered 100 degrees
despite air conditioning.
from
niques crashed into Chesapeake Bay.
war
in
trails in
Pursuing the Air Force accredited to
bomber
fly
on
jet
attempting
and took an exquisite abstract
stor\-,
an
illimitable black sky.
she was the only
woman
a mission in a B-47, the fastest
at that time.
Undeterred
b\-
the price that the
Communists put on
457
her head to keep her from entering Korea, she went deep into the mountains held by the
Red
guerihas, photo-
Their Faces, two years later North of in 1941
Say
Is
tlic
Danube, and
This the U.S.A..^
series of deeisively dra-
In her thirty \ears with a camera Margaret Bourke-
matic pictures.
Wliite has produced a tremendous variety of photo-
and Life magazine assignments now make up her existence. Nothing daunts her zeal for the camera. She has taken pictures from e\er\ kind of a con-
graphs, including industrial, war, and foreign reporting,
graphing the bitter struggle in a
Lectures, writing,
veyance; on a recent assignment she went from to Central
secure a photographic essay
was
later published
on American
S.J.
in
1937 they published
All photographs in
which
In former years she had
collaborated with Erskine Caldwell (to
once married);
Jesuits,
to
with a special text in collaboration
with Father John La Farge,
tliis
chapter courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
ry
Maine
America by canoe, plane, and muleback,
whom
she was
You Have Seen
and photographic
essays of
world-famous leaders, among
them Roosevelt, Churchill, Madame Chiang Nehru, and Pope Pius XII. She has created a
Kai-shek,
chronicle
of our time, a personal interpretation through photog-
raphy of
an
vital
artist
days in contemporary history. Consciously
with
Margaret Bourkc-White
the camera,
explains her viewpoint, "Everything in the picture should
contribute to the statement
.
.
.
good photography
pruning process, a matter of fastidious selection."
is
a
tr*^"^ Gold
MARGARET BOURKE-wHiTE, (jbove: Sharecroppcr's Home. /c/t: South African Gold Miners. Johannesburg, 1950.
1937.
459
1
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE above: right:
460
The
Plantation. 1937.
Indian Girl. 1948.
..''^;»^'
;n>>^
'.-*
m-
t%
-•
,j^.
>^
»^-*ii
--
%•*»
-xa
•v.v/yv
•X.
'W
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE above: Moneylender's
Home.
India, 1947
right: X'ultures. Calcutta, 1948.
^~'.-^/
4b2
•-•'
.
.^
.*
7,--
i;
V
463
MARGARET BOITRKE-WHITE Mahatma Gandhi at a Spinning Wliecl. Poona, India, 1946.
464
i0}-^'"
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE above: 42,000 Feet right:
466
The Face
o\-er
Kansas.
of Liberty.
1
95^.
1
951
.'^ .'
/
i
i
\
If
^ f'^ j«r
.^-
fWf^.
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE Buchenwald Victims. 1945.
469
Van
(ler Elskeii:
Storyteller in Photo<>iat)hs
Chicago's
New or
Near North
York, try as they
Side or Greenwich Village in
can never equal in character
will,
atmosphere the Left Bank of Paris and,
the district of Saint-Gcrniain-dcs-Prcs.
No
in particular,
place on earth
means what the Left Bank has meant
to the artist, the
student, the expatriate, the "would-be,"
and the "flawed"
as a
mode
of
life.
romantic
I'he
mood
of a Trilby or Tricotrin seated in
Leonard Merrick's Chair on the Boulevard of the dead past.
Romance
spelled in lower case. a release
No
still
is
longer
is
is
now
there, but
a part
it is
now
it a style of literature,
from Zola's realism.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's lost generation has gone; rich
Canadians and Argentinians have replaced the sons and daughters of Americas industrialists the reckless
who once
gloried in
that was "Parisienne" in those roaring
life
twenties.
And though
the district
Moreau and the in the
supports the studio of
Atelier Suisse, the ateliers of Leger
Zadkine are now close by
and
still
and
to refute the rebels of yesterday,
Beaux Arts more ex-G.L's and
foreigners are
enrolled than French students.
The
district, despite all
flation of the franc, at $2 a
there
still
these changes and despite in-
has
week with water and is
its
seventh-floor single
toilet three floors
a difference. Instead of a
Mimi
rooms
down; but
or Iludolph
dwelling in the garrets his
tlicre
water up three perilous
is
a photographer,
flights of stairs to
who
hauls
develop his
van der Elsken was a photographer
did not have $2 for one of these rooms. in l^aris
native
he was
less
who
When
in
1950
he arrived
than twenty-fave years old. In his
Amsterdam he had been an
art student,
had
fought the Nazi occupation, and, at the end of the war,
had turned he was
to the camera.
In Paris he slept
and
He
filth
first
no
work, and
jobs.
under the bridges amidst the
offal
of the derelicts, the "clochards" of the Seine.
learned quickly to rest during the long night sitting
in a cafe chair.
He
speaking their
own
in a while
two
A year of darkroom
a ready-made free-lancer with
listened to the )Ouths of the district
peculiar brand of French,
he took a
rolls of
35mm
He had He made
picture, unobserved.
film
when he
arrived.
and once
shot count and he held on to his Lcica even
Night
after night
he
sat in the cafes, observing,
taking his few precious pictures.
went
negatives.
Ed
starving.
to work.
He had
sharp enough for his film.
tastes.
He found work in
a photographer's
he did every conceivable kind of good; he learned many subtleties applied to his
He
found
own
but words were not
A 1.5 lens was, and he needed darkroom where
job. It
was
all
to the
in technique that
he
work.
a seventh-floor
room; took a job
as a
photog-
rapher—correspondent for a Dutch paper, taking pictures he disliked— but it released him from being what he
termed a "darkroom
slave."
photographs day and night. direct,
He now had time to take He started to assemble a
unposed, total picture of youth in Saint-Germain-
des-Pres.
The
by now had forgotten he had a He took thousands of pictures, filing
district
only
camera
each
each negative carefully. Editors
when he was
Then one morning he
tried to write,
in his hands.
were not interested. The papers
who saw these prints back home wanted pie-
She
tures of visitors in front of the Eiffel 'Iowct or tlic Opera.
These hack
kept him going.
sales
A pieture story met an
attracti\e
to Paris with
\oung
mind one niglit wlicn he from Canada \\ho had come
in his
girl
ambitions to become a singer. Here was a
who seemed
girl
began
girl.
talent annually
to symbolize all the rebellious
drawn
art students,
the
American
man who
camera.
He
she attracted,
Senegalese musicians, and
convinced her to shout a song in a cafe
rather than sing
Van
sailors,
men
it
on
He caught her m all her moods, and the camera worshipped her beaut\'. In his her drunk and of her sober.
hand
lied; he made it tell what the lens saw, had become so accustomed to his being there that she was unaware of his camera. It pictured her it
ne\cr
honestly. She
wearing a turtle-neck sweater that emphasized her bizarre beauty; it captured an unexpected picture of narcissism as
found her
she contemplated her soft-checked reflection in a
frighteningly pitted mirror
and
as
she kissed her intoxi-
cated. Medusa-haired likeness in a rain-stcamcd
window.
different.
little,
The
a fascinating
She planned
but the experience was new,
shocking became hilarious and
left
model.
but one day in 1955 she the Left Bank— fortunately not before Van der to stay in Paris,
Elsken had caught his
final
picture of her. "Pregnancy
and Saint-Gcrmain-des-Pres wouldn't work," she told him. She went home.
He
took pictures of her smoking marijuana, of
song-and-danee act teamed with another
the Existentialist eaves welcomed the di\ersion. Painters
a stage.
der Elsken followed her for two years with his
He
something
young
to the fabled Latin Quarter.
took pictures of her with the man\-
tried a
Paris cafes pay
be
stayed on, photographing what he
\owed would
And
then he, too,
complete pieture of the
a
suddenly was gone. stor\
,
The
a few words. it
He was home
but no editor wanted
they said.
He would
thought so too. in
it.
in
Holland.
"Too immoral,
story told itself in pictures.
would make
appeared
district.
write
a book,
A
Dutch
lives graphicalh'
It
VAN DER ELSKEN Singing with the Senegalese. 1953. opposite page: Students in the Cafe. 1952.
472
his
too stark,"
needed only
them himself and perhaps
he reasoned. Book publishers
Love Story
in
Saint-Germain-des-Pres
in ig,6, a no\cl in pictures of people's
portrayed and told without moralizing
or sensationalism.
An
autobiographical no\'el in pictures gleaned from
the tremendous
number
of \'an der Elsken's negatives
P?S^P^
right:
He had
is
to
be published
will
as
We
Wait
Till
This Door Opens.
be preeeded by another pieture book to be
It
titled
picture st\le appeals long after the story
is
Bagara gleaned from recent months spent with a tribe
is
in central Africa.
many-faceted character of each individual.
The complete tures with a
few words merely to indicate direction,
comparatively
Elsken uses
picture book, a story to be read in pic-
new
this
art
form
in
photography.
demanding medium
Van
is
a
der
like a novelist, de-
scribing a cast of characters, a place, a
mood,
time, plot,
and dramatic development. Van der Elsken's unique
fully under-
stood, for he does not pose or direct the subjects; there
nothing faked in his
story.
The camera
discloses the
The
writing
does not influence the pictures; the text exposes related facts while the pictures disclose the
and
are entities in themselves.
pictures with
some few
meaning and
The
result
is
a
feeling
book
w'ords of text that function like
illustrations in a novel; the pictures carrj^ the ston,-
have a
life
of
and
of their own.
473
VAN DER ELSKEN, beZoii': A Young Mexican in Love with Her. right: Her Bizarre Beaut\' Appealed to Artists. 1952.
1953.
m
^
".:-..js£»«f:
iM«a
I
m*m
9^^
>i;
'^'
r ^^^K
VAN DER ELSKEN
A Pitted Mirror.
1953.
477
478
VAN DER ELSKEN below: "Pregnancy and Saint-Germain-des-Pres
Won't Work," She left:
Said,
Narcissism. 1955.
and Left
Paris. 1953.
Ccirtier-Bresson
and the
Human Comedy
Henri Cariier-Bresson camera: the
man who
ordinary abihty to httlcs himself
him and
his
camera bugs; It
is
the perfect detective with a
never intrudes.
make himself
camera by saying, "I'm I
just
of
one of those
won't bother."
would never enter
One
has the extra-
whenever a subject becomes conscious
his
head to ask a person to move
or pose or to change a setting
prop.
He
part of a setting; he bc-
time
in
b\-
adding or eliminating a
Texas he and Eliot
P^lisofon
were
assigned by Life magazine to cover an annual meeting of
the American Federation of Arts. Elisofon had a large
bronze sculpture moved outdoors, placed in lower-right foreground so that thirds of the
it
focused on the ground glass two-
way up the
film. lie
continued composing
by asking a lady wearing a round red hat to sit with back to camera in lower left. Within that designed framework Elisofon waited for a spontaneous action of people
who
entered the scene, unaware of the camera, to group them-
sehes into a balanced composition, a harmonious color
arrangement, and a
pla}' of
forms that would express the
idea of a garden party for art. Cartier-Bresson, fascinated
by Elisofon's method, lauded
it,
but
it \\'as
contrar.- to
anything he would have done. Cartier-Bresson searches for the meaning, the essential characteristic of the picture
of him.
To make
he
sure he sees
instincti\"ely sees in front it
as a
complete composi-
and not
tion
gesture,
as
some
superficial
charming expression or
he peers through a reversing prism
set
on top
of
the ever-present Leica that he uses exclusively. I'he image is
when
upside down; the bold forms stand out;
these
flow into an acceptable composition he presses shutter. It
by
is
now
a reflex action. I'he entire
the
frame
is
with the picture (he never crops) lie sees through
filled
.
the lens as a sniper sees througii the telescopic sight on his
rifle.
Cartier-Bresson has repeatedly said that his right
eye looks out onto the exterior world while his left eye
The two obviously He once wrote about
looks inside to his personal world. fuse into the
one eye of the
"To me photography
this,
lens.
is
the simultaneous recogni-
tion in a fraction of a second of the significance of an
event, as well as the precise organization of forms that
give that event
His jo)s
is
its
proper expression."
and sorrows of people everjwhcre. The immediacy
of his seeing
makes
it
possible for
permanently evanescent
him
and record
to grasp
and fleetmg emotions
sights
as
a measure of personal expression. Vision and conception are one; technique never gets in his way. It
automatic; he explains that he
changing shutter speeds or gears while driving a car.
he never can be sure he takes
its
own
picture:
is
f-stops
He
He
is
by now
he
flattens space; is
same
seen.
Flash
disembodies
it
a distortion of the vision. In por-
unobtrusive
silent,
waits patiently until the subject stands
re-
vealed in the existing light, then he presses the shutter. Cartier-Bresson
is
universally respected for his
nificent photoreporting. In 1933
gettable picture:
hilarious
he took
children
his
first
mag-
unfor-
chasing a wildly
laughing, crippled child on crutches playing in the ruins of a stucco building in Seville.
The poignancy
of this
scene became a characteristic of his clear, unique concrete pictures which in their visual poetry
style;
command
attention and continue to evoke emotional responses
even after
many
viewings. This quality
the world's best nalists.
known and
Reporter of the
explains that
made him one
of
highest paid photojour-
human comedy, he
what that
take that picture the instant
ment unfolds he ments most
He
perceives
forcefully
it
form
his
advance ready to
As the move-
takes shape.
when
in is
the transitory
all
ele-
kind of a photograph.
graphs which, coupled with his notes, become a precise
He
account of what took place.
clearly articulates this
intention by saying, 'Thotography implies the recogni-
rhythm
tion of a
find
is
the mass of register
He
on
in the
world of
What
real things.
what the camera does
film the decision
made by the
is
simply to
eye."
finds his pictures at eye level; fish-eye
and
eye perspectives he considers odd, tricky angles. valid angles,
the
and focus on the particular subject within
reality,
he
bird's-
The only
claims, "are the angles of the geometry
of composition," not realizing that valid geometric com-
is
concerned
own
kind of picture. But his
said,
apply only to himself, not to others.
his wife, a Javanese
whom
he married
The Far
He
cerned with recording the historical event
is
not con-
itself,
be— necessarily
as
most
they stop
make it ser\'e as an illus1938, when Cartier-Bresson
and that his
he has persistently
many
times;
he
dancer named Ratna Mohini,
in 1937,
seem
at
has discovered great photographs in
home all
He
anywhere.
parts of the world.
East and Europe, however, yield more penetrat-
He
ing pictures for his camera than the United States.
seems more attuned
to ancient civilizations, to the in-
congruities inherent in the extremes of society,
buildings
and
streets that
treading feet. His
and
to
have withstood millcnia of
book The Europeans
attests to this
keen rapport with his people, as does, in a lesser way, his book, Tlie Russians. In his earlier volume. The Decisive
Moment, India,
the panorama he captured of China, Java,
and North
Africa,
is
more penetrating and more
Some
of his
volumes and
in his
convincing than his pictures of the States. finest
photographs appear
From One China beginnings of
scenes he conceives as striking pictures.
rules,
Cartier-Bresson has circled the earth
and
ally
tration for the day's news. In
camera
concentrates on securing a series of dramatic photo-
people and their natural actions. Dull, unimpressive
the very center of an action to
duty to recognize
a journalist's
will be. Cartier-Brcsson's
with the typical rather than the unusual, fascinated by
newspaper photographers must
is
it
important though he docs not know
is
any creative photographer has the freedom to make
of shifting
is
never uses flash bulbs, for
Cartier-Bresson uses the
He what
positions can be photographed from any angle
emotions as well as of the photographer's
method.
ous face for human, touching incidents.
than he
the vision; and the resultant picture
traits
camera away from the picturesque procession of
England's pageantry to search the multitude's anonym-
no more conscious of
will get the picture it
his
eye does
camera searches out the
a poignant picture: the
photographed the coronation of George VI, he turned
in these
to Anotlier, in \\'hich
he
traces pictori-
the last changing days of the old regime and the
Communist China.
In the tradition of
Ihncrson, Stieglitz, and Adams, but without their vehe-
ment demands
for fine reproduction, Cartier-Bresson be-
lic\cs in publishing his
photographs
in
book form
to
attract the widest audience possible for his work.
Through these books and through
traveling exhibi-
481
tions of his
photographs more people have seen his work
than that of ahnost any other photographer. tive exhibition, consisting of four
A
next thirty-six months he was a prisoner of war, escaping
He
succesfully onl)- after the third try.
retrospec-
hundred photographs
sened
for the balance of the war,
He
reached Paris and,
Underground
in the
organized French press
encompassing the ^ears 1930 to 19^5, opened in the
assisting ex-prisoners of war.
Lou\Te
in Paris (destroying a century of official prejudice
photographers to cover the occupation and the retreat
photography) and has since been circulating
of the Nazis after liberation, hnmediately after \\'orld
lield against
in
major museums on both hemispheres. Cartier-Bresson's original intention was to
become
with Andre Lhote; the next year pursued
it
The
West
3ear 1930 he spent in the
fe\'er
first
Poland, Germany, and
my
eye."
He
Italy, testing
in
The
results of this trip
Spain he showed in his
and
later
shown
in
New
first
and
its
very
friends,
to
a joint exhibition
two-man exhibition which presented
On
New
Art.
He
traveling
York, to attend the his
work held
Madrid
a
throughout the nation to
his return to Paris
of
he and
whom
Chim
were to die
in
Magnum) founded the Photos. Magnum
its
The
independent is
owned
outstanding photographers, all
as
who
the w'orld
Carticr-Bresson has had to take the position of president
succeed-
of
Magnum
that office
in a
Photos since the death of Chim,
when he was
who
held
killed.
For Magnum, Cartier-Bresson has taken
their personal styles
documentary photographers. Then followed
in
Egypt— while
Magnum
cooperative by
two good
his
with single photographs or complete picture essays.
with Mexico's
Walker Evans
at the
stayed here for the ensuing
Capa and Chim (both
photo agency
all
kinds of
picture stories, including specific assignments for Life,
his first
Picture Post, and Paris IMatcJi.
sojourn in the States, the year he discovered Harlem,
Coney
again to
supply illustrated journals and magazines of
ing year he shared gallery space with
Brooklyn, and
Modern
pursuing stories for
re-
York.
Alvarez-Bravo in the Palace of Fine Arts.
as
came
ivar— Capa in Indo-China and
In 1934 he joined an expedition for a year's travel in
Mexico where he held
of
the country.
his next year's travel
exhibition, held in
Information,
acquaint himself with the immense pictorial canvas of
what he could do
with the camera, making himself master of sponse.
it
War
United States Office of
twelve months,
his life-
traveled with
Europe, he resumed work as a camera-
in
comprehensive exhibition of
Museum
African bush,
and began
1932 he acquired a Leica, which became, he
wrote, "the extension of
for the
ended
In 1946 he
litera-
time interest in photograph}-. While recuperating in Paris in
man
further in
Cambridge, England, where he added the study of where he contracted blackwater
II
filming the return of war prisoners to France.
he studied painting
painter. In 1928, at the age of twenty,
ture.
a
War
The
qualit\- of his w'ork
continues to develop as his vision and understanding of
Island.
moving picture with Jean Renoir. In 1937 he took the documentary film.
humanity deepen with the passing years. He sums up his belief in photography by saying, "For me, content cannot
Return
be separated from form. B} form
He returned
to
France to make his
to Life, depicting
the Spanish Civil
War.
first
medical aid to hospitals during
llie
same
France with Robert Capa and David Seymour (Chim) who were to become organizers of Magnum Photos with him a decade later. in the south of
Carticr-Bresson entered the French after
Army
I
mean
a rigorous organ-
ization of the interplay of surfaces, lines,
}ear he photographed
is
in this organization
and
\alues. It
alone that our conceptions and
emotions become concrete and communicable. In photography, visual organization can stem from a developed instinct."
in 1939, just
completing another film with Jean Renoir. As a
Photography
Cartier-Bresson
is
a
way
to
of
the life,
modest, a creative
unassuming
mode of exof man with
corporal in the army's film and photo unit he was taken
pression in which he can record the story
prisoner by the Nazis at the collapse of France. For the
uncanny awareness, sympathy, and poetic imagination.
All photographs in this chapter
from The Decisive Moment, by
Henri Cartier-Bresson, published by Simon and Schuster,
Inc.,
New York, courtesy the photographer and Magnum Photos, New York.
HENRI c.\RTiER-BRESsoN, Allcc du Prado, Marseille. J 932.
482
^1^^^-.:
484
—
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CARTIER-BRESSON below: Gestapo Informer Accused. Dessau, Germany, 19^5. left: Place de I'Europc, Paris. 1932.
CARTIER-BRESSON, dbove: right:
486
Day at the Races. Hong Kong,
Coronation of George VI. London, 1938.
1949.
488
CARTiF.R-BRESSON,
Mexico
Two Prostitutcs'
Cribs.
City, 1934.
489
CARTiER-BRESSON, Tea
Housc
in Peking.
China, 1949.
490
i
f«-
,v
r Ur ^M'
491
492
CARTIER-BRESSON above:
Moslem
left:
Women
Pra}ing. Kashmir, 19^8.
Rats of the Grave. Luxor, Egypt, 1950.
493
494
CARTIER BRESSON
Sunday on the Banks of the Marne. 1938.
iN
'V
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:^-;'-'?^*'.*^-^
^K>.-
ii^iyiii
495
Yousiif Kai sh
Faces of
Destiny
YousuF
Karsii, in his powerful portraits, transforms the
liuman face into legend. Future historians eo\ering the period between
World War
II
and Sputnik
II will
turn
for illumination to the perceptive, psychological portraits
Karsh has made of statesmen, faces ha\'c
A
scientists,
changed the face and
and
superb photographic craftsman, Karsh
traits
with multiple meanings
artists
whose
tastes of the world. fills
that )ield their full
his por-
import
only upon continued, concentrated observation. His terse
and intimate characterizations convey
insight into the
subjects' will power, leadership, creative intensity, or spiritual stature.
Although the image remains
faithful to
objective reality, through emphasizing features, hands,
or
body Karsh achieves
a \isual idealization as well as
an
expressive interpretation of the subject's character.
Karsh composes each photograph carefully paying
much
as
attention to background as to modeling the struc-
ture of the face and figure with light.
organized within the picture space.
becomes the
focal point,
A
The
portrait
is
dominant feature
drawing the spectator's eyes
through the composition and back to the objective center.
The
lighting appears natural, but
sizes of light sources are carefully
subject seems to 3'ard lit
sit in
number and
considered so that the
the diffused atmosphere of a court-
by beams of unblinding sunlight. Ivich part ot
the picture
is
harmonioush linked
b} a balanced relation-
Karsh does not use deeorative painted props for backgrounds.
s\\'ccps of
He
Advanced Study.
Princeton's Institute for
ship of forms and masses, of dark areas and areas of light.
A
verbatim
record of Karsh's questions and Einstein's answers
drapery or
dem-
onstrates Karsh's technique of drawing the subject into
creates the proper
with the clothes
realms of profound thought until he forgets the presence
worn by his sitter. In his photographs of Nehru, Sibelius, and Marian Anderson, the subject detaches itself to be-
of the camera. Karsh asked, "Are you optimistic about
come
that
background with hght, and
correlates
it
the future of mankind?" Einstein replied, "I cannot say
a strongly framed light mass isolated by contrast
from the dark costume worn, and from the
I
am
optimistic, but this
solid black
program, then there
Karsh achieves space and depth through highlighted
imaginable to us."
made
clothes
effective
and
by the position of head and hands,
accessories.
who
his
and shadow." This play of forms
New
York
World War
II,
repetitious formula to his work.
his versatility
is
evident. His photo-
graphs clearly reveal the diverse attitudes and personaliof the
ties
convey
men who
effectively
Armenian
in
studio. Twenty-five years ago, in 1933,
he
for
Canadian was born
in the
intellectual
method each
of capturing the great-
sitter,
perception of what
is
it
Karsh declared, "I
defies definition
right
ous, continuous practice does not
.
.
lating
two
later
Armenian
and
he
whom
Karsh remembers as "a stimu-
From Boston he moved
Ottawa grew
make
was soon recognized by Lord Duncannon, son of the governor general of Canada, Lord Bessborough. Karsh
portrait pho-
His
His
it.
skill as
was introduced to members of the government, to visiting dignitaries, and also to the Ottawa Little Theatre
met
ovcrdramatized, brilliant photographs of apparent outer
actress Solange Gauthicr.
secure a portrait Karsh will travel halfway across
the globe to spend sometimes only one hour in produchis subject.
he flew to Finland to photograph the
tinguished composer Sibelius, Karsh took with
him
dis-
his
camera and hundreds of pounds of equipelectric current available
was
in-
Until permission from the authorities was
secured to tap the main line, Sibelius regaled Karsh with stories told
with infectious gaiety. Karsh's lens probed to
find the image, a divine flected the spirit
mask with
eyes closed that re-
and genius of the venerable composer.
Karsh photographed Einstein
\\here Karsh
Prime Minister
strength without the concomitant inner force.
sufficient.
a portrait photographer
Karsh grew with
exist in the subject's character.
ment, only to find the
Ottawa, where
and the studio of young Yousuf
rapidly
Group
8 X lo-inch
to
home.
established his
portrait style applied to financial giants has resulted in
work with
in the
must be instantane-
Karsh's masterful technique can create but super-
When
Mardin
inspiring teacher as well as a photographer of
distinction."
.
tography a matter of near automatic perfection."
ti\e
of
tographer operating in Sherborne, Quebec, where Karsh
a fellow
tried for jears to define for myself the ingredients
To
town
He was ten years old when the ravaged his home town. He escaped to find a home with his uncle, a pho-
part of Turkey.
massacres of 1918 a year or
ourselves."
Karsh either in his Ottawa or
sit
apprenticed for three years to John H. Garo in Boston,
of
of successful portraiture, but
what does not
of the
purpose,
strength
ness, the individuality of
ficially
hope
learned the rudiments of his profession. Later he was
When asked about his
Though
for the
a scale un-
brought the Allies to victory; they
breadth, and sense of power.
have
on
open a photographic
studio. Karsh
In Faces of Destiny, published by Ziff-Davis at the close of
disaster
to study surgery or to
whether
no academic,
is
debating with himself
the dominant characteristics he finds in the uneven
is
there
capital,
arrived in the
face.
"To
softly,
Most people
Karsh achieves purposefully through subtle modeling of
There
be a
will
"To what source should we look simply and
wrote,
"I see [in nature] only forms that advance, forms that
human
if
future of the world?" asked Karsh. Einstein answered
Karsh seems to follow the precept of Goya, recede, masses in light
will say, that
not found in the near future a solution to the security
background. In his photographs of Shaw and Churchill,
areas
I
in his little study at
W.
and patron of Karsh,
L. in
his future wife, the talented
Mackenzie King,
a close friend
December, 1941, arranged
to
have Winston Churchill pause to be photographed immediately after his speech before the combined houses of
the Canadian
Padiament. Karsh was given two
minutes to take one shot. Churchill entered and stood impatiently, smoking a freshly
lit
cigar. Karsh,
who had
no intention of including the cigar in the portrait, walked up to him and said, "Sir, here is an ashtray." Getting no result,
he
said,
"Pardon me," simultaneously taking the
from Churchill and snapping the shutter. Churchill walked over, shook hands, and remarked, "Well, you can certainly make a roaring lion stand still to be cigar
photographed." Eleanor Roosevelt, when she heard of
497
the incident, commented, "It must have been Churchiirs first
major defeat."
made Karsh famous. Pub-
became a symbol of England's The strength and power of Churchill's face
and again,
will to fight.
it
who were The
stiffened the resolution of the English people,
then bearing the
full
weight of Nazi bombings.
people loved the photograph;
was easy to imagine
it
Churchill's stirring speeches issuing
from
England
to take a series of
cluded King George
photographs that
him
to
in-
VI and Lord Beaverbrook, who said,
"Karsh, you have immortalized me." Life magazine signed
effecti\c for the pursuit of the
as-
war
as
as the picture of
Churchill.
Since the war's end, leaders of the creative people in
all fields,
mind and the
have claimed Karsh's
his galler\- of statesmen, military
has added
every
I
strong and healthy the}- should be exterminated
little
ficent
while." Frank Lloyd Wright, another magni-
egocentric, disappro\ed violently of everjthing
Karsh was doing, but inxited him to Taliesen to take his picture in his Wisconsin
When that
home.
Karsh photographed President Franklin D.
men, and
artists, architects, scientists,
and musicians. Karsh, with
his
spirit,
interest.
royalty
he
humanitarians,
keen sense of judgment,
seeks the intrinsic character of his subject.
He
caught the
expression on Marian Anderson's face just as she finished
AH photographs in
tliis
made
it
appear that he had tripped the shutter.
RooscNclt relaxed; then Karsh really took the picture.
occasionally with other famous personalities.
Karsh writes of his profession, "If there purpose to
my work, it is to record the best remain true to myself. ...
in so doing,
good fortune to meet
many
women. People who
will leave their
I
have used
to
me and
my camera as
I
felt
is
in
It
a driving
people and,
has been
of the world's great
to portray
my
men and
mark on our time. them as they appeared
they have impressed themselves on
their generation."
Karsh's great photographs of generations,
who
will
them
know through
will
impress future
his artistry the look
of the celebrated persons of this period of history.
chapter copyright Yoiisiif Karsh, Ottawa.
YOUSUF
498
He
used the same procedure with Lord Tweedsmuir and
photograph American war leaders; one of
an unsmiling, determined General Eisenhower was
To
To keep
Roosevelt, he clicked a gadget attached to his camera
At the request of the Canadian go\ernment, Karsh to
nian? Good.
indomit-
this
able face.
went
"The Crucifixion." The Shaw said to Karsh, "Armehave many friends among the Armenians.
her fa\oritc spiritual
audacious George Bernard
This was the picture that lished again
humming
K.\RSH,
Winston
S.
Churchill,
ig^ji
m
;^-
KARSH, below: Frank Llo)d Wright. 1945. left:
Jan Sibelius. 1949.
\
"='*«C-':
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KARSii, Albert Einstein. 19-fS.
503
KARSH, Jawaharlal Nehru. 1949.
504
KARsii,
Marian Anderson. 1948. 505
KARSH, above: right:
506
Queen Elizabeth
II.
George Bernard Shaw. 1943.
1951.
\
Color:
Another Dimension
HAVE TRIED TO EXPRESS thc
"I
tciriblc passions of hu-
manity by means of red and green," wrote discussing his Niglit Cafe. "I'he
The
dark yellow. of view;
it
color
is
is
in
blood red and
not true from thc
a color suggesting
is
room
Van Gogh realist
some emotions
point of an
ardent temperament."
Such an attitude toward color
among
raphy. This art of
is
coming
to the fore
practitioners of the infant art of color photog-
World War
came into being a few years after the end II when a new type of color film enabled
still
photographers, for the
own
color negatives
as ciuickly
as,
time, to process their
own
color positives
prc\iously, they
had processed
and print
and simply
black-and-white.
first
From then
their
on, creative photographers
could explore the possibilities of controlling images
through using color in novel, imaginative, and often, lion-rcalistic ways.
For three-quarters of the
new
a century before the
film, color processing
advent of
was specialized and
labori-
Taking a color photograph required three separate negatives, and making a color print on paper required
ous.
the conversion of three black-and-white negatives into three la\ers of d>cd gelatine, \\hich were assembled in register.
The
bewildering mass of chemicals and meth-
ods kept the great masters of black-and-white photogra-
phy from turning
their talents
toward
color; the^
made
only a few color photographs. Color photographs, accordingly, belonged almost entirely to the realm of
technical scientific all
and applied photography. Tliey were used work, advertising, and color reproduction.
color theory, practical color photography,
in
And
and color
printing had as their most important aim the reproduction of natural color litcralh'
All color photography
every
is
and
combination of only
a
of these unusual visions of science
may have
provided inspiration to the creative photographer, to
whom
the chief value of color photography does not rest
but rather in the expres-
in the cjuality of literal accuracy
This value
sive qualities of the finished picture.
is
inde-
pendent of the accurate reproduction of natural color
may on occasion provide The colorist with a camera
although accurate reproduction
faithfully.
based upon the principle that
hue can be rendered by
Some
new and sees
exciting insights.
and
combination as a play of tones
feels a color
He
three "primary" colors. Practical use of this principle was
and hues throughout the area encompassed.
made
the psychological and emotional forces of color to his
when
in the eighteenth century,
inexpensive color
mezzotints, after well-known paintings, employed comIn 185^, James Clerk
binations of three basic colors.
Maxwell anticipated color photography by pointing out that primary colors in light could be
manner;
in 1861
combined
in this
he projected an image of a tartan ribbon
subject, light;
no matter whether the
controlled by
colors are seen in sun-
achieved through
light;
artificial
relates
multiple exposures creating overlapping colors; displaced
from sharp focus with lenses that change the normal
and blurred by
color balance of the spectrum; fused
shut-
on a screen where three component color images were
ter speeds that are
superimposed. In 1868 Louis Ducos du Hauron in Paris
and strong by underexposure or subdued and pale by
outlined a
number
of techniques for producing color
when
slow
action
is
fast;
made
bright
overexposure.
photographs on paper. These formed the basis for color
Most
professionals reduce their "palette"
and
limit
photography until 1930, when Mannes and Godowsk\-
themselves to dark tones accented by some few brilliant
developed for the movies the Kodachrome method of
beams of colored
producing a positive transparency on a single
raphy are more insistent than the tempered colors nuxcd
film. In
1938 Kodachrome film and the similar Agfacolor,
vented almost
simultaneously
available to
photography.
still
of color film
Germany, became
in
It
in-
was then that the use
became widespread, although both Koda-
chrome and Agfacolor had
to
be returned by the pho-
tographers to the film manufacturers for complicated processing,
which involved development, re-exposure,
dyeing, and bleaching of
the film.
It
three sensitive coatings
on
was Mannes and Godowsky again who
in-
vented the reversal
film,
all
Ektachrome, which permitted
photographers to do their
own
color-processing,
becom-
ing generally available in 1950.
and made reproduction of the world's
sally available. In science, color
might be identical
grays, in a color
resolve into a purple
tion
art univer-
extended the investiga-
range of photography: what in black-and-white
tive
be\ond the
photograph might
and a green, providing
possibility of the
Color photography
differentia-
more limited medium.
in science has also
produced
effects
that are pictorially startling, for example in the recording of the complicated color patterns created
when
cr\stals
are subjected to polarized light. Color photograph\- with infra-red
filters
transforms the familiar world into a
glowing pattern of
reds, yellows,
browns, and blacks,
revealing nature in unexpected ways, ful in
on a
the detection of camoufla£e.
and
especially use-
wall,
strong dyes of color photog-
A jDainting serves
purpose as a picture
its
whereas a photograph
for the pages of a picture
intended primarih'
is
magazine. Camera color and
the printed page are often, therefore, purposely more
compelling
in their
demands
for
immediate attention.
Ever more \i\id color values arc sought b\ magazine and advertising photographers, to catch the reader's eye.
Confident control through of a
final
shutter, has not
end
over
how
actly,
film light.
the
There was
to see color as film
is
following
at the snap of the
to attain.
rather than as eyes see
cameraman's purpose
result,
made
decision
been easy
necessity to learn it
Color photography brought a new impact to advertising
by the painter.
The
light.
and
first
the
lens see
For example, when the
it.
to reproduce nature's colors ex-
he introduces compensations
exposing daylight
in
under conditions of diffused morning or evening
He
does this because such film
is
"balanced"— i.e.,
has been formulated chemically to produce the seen color combination after normal exposure
—for bright middle-of-the-day
may
and processing
sunlight. Otherwise he
receive a surprise. Surprises, in color photography,
often take such form as the appearance of blue-green \\here red was expected
—a
the unexpected shade of
far
gra\-
more
that
startling result
may
than
creep into a black-
and-\\ hite picture.
Conscious control of color accidents, deliberate obedience of the film manufacturer's
dis-
traffic rules for
the
human
ex-
purpose of achieving colors contrary to usual
511
periencc, has
become
part of the technique of a
number
of creative photographers, such as Ernst Haas, Arthur
Yale
Sicgel,
and Nina Leen. The
Irving Penn,
Joel,
ovcrbright color range of the
new
fast color film
more
delight of the amateur seeking ever shots.
The marvelous
capabilities of the latest
cameras and films have deceived
many
automatic
photographers,
both amateur and professional, into believing that reproduction
is
the
is
realistic snap-
literal
the color camera's major sphere of art-
The artist-photographer knows this to be untrue. The national picture magazines have pro\'ided an ex-
istr)'.
cellent training
available to
ground for color photographers, making
them
for experimentation a generous supply
of expensive color material. Experience with the negative-color film is
its
is
there that color photography
own
The
standards.
new
gradually being built there; and
artistry
is
it
gradually developing
and
style of individual
photographers are transforming the objects they "see" into a
new
t\pe of richer visual expression within
technical limitations and imitating no other
Photographers
don their
Parks,
like Eliot Elisofon,
and Gjon Mili
are
its
own
medium.
Dmitri Kesscl, Gor-
now beginning
to attain
due measure of importance and appreciation
for
work along with the universal acclaim
re-
their color
ceived by
them and
similarh- talented photographers for
their prints in black-and-white.
and white fdm penetrating haze shows hundreds of square miles from 20,000 feet.
right: Infrared black
Black spot
is
a lake. Courtesy United States Air Force.
opposite page: Camouflage detection with color infrared
filter,
fdm and
in Korea, 1955. Living greenery appears red,
dead
vegetation such as thatched roofs shows up dark.
Courtesy Life Magazine and United States Air Force.
'-y
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/
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below: erwin blumenfeld. Third Avenue El. 1951
.
From
The Art and Technique of Color Photography, edited by Alexander Libenuan. Courtesy Conde Nasi Publications, Inc. left:
BRADLEY SMITH, Lubricaots Measured
Courtesy
in Viseosity
The Lamp, Standard Oil Company
Tubes. 1957.
of New Jersey.
lib
IK.-**
ELIOT ELisoFON, bclow. Decoratcd left:
Ritual
Yam
Man
Dance, Santa Cruz
in
New Guinea.
Island,
South
Both, courtesy Life Maadziuc, cnpYright Time, Inc.
'%\'
1957.
Pacific. 1957.
#**!»
.
^
^•^
KV
.. -j^ftf^"
«»
.
'
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above: cordon parks, Fashion in Times Square. 1956. left:
ELisoFON, Bather in Tahitian Rapids. 1955.
Both, courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
519
below: parks, Golden Train,
New York City.
1956.
Courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc. right:
Herbert matter. The House
Painters. 1951
.
From The Art
and Technique of Color Photography, edited by Alexander Liberman. Courtesy Coude Nast Publications, Inc.
L tx
a
ii
• 1 1
^-w
Y"
'V?«
^^^^^^^^^^^E^^^^^^^^^^^H
YALE JOEL, Flow of Muscular
Movement.
1958-
Courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
=22
^^M
ERNST HAAS foe/ow:
New York in
Late Afternoon Sun. 1955.
Broadway Sign Painter. 1953. Botli, courtesy Life Magazine and Magnum Photos, Xevv York.
right:
%T
525
HAAS, above: Geomctn,- in the U.N. Building. 1953. Manhattan Spires from Brooklyn Junk\ard. 1953. Both, courtesy Life Magazine and Magnum Photos, New York. left:
527
below: haas,
Window Reflections on Tliird Avenue in New York. Magazine and Magnum Photos, New York,
1953. Courtesy Life right:
WALTER BENSER, Unusual
Perspective in the Mid-East.
1956. Courtesy Modern Photography.
GjON MiLi, Picasso Drawing With Light. 2951 From The Art and Technique of Color Photography, edited bv Alexander Libcrman. Courtesy Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
530
..'x
531
v^^'' !
''/':.
1='
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h
'T^
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J^
•
a'
f
"^*^ *
MiLi,
Carmen
Jones, 1951
.
From The Art and Technique of Color Photography, Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
edited by Alexander Liberman. Courtesy
NINA LEEN, Ghostly American Legend. 1957. Courtesy Life Magazine,'Copynght Time, Inc.
ARTHUR SIEGEL Four
\'ariations of Reflections in
Water.
1950. Courtesy Life Magazine.
534
WALLACE KIRKLAND, TrOUt
SliapS Flv. 195::.
Courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
f-m^^,Wj
1^^9i
536
f^^
537
•^
V"-
,
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fm
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above: dmitri kessel, Battle of Hastings Landscape. 1956. left:
HOWARD sociiuREK, Twenty Minutes After Sundown
Both, courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
at 40,000 Feet. 1956.
above: albert fenn,
Two
Icebound Tankers. 1957.
Old Temple, Bangkok. 1951 Both, courtesy Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc. right: kessel, In the
540
below: IRVING PENN, Bullfight in Barcelona. 1951. right:
cecilbeaton, Martita Hunt
Both, from
as the
Madwoman of Chaillot.
1951.
The Art and Technique of Color Photography, edited by
Alexander Libermau. Both, courtesy Corjde Nast Publications, Inc.
542
543
Extend iiii» the of
Kciiii>e
Human
Vision
Photography has not only given us powerful new forms of
art
industPi',
but has found
many
and commerce. There
applications in science, it
has revolutionized
communications, deepened and broadened
and created new
search,
scientific re-
institutions of society. This
process began early, for photography for practical use
photography
as old as dra\\'ings
builders
of
itself.
engineers
and
is
Blueprints reproducing the architects
and manufacturers more than
were used by
a century ago.
At
the same time, astronomers attached cameras to celestial telescopes in order to photograph the heavens.
Todav, the extent of the photographic enterprise
ex-
ceeds the wildest predictions of photographic pioneers. Processes of photomechanical reproduction of pictures
sometimes
rival
clarity, detail,
the original photographs themsel\-es in
and range
tions—text, pictures,
of tone. Often,
whole publica-
everything— are printed by photo-
graphic means; and the printing types employed are set
photographically on film rather than mechanically in metal.
We photograph sounds, the paths of nuclear par-
ticles,
the pattern in space traced out by dancers'
With
wide-angle "bug-eye" lenses— their taking angle
feet. is
i8o°— we can sweep our surroundings from horizon to horizon. Using aerial cameras we make maps photographicalK- of cities and countriside, maps so accurate in detail and contour that oil companies bu\- them by the fully
in laying gas
and
oil
tances of thousands of miles.
We
attach cameras not
hundreds for use
pipelines for dis-
only to telescopes but to rockets soaring into interplanetary space
and
to bathyscapcs
plunging into the deepest
trenches of the ocean floor.
So advanced
the photographer's arsenal in our time
is
that a magazine photographer slings around his neck a
quantity of equipment
— in
the great Brady, in the Civil
whole
ried in a
may have on
train of
— that
terms of performance
War, could never have
car-
wagons. Toda\'s photographer
cameras equipped
his person three or four
with color or regular film.
To one may
be attached a
the camera at other angles and from other heights; and
the images recorded were not wiped away.
down
them again and again. When he looked at the pictures made in this manner, he found that something strange had happened: the scale and aspect of the wodd had changed.
The cameras
second.
themselves have lenses of great
The camera
could see not only as
And
other ways as well.
in
compensate
eras so that they could
The it.
Each
of us, at one time, viewed things
close to the ground; the world
We
perience, for the images
in
focus within a second or two.
A light meter built into the
camera frame can, automatically,
pro\'ide the proper
aperture for the selected shutter speed. finger can
A
telescopic.
The
move an exposed frame onward and
bring the
next unexposed frame into taking position— or,
procedure
is
of a
flick
this
if
too slow to match the speed of the action
as the eye does for
world, for example, could be seen as a child sees
ups looming like giants.
and
but
seeing the world differently, via the camera, remained.
range-
wide-angle,
see,
strange angles, the intellectual and creative possibility of
finder coupled to the lens brings the subject into sharp
power— normal,
men
even though "swings" of lens
board and camera back were introduced into some cam-
batterj'-operated stroboscope light that provides brilliant
illumination for intervals as small as a millionth of a
They were put
enduring form; the observer could return to
in
only by our rapidly a
was seen have
all
from
tall,
a point
with grown-
forgotten this ex-
our heads can be reclaimed
memories- notoriously
unreliable and fading
from the time impressions are
first
made. But put
camera down low and, from the picture that
results,
we
can recapture the child's-eye view, not for an instant only
but for as long as
we
look at the picture and as often.
In such simple ways as this
it
was discovered
early that
being photographed, a spring motor can do the job auto-
cameras and photosensitive emulsions could be used to
matically at the rate of thirty-six frames in a few seconds.
extend
Such equipment, costly.
day
it
may be
noted,
is
neither rare nor
Factory-made and popularly priced, thousand shops
in twelve
Equipment
of this kind
is
in the
it is
sold every
United States alone.
many thousands
used by
of
photographers— amateur and professional— engaged
in
observing the world and in enabling others to observe
it,
too.
This has been going on for quite some time— as
readers of this est
book know,
since 1859. Perhaps the great-
contribution of photography has been
tion of human beings. Photography new power to see.
When
the
first
its
transforma-
has given
of us
all
men were accommon perception
photographs were made,
customed only to the forms of our
seen straight ahead from a spot four to six feet above the
ground.
From time to
time, of course, thev saw the
orld
\\
from other angles and other distances above or below ground are fluid
lc\cl.
However, the images received by the eye
and temporar}"; the e\e tends
to pivot
and com-
pensate for unusual angles of vision; and unfamiliar impressions are
wiped away when men return to normal
positions of standing, sitting, walking,
and
As one might expect, the camera was at
both
vision,
photography the
used to
in
photography the art and
scientific aid.
The tool,
in
its
in
potentiali-
mark upon the art. With refinement of photographic equipment there developed unprecedented power to explore our visual surroundings. Camera and photosensiti\'e emulsion can now see what the eye cannot: invisible radiation — X rays, cosmic ties,
was Icaxing
rays,
its
ultraviolet rays,
infra-red
rays— revealing objects
cloaked in total darkness, bones beneath the skin, the structure of the universe; things too fast for the unaided
eve- a horse winning by through the shock wave of
a
nose,
a
sound
speeding
bullet
a
barrier, a golf ball
compressed by the head of a striking club; things too slow —flowers and
cities
growing; things too
big— the
earth's
small— atoms, bacteria, metallic faraway— spiral nebulae and the outer
curvature; things too crystals; things too stars;
things that
would blind
us
if
wc looked
at
them—
the sun's corona and the fireball of the nuclear bomb. Cameras can go where men would surely die— out into space, to the as the
bottom of
sea deeps as far
below the surface
Himalayas are above. Thus, over the past
photography has extended
riding. first
human
human
centun,-,
\ision and. in combi-
nation with scientific instruments, re\ealed thousands
produce familiar images, and was aimed straight ahead at
upon thousands
of
the height of a man's eye. But
le\el after level;
beauty and strangeness ne\'er before
amateur photographers
still
it
was easy— too
discover every
easy,
day— to
use
unexpected aspects of nature on
imagined.
545
Not useful,
onl\-
has this \\ork been socially and scientifically
but these wonders of nature
now made
as fascinating to the observer as those that
bv the unaided
eye. If
we
can be seen
are interested in the world,
Even
these pictures interest us.
visible are
a
book about the
art of
photography would not be complete without some of these pictures, for the photographic artist has studied
them and has extended
and technique through
his vision
his study.
The
art of
still
photography has been enriched
teraction with cinematic art
photography.
The
and with applications of
movie, which grew out of
tography, has in turn
b)' in-
shown the
still
to master the craft of narrative, to
pho-
still
photographers
how
make action sequences
dramatic in their variety of motion and
shifts of
scene
employed for the movie from adapted been others has and this purpose and structural camera. It has the movie camera's key
and
scale.
The
familiar miniature camera
mechanical features: a
in
dim
big, fast, short-focal-length lens
depth of focus and the
for great
ability to take pictures
hght; 35-millimeter fine-grain
roll film
advanced
one frame at a time by a sprocket drive— this allows dozens of pictures to be taken in rapid succession without
change of
a
film;
a high-speed shutter that
and
almost any action. Such a
camera
and so
frees
versatile that
it
is
can stop
so small, so portable,
the photographer to go
almost anvwhere and take almost anything. The telescopic lens— sometimes twenty times as long
high— provides opportunity to show stirring
as the picture that
rapher with the
from
afar.
takes
is
the photogvisions seen
In the distance, in the back of long views seen
human
bv the
it
eye, there has always
been
a geometric
realm an "infinite" distance away. There are forms and shapes, but neither perspective nor depth in space. As seen by the eve, however, the forms of this realm are
and few,
\-aguc
little
more than hazy
tographers have brought this
fullv detailed overlapping patches of
and buildings, us.
This
is
a
all
silhouettes.
Pho-
realm close and shown us
windows, doors,
apparently at the same distance from
view of the world contributed by photog-
raphy confirming that of the Cubist painters. However, it
also belongs to the
right
and
if
by nothing
photographer himself- by natural
else. In
in providing us
documenting Cubist
realities,
with images of high fantasy and bold
patterning— which painters consult for Surrealism and abstraction— the photographer has enlarged our experi-
made both his own art and the art of the more moving. He has demonstrated once again our imaginative vision is rooted in physical and op-
ence and painter that
tical realitv.
SaS
special nine-lens aerial photograph of Manhattan, by U. S. Coast
and Geodetic Survey. Courtesy Gyorgy Kepes, Cambridge, Mass.
547
right:
i
and
Clouds of gas
dust, ^,000 light years
away. Photographed with
200 inch lens in red
light.
Courtesy Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, left:
Ocean
tliree
floor seen
from
miles above M'ater. 19^8.
Photo by Aero Service Corporation.
From The New Landscape, bv Gyorgy Kepes, Paul Theobald
and Co., Chicago. Courtesy Gyorgy Kcpes, Cambridge, Alass. below: Spiral nebula, taken
with 200-inch Hale telescope.
Courtesy
Mismsm
548
Mount Wilson
and Palomar Observatories.
k
'
jiitrt'i«M
.
-, t
:**=*
550
left:
Curvature of the Earth.
made from a V-2 rocket, 194.S. Courtesy Clyde T. UoUiday, The JohnsUopkins
Aerial photograph
University
below: Under-sea photograph taken with the
bentograph at 970 fathoms. 1951 Courtesy Allen Hancock Foundation for Scientific Research.
right: G. E.
Taken
at the
valley, Cloud-chamber plwtognipli.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From The New Landscape. Courtesy Gyorgy Kcpes. below:
II.
p.
ROTH, Uranium in polarized
Courtesy H. P. Roth, Nuclear Metals,
Inc.,
light.
Cambridge, Mass.
opposite page: Self-registered picture of dialcctric in process of breaisdown.
From The New Landseape. Courtesy Gyorgy Kepes.
553
^u*
#^
A.
WATANABE, Magnesiwu oxide magnified 6j,ooo times. Photo
taken in electron microscope laboratory of Keio University, Tokyo. From The New Landscape. Courtesy Gyorgy Kepes.
left:
HAROLD EDGKRTON. High-Speed
photograpli of falling milk drop.
Courtesy Harold Edgcrtou, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, below. Waterdrop. High-speed photograph.
Courtesy United States Navy.
555
i
Underwater Atomic Explosion. "Baker Day," 1946. Photographer unknown. Courtesy Bikini,
Atomic Energy Commission.
55,6
\ t,
-"v'jP^*
I
below:
f. vilbig.
Modulation
dixk.
From
Tlic
New Landscape.
Courtesy Dr. F. Vilbig, Cambridge Research Center, right:
francis bitter. Magnetic
field.
Courtesy Professor
Francis Bitter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, opposite page: Radiograph of a snake.
From The
Courtesy Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester.
558
Ne\\' Landscape.
559
ra
Ai uuiul the
World
ill
fifty
Photographs
Photography
in
the MiD-TA\T,NTiETn century
the
is
closest thing to a uni\'crsal art tliat the world has ever
seen. It
is
not only an international
art,
but the great
photographers are an international fellowship. their
important organizations
is
Magnum
One
of
Photos, a co-
operative which supplies photographs to leading picture
magazines throughout the world. Magnum's photographers as do those of Rapho-Guillumette and other ternational photo agencies
come from
in-
even,'where, go
everywhere, and see themselves in print wherever they go.
But the international character of photography
transcends such organizations as these. Photo clubs exist
everywhere, ignoring national boundaries to lively
earn,-
on
a
interchange of ideas and w^ork; while photogra-
phers avidly study magazines and books of their opposite
numbers, quite indifferent
men who come from many T'he
took the
to linguistic barriers. fift\'
pictures in this chapter
lands: England, America, Switzerland,
Germany, Italy, Greece, New Zealand, and Japan. Most of them no longer work in the country of their origin.
With few
hard to find
exceptions, notably the Japanese,
in their
work more than
it is
slight traces of a
national style. Generally, the Swiss are highly proficient
Americans— by adoption as well as by birth— have a sense of humor and an eye for fast action; the English sense human drama concealed within the in technique; the
cominonplacc. The national differences, nevertheless, do not seem to be too important.
What
men have have in common
today's photography these First of all, they
They
devotion.
in
is
significant in
common. and
their integrity
tures are true statements of the world as they sec
"Chim"— lost their lives who risk their
are others
Second, they have in
in
men— Capa,
And
it.
Bischof, and
a
of their
medium, uncommon only twentv vears ago. Their photographs are no finer than those of the great photographers of the twenties and thirties— or, indeed, than those of the great photographers of the nineteenth century. c\er,
How-
ways of seeing and communicating developed one
Why,
do we
ability to observe,
right.
this bod\' of
More than
knowledge and made
a century of
it
their birth-
development has now
find in these fifty pictures
so great a variety of photographic
wc
itself, as
observe
image? Because nature
so various.
it, is
number
of nature has an infinite
A single small
steadily or fleetingly, attentively or absent-
it
niindcdh', according to
camera and
private vision
general shape or
its
to
match, we can record our
public.
it
ments of nature are likewise
The
photographic
show
tlie
confusion and violence of war and social upheaval,
reveal the abstract
conceals from us.
serenely patterned landscapes,
forms of nature that nature ordinarily
And
they have refined and developed
known ways
further the previously
When
made
split-
it
to
shows
much more
make
the image reveal
than
the essence of photographic creativeness.
The
creative photographer does not invent forms, as
the
is
nature or in
by the
ing public was excited
great
no\'elty of
and powerful were only
candid-camera
own eyes human beings
to sec with
its
and the public has come
to expect
of Salomon, Eisenstaedt,
after
statement of the worid rather than about
more than
just
work
and Bourke- White,
all.
the
as that
picture-
magazine readers by the millions have learned the
lan-
guage of the camera. Photographs are their greatest source of information about the
world— its lands and
peoples, habits, customs, ambitions, tribulations,
achievements. they do not
fail
When
the picture releases
and
message,
to understand.
The photographer has so eager
its
and informed.
not failed to respond to a public
He
understands and conveys as
never before what Cartier-Bresson has called "the de-
moment." It is not enough for him to show wellknown people off their guard or to stop the action of a
cisive
is its
the vision of the photographer.
excitement and immediacy of an unposed photograph. Substantially as a result of such pioneering
closes
he discovers them in man-made objects— for what the camera disown personal kind of reality depending on
that the
Today, the noveltv of candid-camera pictures has worn off,
requires effort
it
many meanings.
its
and
work and delighted
sensiti\^e
This kind of organization of nature's forms and move-
creative painter or sculptor does;
with their guard down, the picture-view-
suitable
there— yes— but
is
just that for
second use of his miniature cameras to catch statesmen celebrities
and
he can make public the pattern that
only he could see before. In the hands of a
ments
Dr. Salomon, a generation ago,
skill
photographer the camera shows what
of recording the
wodd's significant aspects.
trained eye
can follow the pattern of certain movements as they unfold; and, again, with suitable camera
make
and move-
shifts
The
infinite.
they can find there with their eyes and their understandTliey can
specific
organize our vision. ^Vith a
skill
and make
its
we
equipped photographers to take from the world anything
ing.
patch
of aspects, depending
upon our constitution and experience, upon whether we look at
suitable
absorbed
his
given this high level of technical competence
now become one
body of photographic knowl-
have hitherto
record with his
camera promptly communicating the meaning of
detail. C)bser\'ing nature,
universal
now
picture to millions.
by one by a succession of photographic innovators have edge. Today's leading photographers have mastered and
He knows how
motion, the revealing expres-
been able to see but that he can
and
command
difficult lighting condi-
has learned to control action.
sion, the world's aspect that only his eyes
photographic action. There
lives daily.
common
He
to wait for the significant
are serious about their work. Their pic-
no fewer than three of these
game under
fast-moving football tions.
respect photography too, discovers its
fellow
what
\'isual arts
trol, discipline,
is
is
The photograph it.
is
a true
In this
like science; the creative scientist,
there.
But photography
of painting
is
and sculpture
also like
in its con-
and organization of forms drawn from
nature. Indeed, photography gives us basic information
about the
realities of all visual art. It
shows
us, for ex-
ample, that the created abstract, cubist, and expressionist
forms of modern
artists arc
correspond to forms found art of
in
rooted
in
seen reality and
nature as discovered by the
photography.
Photography, uniting
art
and science
as
it
does,
is
not
only the most popular but the most characteristic art of
our modern scientific and technical world. of the industrial revolution, tor)'
to
depend upon
ductions.
Its
and was the
It
was a child
first
art in his-
a scientific instrument for
broadening and deepening
as
an
its
pro-
art has
561
likewise
had
upon developments
to follow
in science
technique, for the creati\-c photographer used everj-
make more meaningful
invention to
Photography has not displaced painting,
more need than
new
images. as art critics
predicted a centur}- and a quarter ago, nor will is
and
it.
lliere
ever for the visual discipline and imag-
inative vision that creative painters provide our visually
chaotic
But photograph)-
socict}-.
tremendous
flexibilit}-
on many
reality
levels
the brief period of
its
is
an
medium
artistic
of
and power. It is charged with and its rapid development during
existence
is
a
promise of still greater
things to come.
JAPAN
Japan, in little
more than
a decade, has
become one and export
of the leading countries in the manufacture of photographic films, papers,
camera
and equipment— especially
lenses. I'hc bubble-proof lenses,
wide angle
made
to telcphoto,
cam-
have captured the world's markets.
eras,
Photography seems to
satisfy a special
thetic need. Traditionally based
the
from extreme
for Japan's precision
moods and
Japanese aes-
on close observation of
details of nature, Japanese art,
with a growing devotion to science,
now
popular expression in the camera. After
combined
new and World War II,
finds a
millions of amateurs flocked to camera clubs. Subtle
was the important aesthetic prin-
pictorial representation ciple:
fishermen carrying lighted torches, delicatch- bal-
anced against the
flickering lights of small \illages; a
misty morning on the like
dimly drawn boats
downstream
river, logs floating
in
an ancient
scroll;
or a hallowed
gate of a temple silhouetted in starlight.
With
the American occupation,
realism and
humanism
new
influenced the impressionable
young whose cameras concentrate on the the
new
conceptions of
vast changes in
generation. Photographs by several of these
contemporan,- Japanese poets and probers with the camera are presented here.
land, courtesy Verlag
562
Photographs from Japan— Fernes-
Gerd
Hatje, Stuttgart.
fi^i.
YuiCHi MiDORiKAWA, Islands in the Sea at Niglit. 195-
^LSS^
TOSHiji MUKAi, above: Lake Shudoko in Rain. 1957. right:
564
The \^alley Nagataro
in
May.
1957.
below: TAKENO TANUMA, Contrasts of a right:
Summer Festival.
yasumasa katayama, Night View
of
J
956.
Miyajima Temple. 1956.
567
ENGLAND BILL
BRANDT
during
World War
II,
documenting
for the
Home Office
the courage of Londoners during the blitz. Since the
One of the best-rounded and most effective men in Britain, an architectural and landscape rapher, social commentator,
graphing the
human
and
satirist.
camera-
war he has devoted himself
photog-
erary Britain— the architecture
After photo-
misery and social incongruities of
depression-bound Britain, he turned to photojournalism
to interpreting scenes of
lit-
and landscape associated
with Britain's great writers from Chaucer to
Shaw-
photographs which were published as Literary Britain. Photographs courtesy Bill Brandt, London.
BILL BRANDT, dbove: left:
London
"Wutheong
Heights." 1945.
Child. 1955.
569
BRANDT, Parlormaids. 1932.
570
ROGER MAYNE
or lose themselves in their favorite haunts.
He
docs not
confront us with a sociological expose of delinquency
Trained as a chemist
at Oxford,
Mayne abandoned
but gives us a truthful, s\mpathetic presentation of these
Mayne
chemistry for photography upon graduation. lie has
children of the streets.
photographed an astonishing record of London's "Teddy
which some ot these photographs are combined with poems and essays written by the children themselves. PhotograpJis courtesy Roger Mayne, London.
boys" and their
girls,
haircuts, assertively
with their Edwardian clothing and
handsome
as they
walk the
streets
is
preparing a book in
ROGER MAYNE, Loudon
Street. 1957.
571
MAYNE, above: Tears. right:
572
1956.
Tension. 1956.
I i t
^*'
i
/.%M
y
t
L
,••*'
*
SWITZERLAND WERNER BISCHOF While photographing
his fourth continent at the
of thirt>-eight, Bischof's truck plunged off an
mountainside this
in 1954.
in technical
in
of Switzerland
young native
num
Few men
age
Andean
our era have matched
and member of Mag-
mastery and breadth of range as a pho-
tographer. After an eady career devoted to meticulously
constructed pictures of
shells, still lifes,
and the
pictorial
beauties of nature, he turned his camera on people.
He
covered
stories of harassed
lives— took memorable news
pictures
amid the
and
tral
Europe and
political
social
upheavals of Cen-
Asia. His photographs of
well as of magnificent landscapes
humanity
as
on both hemispheres
attest to his acute responsiveness to the visual image.
Photographs courtesy
Magnum
Photos,
New
WERNER BisciiOF, Shiuto
574
York.
Pricsts in
Snow, japan, 1951
*^^ ^^p^ rsfeife-
•1^^
..-^
&^^
*^/-
^i^^
^^j
^
•^fe: OL
575
^S. -^ :jB».---»
576
BiscHOF, below: left:
Famine
in India. 195;
Pcru\ian Piper. 1954.
\
Yf
« Vj^'Be?"
-
V
V
^^'^ •xV>r-\x.
577
ROBERT CAPA, D-Dav Noriuandy
Bcaclilicad.
iQ-f-/-
;^V
.
.
•,
••;
i
•"**«»
UNITED STATES ROBERT CAPA With
Cartier-Bresson, and David Seymour (Chim),
Capa founded Magnum
Pliotos,
an international, co-
operative agency of picture journalists ser\ing the world's
magazines. Born Andrei Friedmann, in Hungary, Capa
became the greatest combat photographer of his time. characterisHe met death in Indo-China in 1954 ticallv, he drove ahead of a troop movement to photograph the marching men and accidentally ran into a land mine. To Capa all considerations of technique were '^^'li*-''!'
secondary to the immediate, effective telling of a story.
Two
of his photographs,
alist soldier,
sault, in their swift blur
and
one of a stricken Spanisli Loy-
the other of the
Normandy beachhead
show
us, as
no
as-
richly detailed
.sharply defined picture ever could, the incredible
violence of war. Dictographs courtesy
Magnuni Photos,
New York.
579
ROBERT CAPA, cbove: Death of right:
580
a Loyalist Soldier. 1936.
Women of Naples. 1943.
DAVID SEYMOL'R {CIUM)
tures of
children— the
parcntlcss.
Warsaw-born, David Seymour ("Chim") was machine-gun bullets Suez. rial
When
by
1956 while covering the war in
the Art Institute of Chicago held a
exhibition of
num, his
in
killed
work by
this charter
pictures of festivals, battles,
member
memo-
of
Mag-
and famous persons
were withheld and the entire display given over to
pic-
bachelor
lost,
During the
last
the starved, the
dozen of
Chim adopted orphans
maimed, the
his forty-five years,
of the war, supported
them and placed them in the homes of his friends. To Chim, war was an enormous crime against children and his photographs he considered a stark re-
them,
visited
minder of Photos,
this crime.
Photographs courtesy
Magnum
New York.
DAVID left:
SEYMOUR CHIM (
J
Europe's Children. 19^8.
rigJU:
Barcelona Air Raid. 1936.
''^>:.-
j^0-^m^
i^itv
'£f
5*
'^r
CORNELL CAPA
war. Cornell
came
to the
year and, after serving in
Like his late brother Robert, Cornell Capa shows a feeling for news, an understanding of people,
of
humor.
and went
He
was born Friedmann
in
and a sense
Budapest, 1918,
to Paris in 1936 to begin his prcnicdical studies.
World War
II,
China, Cornell moved to the world on
illustrated magazines.
back by
who was
ci\i]
zine
5S4
Magnum
picture assignments tor
sent
Spain covering the
Photo-Intelligence in
became an .American
way by processing photographs in
Army
citizen
tographer for Life. After Robert Capa's death
In Paris he paid his his brother
United States the following
Photos.
many
and
piio-
in
Indo-
He
covers
international
Photographs courtesy Life Maga-
and Maguuvi Photos,
Ne\\' York.
CORNELL CAPA, bdow. Talmudic Scholars. Israel, 1955. Glyndenbourne Opera left: John Christie, Founder of Britain's
Festival. 1951
GYORGY KEPES, below. Photodraw right:
586
Light Texture. 1950.
iiig.
1939.
GYORGY KEPES
tute of technology.
At present Kepes
is
professor of
visual design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Gyorgy Kepes, simultaneously with and independently of Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy, experimented with the
A
photogram
generation in
in the late 1920's shortly after his
from the Royal Aeademy of Art, Budapest. with
came the
Moholy
in Berlin,
to Ameriea.
New
went
He was
to
graduation
He worked
London, and,
in 1936,
eo-founder, with Moholy, of
Bauhaus, Chicago,
now
part of Illinois Insti-
versatile
Kepes
is
and wide-ranging designer,
also
one of the most
many
artist,
and
writer,
influential teachers of his
areas of design.
Both
as artist
and
teacher he has contributed greatly to understanding of light
and color
as
means
of e\oking emotional response,
despite the elimination of representational images. Pho-
tographs courtesy Gyorgy Kepes, Cciinbridge, Mass.
587
,(*'*
M*
4
«
*
.
0'W
• •
• •
;jTnuuii:iu: '
I
• : 1 :
1 1
:im iM :
# • , «•:
*•'
I
M
:
I
:
I
.
KEPES, above: Photodrawing. 195S. left:
Photodrawing. 1958.
589
GERMANY PETER KEETMAN A he
War
PHOTOGRAPHER bcfore World lost a leg.
II,
during which
After the war, he reeducated himself in
photography and became a founder of the "Fotoform" group. His chief interest
is
in creative experiment, as in
his bird's-eye \'icw of construction
Munich, taken from the tower
on a building
of the
wiry, linear pattern of abstract forms
cit\-
and
hall.
site in
Here
a
a view of the
world seen from an unusual perspective are wedded to unmistakable, palpable
combined
the
two
Moholy-Nagy— the
reality. It
visions
realistic
graplis courtesy Peter
of
is
as
though he had
Renger-Patzsch
and
with the abstract. Photo-
Keetman, Munich.
PETER KEETMAN, Study of Icc Skatcrs. 1957
590
591
left:
KEETMAN, Coostructioii
below:
max scheler,
in
Munich. 1957.
Political Poster in
Rome.
1950.
H
Ben Shahn and Alexander Calder, Artists, in the Flea-Market. Rome, 1955.
SCHELER, above:
American right:
Holy Sacrament. 1952.
MAX SCHELER
years he eras
The young German Munich and
Scheler forsook the classrooms of
Paris Universities
when he met
sional photographer, Herbert List,
assignments to Spain,
Italy,
whom he followed on
and Yugoslavia. By 1952, the
23 year-old Scheler was selling his
German and American
594
the profes-
own photographs to The next several
publications.
made Cairo
his headquarters, training his
on the changing
Mid-East for
political
Magnum
Photos.
and
cam-
social scene of the
He now
li\cs in
Rome.
But, he remains an itinerant cameraman, always mo\ing.
Camera Annual has commented, "Although Scheler abandoned philosophy for photography, as a photograU.S.
pher he has become a philosopher." Photographs courtesy
Max Scheler, Munich.
595
HERBERT
LIST
of art and fashion. His portrait subjects have included Picasso, Jean Coctcau,
Of the photographers now is
working
probably the best known outside his
in
Germany,
own
country.
List
He
mand
of lighting
faces,
boldly modeled features revealing the essential charac-
has traveled over America and worked in London, Paris,
teristics
Rome, and Greece, where he has taken splendid photo-
writer, for the
graphs of scenes and country landscapes, as well as a
for the powerful
striking series of portraits of personalities in the worlds
graphs courtesy
596
dc Chirico, and Chagall. His com-
he uses to produce unshadowed
of the subject's personality as
camera
to
Herbert List
is
would
a lucid
but a substitute
pen he would preferably wield. Photo-
Magnwu
Photos,
Xew
York.
HERBERT left:
LIST, dbovc: Colette. Paris,
about 1951
Ortega y Gasset. Madrid, about 1953.
597
TONi SCHNEIDERS, Pcrformcrs. 1957.
598
TONI SCHNEIDERS
Once
again, photographs are images of truth. Schneiders
explores the creative possibilities of miniature photog-
Like other members of Germany's post-World generation, Schneiders has rediscovered
the
War
II
German
photographic tradition of Rengcr-Patzsch, Wolff, and
Salomon. The dozen years of Nazi rule
drowned
this tradition in a sea of
in
Germany had
make-believe heroics.
raphy, seeking an intense but controlled realism that calls
He
the similar work of his
Italian
re-
contemporaries.
uses imaginative techniques for dramatic composi-
tions. Photograplis courtesy
Toni Schneiders, Liiidau-
Schachen, Germany.
SCHNEIDERS Reflections. 1956.
599
WILHELM
RAUIl
seen from above,
we
see a patterning of figures in broad,
snnple areas, slanting streaks of snow, and moving feet
MECHANIC during the working day, Rauh is a seriousminded photographer and member of the Bayreuth, Germany, Freelance Photo Group at other times. His pictures taken with a miniature camera have been shown
deliberately blurred by a purposely long exposure to con-
of exhibitions since 1954. In a picture of
diagonal composition. Pliotographs
A
in a
number
umbrella-carrjing townsfolk caught in a blizzard and
/
vey the impression of
movement
into the wind.
Here the
photographer has caught a thick band of motion, rather than stop
it
dead in
figure arrested in
courtesy
its
its
tracks. In contrast
is
the shuffling
Wilhclm Rauh, Bayreuth, Germany.
'^
wiLHELM left:
RAuii, abovc: Extra Spur. 1957-
Snowstorm. 1957-
601
GREECE DIMITRIOS IIARISSIADIS The recognized leader movement
in
Greek photography. He and
are determined to
country as
of a small but vigorous
it is
show
his colleagues
at last a living picture of their
rather than to repeat interminably the
sentimental theme of Greece's classic glories.
turned pliotographer, Harissiadis covered for the
new
Greek General
Staff.
A
chemist
World War
II
After photodocumenting
the occupation, he became a correspondent of the Euro-
pean press during the
guerilla days that followed.
technically proficient photographs
His
are honest, brilliant
observations of the people, the cities and the countrj'side of Greece. Photographs courtesy Dimitrios Harissiadis,
Athens, Greece.
602
DI MiTRios iiARissiADis,
Roacl
ill
Grcccc. 1953.
603
6o4
HARissiADis, below: left:
Greek
Frieze. 1955.
The Aeropolis, Athens.
1954.
605
»,;#
-»
-t^-M*!,-.*
JSt ^
.\,'Xtf .4^-'
..v^'«-
ITALY v*!*'
.'v-
TONl DEL TIN The
rising
generation of
Italian photographers, accord-
ing to del Tin, "feels an urge to level of a is
modern
art
form
.
.
disciplined realism ... in
natural." Del I'in
is
.
lift
photography to the
the stamp of this
form
new
no more concerned with technique
than most trained photojournalists, but his work ordinary photojournalism.
An orphan
own music
shown
to us as masterly compositions in basic
forms.
Of
how much
transmit." Photographs courtesy
606
not
a single
Toni
del
are
geometric
these tense pictures he writes, "I
learning to understand
is
child transfixed by
a tombstone, a cellist listening to his
Italy.
style
severe, in expression
am now
image can
Tm,
Venice,
.>^.
*^.
,^v
TONI DEL
1 IN,
Sicilw
1
95^.
607
6oS
DEL TIN, below: Orplian.
if
609
PAOLO MONTI
ture
and pattern.
in space,
He
is
particularly gi\cn to bold forms
and arrangements of
solid black or gray tones
This Milanese photographer also belongs with the
with contrasting accents of pure white. Monti abstains
Italians tal
discovered the values of unsentimen-
from the completely abstract and keeps the appearances
and have broken sharply with presenting
of familiar reality while interpreting nature, distorting
dreams.
forms only when thereby he can intensify their poetry
who have
realism
grandiose pictures of an
Italy that existed only in
Recognizing photographic beauty alpine landscape,
he
in asphalt street
and
and
emphasize
tex-
Monti. Milan, Udlv.
sacrifices detail to
PAOLO MONTI, below. Alpiuc Lake. 1954. right:
610
Gondola
of Death. Venice, 1956.
clarify tlicir
meaning. Pliotogniplis courtesy Paolo
[-.•^-j-^ff^^ .';j.-y ;^
y
,
!>-«nV-,
lA^'r^l,
l^-il
J-'t.
%,^>-T^sr
»Vi
MONii, Asphalt. 1956.
612
FULV O ;
ROI 7' E R
Roiter,
who
has depicted this seared land and unique
people in his book, Andalousie. Here reproduced
The picturesque gondolas and
tlic
hallowed stones of
Venice do not reeeive the attention of Roiter, who
ings,
in delicate shades of gray
and people supply
his compositions.
the
plio-
wedge-shaped bands of sheep separated by three young
sky and sea
shepherds. In Brazil, Roiter found perfect motifs for the
and umbrellas, build-
honest, sharp, and controlled "disciplined realism" so
tographs his native city in the rain,
merge
is
land's exciting texture in a forceful composition of three
when
rich black accents to
complete
Spain exerts a tremendous hold over
characteristic of
contemporary
Italian
photographers.
Photographs courtesy Fulviu Roiter, Venice.
^^§mt^^tsihk^i «•.
FULVIO ROITER Andalusia, Spain. J955.
613
f-'ii
i;^"-*'
.1^^'
-
<«v
.**•
/ %*:''
\
«i'
^ ..>!*^;"^"^^^'i'^ ^•,^
i"i"'-^,.
:^.
ji-VUi^**-'
/
ss-
I
"A.5\w:,§<;^,
,•
^
>5
(
2\ •*,«..,?
f :'^1&
e^^it^^^^^.^^
y^
>>
^^^Z^ VV-tt^>:r^
'^
.;rk:'
r-x:
:A
ROiTER, aho\c: Unibria. 1955. /eft:
Umbrian Landscape.
1955.
615
BRIAN BRAKE left:
Sotheby's Auction
Rooms. London, 1955. riglit:
Nigerian Royal
Tour. 1956.
NEW
ZEALANIl BRIAN BRAKE
sensing of that
moment is
to Brake, as to Cartier-Bresson,
the photographer's most important task.
A
YOUTHFUL
num
Photos
New who
Zealander and
a
member
of
Mag-
has worked in central Africa, Eg\pt,
like these,
and
candid photography loses
reveals
the
life
its
With
observers
chance quality
around us with subtlet\ and
re-
England, Russia, India, and China. His pictures are
finement, nonetheless retaining a sharp, satirical wit,
remarkable for the insight they give us into the thoughts
often incongruous and humorous. Photographs courtesy
and
Magnum
616
feelings of people at
an all-important moment. The
Fliotos,
New
York.
t"
..l.J«_.>A.
Ik.-
Eder, Josef Maria. History of Photography. Translated by Edward Epstean. New York, 1945.
Ed van
Elsken,
Love on the Left Bank. London,
dcr.
1956.
Emerson, Peter Henr\-. Naturalistic Photography. 3d London, 1889. Fcininger, Andreas.
The Face
of
New
York.
New
ed.,
York,
1934. .
New York,
Successful Photography.
1954.
New York, 1955. The Creative Photographer. New York, 1955. The Anatomy of Nature. New York, 1936. Focal Encyclopedia of Photography. London, New York, .
Changvig America.
.
Bibliogmpliy
.
1956.
Genthe, Arnold. As I Remember.
BOOKS
Gernshcim, Helmut. .
W. George Eastman. New York, 1930. America and Alfred Stieglitz. New York, 1934. Angers, George W. Balloon Posts in the Siege of Paris, Ackcrman, Carl
.
iS-0-18-1. Springfield, Mass., 1952. Carrier Pigeons during the Siege of Paris. Spring-
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field,
Mass., 19t2.
Archer, Frederick Scott. Process.
A Manual
of the Collodion
of
Edward Weston. New
The Man Behind the Camera. London, Julia Alargaret Cameron. London,
1948.
1948.
Photographer. London, 1949.
Len'i's Carroll,
.
Masterpieces of Victorian Photography. London,
Gernshcim, Helmut, and Alison Gernsheim. Roger Fenton, Photographer of the Crimean War. London, 1934.
The
History of Photography from the Earliest
Use of the Camera Obscura to igi-^. London, 1955.
in the
Eleventh Century
up
York, 1940. Blanquart-Evrard, L. D. Traitc de photographic sin
de nuit. Paris, 1933.
Brassai. Paris .
Volupte de Paris.
.
Trente dessins.
J.
M.
New York,
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1946.
With
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.
Histoire de Aiarie. Introduction de
a
poem by
Hammer, Mina
Henry
Miller.
era.
New York,
Hunt, Robert. fete. Paris, 1954.
Brown, Mark Herbert, and Years: L. A.
The
History' of the
W.
Thomas
Diorama
1955.
Eakins, His Life and
Work.
1933. Fisher. History of the
New
A
Kodak and
its
York, 1940.
Horan, James D. Mathew
1949.
Paris, 1949.
en
Daguerrc:
Continuations.
.
New York,
L.
Goodrich, Lloyd.
Paris, 1935.
Jacques Prevert.
Seville
-.
and the Daguerreotype. London,
papier. Paris, 1851.
.
Photo Vision. London, 1942.
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.
The Art
1936.
1931.
London, 1852.
Armitage, Merle, ed.
New
New York,
Brady, Historian
M'ith a
Cam-
1955.
Manual
of Photography. 3d ed., Lon-
don, 1853.
R. Felton.
The
Frontier
Huffman, Photographer of the
Karsh, Yousuf. Faces of Destiny.
New York,
1946.
Plains.
Lccuyer,
Raymond.
Histoire de la photographie. Paris,
19^5.
Before Barbed Wire: L. A. Huffman, Photographer on Horseback. New York, 1955.
1945.
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Chapman, Ronald. The Laurel and of
the Thorn: a Study
graphs by the Staff Photographers of Vogue, House
G. F. Watts. London, 1947.
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. G. F. Waffs. London, 1904. Clere, L. P. Photography:
New York,
Theory and
Practice.
618
-3,6.
ed..
1958.
(5
Garden, and Glamour.
Litchfield, R.
New
Tom Wedgwood,
York, 1951.
the First Photographer.
London, 1903.
1954.
Duncan, David. The Private World of Pablo
New York,
Liberman, Alexander, editor. The Art and Technique of Color Photography: a Treasury of Color Photo-
Picasso.
Lossing,
Benson
York, 1912.
J.
The
History of the Civil
War. New
Mack,
J.
E.,
and M.
New York,
J.
The Photograpliic
Martin.
Museum
New York, of
B.
1946.
Fifty Photographic Prints:
New
Exhibition.
Famous Men A R
Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day. New York, 1949.
On Photography. New York,
York, 1946.
Gordon. Flash Photography.
New York,
I
c L E
W. M.
Mayor,
s
"Photographs of
Hyatt.
Metropolitan
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tan
Art,
May,
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Metropolitan
Stieglitz,"
February, 1929.
and
Photographs,"
of Art Bulletin,
November,
1936.
"Photographs by Eakins and Degas," Metropoli-
Museum of Art Bulletin, July, .
1944.
"The Photographic Eye," Metropolitan Museum
of Art Bulletin, July, 1946. I
lenry Peach. Pictorial Effect in Photography.
London, 1869.
.
Berlin, 1930.
of Atget: Photographs from the
New
York,
1929.
Schwarz, Heinrich. David Octavius Hill, Aiaster of Photography. New York, 1932. Soby, James Thrall. "Four Photographers,"
and the NeM' Articles on
Past,
Chapter
Stieglitz,
Strand, reprinted from
Norman,
11.
Modern Art Okla., 1957.
Evans,
Cartier-Bresson,
and
.
to Civilization
and
Relation
and the American Scene:
Social History, 1839-1899.
Tissandicr, Gaston.
New
A
York, 1938.
A History and Handbook of Photog-
raphy. 2d ed., London, 1878.
Tugwell, Rexford Guy,
Munro Thomas, and
American Economic
Life.
New York,
Weimar, Wilhelm. Die Daguerreotype
1 5,
New
1955.
"Tlie Search for Color," Color Photography An-
nual. 1936.
"Edward Weston and Tina Modotti," Mexican Folkways, April, 1926.
Rivera, Diego.
Schwarz, Heinrich. "Art and Photography," Adagazine Siegel, Arthur. "Fifty Years of
Docunicntar}
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American
Photography Magazine, Januan-, ig^i.
Hamburg,
Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte dcr Photographic. Hamburg, 191 3. i8-i()-i86o:
Weston, Edward. "From M} Da}- Book," Creative
Art,
August, 192S. .
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.
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First
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1946.
619
Anderson, Marian, 497, 498, 505 Animals in Motion, 38, 224-25, 2262J, 228
Annan,
J.
Craig, 95
Anthony, Edward, 63, 66-6y, 1^2, 140 Anthony Company, E. & H. T., New York,' 131, 134-35. 19I' 195-94. -5051
Aquatints, 50, 54 Arago, D. Francois, 29, 35-36, 44-45, 78, 106 Archer, F. Scott, 81, 103, 106
Arizona J/ighways magazine, 366 Armory Show of 1913, New York, 262 Art Academy, Berlin, 404 Art Institute of Chicago, 280, 322, 582 Art photography, 125, 175, 186, 26061, 288, 312-13 Art Treasures exhibition, Manchester,
to text.
in roiiian
Page iiumbers
Associated Press, 419 Atget, Eugene, 2S8, 289, 290, 291-95 Atlantic Monthly. 131, 192 Abbott, Berenice, 290, 335
type refer
in italic type
refer to the iiJustrations.
Abstract photography, 334, 335, 452,
Academy of Fine Arts, Pans, Academy in Rome, 174 Academy of Sciences, Paris, 78, 103,
1
3 5
35, 44-45,
51
Adam-Salomon, 154-55 Adams, Ansel, ^iS, 324, 564-65, 366Adams, John Onincy, 64, 74 Adamson, Jolm, 130 Adamson, Robert, 94-95, 96-101 Aerial photography, 143, 150-51, 282,
535. 544.
287
52, 239,
496-97
Daniello, 14 Oscar, 335
Barbaro, Barnack, Barnard, Barnard,
C. N., 191 George M., 192 Bates, Joseph L., 137 Baudelaire. Charles, 142, 143, 157
Bauhaus. Germany, 334
75' 481
54H7'5So-S^
Agfacolor film, 511 Albert, Prince Consort, 55, 131, 155,
163,175,187 Alberti, Leon Battista, 13-14 Albright Art Gallery, BuflFalo, 264 Albumen process, 102-3, -'°4'5' 148-49, 234 Alcohol, 103 Alhazen of Basra, 13 Allan, Sidney, sec Sadakichi Al\-arez-Bravo,
M-'
Hartmann
482
Ambrotype, 103-4, '°^> -'"-'' ^-'^' '^g. 240 American Amateur Photographer, The,
Beaton, Cecil, 543 Bcavcrbrook, Lord \\'i]liam. 498 Bemis, Samuel, 63, 64 Benser, Walter, 529 Benton, Thomas Hart, 63, 64, 66 Berhner TagebJatt, 419 Berlioz, Louis, 143
Bernhardt, Sarah, 143, 1^^, 239, 240, 246, 312 Bianchi, Barthclmy-Urbain, ^8 Binocular vision, 130 Biow, Herman, 53
Werner, 561, 574-77 Bisson, Auguste R., 104, 105-6, 116-ij Bisson, Louis A., 104, 105-6, 116-iy Bischof,
of Judaea, 24, 25 Blanquart-E\Tard, L. D., 103, 111 Blueprint, 82, 544 Blumenfeld, Erwin, 515
Boston
Museum
BonJe\'ard, Le,
390 American Place, An, 269
69, 561
New York,
1
of Fine Arts, 266
34
Bourkc-White, Margaret, 456-57, ^^8-
Ammonia, 16 Anderson Gallery,
Bayard, Ilippolyte. 12 Bayer, Herbert, 336 Beard, Richard, 51-53, 81 Beato, F., 107, 121
Bitumen
261
American Federation of Arts, 480 American Institute, New York, 125, 189 American Museum of Natural History,
620
Baca-l''lor, Carlos,
Background,
444' 590
266
Bouton, 56
Brady-Handy
collection, 194
Galleries,
189-91,
192,
193,
194-95 Brake, Brian, 616-iy Brancusi, Constantin, 262 Brandt, Bill, 568-70 Braque, Georges, 262, 290 Brassai, 404-5, 406-17 Brewster, Sir Da\id, 130-31, 132,
137
British Journal of Photography, 250 British
Museum, 17
Bromine
vapors, 38 Bro\\ning, Robert, 166 Bullock, John G., 261 Butler,
Benjamin
F.,
194
Cabinet portraits, 238, 244-45 Calamity Jane, 212
175
Asphaltum, 25 Page numbers
Brady, Mathew B., 63-64, 188-89, 190-96, 203, 205, 238, 285, 290 Brady's
Anseo, 251
Index
Bouton, Charles, 50
Caldwell, Erskine, 458 California School of Fine Arts, 366 Callahan, Harry, 432, 433-43
Campbell,
Sir John, 107 Calotype, 79, 81, 82, 84, 86-87, S9. 9193, 94, g6-q8, 100, 102, 103, 111, 130, 174, 251 Camera, binocular, 131; box, 251-52,
280; carte-de-visite, 155, 159; daguerreotype, 36, 47-49, 50, 52, 53, 63; detective, 251, 256-57; Giroux, 36, 50, 52, 53, 63;
Kodak,
g,
252,
^53-5^' 315. 39O' 419; Leica, 335, 336, 377, 380, 390, 406, 419, 481, 482; miniature, 335-36, 419; Minox, 281; mirror, 51, 63; Rolleiflex, 380, 406: stereoscope, 131-32, 205, 206; Voigtlander, 53, 406
Camera Club, The, 261, 264 Camera lucida, 16, 22-23, 79, 81 Camera Notes, 261 Camera obscura, 13, 14-16, 17,
iS-20,
24,25,27,35,36,79
Camera Work, 261,
262,
264,
265,
281, 304
Cameron, Henry, 168 Cameron, Julia M., 166-68, 169-73 Candid photographs, 251, 257, 312, 419, 561, 616 Capa, Cornell, SS4-8S Capa, Robert, 482, 561, S7^-^^> 5^4 Cardano, Girolamo, 14 Carjat, Etienne, 154-55, 157 Carlyle, Thomas, 166, 167, 168, 169 Carroll, Lewis, 175, 182-8^ Carte-de-visite, 132, 155, 158-65, 189.
igi, 258, 241-42 Carter, A. C.R., 281
Cartier-Brcsson, Henri, 480-82, 4S3-95, 561, 579,
616
Gary, Elizabeth, 264 Cass, Lewis, 64, 66 Casseres,
Benjamin
de,
265
Castor oil, 251 Cendrars, Blaise, 378 Cezanne, Paul, :6:, 323 Chagall, Marc, 596 Charities and the Coiiiiiions, 304 Charivari, 143
Chase, William M., 240 Chemist, The, 103 Chester, Samuel C, 191 Chevalier, Charles, 36, 57
Chevrcul, Marie E., 144, 152-55
Chiang Kai-shek, Madame, 458 Chiaroscuro photographs, 155
Chicago Historical Society, 64 Chicago, Uni\ersity of, 304 "Chini," 482, 561, 579, 5S2-83 Chirico, Giorgio de, 596
Chloride of gold, 38, 103 Chlorine vapors, 38 Chretien, Gillcs- Louis, 16, 21
Church, Fred, 253 Churchill, Sir Winston, 458, 497-98, 499 Claudct, Antoine, 51, 52, So, 81 Chche verre, 142-43, 14S-49 Coburn, A. L., 265, 2S0 Cocteau, Jean, 596 Collcn, Henry, 81 CoJJicr's magazine, 390 Collins, Marjorie, 351 Collodion, sec wet-collodion process Color photography, 132, 406, 510-12
Columbia University, 63 Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 225 Composite photography, 175, 176-71S, 1S4-S7, 261
Conde
Nast, 282
Cook, George
F.,
191
Coombs, Fred, 6g Coonley, J. F., 191 Copie de graiurc, 24-25
Daubigny, Charles, 143 Daumicr, Ilonore, 143, 150 D'Avignon, Francois, 189, 190 Davy, Sir Humphry, 16, 25, 79 Debenham, W. F., 251 Degotti, L E. M., 36 Delacroix, Eugene, 143, 162 Delano, Jack, 351, 556 Dclarochc, Paul, 142 Delia Porta, Giovanni B., 14, 35 Del Tin, Toni, 606-9 Demachy, Robert, 261, 265, 281 Demeney, C, 225 Demuth, Charles, 266 Deutsche Werkbund, 535 De Young Museum, San Francisco, 324 Dietrich, Marlcnc, 419 Diorama, London, 36; Paris, 25, 35, 36,
Evans, Walker, 351, 356-57, 432, 434,
37- 3S-39 Dippel s animal
Fillmore, Millard, 64 Film und Foto exhibition, Germany,
oil,
25
Disderi, Adolphe E., 155, 158-62 Documentary photography, 2SS-90,
298, 304-6, 351, 405-6, 432, 444, 482, 602 Dodgson, Charles L., see Carroll, Lewis Doisncau, Robert, 376, ^JJ-Sy Dore, Paul, 143 Double exposure, 175, 335 Dove, Arthur, 262, 266 Draper, John W., 62-63, 6^, 188
Duboscq,
Jules,
Duboscq and
1 3
Soleil
stereoscope, 131,
157
Cunningham, Imogen,
324, 335
Dagron, M., 144 Daguerre, Louis
J.
M., 12, 24, 25, 27,
28-29, 34-36, 37-49, 50, 51, 52, 62, 65, 78, 79, 106 Daguerreotype, 40-45, 53, 56-61, 64,
66-75, 78. So, 95, 102, 103, 104, 105-6, 124, 125, 127-28, 130, 131, 133, 136-59, 142, 188, 189, 195, 204; acceptance, 36-38, 50-65; an-
nouncement, 35-36; camera,
36, ^y49, 50, 52, 53, 63; color, 62; galleries, 63-65, 6j, yo; plates, 25; portraits, 37-38, 51-53, 62-65, 81, 189; process, 34-35, 65; views, 50-51, 53, 63
Darkroom
red light, 52 Darwin, Charles, 166, 169, 175
244
Faraday, Michael, 79 Farden, George R., 205, 208-g Farm Security Administration, 550-52 Feininger, Lyonel, 336
Fenn, Albert, ^^o Fcnton, Roger, 106, 118-21, 290 Ferrier and Solier, 155 Ferrotvpes, see tintypes Field, 11. B., 110
535 Fitzgibbon, J. W., 204 Fizeau, Ilippolyte, 38 Flash photography, 296 Flaubert, Gustave, 103 Focus, 167, 261, 313, 323, 419, 511 Fontallard, Gerard, 41 Fortune magazine, 366, 457 "Fotoform" group, 590 Fox Talbot, Henry, 12, 15, 25, 35, 52, 78, 79, Ho-8^, 86-91, 94, 103, 130 Frederick's Gallery, 238 Friedmann, Andrei, see Robert
Capa
Friedmann, Cornell, see Cornell Capa
405 Duncan,
Gallic acid, 79 Isadora, 312,
520
Dusc, Eleanora, 312, 520 Dyer, William B., 261
1561-62
Crowninshield, Frank, 282
"F64," 324, 366 Falk's Gallery, 238,
Maxinie, 103, 1 1 Duchamp, Marcel, 228, 237, 290 Du Ilauron, Louis D., 511 Dumas, Alexandre, 145, 147 Duncan, David Douglas, 388-90, 591-
Du Camp,
Diirer, Albrecht, 13, ly
Corot, Camillc, 142-43, 14S-49 Corsini, Harold, 3152, 361 Creative photography, 285, 334, 511,
482 Exposure, 37-38, 51-52, 62-63, 94' ^°-' 103, 106, 167, 211, 225, 433, 434,
Thomas, 225-28, 252-57 Eastman, George, 250-51, -5--55 Eastman House, 105, i8g, 204 Eakins,
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Budapest, 404 Edison, Thomas A., 225 Edwards, J. M., 63 Einstein, Albert, 497, 502-5 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 498 Eisenstaedt, Alfred, 336, 418-ig, 420-
Gandhi, Mahatma, 457, 464-65 Garbo, Greta, 312, 321 Gardner, Alexander, 190-93, 198-99, 201-5, 205, 389 Gardner, James, 191 Garfield, James A., 194 Garo, John H., 497 Gaudin, Marc A. G., 48 Gautier, Theophilc, 51 Gelatin dry plates, 103, 250-51 Geinma-I''risius, Rainier, 1^ Genthe, Arnold, 312, 515-21 George VI, King of England, 408 Gernsheim, Alison and Helmut, 1 2, 25, 51,
280
Girault de Prangy, Joseph, 51
Giroux, Alphonse, 36, 41, 47, 53
51, 561
Ektachrome
Frith, Francis, 104, 112-1^ Fuguet, Dallett, 261-62
511 Elisofon, Eliot, 480, 512, ^16-iS Elsken, Ed van der, 470, 471-79 Emerson, P. H., 261, 265, 365, 481 Emulsions, 1^8-^g, 251, 545 Etchings, 17, 25, 50, 418 Ether, 103, 104 Eugene, Frank, 261 Evans, Frederick II., 265 film,
Glass, frosted, 14; photograph on, H^; spectacle, 14
Godowsky, Leopold, 511 Goodyear, A. Conger, 1 89 Goro, Fritz, 336 Goupil-Fesquet, Frederic, 50
Graham
Fellowship. 434
Great Exhibition, London, 65 Grevedon, Henri, 57
621
Grcvin, A., 144 Gropius, Walter, 556
Guggenheim
London Crystal Palace, 65, 137, 189 Lojidon Evening Mail, 264 London Photographic Exhibition, 265 London Salon, 2S1, 325
242 522-23
Jefferson, Joe, 239, Joel, Yale, 512,
I-'ellowship, 324,
Guni-lsiehromatc process, 2S2, 284-86 Guncottoii, 105 Gunther, John, 390
566
261,
265,
Johnson, John, 63 /ounial iJJustre, Le, 144
London Stereographic Company, Longfellow, Henry W., 124, 125,
Gurncy, Benjamin, 64 Gurney, Jeremiah, 64, 204, 238, 242 Gurney's Daguerrean Saloon, 64, 70 Guyot, 19
Karsh, Yousuf, 496-98, 499-507 Kasebicr, Gertrude, 261
Katayama, Yasumasa, 567 Kcetman, Peter, 590-92 Keiley, Joseph T., 261-62 Kepes, Gyorgy, 5S6-S9
170
Look magazine, 390 Lopez, Narciso, 64
Lumiere Brothers, 225
Kepler, Johannes, 14 Kerfoot, J. B., 265
Harissiadis, Dimitrios, 602-5
Kircher, Athanasius, 15 Kirkland, Wallace, 5^6-^j Knox, Da\id, igi
Mace, Jim, 239 MacGlashon, A., loS Mathines pour dcssiner, 13 MacLeish, Archibald, 351 MacOrlan, M., 405 Maddox, Richard L., 250, 251 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 265 Magic lantern, 144, 225 Magnesium, 296
Hartley, Marsden, 262, 266
Kodachrome
Magnum
La Farge, Father John, 458
596,616 Manet, Edouard, 145, 145, 262 Mann, Thomas, 419 Mannes, Leopold, 511 Marey, E.J., 225, 228
Haas, Ernst, 512, 524-28 I
laid,
Johann
J.,
Kertesz, Andre,
20
W.
Hale, Luther H., 70 Hall, Basil,
King expedition, 205 King, W. L. Mackenzie,'497
16,23
Halle, Uni\ersity of,
Germany, 13
Halsman, Philippe, 336 Handy, Le\in C., 194
Ilartmann, Sadakiehi, 265, 281 Hartshorn, S. W., 72 Hawes, Josiah J., 65 Hayden expedition, 206, 209-11 Heliography, 15, 17, 24-27, 32 Hcrschel, Sir John, 12, 15, 35, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85, 102, i66, 171 Hesler, Alexander, 124, 125-29 Hill, David O., 94, 95-101, loS, 143 Hinc, Lewis W., 304-11 Holmes, Oliver W., 64, 131-32, 13637' 192 Horan, James D., 189 Huffman, Laton A., 211-13, --O-^y Hunt, Robert, 17 Hyposulphite of soda, 12, 55, 79, 81
Image,
inverted,
13,
15;
latent,
S4;
324, 364; permanent, 24, 34-35, 103; reversed, 35, 38, ^S, 56,
over-all,
63, 73, 75; silver, 64, 75 Infrared photography, 511,
513
A. D., 143, 162 Instantaneous photography, loy, 333, 251 Institute of Design, Chicago, 335, 434, Ingres,
J.
444' 587 International Exhibition, Vienna, 239 Intimate Gallery, 266 Iodide of iron, 103 Iodine,
2:;,
404
Kessel, Dmitri, 512, 539, 541 Kilburn, E., 133
Halasz, Gyula, see Brassai
film, 511 Kossuth, Louis, 64, 6j Kurtz, William, 238-39
Lamp,
'/'he,
II.,
191
Lange, Dorothea, 351, 352
Langenheim, Frederick and William, 49, 82, 90-91, 151
La Roche. Tiphaigne dc, LaRoche, Sihester, 81 Lee, Robert E., 193, 197
Matisse, Henri, 262-64 Matter, Herbert, 521 Maurissct, A., 61
Leen, Nina, 512, 533 Lemaitre, A. F., 25 Lenses, achromatic, 38; bubble-proof, 562; convex, 14; normal, 545; Petzval, 38, 49, 51, 53; short-focal-length,
546; telescopic, 545, 546, 562; wideangle, 544, 545, 562; Zeiss, 315 ;i,
54
Library of Congress, 316, 351 Life magazine, 366, 389, 390, 419-20,
456-58, 480, 482, 498, 584 Lighting, 13, 15, 144, 154, 239,
27, 35
diaphragm, 24 Irwin, Will, 315
323, 335,496-97, 511, 545 Lincoln, Abraham, 125, 190, 19S 12,
Iris
Linked Ring, London, 262 List, Herbert, 594, 596-97 Jackson, Andrew, 189, 195 Jackson, Edward, 205 Jackson, William H., 205-6,
Lithography, 24, 37, 50, 60-61, 63, 82, 95, 143, i^o, 16^-65, igo, 239-40, 209-11,
213, 215-19 Japanese photography, 560, 562, 563-
67
622
243,418 Little Gallery, 262,
264 Holland House, London, 167 London, Emmanuel, 136 Little
Martens, Friedrieh von, 51, 52-53 Marin, John, 262, 266, 27S Martin, Paul. 288 Mascher, J. F., 151, 133 Massachusetts Institute of Teehnologx-,
587
1
Lee, Russell, 351, 354 Le Gray, Gustave, 103, 107
Leonardo da Vinci, 14 Lcrebours, N. P., 49, 50, Lcrner, Michael, 390 Le Seeq, Henri, 92 Lester, C. E., 189 Lhotc, Andre, 482
Photos, 482, 560, 574, 579,
582, 584, 594,
352
Land\', Louis
131 166,
Maxwell, James C., 511 Mayall, John E., 53, 81, 131, 155, 163 Mayer, Grace, 298 Mayer and Pierson, 160-61 Mayne, Roger, S7^'73 Meissonier, Ernest, 225 Melainotypes. see tintypes Mellon, Andrew, 3 1 Menken, Adah I., 239, 246 Mentiennc, M., ^1 Mercury, 34-35, 38, 64 Miami, University of, 390 Midorikawa, Yuiehi, 562-63 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 336 Mili, Gjon, 512, 530-32 Miller, Henry, 406 Millet, Francois, 143
Miniature pliotography, 335-36, 419, 546, 561, 599,
600
Mirecourt, E. de, 143 Mitchell Kennerly's Gallery, 266
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo, 334-55, 54""-f5432,444, 5S7, 590 Monet, Claude, 143 Monti, Paolo, 610-12 Mora, Jose Maria, 238, 239, 245 Moraine, R. dc, 164-65 Moran, Edward, 240
Morse, Samuel F. B., 37, 42, 63, 65, 1S8, 189 Motion picture photography, 9, 225Muggcride, Edward
J.,
see
Eadwcard
Muybridge Mukai, Toshiji, 564-65 Jules,
Museum
Gordon
R., 351, 512, 519-20
Pcale,
1
^6
New
Pure photography, 177, 226, 261 Pvrogallic acid, 81
Rembrandt, 21
PenciJ of Nature,
28, 406, 546
Muhiier,
Parks,
Pa\lova, Anna, 312
Pywell, William R., 191
The (Fox Talbotj,
79, 81, 86-87 Penn, Irving, 512, 542 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 226 Pennsylvania, University of, 226 Perpignan Museum, France, 44-4^
Rangcfinder, 545
Rapho-Guillumette agency, 560 Rauh, Wilhelm, 600-601
Mu>bridge, Eadwcard, 224-25, 226-yi
Petz\al, Josef M., 38, 49, 53
Ray, Man, 290, 335, 432, 587 Rayographs, 335 Reade, Joseph B., 79 Realistic photography, 177, 282, 324,
Mydans,
Philadelphia Centennial, 211 Photochemistry, 81
Redfield, Robert
of
Modern
Art,
York,
281, 285, 351, 365, 406, 4S2 Museum of the City of New York, 298 Carl, 351
Nadar,
143, 144-47, H9-53' ^S-iSS^ 252, 254, 285, 290 Nadar, Paul, 144, 152-53 Napoleon III, 105, 116, 143, 155, 16061 Nast, Thomas, 239 National Academy of Design, New York, 37 National Daguerrean Gallery, New York, 64, 6y National Gallery of Scotland, 95
National Geographic magazine, 390 National Museum, Munich, 42 Negative-positive process, 25, 35, 78,
Petit, Pierre, 155,
162
Photodrawing, ^86, 588-S9 Photogenic drawing, 1 5, 79, S3-84 Photogram, 335, 340, 432, 587 Photographic Society, London, 81 Photographic de Deux-Mondes, 155 Pliotogravure, 17, 261, 264 Photojournalism, 53, ^8, 144, 192, 29698, 336, 351, 388-90, 419-20, 45658, 481, 568, 574, 602, 606
16, 79 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 458, 497, 504 New Bauhaus, Chicago, see Institute of Design Newhall, Beaumont, jo, 285, 365 Newhall, Nancy, 2S5, 366 New York Ei-eniiig Sun, 282, 296-97,
Times, The, 264 Tribune, The, 297 Unixersity, 304
17,24-25,26-35,35, 102 Nixon, Merman, 351 Notman, William, 107, 122-23
Orozco, Jose O'Sullivan,
C,
Timothy
Riis,
Roger W., 298
Diego, 523 Robinson, Ilenrv P., 175-77, 1H4-87 Robinson, Ralph W., 185 Roche, T. C, 191, 193 Rockefeller, John D., 312 Rockefeller, Nelson, 390 Rodin, Auguste, 262, 281, 2 84
Picasso, Pablo, 262, 290, 390, 405, 5303J. 596
261, 262, 264,
322, 419 Picture book, 473 Picture Post magazine, 482 Pierce, Franklin, 64
Roiter, Fulvio,
Pius XII, 458 Plates, copper, 25, 27; cur\'ed, 51, 53; dry, 211, 250; glass, 17, 25, 27, 106, 250; metal, 17; oversize, 37, 53, 167;
pewter, 25; silvered, 25, 27, 35, 51
Plumbe, John, 63 Galleries,
grainy, 78; mat, 313; chloride, 79; waxing, 79
Paper,
Paper photography, 125 Paris Match magazine, 482 Paris Salon, 281
siher
6iyi^
RooscNclt, Franklin, 45S, 498 Roosevelt, Theodore, 212, 28 1,
297,
312 Root, M. A., 6^ Roskin, Charles, 359 Rosskam, Edwin, 351, 352, 360 Rosskam, Louise, 352, 360 Rothstein, Arthur, 351, 353 Rousseau, Henri, 143, 262, 290
Plumbeotype, 63 Poe, Edgar Allan, 72 Point dc vue, 24-25 Pollack, Peter, 281
Royal Academy, London, 81, 174 Royal Academy of Art, Budapest, 587 Royal Photographic Society, London,
Portraiture, 15,21, 37-38, 51-53,62-64, 65, 81, 103, 174, 175, 189-90, 23S-
Potoniee, Georges, 25 Presbytery Hall, Edinburgh, 95 Prevert, Jacques, 405
Prints, carbon, 125;
Pan-American Airways, 390
Paris, 51
Ri\-era,
Prexost, Pierre, 36 Prinsep, Thoby, 167
Page, William, 188 Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico, 4S2
Renoir, Jean, 482 Renou et Colic Gallery, Paris, 405 Rc'\'olution Surreaiiste, La, 290
Picabia, Francis, 262
iodide, 79, 102
H., 191, 193, 200,
335-39,
Physionotrace, 16, 21
481, 496-98, 596 Positives, 35, 103 Potassium, bromide, 102; chlorate, 296;
203, 205, 210-12, 213, 214-15
334,
590, 599 Renoir, Auguste, 262
Jacob A., 296, 297, 298-303, 304
41, 282, 312-13, 316, 322, 324, 41S,
323
Renger-Patzsch, Albert,
Riis,
63
Nicpec, Claude, 17, 25 Niepce, Isidore, 24-37, 29, 34-35, ^6 Niepce, Joseph Nicephorc, 12, 14, 15,
"Rembrandt photography," 239 Remington, Frederic, 225
Riehebourg studio,
Plumbe National Daguerrean
New York New York New York
262
S.,
Rejlander, Oscar G., 174-75, i?^-^-
Photomontage, 175, 335 Photo Secession, 261-62, 264, 281, 304
Pictorial photography,
82 Negatives, glass, 65, 103; paper, 12, 57, 78, 83-84, 90, 92, 95, 97-98, 103, 251; retouched, 175, 313; washing,
334,355,366,433,590,613
combination, 1-5,
176-78, 184-87, 261: contact, 16, 79, 167, 324; gum, 282, 2S4-86; platinum, 232-33, 261, 2S3 Profileograph, 21 Projection, 144, 225, 228 Props, 73, 164-65, 239, 240, 313
12,
16,
17, 23, 79,
102, 167,
177,
269 Russell, Charles,
225
Sachse, Louis, 53 St. Victor, Niepce de, 102, 305 Salomon, Erich, 336, 346-49, 419, 561,
TO9
102 Sand, George, 143, 146 San Francisco Art Association, 225 Sarony, Napoleon, 238, 239, 240-47 Sarony, Oliver, 239 Sartain, John, 6^ Satmdav E\cning Post magazine, 390 Scheclc^CarlW., i6 Salt, 16, 34-35, 79,
Seheler,
Max, 593-95
Sehnciders, Toni, 598-99
623
Scliulzc, Johaiin Heinrich, 13, 19
W., 262 photography, 511, 544. ^4v
Schutzc, Eva Scientific
548-59, 561 Scott Archer, F., see Archer, I Scott Scovill Manufacturing Co., 109, 251 .
Sca\cy, L.
Selfridge expedition, 205,
210
Scncfclder, Alois, 24 Seymour, David, see "Chim"
Shahn, Ben, 351, 355- 594 Shaw, George Bernard, 265, 2S0, 281, 497' 498. 507 Shecler, Charles, 335 Shutter, S, 225, 252 Sibelius, Jean, 497, ^00 Siegcl, Arthur, 512, 534-35
Silhouette, 16, 2 chloride,
16, 25, 27, 79,
Victoria,
262-79, -^o,
102
Siquciros, Alfaro, 323 Siskind, Aaron, 444, 445-55 Slides,
297 Smith, Bradley, 514 Smith, F. Hopkinson, 240 Smith, Hamilton L., 241 Sochurek, Howard, 53S Soeicte fran^aise de photographic, 406 Society of Amateur Photographers, 261 Southworth, Albert S., 65, iSg Southworth and Ilawes Gallery, Boston, 64-65, 71, 74-7S> ^36 Standard Oil of New Jersey, 351-52, ^S5 Stanford, Leland, 224-25, 227 State Museum of Guadalajara, Mexico,
tography
Wagner, Richard, 143
Strand, Paul, 266,432
War
photography, 57, 106-7, 118-21, 190-94, 198-203, 388-S9, 390, 391403, 457-58, 568, 57S, 579, 580, 582, 5S3, 584, 602 Watts, George F., 166, 167, 172 Waxed-paper process, 103, 107, 174
John 1''., 262 Stroboscope light, 545 Stryker, Roy E., 350-55 Strauss,
Sumner, Charles,
1
24
Webb, Todd, 355,362-63 William H., 281, 312 Talbot, Henry Fox, see Fox Talbot
Weber, Max, 262 \\'cdgwood, Thomas, 16, 23, 79 Weston, Brett, 523, 324, 326, 335 Weston, Charis Wilson, 324 Weston, Cole, 326 Weston, Edward, 322-24, 325-33, 335,
Taft,
Tanuma, Takeno, 566 Tennyson, Alfred, 166-6S, 170 Terry, Ellen, 167, 172, 312 Thompson, Warren, 151, 13 8-3 9 Time magazine, 366
366, 432 Wet-collodion process, 81, 103-5, 106-
Tintypes, 191, 199, 240-41, 24S-49 Today magazine, 41 Tournachon, Adrien, 143
112-21, 125, 127, 143-44, 146-47' 149-53, 156-57, 171, 174-75' 189' 198-99, 201-3, ^°4' 206-S, 209, 21012, 215-19, 221, 224-25, 226-27,
9,
Tournachon, Gaspard F., see Nadar Tournachon, Paul, 144 Trollope, Anthony, 166 Tugwell, Rexford, 350 Tyler, John, 64
Underwater photography,
545,
236-37, 239
Wheatstonc,
Underwood and Underwood, If. S. Camera Aiiiuia], 594 ,
Utrillo,
,
141
Maurice, 290
87. 335
265
Steinbeck, John, 351 Steinberg, Saul, 576 Stelzner, Carl F., 53,58-59
Stereograph, 125, 131-32, 139-41' 210 Stereoscope, 130-31, 132-33- ^36'39'
Vachon. John, 351, 352, 358 Van Buren, Martin, 64, 67 Vance, Robert H., 204, 206-7 Van der Acter, 1 60 VanDyke, Willard, 324 Vanity Fair magazine, 282 Vanloo, Charles, 20 Vasari, Giorgio, 13
Printed by UniversitiUsdruckerei H. Sturtz AG.,
Sir Charles,
1
30
Wheeler expedition, 205, 212, 214-1
548,
55^556-57^,^
323
624
5
Edmund, 262
Steichen, Edward, 261, 262, 280, 281-
141
of England.
\'oguc magazine, 282 Voigtlander, F. F. \on, 49, 53
269, 276-77
Soft focus, see focus
Stein, Gertrude,
Queen
137' 155' 163, 175
281, 286, 2S8, 365, 366, 481 Sticglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 262, 266,
Talbotypes, see calotypes
266
79; gallonitrate, 81; iodide, 27, 103; iodine, 34-3";; nitrate, 16-17, 79' i°2' ^°3; ^''^^^^' '3'
Silver
Sticglitz, Alfred, 260-61,
Straight photography, see realistic pho-
Scgonzac, Andre, 405
Silk, 163,
211
Stirling,
W., 259
Venturi, J. B., 14 Vernet, Horace, 50, 162
132-33, 135, 192,
Stereoscopic cards,
5
Whipple, John, 64 Whistler, James A. M., 261 White, Clarence, 262, 280, 285 Wilde, Oscar, 239, 247 Wilson, Woodrow, 312 Wolcott, Alexander S., 51, 63, 81 Wolcott. Marion P., 351 Wolff, Paul, 336, 599 Wollaston, William H., 16, 22, 79, Si Woodbury, D. B., 191 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 498, 501 Wright, Richard, 351
Zahn, Johann, 14, 16 Zone system of photography, 364 Zoogyroscope, see zoopraxiscope Zoopraxiscopc, 225, 228
Wurzburg
