Print Exhibition: French 19th Century Photography of Art

17 July–31 August 1989

Between 1850 and 1870 in France, photographs of art and architecture gained prominence as Paris was transformed under Baron von Haussmann’s modernization. Additionally, as it became more popular to tour Europe to view fine art and ancient structures, demand increased for photo albums as souvenirs and as substitutes for personal experiences for those who could not afford to travel. Of the photographers in the exhibition, Edouard-Denis Baldus was one of five distinguished photographers selected in 1851 to work for the Mission Heliographique, a government agency founded to survey French medieval architecture in need of restoration. Charles Lenormond was also involved in the Mission Heliographique, but as an administrator rather than as a photographer; his interest in photography is believed to have developed while at work for the agency. Commissioned by the government of Napoleon III as the “Official Photographer of Paris” for Baron Haussmann’s project, Charles Marville was assigned to take the “before and after” photographs of the city. Early photographers recognized the commercial advantages of photography and worked to develop a photographic image that would reproduce a work of art in the clearest and the most inexpensive way. In 1851, Louis-Desire Blanquart-Evrard developed a process of photographing on wax-treated paper for a sharper image. A year later, he began publishing albums of architectural photographs by Baldus and Marville among others. Adolphe Braun’s desire to produce commercially viable photographic prints that would not fade or change in color led him to substitute a carbon process for the conventional silver method, and eventually pioneered mass-production of photographs which allowed for the dissemination of reproductions of great works of art for educational purposes.

Curator: Kaki Strause, graduate registrarial intern. 

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