Photography's Early History Revealed At Washington Gallery

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The first exhibition to explore photographs made from paper negatives—calotypes—in Great Britain in the 1840s and 1850s, Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840–1860, will be on view from February 3 through May 4, 2008, in the West Building photography galleries. The exhibition features 120 calotypes, many of which have never before been exhibited or published in the United States, made by about forty artists.

Included are works by such masters as the process' inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), Roger Fenton (1819–1869), and David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) and Robert Adamson (1821–1848), as well as by dozens of previously unknown photographers. The calotype process introduced the ability to make multiple copies of a photograph, as compared to its initial competition, the one-of-a-kind daguerreotype.

"This exhibition entirely revises our understanding of the art of early photography," says Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "Before now, history has told us that Talbot's process—the calotype—was rendered obsolete in 1851 when a sharper method of making negatives—collodion on glass—was invented. But this exhibition vividly and eloquently demonstrates that many people continued to use the calotype because they preferred its aesthetic qualities."

The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in association with the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The National Gallery of Art is the second venue for this exhibition, which premiered at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 24 through December 31, 2007. The exhibition travels to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, May 26 through September 14, 2008. -- www.nga.gov

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Posted February 2nd, 2008 by ruzik_tuzik