The Development of Photography

Icons of American Photography provides a thorough survey of the photographic medium, from the earliest days of the Daguerreotype, albumen and salted paper prints of the mid to late 19th century, to platinum and gelatin silver prints of the early 20th century.

Revealed to the world by Frenchman Louis Daguerre in 1839, the Daguerreotype was the first practical photographic technique in which images were formed on a cooper plate covered with highly polished silver, coated with silver iodide and developed with vapor from heated mercury. Photographs such as Medallion Portrait of a Woman (c. 1850) by Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808-1901) and Albert Sands Southworth (1811-1894), The Music Teacher and His Wife (c. 1850) by an unidentified 19th century photographer and Dead Child on a Sofa (c. 1855), also by an unidentified 19th century photographer, highlight not only the use of the Daguerreotype by American photographers, but also early artists’ fascination with portraiture as well as a growing demand by the general public for likenesses of family and friends.

By the mid 1850s, photographic resolution and the ability to reproduce photographs was enhanced through the use of wet plate collodion photography, in which a mixture of nitrated cotton dissolved in ether, alcohol and other chemicals were poured onto a sheet of glass. This challenging technique required a darkroom always to be near by so that the collodion plate could be prepared, exposed and developed promptly while still moist. The inconvenience was offset by the clarity, often large scale and reproducibility of the process favored by American photographers for some three decades. Portraits including Mrs. John R. Johnston (before 1857) by John R. Johnston (1820-1872) and landscape photography such as Yosemite Valley from Mariposa Trail (c. 1865) by Charles L. Weed (1824-1903) and Valley of Yosemite from Rocky Ford (1872) by Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) document the use of this technique.

The platinum printing process, which depended on the light sensitivity of iron salts applied to a platinum compound to create an image, was invented in 1873 by William Willis. This technique was desired because of its capacity to produce a range of tones, typically silvery gray, and the increased permanence of resulting prints. Works documenting the use of this process include: The Crowell Children at Avondale (1885-1890) by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916); Untitled (Winter Landscape) (c. 1900) by William B. Post (1857-1921); Grand Canyon (1911) by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966); and Riverside Drive and 83rd Street, New York (1914) by Paul Strand (1890-1976). Although popular, the use of this process diminished during the 1920s when the price of platinum became too expensive for routine use by most photographers.

Gelatin silver prints, the most common means of making black and white photographs from negatives, were introduced in the late 1880s, replacing albumen prints, popular in the 1850s to 1880s. Much of the work in the exhibition was produced using this technique, including such stellar examples as Terminal Tower (1928) by Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971); New York City (1928-29) by Evans Walker (1903-1975); Fashion Photograph Ad for Coty Lipstick (1935) by Edward Steichen (1879-1973); Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) by Ansel Adams (1902-1958); Young Gang Leader, Harlem (1948) by Gordon Parks (1912-2006); and Devil Goggles (1955-56) by W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978).