Charles Nègre French, 1820-1880 A key figure in early French photography, Charles Nègre provides a link to photography's roots in painting and other visual arts. Nègre (born in Grasse) was a successful painter who had studied with Paul Delaroche, Michel Drolling, and Jean-Dominique Ingres. Beginning in 1843 he exhibited his work in various salons, winning high awards in 1851-52. His paintings were praised and purchased by, among others, Napoléon III. Like many other 19th-century artists, Nègre initially began making photographs to aid his painting. In 1844 he produced several daguerreotypes before later switching to calotypes. He soon developed a personal style, using the textured quality of the paper negative to subordinate detail to overall effect in his images, an approach he continued in various media throughout his career. Among Nègre's innovative subjects were street scenes that combined an intimacy of vision with the immediacy of urban life, presented with a painter's attention to composition. Many of these were presented in an 1851 exhibition of the Société heliographique. A founding member of the Société française de photographie, he was also a consummate architectural photographer, receiving numerous government commissions. Nègre's technical innovations, especially in the photogravure process, a subject on which he was an acknowledged authority, contributed to the development of photography. He never gave up his painting, however, and became a drawing master at the Lycée Impérial in Nice after moving there in 1863 for health reasons. T.W.F.