Gustave Le Gray, 1820-1884


Book Description

He occasionally made photographs until his death in poverty there in 1884, leaving behind some of the most dazzling photographic images of his era.".




Gustave Le Gray


Book Description

A pioneer of techniques, a gifted teacher, and early architectural photographer, Le Gray was also the founder of artistic photography. His seascapes and cloud studies, today among the market’s most valuable prints, earned him overnight fame and admiration by the Impressionists.




Real / Ideal


Book Description

In the years following the announcement of the invention of photography in 1839, practitioners in France gave shape to this intriguing new medium through experimental printing techniques and innovative compositions. The rich body of work they developed proved foundational to the establishment of early photography, from the introduction of the paper negative in the late 1840s to the proliferation of more standardized equipment and photomechanical technology in the 1860s. The essays in this elegant volume investigate the early history of the medium when the ambiguities inherent in the photograph were ardently debated. Focusing on the French photographers who worked with paper negatives, especially the key figures Édouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and Charles Nègre, Real/Ideal explores photography’s status as either fine art or industrial product (or both), its repertoire of subject matter, its ideological functions, and even the ever-experimental photographic process itself.




Coatings on Photographs


Book Description




Impressionist France


Book Description

A novel look at the relationship between Impressionist painting and photography and the forging of a national identity in France between 1850 and 1880 Between 1850 and 1880, Impressionist landscape painting and early forms of photography flourished within the arts in France. In the context of massive social and political change that also marked this era, painters and photographers composed competing visions of France as modern and industrialized or as rural and anti-modern. Impressionist France explores the resonances between landscape art and national identity as reflected in the paintings and photographs made during this period, examining and illustrating in particular the works of key artists such as Édouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, the Bisson Frères, Édouard Manet, Jean-François Millet, Claude Monet, Charles Nègre, and Camille Pissarro. This ambitious premise focuses on the whole of France, exploring the relationship between landscape art and the notion of French nationhood across the country's varied and spectacular landscapes in seven geographical sections and four scholarly essays, which provide new information regarding the production and impact of French Impressionism. Distributed for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (10/19/13-02/09/14) Saint Louis Art Museum (03/16/14-07/06/14)




The Photography of Gustave Le Gray


Book Description




Parisian Views


Book Description

Each of the book's essays is in itself a "Parisian view." The fragmented, layered quality of the text allows the author to avoid making a linear narrative out of a subject that is enriched by multiple perspectives. Yet all of the essays revolve around a central theme: the creation of modern urban space, in both two and three dimensions, and the impact of this space on the lives of those who walked the streets of Paris of the nineteenth century.




All the Mighty World


Book Description

"Roger Fenton (1819-1869) was England's most celebrated photographer during the 1850s, the young medium's most glorious moment. After studying law and painting, Fenton took up the camera in 1851 and immediately began to produce highly original images. During a decade of work he mastered every photographic genre he attempted: architectural photography, landscape, portraiture, still life, reportage, and tableau vivant." "This volume presents ninety of Fenton's finest photographs, exactingly reproduced. Six leading scholars have contributed nine illustrated essays that address every aspect of Fenton's career, as well as a comprehensive, documented chronology."--BOOK JACKET.




A Royal Passion


Book Description

In January 1839, photography was announced to the world. Two years prior, a young Queen Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland. These two events, while seemingly unrelated, marked the beginnings of a relationship that continued throughout the nineteenth century and helped construct the image of an entire age. A Royal Passion explores the connections between photography and the monarchy through Victoria’s embrace of the new medium and her portrayal through the lens. Together with Prince Albert, her beloved husband, the Queen amassed one of the earliest collections of photographs, including works by renowned photographers such as Roger Fenton, Gustave Le Gray, and Julia Margaret Cameron. Victoria was also the first British monarch to have her life recorded by the camera: images of her as wife, mother, widow, and empress proliferated around the world at a time when the British Empire spanned the globe. The featured essays consider Victoria’s role in shaping the history of photography as well as photography’s role in shaping the image of the Queen. Including more than 150 color images—several rarely seen before—drawn from the Royal Collection and the J. Paul Getty Museum, this volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name, on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from February 4 to June 20, 2014.




The Lens of Impressionism


Book Description

"The Normany coast ... has long captured the interest of artists. Its seascapes are featured in the work of Impressionist masters Monet, Manet and Boudin. Its seafaring life is well-documented in the work of writers such as Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant. Through a stunning selection of paintings, photographs and drawings, [this work] argues that a unique convergence of forces - social, artistic, technological and commercial - along the Normandy coast impacted the development of early Impressionism and made Normandy a nexus for photographers and the avant-garde painters of the late nineteenth century ... The framing dates are 1850, when artists began photographing in Normandy ... and 1874, the year in which Claude Monet's painting Impression :Sunrise was exhibited ... The Lens of Impressionism explores the dialogue between the two media and the backdrop against which both evolved"--Publisher's description.