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 When is a restrike not a restrike?
Andrè Jammes is recognized as one of this century’s greatest photography collectors. An expert in early French photography, the photographically illustrated book and the history of photomechanical reproduction, Jammes was an early advocate of the importance and beauty of photogravure. This portfolio, printed in 1982, is a testament to Jammes’ belief that the photogravure process holds a relevant place in the history of the medium.
“Charles Nègre (1820-1880) was one of the most influential photographers of the XIXth century. His approach to architecture and his special taste for genre photography made him famous. He played a leading part in the field of photomechanical process in which he made important discoveries. As early as 1855 he brought the hand-pulled photogravure process to an extraordinary degree of perfection. His work, thus translated into permanent photographic etchings, is classical in the history of photography. So much so that at the Universal Exhibition of 1855, some critics considered that he had reached such perfection that “the important question of engraving through the action of light was finally resolved.”
The present portfolio demonstrated his successive trials, from the modest “Maçon accroupi” published in La Lumière in 1854, to the large-scale plates of Chartes cathedral, which are his masterpieces.
The fragile silver salts of normal photography are transcribed in the photogravure process with printing ink. This process adds to an appreciated esthetic improvement the guarantee of absolute permanence. These values have always been recognized as famous photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand adopted photogravure with enthusiasm in Camera Notes and Camera Work. It ceased being used after the Second World War because of its cost. It is only recently that a few workshops have revived this old and marvelous process.
Continue reading "Charles Nègre: A Portfolio of 13 Photogravures" »
 It is with great pleasure that I present in this venue the new work of Josephine Sacabo, one of only a handful of photographer artists currently working in photogravure.
"I have been making photogravures for about a year and learning this process has been as exciting and gratifying as my first contact sheet in the darkroom was 30 years ago. From the moment I rolled back my first sheet of paper off the press I realized that this was what I had been trying to do with my photographic prints for 30 years. I cannot imagine doing anything else now.
Seeing the image actually embedded in the beautiful paper surface, the quality of the sharp grain and long tonal range make this process by far the most aesthetically rewarding. And I'm proud to be in the company of many great photographers who have and are using it."
-Josephine Sacabo Josephine's images are currently showing at A Gallery for Fine Photography New Orleans, Verve Gallery in Santa Fe and will be at the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography in January.
 American Pictorial Photography, published in an edition of only 150 by Alfred Stieglitz and the New York Camera Club at the turn of the century, is a key example of the role photogravure played in the crusade to have photography accepted as a fine art. The photogravures, mostly images from Camera Notes, were presented in portfolio form - beautifully printed and mounted on carefully chosen papers thereby achieving ‘parity’ with the more accepted platinum print.
 Completed in 1932, ÉGYPTE is one of the finest books I have come across. Commissioned by King Fouad I of Egypt, Frederick Boissonnas traversed what was once ancient Egypt with his large format camera photographing the landscape, the people and the architecture. His photographs convey the impression that very little has changed in the structures and the lives of the people who inhabit them. We see veiled women in the streets, men at prayer, oxen in the field, and statues larger than life - all are bathed in strong light, or hidden in the deep shadows. The choice of hand-pulled photogravure makes this one of the finest of twentieth century photographic books.
 In 1911 Constable and Company of London published the Memorial Edition of the Works of George Meredith. Housed in a separate folio was a set of sixty illustrations, including many drawings and portraits of Meredith, printed in photogravure. Included in this collection are several particularly successful quiet landscape photographs made by Frederick Evans.
 Brine, Mary D., Little Lad Jamie. 1895 This charming little book is an example of fine tissue photogravure printing. The photographs are by Emma Justine Farnsworth, an important American amateur at the turn of the century and a member of the American pictorial movement in lead by Alfred Stieglitz.
 Illustrated with seventy photogravure plates, Photographs of nebulae and clusters made with the Crossley reflector celebrates James Edward Keeler's remarkable series of photographs of spiral nebulae and led to the realization that they were exterior galaxies. This work is a triumph of astrophysical and observational skills, astrophotography, and of photogravure as a medium of astronomical illustration.
 For Evidence Of The Truth Of The Christian Religion, Derived From The Literal Fulfilment Of The Prophecy Alexander Keith asked his son, the medical doctor George S. Keith of Edinburgh, to make daggureotypes that would show the veracity of the Bible. George’s daggureotypes were made into engravings in order to ‘convince the unprejudiced inquierer or te rational and sincere believer, that it is impossible that his faith be false’ This was one of the earliest publications to incorporate the use of photographs as evidence - albeit not directly  Sun and Shade. An Artistic Periodical 1888 - 1896 This journal included many large, beautifully printed photogravure plates and should be included in any comprehensive survey of influential photographic publications at the turn of the century. Photographers represented include James Leon Williams, Julia Margaret Cameron and Alfred Stieglitz.  Die Kunst in der Photographie. 1897 – 1908 This publication may well be the most important and valuable documentation of art photography in the German language but, because of its rarity, has remained virtually unknown. Some consider it the first photographic journal in the world that concerned itself only with the photographic image and its aesthetics, which ignored all other themes, and treated art photography as an international movement. ( David Spencer)
“Edward Steichen is an immortal among photographers. During the seven decades of his career, he advanced photography as an art form as well as a vital medium of visual communication. His richest, most profound photographs were made between 1900 and 1927. It is from this period that in 1969 he selected 12 masterpieces and, for his final photographic project, asked Aperture’s Michael Hoffman to attempt at that time what appeared to be impossible: publication of his prints as hand-pulled photogravures.”
Like his close colleague Alfred Stieglitz, Steichen understood the potential of photogravure and considered photogravure prints to be original works of art, in many cases the most faithful realization of the photographer’s intention. It is no wonder then that he chose photogravure for his last great work.
In the 70’s, Jon Goodman, already working to revive the photogravure process, teamed up with Richard Benson and Hoffman in an attempt to execute the exacting plates. The painstaking task of printing the plates was accomplished, under Jon’s supervision, at the atelier de Taille Douce, Saint-Prex, Switzerland. Twelve years later, the portfolio was finished. Of the twelve plates, three were made from Steichen’s original negatives – Torso, Isadora Duncan and Three Pears.
It baffles this writer why these portfolios have been sitting in Aperture’s inventory all this time. Is it possible that people just don’t realize that they are still available?… Well, they may not be for long. Only three complete portfolios remain. My sentiments…. It’s about time. It’s about time that this great portfolio is sold out, finally acknowledging that it is indeed an amazing and important achievement and a milestone in the history of photogravure.
View Portfolio Link to Aperture's catalog
From a recent email.... "I am studying photogravures and don't understand the difference between photogravure and photo-etching. Can you clarify this for me?"
Embarrassed not knowing the answer, I turned to Jon Goodman, who replied....
Photogravure is an intaglio printing process where a continuous tone image (photograph) is etched into a copper plate by means of a gelatin resist and an aquatint or screen substitute. The gelatin resist controls the etching in a manner that creates a true continuous tone rendering of the image being etched. It is a continuous tone ink printing process. There is no conversion of the “grayscale” into “half-tone” dots. “Photo-etching” as the word is commonly used is an intaglio process where line or tone is created through what is essentially a black or white “half-tone” process. The etching process either etches the plate or not, there is very little (no) variability in the tone due to the uniformity of the depth of etch. Gray tones are either created by converting them to “half-tone” or by etching the plate multiple times for varying amounts of time to create different depths in the plate.
The gelatin resist used in photogravure is essentially a “Carbon Print” that has been transferred onto a copper plate instead of a piece of paper. It is the act of the transfer that allows the gelatin to control the etching in a continuous manner. Since the exposed “face” of the gelatin is in contact with the copper plate the hot water development allows the gelatin to adhere to the copper in thickness that is in proportion to the amount of exposure received. If a gelatin (or other) was simply coated onto the copper and then exposed (as in photo-etching) and developed (no transfer) it would be virtually impossible to render a long continuous scale of tones. Thanks Jon!
Is Beauty Old-Fashioned?
When EXIT – Image and Culture asked for permission to reproduce an image from this site in their upcoming issue Pictorialism, I happily obliged. Only when I received a complimentary issue did I understand the significance of this publication. In addition to being beautifully designed and printed, the entire issue (175 pages) is devoted to Pictorialism and its ‘reheating’. In her introduction, editor Rosa Olivares points out that while the Pictorialism of the late 1800’s was the avant-garde of the time “shaking the very foundations of the visual arts establishment,” today many consider it anachronistic or old-fashioned. But recently “Ever more young artists are inclined to take up this type of photography, in spite of fashions … And it is not just a matter of the reconceptualisation of the tableau vivant … but also the recovery of a certain type of beauty still alive among us.”
The journal includes a dozen articles by photographers, historians and critics as well as beautiful examples of both traditional and contemporary pictorial photographs like those of Desiree Dolron, Jeff Bark and Anoek Steketee.
Read “Is Beauty Old-Fashioned?” by Rosa Olivares
Continue reading "Is Beauty Old-Fashioned?" »
“Not long ago I had your portfolio of gravures in my hand and also your book Naturalistic Photography. Both took me back many years–and both seem still alive.” - Alfred Stieglitz 1933 Peter Henry Emerson and
American Naturalistic Photography
May 3—September 7, 2008
Minneapolis, April 22, 2008—America’s first movement of creative photography and its revolutionary founder, Peter Henry Emerson, are the subjects of a new exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA.) Nearly one hundred naturalistic photographs by Emerson and twenty other photographers will be on view May 3 through September 7, 2008. Drawn largely from the MIA’s permanent collection, these sensitively portrayed images span the movement’s history from the 1890s to the 1930s. Other images on display include those by Edward Curtis, Alfred Stieglitz, Henry Troth, and Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr.
Continue reading "MIA Naturalistic Photography Exhibit" »
 He has made Apollo his own engraver.
- Brighton Gazette, 1858
A ‘photogenic drawing’ erroneously attributed to Henry Fox Talbot was recently pulled from a high-profile Sotheby’s auction because the “worlds leading Talbot expert” pronounced that the image may not be Fox Talbot’s and in fact might predate any photograph known to exist. (“An Image is a Mystery for Photo Detectives”, New York Times 4/17/08 p. B1.)
The expert quoted in the article is Dr. Larry Schaaf, an independent photographic historian based in Baltimore, Maryland. Schaaf is the founder and Director of The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot archives http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk and was elected the 2005 Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University. Schaaf’s books include Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot & the Invention of Photography (Yale University Press); The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot (Princeton University Press); and In Focus: William Henry Fox Talbot Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum.
According to Dr. Schaaf, “It often surprises people that the inventor of photography on paper, William Henry Fox Talbot, was also the father of photogravure... Equally striking is the fact that Talbot actively worked on photogravure for the last twenty-five years of his life, a span of time more than double that which he devoted to photography itself.”
Photogravure.com is privileged to be able to include in its text section the essay by Dr. Schaaf, “Etchings of Light” written as the introduction to the exhibition catalog, Sun Pictures; Talbot and Photogravure that accompanied an exhibition of the same title at the gallery, Hans Kraus, Jr., in October of 2003. Included in this catalog is a selection of outstanding Fox Talbot photogravures and it alone is an invaluable resource for anyone serious about studying the history of photogravure.
Many thanks to Dr. Schaaf and Hans Kraus, Jr. for allowing the inclusion of this important essay on this site and for their continued support.
Photogravure made a strong showing in this years spring auction season. Here are some of the highlights:
Lot 2 Thomas Annan, The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow $10,000 USD Lot 3 Alvin Langdon Coburn, London $13,750 USD Lot 4 Alvin Langdon Coburn, Men of Mark $5,000 Lot 5 Alvin Langdon Coburn, London (Chesterton, 1914) $3,750 USD Lot 7 Paul Strand, Camera Work 49/50 (presentation copy) $34,600 USD Lot 38 Doris Ullman, Roll Jordan Roll $39,400 USD Sotheby’s Sale No. N08424Lot 154 Alfred Stieglitz, Spring Showers (large format) $49,000 USD Lot 156 Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (large format, signed) $91,000 USD Sotheby’s Sale No. N08425Lot 10 306 Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (large format) $32,200 USD Christies Sale No. 1968 (off season)
Lot 306 Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (small format) $10,000 USD
With APAID and the spring auctions fast approaching, it seems an appropriate time to post Penelope Dixon’s article, ‘ A Short History of Photograph Collecting.’ Dixon is perhaps the most qualified appraiser of fine art photography practicing today. In this essay she lays out for beginning and experienced collectors a concise and thoughtful overview of the history and practice of collecting photographs. Download TextTo learn more about Penelope Dixon and Associates you can visit their visit their web site
We are fortunate to have recently added to the collection a complete set of “Sun Artists”, an excellent example of photogravure’s influence on the evolution of the art of photography.
From the introduction…” In producing ‘Sun Artists’ it is their endeavour to emphasize the artistic claims of photography by reproducing the best work in the best possible manner…The whole series, it is hoped will form a true, because comprehensive, representation of modern artistic photography. In this sense, the promoters confidently believe that ‘Sun Artists’ discovers virgin soil...The plates in the first number have been executed by the Typographic Etching Company to whom great credit is due for the delicacy and perfection of their reproduction... The day is dawning when Nature as rendered by photography will occupy a much larger share in the esteem of cultured men, when Truth as Truth will also be conceded its claim to beauty. The ripeness of Time my not have yet of come; should such prove the case, “Sun Artists” will help to prepare the way. In however small a degree, it is at once the ambition and the pride of the promoters of this serial to be associated with a movement which strives to gain for Photography a recognition until now denied her.
Sun Artists No. 1, Joseph Gale
Sun Artists No. 2, Henry Peach Robinson
Sun Artists No. 3, J.B.B. Wellington
Sun Artists No. 4, Lyddell Sawyer
Sun Artists No. 5, Julia Margaret Cameron
Sun Artists No. 6, B. Gay Wilkinson
Sun Artists No. 7, Mrs. F.W. H. Myers
Sun Artists No. 8, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe Sun Artists (original series). Edited by W. Arthur Boord. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. ..., 1889-1891
 While the focus of this site is traditional, I think Pieter Myers' comments are noteworthy.....
Photogravure enjoys a reputation for excellence in crafting the photographic image. Perhaps because it is a relatively new among graphic media, photogravure has yet to exhibit the freedom of expression that has become the norm in much older graphic techniques. Complicating this evolution, photogravure is a chameleon, encompassing many manifestations of printmaking, and is therefore hard to classify. Since this confuses almost everyone in the art world, people tend to focus on what they know, i.e., beautiful prints of classic black & white images. As a result, publishers, collectors, and galleries tend to overlook much of the contemporary work being done, such as creative interpretation of the original image and, yes, color. So I would like to open up the dialogue and suggest that it might be time to update the definition of photogravure.
I recognize that definitions are not popular in today’s ecumenical art world. Yet the blurring of the boundaries between media diminishes the uniqueness and identity of any of them. Because of this, some exhibitions don’t know what to do with photogravure, and interestingly, the American Color Print Society will not accept photogravure no matter how obscured the original photographic image may be. Should we care about this? And how far away from “photographic” can a subject be before it is no longer a photogravure? Regardless of how you feel about historical purity, I submit that photogravure is uniquely suited to contemporary subject matter, social realism and (why not?) Pop Art. In my own work I prefer to stay within the traditionally held definition of hand pulled copper plate photogravure in order to keep the integrity of the medium intact. But I am not comfortable with photogravure as primarily a purely photographic medium. I like to balance the scale, and even tip it more to the graphic side by using a variety of darkroom and etching techniques. If the subject suggests color, I use color. Already I have lost the photogravure traditionalist. Perhaps “avant-garde photogravure” will remain a contradiction in terms. If this is the case, the medium may even be able to hold the line against the horrors of digital manipulation.
I hope I have stirred up some discussion with these thoughts, but it is not the photogravure police we should be worried about. The real battle is with all the mechanical reproductions sporting fancy names that masquerade as original prints.
Pieter S. Myers
www.psmyers.com
Welcome. Thanks for taking the time to checkout photogravure.com. This struggling medium needs all the attention it can get. And while Toky has done a great job interpreting the spirit of photogravure for the web, its true essence, like fine letterpress printing, can only be fully appreciated in person. Photogravure pushes ink-on-paper to its limits.
So, head to a museum's print viewing room or your local library’s rare book room and see for yourself. Find some examples of Stieglitz’s Camera Work or Coburn’s London and then spread the word. Or if you are in the neighborhood, stop by the studio and I will personally give you a tour of the history of photography in photogravure.
Thanks again for your interest.
Sincerely Mark Katzman Ferguson and Katzman
EXCELLENT RESULTS FOR PHOTGRAVURE AT SWANN GALLERIES’ AUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE & PHOTOGRAPHS ON DECEMBER 13
“This was an exciting auction in which the synergy between Photographic Literature and classical photography was reconfirmed…” Daile Kaplan Photogravure highlights included several editions of Camera Work, among them Number 36, with 16 photogravures by Alfred Stieglitz, New York, 1911, which brought $28,800. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Theaters, special edition, issued with a signed photogravure, New York, 2000 brought $4,800. And Roy De Carava’s Roy De Carava, with 12 dust-grain photogravures printed by Paul Taylor in 1991, was the auction’s top lot at $81,000.  Roy DeCarava’s (American, b. 1919) photographs have documented African American life in New York from a deeply personal and yet socially conscious perspective. DeCarava explained his feelings when taking the 1964 photograph of five men coming out of the church service: "The motivation at that moment was my political understanding of the treatment of black people and their response to injustice...I wasn't at the bombing, I wasn't in the church, but I knew what it was and I wanted to make a picture that dealt with it. The [five] men were coming out of the church with faces so serious and so intense, and the image was made."
 Louisiana native Debbie Fleming Caffery makes photographs that are anchored at the intersection of earth and spirit. An early series documents the sugarcane harvest that was part of the fabric of her childhood. The haunting images of the cane workers in the fields, often made in the shadowy light of dawn, portray a vanishing culture familiar to those who have lived with it, but a world apart to most. Composed in lush black tones, the photographs suggest an atavistic relationship to earth and fire, light and darkness. In 1984, Caffery began Polly, a poignant and moving collective portrait of the late Polly Joseph, a solitary and proud African-American woman living in the sugarcane country of Louisiana. Shot in the dim light of Polly’s cabin, these masterfully printed photographs not only capture the extraordinary expressiveness of Caffery’s subject, but the expressive characteristics of the medium itself. It is clear in these portraits – collected in a book published by Twin Palms Publishers in 2004 – that Caffery seeks nothing less than the spirit. Whether working in the cane fields or among rural cultures of Mexico, her photographs collect visual mysteries that always hint at that undefined territory between this world and the next. Her newest project, Deseos Sobre Todo (Desire Overall), has won her the 2005 Guggenheim fellowship and focuses on prostitutes and their customers at a rural Mexican brothel. Since moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Caffery has worked on photographic projects for several area agencies, including Futures for Children, an Albuquerque-based Native American mentoring program aimed at keeping children in school.
-from the University of Kentucky Art Museum - May Lecture Series , Feb.2006
Paul Taylor, Howard Greenberg and Debbie Fleming Caffery worked tirelessly to produce this exquisite photogravure. For information contact Howard Greenberg Gallery.
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