“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

Thanks Jon! 

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

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.

- 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.

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

Pieter S. Myers
www.psmyers.com

 
Sincerely Mark Katzman

Ferguson and Katzman

 -from the University of Kentucky Art Museum - May Lecture Series , Feb.2006

From a letter written by Stieglitz to Grace E. Titus, December 18,1933 (ebay item 290030212499)

"I have been working in photogravure since the early 1970's when I viewed the first unveiling of the Edward Curtis' Prints in Boston, Mass. I had the privilege of reprinting the Edward Curtis plates in Santa Fe, NM in 2005. Holding the original early 20th Century copper plates was daunting. The plates had an ageless connection to not only a race of people and an American visionary but to a process that was considered the finest form of printing a photographic image. The early masters all had their images immortalized in this process. The experience led me to set up my own atelier printing limited edition portfolios.

In 2006 I was introduced to Photopolymer Gravure, the 21st Century evolvement of Photogravure. The process utilized contemporary chemistry and physics without the deleterious affects of acids and caustic chemistry; thus environmentally safe. Imagery and positive preparation are done digitally, ground asphaltum is replaced with stochastic screens and acid bath bite becomes a water wash out. Printing with an etching press and intaglio inks is the same as copper. The final print maintains the lushness and depth of tone of copper gravure while creating crisper detail and cleaner imagery. The evolution of photogravure in the contemporary polymer process facilitates the process for the artist wishing to create timeless imagery."

Jon Goodman believes that the digitalization of photography could be the demise of photogravure if an adequate and affordable digital alternative to preparing film positives from digital files is not incorporated.

With regard to the aquatint, traditionally a screen is created by ‘dusting’ the plate with rosin.  New ‘prefab’ screens incorporating stochastic technology however are available today further streamlining the process.  At Lothar Osterberg’s studio in Brooklyn recently, I was able to compare a traditional dust-grain print with a stochastic screen print.  Under a loupe, the traditional method is superior.  Without magnification, however, the differences were much more subtle.

It’s hopeful to believe that these advancements will ensure a healthy future for the photogravure process rather than chip away at the organic qualities that bring it to life.

Please feel free to comment on this topic…..

 * from In Focus: Julia Margaret Cameron. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles