Forthcoming by Kim Timby
In Que fait la couleur à la photographie ? Techniques, usages, controverses, Nathalie Boulouch et... more In Que fait la couleur à la photographie ? Techniques, usages, controverses, Nathalie Boulouch et Gille Désiré dit Gosset, éds., Liénart éditions, 2025 (sous presse).
In A Companion to French Art, Natalie Adamson and Richard Taws, eds. (Wiley, 2025, in press)
Recent publications by Kim Timby
History of Photography 47 (1), 2023
In the late 1880s and early 1890s, a small number of professors – including Charles Diehl, Louis ... more In the late 1880s and early 1890s, a small number of professors – including Charles Diehl, Louis Courajod and Henry Lemonnier – started projecting photographic reproductions in their art history classes in France. They were among the first to teach the subject in the country’s universities. This newly accessible technology enabled artwork-based demonstrations in the classroom for large audiences, complementing and eventually replacing paper photographs, plaster casts and other methods of reproduction. From the mid-1890s, demand for slide projections in universities was reinforced by the popularity of educational slideshows in French culture. They would become omnipresent in art history departments by World War I. This article explores when and why the projected photograph was adopted by art historians in lecture halls, the ways in which individual professors employed and discussed slides, and how their respective institutions invested in this activity. I argue that for the educators who instituted slide projection, the practice was about grounding the young discipline’s methodology in the analysis of empirical data. It gave concrete form to scientific enquiry and was attractive to students. Showing slides was thus a powerful practical and ideological tool in the establishment of art history as an academic discipline in France.
In "Factory Photobooks," edited by Bart Sorgedrager (Rotterdam: nai010, 2023), p. 301–341, 2023
Please consider buying this book or ordering it for your library if you are interested in Draeger... more Please consider buying this book or ordering it for your library if you are interested in Draeger, and especially in the history of photography books or in factories and industry and their visual representation. It is a beautiful and intellectually engaging volume, and purchasing it helps support this kind of publication and research.
///
This text is the first general history of the French printer Draeger Frères, founded in 1886 and renowned for its deluxe work in advertising and art publishing. Breaking with a historical narrative constructed by the company itself, I trace its dominant activities and innovative contributions up until its sale by the family in 1971. Draeger initially specialized in polychrome illustration then, circa 1900, helped establish the promising new field of upmarket commercial catalogs. It designed and produced these collectible publications from start to finish using refined typography and illustrations, thus expanding the scope of its activities and enlarging its workshops.
As advertising became a structured profession in the interwar years, Draeger maintained its international reputation for excellence in the creation of catalogs, product packaging and other documents by elaborating new printing techniques such as its “301” color photogravure process, developing the use of avant-garde photography, and proposing sophisticated ornamental effects like metallic surfaces, embossing and the first spiral bindings. A new generation of Draeger brothers took over the company in the late 1930s and placed increasing importance on the printing of artistic publications. In the 1950s–60s, Draeger increasingly sought to write its own history with a particular focus on art. However, my research highlights how its role at the avant-garde across the twentieth century was bolstered by its implication in both art and advertising, allowing it to apply expertise developed for one field in the other as well, giving it a creative edge in each.
The history of Draeger Frères is followed by my analysis of eleven commercial catalogs it printed and that picture the client’s factory (G. Derihon, Lefèvre-Utile, Renault, Bull, Bisquit Dubouché & Co., Les Mines de la Sarre, Terrot, Halgerger Hütte, Simca, Facom, Villeroy & Boch).
Dans : Un monde en cartes postales. Culture en circulation, édité par Magali Nachtergael et Anne Reverseau (Marseille, Le Mot et le reste, 2022).
Des photographies de chefs-d’œuvre de la peinture et de la sculpture font partie des premières ic... more Des photographies de chefs-d’œuvre de la peinture et de la sculpture font partie des premières iconographies à succès de la carte postale illustrée lorsqu’elle se popularise en France autour de 1900. De telles images bouleversent la connaissance de l’art. Leur disponibilité dans les musées est un facteur majeur de cette influence. Ce texte s’appuie sur un travail inédit dans les archives des musées nationaux afin de met en évidence les enjeux multiples qui se croisent autour de la vente de cartes postales. Des éditeurs de cartes, aidés de gardiens de musée entreprenants, instaurent ce commerce rémunérateur. La direction des musées nationaux découvre puis défend la vente de ces images bon marché : elles plaisent au grand public tout en contribuant à son éducation artistique, et elles rendent service aux spécialistes de l’art en étant autant de fiches illustrées faciles à classer.
C’est ainsi avec des motivations à la fois culturelles et économiques que l’État s’efforce d’encadrer le marché de la carte postale dans ses musées entre 1906 et 1912. Cette imagerie représente la première reconnaissance au sein des musées de l’intérêt des ressources pédagogiques illustrées s’adressant un public varié. Pour tous, les cartes postales favorisent une familiarité visuelle et intellectuelle accrue avec les œuvres d’art et une personnalisation des goûts et des savoirs. En s’adressant ainsi à des pratiques d’élite et populaires tout à la fois, la carte postale fait entrer la reproduction d’art et la visite du musée dans l’ère des médias de masse.
///
English abstract (text in French)
Photographs of masterpieces of painting and sculpture were among the first successful subjects of the illustrated postcard when this form of imagery became popular in France circa 1900. Postcards transformed relationships to art and its history, in particular thanks to their availability in museums. Integrating new analysis of the archives of the Musées Nationaux, this study reveals the multiple interests at play in the early sale of postcards in French museums. At the start of the twentieth century, publishers instituted this lucrative business with the help of museum guards. Museum administrators discovered the presence of this inexpensive imagery after the fact, alerted by complaints from specialized postcard dealers in 1905, but went on to defend its sale in their institutions. Postcards were educational for the general public, useful for specialists, and sold well.
Government administrators’ motivations were thus both cultural and financial when they worked to take control of postcard sales in the Musées Nationaux between 1906 and 1912. This imagery represented the first recognition in museums of the importance of illustrated documentation accessible to a diversity of publics. More than the expensive photographs that preceded it in select institutions, its omnipresence, affordability, practical format and shareability favored familiarity with the visual arts and the personalization of taste and knowledge for all. I argue that by addressing both scholarly practices and those of the general public, postcards brought art reproduction and the museum visit into the age of mass media.
In : "Noir & Blanc : une esthétique de la photographie" (Paris, RMN/BnF, 2020), 2020
Quand la photographie voit le jour au milieu du XIXe siècle, l’absence des couleurs du monde surp... more Quand la photographie voit le jour au milieu du XIXe siècle, l’absence des couleurs du monde surprend les premiers observateurs. Il faudra de longues années pour inventer la photographie "en couleurs". Toutefois, la photographie "en noir et blanc" est également une invention, comme je l’argumente ici. Bien que pas aussi délibérée ou concertée, elle est quelque chose qui n'existait pas auparavant et qui prend forme à un moment donnée de l'histoire, en réponse à un besoin collectivement ressenti.
En effet, ce n'est qu'à partir du tournant du XXe siècle que le "noir et blanc" devient une tonalité de la photographie, puis une locution générique pour désigner toutes les vues monochromes, et enfin une esthétique revendiquée en tant que telle. Il s'agit donc d'une reformulation progressive de la photographie monochrome. Les tonalités du "noir et blanc" et l'opposition binaire inhérente à son appellation écartent toute association chromatique, érigeant cette forme de photographie en pendant et égal de la photographie en couleurs – en un genre photographique à part entière.
///
Ce texte paraît dans le catalogue de l'exposition "Noir & Blanc : une esthétique de la photographie. Collection de la Bibliothèque nationale de France", à la Bibliothèque nationale de France jusqu'au 21 janvier 2024.
In: The Colors of Photography, edited by Bettina Gockel (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 201-230.
Monochrome photographs are now commonly referred to as being “in black and white,” but before pho... more Monochrome photographs are now commonly referred to as being “in black and white,” but before photographing “in color” became common, from the mid-1930s, a vibrant chromatic culture existed in photography. Scholarly interest in print color as a cultural phenomenon, however, has been very limited and historicization of its vocabulary inexistent. This text addresses the disjunction between the colors of early photographs on paper and the way they are described today. It evaluates what colors “black-and-white” photographs actually were and how the photographic community engaged with the issue of print coloration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a close analysis of the vocabulary used to describe and categorize color (or its perceived absence) in photography, print coloration and its lexicon emerge as meaningful, interdependent artifacts for understanding how individuals used an unprecedentedly mechanical image-making technique as a means of creation.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/552600
International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media, vol. 2, no. 1, 2019
In the mid-twentieth-century, it was widely believed that innovations in photographing movement, ... more In the mid-twentieth-century, it was widely believed that innovations in photographing movement, color, and depth would one day afford complete mastery of the simulation of visual perception. This collective representation of purpose and of progress in photography was eloquently expressed as the “myth of total cinema” by André Bazin (1946), who argued that the longing for “integral realism” had always marked mechanical reproduction, inspiring inventors since the nineteenth century.
The present article historicizes this integral-image utopia, mapping the expression of its intellectual mechanisms in the first accounts of photography then in photography’s emerging historiography. This research reveals the absence of a shared project around “complete” perceptual realism for most of the nineteenth century. The idea of progress toward a total image reproducing vision emerged and came to prevail in the popular imagination at a very particular moment—in 1896, following the invention of cinema—, transforming how people thought about the future of photography and told the story of its past.
Keywords: historiography of photography, historiography of cinema, color photography, stereoscopy, cinema, perceptual realism, technological progress
https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/article/view/6628
In: Photography and Other Media in the Nineteenth Century: Towards an Integrated History, edited by Simone Natale and Nicoletta Leonardi, 2018
Viewers were awed by photography, or the mechanical recording of the action of light, when its in... more Viewers were awed by photography, or the mechanical recording of the action of light, when its invention was announced in 1839. The new images made the scene projected inside a camera obscura permanent, and they were incredibly precise, retaining even the most extraneous detail in their rendering of objects, light, and shadow. Half a century later, in 1895, the Cinématographe provided a similarly enthralling spectacle: gigantic, luminous, moving photographs. The end of the nineteenth century was a momentous time for photographic imagery. Motion pictures emerged soon after another decisive revolution in the field, to which they owed their practicability: split-second exposure times. The stop-motion photographs this allowed broke with how we saw the world, radically changing ideas about the truthful representation of moving things. Cinema then aimed to go in a decisively different direction: simulate our everyday visual experience. This text argues that the conceptual associations between photography and cinema at the end of the nineteenth century revolved around such developments in how photographic imagery related to vision. Cinematography was received as a photographic invention, but it was more than just a new form of photography with a henceforth separate story. By radically augmenting what I call the “perceptual realism” of the mechanically recorded image, the immersive experience of cinema had lasting effects on photography in return, raising expectations that its capacity for verisimilitude be taken even further.
In this volume, leading scholars of photography and media examine photography’s vital role in the... more In this volume, leading scholars of photography and media examine photography’s vital role in the evolution of media and communication in the nineteenth century.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the introduction of telegraphy, the development of a cheaper and more reliable postal service, the rise of the mass-circulation press, and the emergence of the railway dramatically changed the way people communicated and experienced time and space. Concurrently, photography developed as a medium that changed how images were produced and circulated. Yet, for the most part, photography of the era is studied outside the field of media history. The contributors to this volume challenge those established disciplinary boundaries as they programmatically explore the intersections of photography and “new media” during a period of fast-paced change. Their essays look at the emergence and early history of photography in the context of broader changes in the history of communications; the role of the nascent photographic press in photography’s infancy; and the development of photographic techniques as part of a broader media culture that included the mass-consumed novel, sound recording, and cinema.
Featuring essays by noteworthy historians in photography and media history, this discipline-shifting examination of the communication revolution of the nineteenth century is an essential addition to the field of media studies.
In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Geoffrey Batchen, Geoffrey Belknap, Lynn Berger, Jan von Brevern, Anthony Enns, André Gaudreault, Lisa Gitelman, David Henkin, Erkki Huhtamo, Philippe Marion, Peppino Ortoleva, Steffen Siegel, Richard Taws, and Kim Timby.
Focales, n° 1, 2017
À travers la presse illustrée française, cet article analyse la dynamique de l’adoption de la pho... more À travers la presse illustrée française, cet article analyse la dynamique de l’adoption de la photographie en couleurs au milieu du XXe siècle. Les magazines Paris-Match et Réalités déploient des stratégies délibérées et distinctes en introduisant la couleur dans leurs pages après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Ils jouent de sa présentation autant que de sa quantité, menant à des progressions qui ne sont ni linéaires, ni similaires. À Paris-Match la couleur est "spectaculaire", mise en avant par les mots puis par sa concentration sur la double page centrale. À Réalités, la couleur est "réfléchie", documentaire puis peu à peu plus impressionniste, jouant d’effets stylistiques et du pouvoir émotionnel de la représentation chromatique. Ainsi la presse des années 1950 encourage et diffuse une exploration variée de la photographie en couleurs, ce qui éclaire les raisons de son adoption précurseur dans ce domaine mais aussi son statut ambivalent, par la suite, dans le monde de l’art.
Book (and excerpts) by Kim Timby
De Gruyter, 2015
Pictures that move and give an illusion of depth have long fascinated viewers. "3D and Animated L... more Pictures that move and give an illusion of depth have long fascinated viewers. "3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment" recounts a multifaceted history of images that animate with a flick of the wrist or appear vividly three-dimensional without the use of special devices. Both effects are made possible by one of photography’s most original technologies: the lenticular process.
Timby weaves lenticular imagery into scientific and popular culture, from early cinema and color reproduction, to the birth of modern advertising and the market for studio portraits, postcards, and religious imagery. The motivations behind the invention and reinvention of this technology, from the turn of the twentieth century through the end of the pre-digital era, shed new light on our relationship to photographic realism and on the forceful interplay in photography between technological innovation and the desire to be entertained.
[In this file: Contents, Introduction, Index]
[Book excerpt] This section of my book on lenticular photography introduces the concept of "integ... more [Book excerpt] This section of my book on lenticular photography introduces the concept of "integral-image utopia," crucial to understanding the development and reception of photographic technologies in the 1930s and '40s.
I explore the history of the integral-image utopia further in my text "Photography, Cinema, and Perceptual Realism in the Nineteenth Century" (2018) and my article "The Invention of the Myth of Total Photography" (2019).
[Book chapter] In the 1950s, the developing field of point-of-sale advertising was a lucrative ne... more [Book chapter] In the 1950s, the developing field of point-of-sale advertising was a lucrative new outlet for lenticular photography, one in which this imagery's power to turn the eye and arouse curiosity were highly valued. Photographs presenting highly realistic illusions of depth and animation were associated with new color transparency film and backlit electric display cases to create images that captured the attention of consumers in stores and store windows. Faced with waning interest in lenticular portraiture, the French companies that specialized in lenticular imagery—in particular Publirama and Georges Mengen—closely followed these modern developments of the advertising industry to adapt their specialized technology to this market.
This is Chapter 5 of my book 3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: History of advertising, Advertising photography, Point-of-sale display, Publicité sur le lieu de vente, Consumer culture, Color photography, 3D photography, Animated devices and effects
[Book chapter] Colorful animated key chains were popular in France in the late 1950s and early 19... more [Book chapter] Colorful animated key chains were popular in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These and other small collectible images provide a compelling case study of the growing use of promotional premiums by advertisers after World War II, in particular marketed towards women and children. Made by companies including Publirama, Visiomatic, and Vari-Vue, these images espoused contemporary visual and popular culture by using stylized artwork to picture products of post-war consumerism and by referencing cartoons and television via their distinctive, GIF-like animation.
This is Chapter 6 of my book 3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: History of advertising, consumer culture, popular imagery, history of collecting, optical toys
[Book chapter] A history of the origins of the 3D lenticular postcard in the 1960s–70s, including... more [Book chapter] A history of the origins of the 3D lenticular postcard in the 1960s–70s, including eye-catching touristic views, religious imagery, and still lives of flowers and animals. As products, these postcards responded to a desire for unusual images to keep as souvenirs, collect, or send. Placed in the wider history of 3D photography, the postcard’s iconographies and uses show that the lenticular process had become associated with kitsch and a distinctive lack of naturalism while holography became the focus of enduring fascination with the idea of an integral image.
This is Chapter 7 of my book “3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment” (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: Postcards, popular imagery, religious imagery, Lourdes, kitsch, holography, 3D photography, animated photography
Articles and book chapters (contd.) by Kim Timby
PhotoResearcher 25: Photography in the Marketplace, edited by Kelley Wilder, Mar 2016
We now think of glass-based photography as cumbersome and fragile, but its invention circa 1850 i... more We now think of glass-based photography as cumbersome and fragile, but its invention circa 1850 inspired new and successful commercial products that exploited what were very desirable qualities. Leaving aside the well known glass negative, this article focuses on glass positives and on how creative entrepreneurs used them to capitalize on the transparency and precision glass favored in photography. I establish an early history of the photographic lantern slide and of the glass stereoview, showing how each associated photography with another spectacular form of entertainment to propose an immersive and captivating experience of the photographic image.
Slide projection spectacularly transformed pocket-sized glass photographs into unprecedentedly large, luminous images full of minutia as never experienced before. The contemplation of glass views in a stereoscope, back-lit and magnified by the device’s lenses, pulled the viewer into a three-dimensional scene that was more detailed than anything seen on paper. In the experience of both media, the physical support of the image became invisible, with only luminescence and shadow remaining. Photography as “writing with light” had never been so materially rendered. Glass stereoviews were the object of a thriving industry starting in the 1850s and lantern slides soon followed, with commercial ties developing between them thanks to their shared technical underpinnings and format.
Keywords: lantern slides, projection, stereoscopy, photography on glass, innovation in photography, glass albumen process.
Mots clés: projection, plaque de projection, diapositive sur verre, stéréoscopie, innovation en photographie, photographie sur verre, albumine sur verre.
Traduction d'extraits de mon article « Glass Transparencies: Marketing Photography’s Luminosity a... more Traduction d'extraits de mon article « Glass Transparencies: Marketing Photography’s Luminosity and Precision », PhotoResearcher, n° 25 (2016), publiée dans Patrice Guérin, Projections Molteni 2. Vues et conférences, Éditions du Club Niépce Lumière, 2021.
In: Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News, edited by Jason Hill and Vanessa Schwartz, 2015
This essay explores color photography’s gradual integration into news media. Color pictures of th... more This essay explores color photography’s gradual integration into news media. Color pictures of the world and of current events multiplied in the mid-twentieth century, especially in large-circulation, general-interest magazines like Life, Réalités and Paris-Match. Between 1935 and 1965, color went from being an exciting rarity to commonplace — a “format of the present” — in lens-based imagery. This in no way constituted an obvious or undiscussed development. Motivations behind bringing color to news media had as much to do with appearing up-to-date and attracting revenue as they did with providing more complete information or so-called “realism.”
In: Derrière le rideau. L’esthétique Photomaton, edited by Clément Chéroux and Sam Stourdzé, 2012
An analysis of the pre-“selfie” practice of taking photobooth pictures with friends. What was it ... more An analysis of the pre-“selfie” practice of taking photobooth pictures with friends. What was it about those machines that encouraged playful exploration of self-portraiture? This text written in collaboration with Nora Mathys is part of my ongoing study of the interdependence between the forms of specific photographic technologies and the social practices they address and inspire. (Text in French)
Uploads
Forthcoming by Kim Timby
Recent publications by Kim Timby
///
This text is the first general history of the French printer Draeger Frères, founded in 1886 and renowned for its deluxe work in advertising and art publishing. Breaking with a historical narrative constructed by the company itself, I trace its dominant activities and innovative contributions up until its sale by the family in 1971. Draeger initially specialized in polychrome illustration then, circa 1900, helped establish the promising new field of upmarket commercial catalogs. It designed and produced these collectible publications from start to finish using refined typography and illustrations, thus expanding the scope of its activities and enlarging its workshops.
As advertising became a structured profession in the interwar years, Draeger maintained its international reputation for excellence in the creation of catalogs, product packaging and other documents by elaborating new printing techniques such as its “301” color photogravure process, developing the use of avant-garde photography, and proposing sophisticated ornamental effects like metallic surfaces, embossing and the first spiral bindings. A new generation of Draeger brothers took over the company in the late 1930s and placed increasing importance on the printing of artistic publications. In the 1950s–60s, Draeger increasingly sought to write its own history with a particular focus on art. However, my research highlights how its role at the avant-garde across the twentieth century was bolstered by its implication in both art and advertising, allowing it to apply expertise developed for one field in the other as well, giving it a creative edge in each.
The history of Draeger Frères is followed by my analysis of eleven commercial catalogs it printed and that picture the client’s factory (G. Derihon, Lefèvre-Utile, Renault, Bull, Bisquit Dubouché & Co., Les Mines de la Sarre, Terrot, Halgerger Hütte, Simca, Facom, Villeroy & Boch).
C’est ainsi avec des motivations à la fois culturelles et économiques que l’État s’efforce d’encadrer le marché de la carte postale dans ses musées entre 1906 et 1912. Cette imagerie représente la première reconnaissance au sein des musées de l’intérêt des ressources pédagogiques illustrées s’adressant un public varié. Pour tous, les cartes postales favorisent une familiarité visuelle et intellectuelle accrue avec les œuvres d’art et une personnalisation des goûts et des savoirs. En s’adressant ainsi à des pratiques d’élite et populaires tout à la fois, la carte postale fait entrer la reproduction d’art et la visite du musée dans l’ère des médias de masse.
///
English abstract (text in French)
Photographs of masterpieces of painting and sculpture were among the first successful subjects of the illustrated postcard when this form of imagery became popular in France circa 1900. Postcards transformed relationships to art and its history, in particular thanks to their availability in museums. Integrating new analysis of the archives of the Musées Nationaux, this study reveals the multiple interests at play in the early sale of postcards in French museums. At the start of the twentieth century, publishers instituted this lucrative business with the help of museum guards. Museum administrators discovered the presence of this inexpensive imagery after the fact, alerted by complaints from specialized postcard dealers in 1905, but went on to defend its sale in their institutions. Postcards were educational for the general public, useful for specialists, and sold well.
Government administrators’ motivations were thus both cultural and financial when they worked to take control of postcard sales in the Musées Nationaux between 1906 and 1912. This imagery represented the first recognition in museums of the importance of illustrated documentation accessible to a diversity of publics. More than the expensive photographs that preceded it in select institutions, its omnipresence, affordability, practical format and shareability favored familiarity with the visual arts and the personalization of taste and knowledge for all. I argue that by addressing both scholarly practices and those of the general public, postcards brought art reproduction and the museum visit into the age of mass media.
En effet, ce n'est qu'à partir du tournant du XXe siècle que le "noir et blanc" devient une tonalité de la photographie, puis une locution générique pour désigner toutes les vues monochromes, et enfin une esthétique revendiquée en tant que telle. Il s'agit donc d'une reformulation progressive de la photographie monochrome. Les tonalités du "noir et blanc" et l'opposition binaire inhérente à son appellation écartent toute association chromatique, érigeant cette forme de photographie en pendant et égal de la photographie en couleurs – en un genre photographique à part entière.
///
Ce texte paraît dans le catalogue de l'exposition "Noir & Blanc : une esthétique de la photographie. Collection de la Bibliothèque nationale de France", à la Bibliothèque nationale de France jusqu'au 21 janvier 2024.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/552600
The present article historicizes this integral-image utopia, mapping the expression of its intellectual mechanisms in the first accounts of photography then in photography’s emerging historiography. This research reveals the absence of a shared project around “complete” perceptual realism for most of the nineteenth century. The idea of progress toward a total image reproducing vision emerged and came to prevail in the popular imagination at a very particular moment—in 1896, following the invention of cinema—, transforming how people thought about the future of photography and told the story of its past.
Keywords: historiography of photography, historiography of cinema, color photography, stereoscopy, cinema, perceptual realism, technological progress
https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/article/view/6628
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the introduction of telegraphy, the development of a cheaper and more reliable postal service, the rise of the mass-circulation press, and the emergence of the railway dramatically changed the way people communicated and experienced time and space. Concurrently, photography developed as a medium that changed how images were produced and circulated. Yet, for the most part, photography of the era is studied outside the field of media history. The contributors to this volume challenge those established disciplinary boundaries as they programmatically explore the intersections of photography and “new media” during a period of fast-paced change. Their essays look at the emergence and early history of photography in the context of broader changes in the history of communications; the role of the nascent photographic press in photography’s infancy; and the development of photographic techniques as part of a broader media culture that included the mass-consumed novel, sound recording, and cinema.
Featuring essays by noteworthy historians in photography and media history, this discipline-shifting examination of the communication revolution of the nineteenth century is an essential addition to the field of media studies.
In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Geoffrey Batchen, Geoffrey Belknap, Lynn Berger, Jan von Brevern, Anthony Enns, André Gaudreault, Lisa Gitelman, David Henkin, Erkki Huhtamo, Philippe Marion, Peppino Ortoleva, Steffen Siegel, Richard Taws, and Kim Timby.
Book (and excerpts) by Kim Timby
Timby weaves lenticular imagery into scientific and popular culture, from early cinema and color reproduction, to the birth of modern advertising and the market for studio portraits, postcards, and religious imagery. The motivations behind the invention and reinvention of this technology, from the turn of the twentieth century through the end of the pre-digital era, shed new light on our relationship to photographic realism and on the forceful interplay in photography between technological innovation and the desire to be entertained.
[In this file: Contents, Introduction, Index]
I explore the history of the integral-image utopia further in my text "Photography, Cinema, and Perceptual Realism in the Nineteenth Century" (2018) and my article "The Invention of the Myth of Total Photography" (2019).
This is Chapter 5 of my book 3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: History of advertising, Advertising photography, Point-of-sale display, Publicité sur le lieu de vente, Consumer culture, Color photography, 3D photography, Animated devices and effects
This is Chapter 6 of my book 3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: History of advertising, consumer culture, popular imagery, history of collecting, optical toys
This is Chapter 7 of my book “3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment” (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: Postcards, popular imagery, religious imagery, Lourdes, kitsch, holography, 3D photography, animated photography
Articles and book chapters (contd.) by Kim Timby
Slide projection spectacularly transformed pocket-sized glass photographs into unprecedentedly large, luminous images full of minutia as never experienced before. The contemplation of glass views in a stereoscope, back-lit and magnified by the device’s lenses, pulled the viewer into a three-dimensional scene that was more detailed than anything seen on paper. In the experience of both media, the physical support of the image became invisible, with only luminescence and shadow remaining. Photography as “writing with light” had never been so materially rendered. Glass stereoviews were the object of a thriving industry starting in the 1850s and lantern slides soon followed, with commercial ties developing between them thanks to their shared technical underpinnings and format.
Keywords: lantern slides, projection, stereoscopy, photography on glass, innovation in photography, glass albumen process.
Mots clés: projection, plaque de projection, diapositive sur verre, stéréoscopie, innovation en photographie, photographie sur verre, albumine sur verre.
///
This text is the first general history of the French printer Draeger Frères, founded in 1886 and renowned for its deluxe work in advertising and art publishing. Breaking with a historical narrative constructed by the company itself, I trace its dominant activities and innovative contributions up until its sale by the family in 1971. Draeger initially specialized in polychrome illustration then, circa 1900, helped establish the promising new field of upmarket commercial catalogs. It designed and produced these collectible publications from start to finish using refined typography and illustrations, thus expanding the scope of its activities and enlarging its workshops.
As advertising became a structured profession in the interwar years, Draeger maintained its international reputation for excellence in the creation of catalogs, product packaging and other documents by elaborating new printing techniques such as its “301” color photogravure process, developing the use of avant-garde photography, and proposing sophisticated ornamental effects like metallic surfaces, embossing and the first spiral bindings. A new generation of Draeger brothers took over the company in the late 1930s and placed increasing importance on the printing of artistic publications. In the 1950s–60s, Draeger increasingly sought to write its own history with a particular focus on art. However, my research highlights how its role at the avant-garde across the twentieth century was bolstered by its implication in both art and advertising, allowing it to apply expertise developed for one field in the other as well, giving it a creative edge in each.
The history of Draeger Frères is followed by my analysis of eleven commercial catalogs it printed and that picture the client’s factory (G. Derihon, Lefèvre-Utile, Renault, Bull, Bisquit Dubouché & Co., Les Mines de la Sarre, Terrot, Halgerger Hütte, Simca, Facom, Villeroy & Boch).
C’est ainsi avec des motivations à la fois culturelles et économiques que l’État s’efforce d’encadrer le marché de la carte postale dans ses musées entre 1906 et 1912. Cette imagerie représente la première reconnaissance au sein des musées de l’intérêt des ressources pédagogiques illustrées s’adressant un public varié. Pour tous, les cartes postales favorisent une familiarité visuelle et intellectuelle accrue avec les œuvres d’art et une personnalisation des goûts et des savoirs. En s’adressant ainsi à des pratiques d’élite et populaires tout à la fois, la carte postale fait entrer la reproduction d’art et la visite du musée dans l’ère des médias de masse.
///
English abstract (text in French)
Photographs of masterpieces of painting and sculpture were among the first successful subjects of the illustrated postcard when this form of imagery became popular in France circa 1900. Postcards transformed relationships to art and its history, in particular thanks to their availability in museums. Integrating new analysis of the archives of the Musées Nationaux, this study reveals the multiple interests at play in the early sale of postcards in French museums. At the start of the twentieth century, publishers instituted this lucrative business with the help of museum guards. Museum administrators discovered the presence of this inexpensive imagery after the fact, alerted by complaints from specialized postcard dealers in 1905, but went on to defend its sale in their institutions. Postcards were educational for the general public, useful for specialists, and sold well.
Government administrators’ motivations were thus both cultural and financial when they worked to take control of postcard sales in the Musées Nationaux between 1906 and 1912. This imagery represented the first recognition in museums of the importance of illustrated documentation accessible to a diversity of publics. More than the expensive photographs that preceded it in select institutions, its omnipresence, affordability, practical format and shareability favored familiarity with the visual arts and the personalization of taste and knowledge for all. I argue that by addressing both scholarly practices and those of the general public, postcards brought art reproduction and the museum visit into the age of mass media.
En effet, ce n'est qu'à partir du tournant du XXe siècle que le "noir et blanc" devient une tonalité de la photographie, puis une locution générique pour désigner toutes les vues monochromes, et enfin une esthétique revendiquée en tant que telle. Il s'agit donc d'une reformulation progressive de la photographie monochrome. Les tonalités du "noir et blanc" et l'opposition binaire inhérente à son appellation écartent toute association chromatique, érigeant cette forme de photographie en pendant et égal de la photographie en couleurs – en un genre photographique à part entière.
///
Ce texte paraît dans le catalogue de l'exposition "Noir & Blanc : une esthétique de la photographie. Collection de la Bibliothèque nationale de France", à la Bibliothèque nationale de France jusqu'au 21 janvier 2024.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/552600
The present article historicizes this integral-image utopia, mapping the expression of its intellectual mechanisms in the first accounts of photography then in photography’s emerging historiography. This research reveals the absence of a shared project around “complete” perceptual realism for most of the nineteenth century. The idea of progress toward a total image reproducing vision emerged and came to prevail in the popular imagination at a very particular moment—in 1896, following the invention of cinema—, transforming how people thought about the future of photography and told the story of its past.
Keywords: historiography of photography, historiography of cinema, color photography, stereoscopy, cinema, perceptual realism, technological progress
https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/article/view/6628
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the introduction of telegraphy, the development of a cheaper and more reliable postal service, the rise of the mass-circulation press, and the emergence of the railway dramatically changed the way people communicated and experienced time and space. Concurrently, photography developed as a medium that changed how images were produced and circulated. Yet, for the most part, photography of the era is studied outside the field of media history. The contributors to this volume challenge those established disciplinary boundaries as they programmatically explore the intersections of photography and “new media” during a period of fast-paced change. Their essays look at the emergence and early history of photography in the context of broader changes in the history of communications; the role of the nascent photographic press in photography’s infancy; and the development of photographic techniques as part of a broader media culture that included the mass-consumed novel, sound recording, and cinema.
Featuring essays by noteworthy historians in photography and media history, this discipline-shifting examination of the communication revolution of the nineteenth century is an essential addition to the field of media studies.
In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Geoffrey Batchen, Geoffrey Belknap, Lynn Berger, Jan von Brevern, Anthony Enns, André Gaudreault, Lisa Gitelman, David Henkin, Erkki Huhtamo, Philippe Marion, Peppino Ortoleva, Steffen Siegel, Richard Taws, and Kim Timby.
Timby weaves lenticular imagery into scientific and popular culture, from early cinema and color reproduction, to the birth of modern advertising and the market for studio portraits, postcards, and religious imagery. The motivations behind the invention and reinvention of this technology, from the turn of the twentieth century through the end of the pre-digital era, shed new light on our relationship to photographic realism and on the forceful interplay in photography between technological innovation and the desire to be entertained.
[In this file: Contents, Introduction, Index]
I explore the history of the integral-image utopia further in my text "Photography, Cinema, and Perceptual Realism in the Nineteenth Century" (2018) and my article "The Invention of the Myth of Total Photography" (2019).
This is Chapter 5 of my book 3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: History of advertising, Advertising photography, Point-of-sale display, Publicité sur le lieu de vente, Consumer culture, Color photography, 3D photography, Animated devices and effects
This is Chapter 6 of my book 3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: History of advertising, consumer culture, popular imagery, history of collecting, optical toys
This is Chapter 7 of my book “3D and Animated Lenticular Photography: Between Utopia and Entertainment” (De Gruyter, 2015).
Keywords: Postcards, popular imagery, religious imagery, Lourdes, kitsch, holography, 3D photography, animated photography
Slide projection spectacularly transformed pocket-sized glass photographs into unprecedentedly large, luminous images full of minutia as never experienced before. The contemplation of glass views in a stereoscope, back-lit and magnified by the device’s lenses, pulled the viewer into a three-dimensional scene that was more detailed than anything seen on paper. In the experience of both media, the physical support of the image became invisible, with only luminescence and shadow remaining. Photography as “writing with light” had never been so materially rendered. Glass stereoviews were the object of a thriving industry starting in the 1850s and lantern slides soon followed, with commercial ties developing between them thanks to their shared technical underpinnings and format.
Keywords: lantern slides, projection, stereoscopy, photography on glass, innovation in photography, glass albumen process.
Mots clés: projection, plaque de projection, diapositive sur verre, stéréoscopie, innovation en photographie, photographie sur verre, albumine sur verre.
- Katherine A. Bussard and Lisa Hostetler, Color Rush: American Color Photography from Stieglitz to Sherman (Aperture and the Milwaukee Art Museum, 2013)
- John Rohrbach, Color: American Photography Transformed (University of Texas Press, 2013)
- Sylvie Pénichon, Twentieth-Century Color Photographs: Identification and Care (The Getty Conservation Institute, 2013)
Le programme a notamment permis d’établir une édition révisée et annotée des transcriptions de la correspondance Niépce ; d’étudier la nature physique des images produites par Niépce et faire le point sur ce que nous savons de leur l’histoire ; et d’examiner de plus près les manières par lesquelles Niépce a cherché à inscrire son invention dans la culture industrielle et visuelle de son temps.
Ces études, réalisées par différents chercheurs, étaient destinées à être publiées sur un site web dédié. Elles ont été mises en ligne en juin 2016 sous une forme moins élaborée qu’initialement prévue, mais nous sommes heureux que ce travail soit maintenant visible à http://www.archivesniepce.com/