The Cromer Collection Of Nineteenth Century French Photography

A deep dive into the pioneering collection of nineteenth-century French photographs, equipment, and ephemera, which is a cornerstone of the George Eastman Museum In the early twentieth century, Parisian photographer, amateur historian, and collector Gabriel Cromer (1873-1934) amassed a collection that traced photography's prehistory, invention, and development to about 1890. His dream was to found a national museum of the photographic arts in France. Although Cromer's ambition was never realized, his collection was central to establishing the world's first museum dedicated to photography: the George Eastman Museum. The Cromer Collection of Nineteenth‑Century French Photography considers the origin and circulation of the collection as well as the influence it has had on photography as a field of study. The book's six essays, written by French and American scholars, explore the Cromer Collection's complex passage across markets, borders, and functions. For more than half a century, curators and scholars worldwide have drawn extensively on the Gabriel Cromer Collection for exhibitions and publications; this book provides the first focused scholarly study of the foundational resource.

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.

The first Yale French Studies issue on photography, examining French photography's place in art, identity, and society through a lens of diversity and interdisciplinary investigation In its first issue on photography, this volume of Yale French Studies presents multiple avenues of interdisciplinary investigation designed to intersect and open up new areas of inquiry in the twenty-first century. These intersections push beyond traditional geographic and gender boundaries, exploring women's photography, new cultural contexts, trans orientalism, and minority and marginalized bodies. As they do so, they ask us to reconsider the way that we conceive of photography's place in the past and in our lives today.

The Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of world photography up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It sets out to be the standard, definitive reference work on the subject for years to come. Its coverage is global – an important ‘first’ in that authorities from all over the world have contributed their expertise and scholarship towards making this a truly comprehensive publication. The Encyclopedia presents new and ground-breaking research alongside accounts of the major established figures in the nineteenth century arena. Coverage includes all the key people, processes, equipment, movements, styles, debates and groupings which helped photography develop from being ‘a solution in search of a problem’ when first invented, to the essential communication tool, creative medium, and recorder of everyday life which it had become by the dawn of the twentieth century. The sheer breadth of coverage in the 1200 essays makes the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography an essential reference source for academics, students, researchers and libraries worldwide.

Checklist for exhibition at International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House from its Gabriel Cromer collection, February 18-June 5, 1977. Janet E. Buerger, curator.