Etched by Light
Photogravures from the Collection, 1840–1940
National Gallery of Art, Washington
October 15, 2023 - February 4, 2024
Beatrice, 1899
Photogravure
Image: 16.7 x 9 cm (6 9/16 x 3 9/16 in.)
Sheet: 18.8 x 10.4 cm (7 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.)
Mount: 37.8 x 27.8 cm (14 7/8 x 10 15/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Anonymous Gift
Etched by Light: Photogravures from the Collection, 1840–1940 tells the fascinating story of the search to find and perfect a way to print photographs in ink. The process, which came to be called photogravure, resulted in some of the most beautiful photographs ever made—featuring delicate highlights, lush blacks, a remarkably rich tonal range, and a velvety matte surface. Presenting 46 photogravures and 5 bound volumes illustrated with them (many recently acquired and exhibited here for the first time), Etched by Light shows how this process enabled photographs to circulate widely and help shape our collective visual experience. The exhibition is on view in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art.
The exhibition coincides with the symposium Photomechanical Prints: History, Technology, Aesthetics, and Use, organized by the FAIC Collaborative Workshops in Photograph Conservation and hosted by the photograph conservation department of the National Gallery from October 31 through November 2, 2023.
“Discover an intriguing chapter in the history of photography, as innovative practitioners developed a method to produce photographic prints in ink,” said Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs at the National Gallery of Art. “Including photogravures from the National Gallery’s collection, this exhibition shows the pivotal role photogravures played in the history of photography by enabling the creation and widespread dissemination of tonally rich and lasting prints.”
From its very beginnings, photography revolutionized the way pictures were made and knowledge about the visual world was disseminated. But in the early 1840s, artists and scientists working across Europe discovered that it had drawbacks. The daguerreotype process, developed by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, created astonishingly vivid images, but each one was unique and could only be copied by making another photograph. William Henry Fox Talbot’s negative/positive process held more promise, but his silver-chloride prints faded when exposed to light. Early practitioners also learned that it was hard to make numerous identical prints that could be tipped into books or journals, owing to variabilities in the paper and chemicals that were used to make prints. Such obstacles, at least initially, frustrated their hopes of fully realizing the potential of this new medium.
Cathédrale de Chartres—Portique (South Portico), c. 1854
Photogravure
Image: 53 x 73 cm (20 7/8 x 28 3/4 in.)
Sheet: 59.3 x 80 cm (23 3/8 x 31 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
The Sarah and William L Walton Fund
Divided into three sections, Etched by Light traces the search—unfolding across 100 years—for a process to print photographs in ink, which were more stable than traditional silver-based photographic prints. It moves from the experiments in the 1840s and 1850s by French and British photographers such as Armand-Hippolyte-Louis Fizeau, Charles Nègre, and William Henry Fox Talbot, who discovered the chemical and technical components necessary to print photographs in ink, to the successful solution invented by Talbot in the 1850s and perfected by Karl Klíč in 1879. In their photomechanical process, which came to be called photogravure, a photographic image is etched into a printmaking plate, ink is rubbed into the etched surface, a damp sheet of paper is laid on top of the plate, and both are put through a printing press to transfer the ink to paper. Favored from the mid-1880s through the 1930s, revived in the 1980s and 1990s, and still popular today, photogravures have a smooth, continuous tonal range, although an extremely fine grain is evident under magnification.
A Winter's Morning, 1887
Photogravure
Image: 17.7 x 28.7 cm (6 15/16 x 11 5/16 in.)
Sheet: 21.5 x 32.4 cm (8 7/16 x 12 3/4 in.)
Mount: 40 x 50.8 cm (15 3/4 x 20 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Carolyn Brody Fund and Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund
The Poacher—A Hare in View, 1888
Photogravure
Image: 28.5 x 23.7 cm (11 1/4 x 9 5/16 in.)
Sheet: 30.5 x 25.7 cm (12 x 10 1/8 in.)
Mount: 42.5 x 34.2 cm (16 3/4 x 13 7/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons' Permanent Fund
Marsh Leaves, published 1895
1 vol: ill: 16 photogravures on wove paper
Page size: 28.4 x 18.4 cm (11 3/16 x 7 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Harvey S. Shipley Miller and J. Randall Plummer,
in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art
The exhibition also shows how photographers working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Peter Henry Emerson and Alfred Stieglitz, exploited the photogravure process for its artistic potential. They highlighted the individuality of their pictures through their choice of paper and inks, and even manipulated the photographic image itself. They also utilized the reproducibility of the process, inserting their photogravures into limited edition books, portfolios, and journals that they circulated in an effort to prove the artistic merit of photography.
Edge of the Woods, Evening, 1900
Photogravure
Image: 14.5 x 10.1 cm (5 11/16 x 4 in.)
Sheet: 28.5 x 19.8 cm (11 1/4 x 7 13/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund
Tunnel Builders, 1910
Photogravure
Image: 21 x 17 cm (8 1/4 x 6 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Funds from John S. Parsley and Nancy Nolan Parsley
The exhibition concludes with the work of modernist photographers, such as Alvin Langdon Coburn, Laure Albin Guillot, Man Ray, and Margaret Bourke-White, who used the process to enlarge small negatives, creating big, bold, and sometimes colorful photogravures. Circulating their photogravures widely in books and portfolios, as well as commercial advertisements, these artists demonstrated that photography could tackle new subjects, revitalizing our view of life, art, and science, and in the process revealing critical new insights about the world around us.
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
The exhibition is curated by Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs, with Andrea Coffman, collection manager in the department of photographs, both at the National Gallery of Art.
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC
