Gloria Swanson portrait by Edward Steichen, 1924 An iconic masterpiece status overtime, the actress&
Gloria Swanson portrait by Edward Steichen, 1924 An iconic masterpiece status overtime, the actress’s brilliant silent-film career—this portrait caught the essential Gloria Swanson: haunting and inscrutable, forever veiled in the whisper of a distant era. Moody and delicate, with a mysterious face seeming to peer from the darkness, this shot features elements of both pictorialism and modernism with its graphic severity. Although it is not an Autochrome, I would like to talk about this color technique found while looking at Steichen creations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Steichen’s return to Paris in 1907 positioned him perfectly to embrace the Autochrome. The first commercially viable color process was made available to the oublic that year by the Lumière brothers. The photographer was enthralled by the posibilities of the process. In Camera Work he praised the luminosity of the medium: “One must g oto stained glass for such color resonante, as the palette and canvas are dull and lifeless medium in comparison”. He also introduced the new medium to Stieglitz. Furthermore, he helped him in the establishment of the 291 Art Gallery which also featured the works of pioneering photographers of the early 20th century Each autochrome is one-of-a-kind color transparency composed of minute rains of potato Storch dyed red, blue, and green. These fragile photographs cannot withstand the exposure of long-term display without suffering irreversible damage. -- source link
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