William Henry Fox Talbot: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum FROM THE PUBLISHER
Called "quietly exuberant" by the Easy Reader, the J. Paul Getty Museum's In Focus series is devoted to photographers well represented in the collection. This volume examines the life and work of William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877), one of the seminal figures in the history of the medium. The Getty Museum's holdings include about 350 pictures by this scientist and artist, approximately 50 of which are discussed here by Larry J. Schaaf, an independent photohistorian and research professor at the University of Glasgow and director of the Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot Project. The images are reproduced in full color, showing the results of Talbot's early chemical experiments. An October 2000 colloquium on Talbot at the Getty Museum featured the informed commentary of Dr. Schaaf as well as Geoffrey Batchen, David Featherstone, James Fee, Nancy Keeler, Weston Naef, and Michael Ware. Their enlightening remarks, transcribed and edited here, complement the analysis of the plates. Concluding the book is a chronology of the inventor's achievements, which are set into the larger context of the beginnings of photography.
In 1839 the almost simultaneous announcement of the discovery of photography was made by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (French, 1787-1851) in Paris and William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) in London. This volume in the J. Paul Getty Museum's In Focus series traces Talbot's picture-making method, which proved to be the basis for later photography. Larry J. Schaaf, an independent photohistorian and research professor at the University of Glasgow and the director of the Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot Project, discusses approximately fifty of Talbot's images in the collection of the Getty Museum. A colloquium on Talbot's life and work was held in Los Angeles on October 6, 2000. Joining Dr. Schaaf in considering the inventor's achievements were Geoffrey Batchen, David Featherstone, James Fee, Nancy Keeler, Weston Naef, and Michael Ware. Provided in this volume is an edited transcript of their enlightening conversation as well as a chronology of significant events in Talbot's career, including his publication of the first commercially issued book to be illustrated with photographs, The Pencil of Nature (1844).
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