The Pushkin Museum presents the exhibition “Daguerreotype, autochrome, polaroid. 1/1 ”, dedicated to the 180th anniversary of the invention of photography. On display are samples of these three photographic technologies. Each was the first of its kind and allowed only one version of the picture to be taken.
“Daguerreotype is the first technology that captures the world, autochrome is the first technology that showed the world in color, and the polaroid is the first instant technology,” tells the curator of the exhibition Olga Averyanova
Butterflies, landscapes and faces - a fragile world on plates. A collection of autochromes was brought from France. It rarely leaves the borders of the country, but they have made an exception for Russia. “We transported all 28 plates with great care, in special boxes. Here are samples from 1907 to the 30s, ”explains the curator of the French Photographic Society, Vincent Guillot.
The technology of "autochromes" - the first color plates, was patented by the Lumiere brothers at the beginning of the 20th century. It is impossible to duplicate autochrom, each image exists in a single and unique version.
People could see themselves with photographic accuracy only by the forties of the 19th century. The daguerreotype was called a "mirror with memory." They are from the collection of the National Library of France and the Russian History Museum.
Regardless the production technology, during the 180 years of the existence of photographic processes, people were photographing the same things: portraits of loved ones and families, views from the window, still lifes, streets of the hometown and landscapes. This fragile world!
The exposition includes 115 works that exist in a single copy from museums in France, Austria and Russia. Among the authors: Louis Daguerre, Sergey Levitsky, Leon Gimpel, Antonin Personna, Stephen Shore and Helmut Newton.
