Gaspard-Félix
Tournachon (Paris, 1820−1910) was konown as Nadar from the age of twenty. A
student of medicine, journalist, writer, caricaturist and left-leaning
adventurer, he became a photographer by accident. Born in Paris in 1820, he
died there ninety years later. He contributed substantially to the
establishment of photography as a fine art. Nadar opened his first photo studio
in 1856 and produced a great number of portraits of notable personalities that
add up to a vivid image of a time of political perturbation, social change and
the rise of Modernism in Paris. Defeated on the battleflieds of the
Franco-Prussian War, France manifested its cultural prestige and grandeur in
the last third of the 19th century. The exhibition unveils 41 portraits pulled
from the collodion plates and developed by an identical procedure, utilising
the authentic materials of albumen prints, as used by Nadar. In front of his camera
lens sat the most notable representatives of European culture, who we know by their works, and now, thanks to
Nadar, also by their appearance. Among them are the men and women of letters Hugo,
Sand, Baudelaire, Zola and Turgenjev, and composers Verdi, Rossini and Berlioz,
as well as the painters Delacroix, Courbet and Manet.
The original exhibition was conceived by Laure Véron from
the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, while the Médiathèque de l’architecture et du
patrimoine, Ministry of Culture – France, produced the facsimilie. One of its
hosts was the Galerija Matice srpske, Novi Sad, Republic of Serbia in 2019,
where the core of the exhibition was upgraded with a spirited contextual
interpretation for visitors of all ages. They extended their generosity to the
National Gallery of Slovenia to include texts of Dubravka Lazić and Jelena
Ognjanović in its version of the catalogue as well as adapting their
installation solutions to the gallery space in Ljubljana.
The Collodion
Technique
Following
the two pivotal discoveries in the history of photography − the invention of
the Daguerrotype (Louis Daguerre) in the Talbotype (William
Henry Fox Talbot) – in 1851, Frederick Scott Archer, a British sculptor, and Gustave
Le Gray, a French photographer, almost simultaneously invented a new method of
developing photographic plates by applying collodion. This technique accelerated
photograph making by twenty times and was also used by Nadar. The procedure is
based on the chemical infusion of potassium iodide or potassium bromide into
collodion, which is then applied to a glass plate. The plate is then submerged
in silver nitrate to produce the light sensitive silver iodide or silver
bromide. Still wet, the plate is then exposed in the camera. At that stage the
latent image is invisible. It is developed in pyrogallic solution and stabilised
in sodium thiosulfate, subsequently replaced by potassium cyanide. The whole
procedure has to be carried out with wet materials since the dried collodion
emulsion is insensitive to light.
The
exhibition is organised by Jeu de Paume in Paris, in collaboration with the
Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Ministry of Culture – France,
with the support of the Institut français de Slovénie and the participation of the
Galerija Matice srpske nad the National Gallery of Slovenia, for its presentation in Ljubljana
Project organised by
Jeu de Paume, l’Institut français
de Slovénie
Galerija Matice srpske
National Gallery of Slovenia
Coproduction
Jeu de Paume & Médiathèque de l'architecture et
du patrimoine, ministère de la Culture − France
Coordination
Tina Buh, Andrej Smrekar
Exhibition set-up
Andrej Smrekar
Graphic design
Kristina Kurent
Conservation and restoration of
exhibits
Médiathèque de
l’architecture et du patrimoine, ministère de la Culture − France
Lender
Médiathèque de
l’architecture et du patrimoine, ministère de la Culture − France
The exhibition was made possible by
13 October 2021 – 16 January 2022
National Gallery of Slovenia
Narodni dom Gallery
Cankarjeva 20
1000 Ljubljana