Gustave Le Gray
|
GUSTAVE LE GRAY
Le Vapeur, ca. 1856 - 1859, albumen print, 12 1/2” x 16 1/4". |
GUSTAVE LE GRAY
“The Road to Chailly”, ca. 1856, albumen print, 10” x 14”. |
GUSTAVE LE GRAY
Bain du Mont, France, ca. 1850s or 60s, albumen print, 7 1/2" x 14 1/2". |
|
|
Gustave Le Gray, French, 1820 - ca. 1882
Le Gray's first attraction to the arts was painting. Along with other future photographers such as Charles Negre, Henri Le Secq, and Roger Fenton, Le Gray studied painting with the famous artist Paul Delaroche. In 1848 Le Gray turned to photography and opened up his own portrait studio in Paris. Besides portraits Le Gray took photographs of architecture, military life, landscape and seascapes for which he is probably best known. His landscapes and seascapes are often considered to be the most beautiful and important photographs of the 19th century.
Unfortunately, Le Gray did not have a penchant for the popular cartes de visite of the day and he was forced to close his studio in 1859 for financial reasons. Le Gray then left Paris and his family. There is little information on his whereabouts until 1865 when it is recorded that he taught painting and drawing in Cairo. Le Gray was one of the first photographers to use collodion and in 1851 he invented a dry wax paper process which became very popular among landscape and architectural photographers. He also introduced a technique called "combination printing". Since collodion photography would intrinsically leave the skies in photographs cloudless, Le Gray's idea of combining a negative of clouds with a negative of a landscape or seascape scene was a popular solution. Le Gray's work is in collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. The Musee de l'Armee, Paris had an exposition and produced a book of LeGray's work entitled, Une Visite au Camp de Chalons sous le Second Empire Photographies de Messieurs LeGray, Prevot. Another book on LeGray entitled, The Photography of Gustave Le Gray by Eugenia Parry Janis was published by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1987.
|
 Email us at: w@leegallery.com
Member of The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD)
|