The International Reach of Lippmann Photography
Lippmann photography aka interferential color photography generates direct positives on glass that are dazzling in brilliance and archival stability but which cannot be transferred unto paper. This exciting technical genesis meant, however, that opportunities for spectators, scientists, and photography aficionados to connect with Lippmann photography hinged on the physical photograph and on the use of projection devices, capable of megascopic projection, and were thus scarce! Also, lithographs and engravings failed to transmit its unique shimmering colors and its “jewel-like” quality. As a result, examining the international reach of Lippmann photography challenges historical studies that focus on the medium’s „circulation and mobility” through print culture, simply because printing a Lippmann plate was a dream, not an option.
This presentation addresses one dreamer’s attempt to “print the unprintable”; German engineer Hans Lehmann whose “one hit wonder” Lippmann print has so far received scant scholarly interest. My talk also investigates how, despite the lack of Lippmann prints, knowledge about the process circulated beyond Paris (where Gabriel Lippmann’s lab was located) through other forms of disclosure. Mapping how Lippmann photography reached Sweden, Argentina, and Russia etc. illuminates the international scholarly networks Lippmann was part of as well as the reception (both aesthetic and scientific) of his work.
Target Audience: Historians of physics, historians of science, French Studies, Global History
Dr. Hanin Hannouch (she/her) is Curator of analog and digital media at the Weltmuseum Wien where she is oversees the photography, film and sound collections and vice-president of the European Society for the History of Photography (ESHPh).
She is the editor of the first volume on interferential color photography "Gabriel Lippmann's Colour Photography: Science, Media, Museums" (Amsterdam University Press, 2022), PhotoResearcher’s special issue „Three-Color Photography around 1900: Technologies, Expeditions, Empires“ (vol.37, 2022), and the open-access journal Cinergie’s special issue titled “Destabilizing Histories: (Re-)appropriation in Photography and Cinema” (2020).
She was postdoctoral researcher at the Ethnologisches Museum - Berlin State Museums and at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz / Max-Planck-Institut where she investigated the colonial and imperial entanglements of color photography. She earned her PhD summa cum laude from IMT Lucca, Scuola Alti Studi (2017) with a thesis about Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein as art historian. She completed the international Masters in art history and museology (IMKM) at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris and the University of Heidelberg in Germany (2014). She has also earned a previous Masters (2012) and a Bachelors in European art history, focusing on art in the 20th century, both from Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik in Lebanon. She is currently writing her monograph titled “Color Photography in Imperial Germany”.
Recommended Readings: Please visit the ressource section in this group for all things Lippmann!
Date
-