Tate Britain is to hold the first exhibition in Britain devoted to salted paper prints, one of the earliest forms of photograph. A uniquely British invention, unveiled by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, salt prints spread across the globe, creating a new visual language of the modern moment.
This revolutionary technique transformed subjects from still lifes, portraits, landscapes and scenes of daily life into images with their own specific aesthetic; a soft, luxurious effect particular to this photographic process.
The few salt prints that survive make brief appearances on the gallery wall due to their fragility, and so this exhibition, a collaboration with the Wilson Centre for Photography, is a singular opportunity to see the rarest and best early photographs of this type in the world.
Tate Britain, 24 February–7 June 2015.
See: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/salt-and-silver-early-photography-1840-1860
Image: Jean Baptiste Frenet, Horse and Groom 1855. © Wilson Centre for Photography.
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