From February 17 through May 14, 2018, the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar is presenting a retrospective dedicated to photographer Adolphe Braun (1812-1877). Braun was one of the most influential photographers of the 19th century. Conceived by the Stadtmuseum’s department of photography in Munich, this retrospective offers a complete panorama of his work, illustrated with original prints, many of which are being exhibited for the first time.
With around twenty paintings and etchings (Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet, Eugène Fromentin, Jean-Jacques Henner, Rosa Bonheur…), the exhibition concerns itself with the close relationship between Braun’s photography and the world of figurative art. The presentation of camera equipment belonging to the great French photographic collections reminds us of the importance of technical progress, like the glass plates negatives from the historical collection of the Société Braun, conserved by the Musée Unterlinden and the Haut-Rhin Department.
Founded in Alsace, Maison Braun & Cie was recognized in the second half of the 19th century as a pioneering photography company and one of the most productive of its time. With a considerably rich catalogue, it marketed its prints in Europe and North America: still lifes of flowers, Alpine landscapes, urban views, panoramas, wildlife and architectural studies, and reproductions of famous works of art.
Before getting into photography, Braun managed a Parisian drawing studio producing models destined for manufacturers printing on fabric. In 1843, he came back to Alsace, the region from which his family originated, to be the head designer of the textile company Dollfus-Ausset. His first known photographic work, the series Fleurs photographiées (1851-1854), was intended to renew the decorative repertoire of fabrics, in which new patterns were found, created from nature, with unprecedented botanical accuracy. Fleurs photographiées’ success at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris determined Braun to definitively turn himself towards photography, a modern technology whose intrinsic artistic potential he acknowledged. An auxiliary to fine arts, about to establish itself as an independent art able to pique the interest of a wide public audience.
In 1859, Braun finished L’Alsace photographiée, a series of close to 120 pictures showing Alsace’s sites and monuments. Though hardly attracting the attention of Parisian critics, its dedication to Napoleon III merited the artist official recognition, the Legion of Honor and the title of “Photographer of His Majesty the Emperor”. Taken a few years later, photographs of farm animals have a special place in his work. Recent critique suggests that they constituted a repertoire of wildlife studies for the use by other artists.
Located in Dornach, near Mulhouse, the Société Braun acquired a European reputation in the 1860s thanks to its landscape photography taken in Switzerland and Italy. The technical expertise of its photographers and their intimate knowledge of the sites allowed the catalogue to be enriched by a large number of photographs, whose commercial distribution would go hand in hand with the boom of Alpine tourism. Braun further developed his series with the newest technical processes, like stereoscopy, in 1857, and panoramic photography. Always in search of new subjects, he created captivating images of destruction during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and evocative pictures of Egypt for the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869.
Adolphe Braun, Photographic Adventures
From February 17 through May 14, 2018
Musée Unterlinden
1 Rue des Unterlinden
68000 Colmar
France
http://www.musee-unterlinden.com/
Exhibition Catalogue (versions in French and German)
Adolphe Braun – Une entreprise photographique européenne au 19e siècle
Published by Editions Schirmer / Mosel
260 pages (French version) 35 €
360 pages (German version) 58 €
