Jillian Lerner, “Le Noyé [The Drowned Man]” and “Construction Worker, Paris” in Hippolyte Bayard and the Invention of Photography, edited by Karen Hellman and Carolyn Peter. Los Angelos, CA: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2024.
Book information:
The first English-language volume about Hippolyte Bayard, one of the inventors of photography who helped transform the burgeoning medium into an art form.
Hippolyte Bayard (1801–1887) is often characterized as an underdog in the early history of photography. From the outset, his contribution to the invention of the medium was eclipsed by others such as Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851) and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877). However, Bayard had an undeniable role in the birth of photography and its subsequent evolution into a form of art. He was a pioneer in artistic style, innovator in terms of practice, and teacher of the next generation of photographers.
Alongside an exploration of Bayard’s decades-long career and lasting impact, this volume presents—for the first time in print—some of the earliest photographs in existence. An album containing nearly 200 images, 145 of those by or attributed to Bayard, is among the Getty Museum’s rarest and most treasured photographic holdings. Few prints have ever been seen in person due to the extreme light sensitivity of Bayard’s experimental processes, making this an essential reference for scholars and enthusiasts of the very beginning of photography.
Edited by Karen Hellman and Carolyn Peter, with contributions by Éléonore Challine, Paul-Louis Roubert, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Art Kaplan,Tania Passafiume, Jillian Lerner, Anne McCauley, Anne de Mondenard, Nancy B. Keeler, Michel Frizot, James A. Ganz, Sarah Freeman and Ronel Namde, Luce Lebart, and Anne Lacoste. This volume is published to accompany an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum from April 9 to July 7, 2024.
For more information: https://shop.getty.edu/products/hippolyte-bayard-and-the-invention-of-photography-978-1606068939