William Henry Fox Talbot and the Promise of Photography

William Henry Fox Talbot and the Promise of Photography
Category: Photographer Monographs & Art Books
Reviews: star star star star star
Author: William Henry Fox Talbot, Dan Leers, Larry Schaaf
Publisher: Carnegie Museum Of Art
Publication Date: 2017
Print Length: 96 pages
Language: English
Price: paid paid paid

With rarely seen images, this handsome, affordable volume shows Talbot's wide-ranging interests.

This beautiful publication serves as a primer on the work of William Henry Fox Talbot, a true interdisciplinary innovator who drew on his knowledge of art, botany, chemistry and optics to become one of the inventors of photography in 1839. Talbot’s “photogenic drawings” (photograms), calotypes and salted paper prints are some of the first-ever examples of images captured on paper.

Accompanying an exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh opening in November 2017, this book brings together more than 30 photographs by Talbot that demonstrate his wide-ranging interests, including nature, still-life, portraiture, architecture and landscape. Some of these images are previously unpublished. Through thematic groupings elucidated by noted Talbot scholar Larry Schaaf, the book reveals the photographer’s early striving to test the boundaries of his medium at a historic moment when art and science intersected. With its luminous reproductions of Talbot’s fragile works, this publication demonstrates that, in its earliest days, photography required a form of magic-making and innovation that continues to inspire people today.

Selected Books by This Photographer

William Henry Fox Talbot

2008 - Phaidon Press

William Henry Fox Talbot, Geoffrey Batchen

 

The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot

2000 - Princeton University Press

William Henry Fox Talbot, Larry J. Schaaf

 

William Henry Fox Talbot: Specimens and Marvels

1999 - Aperture

William Henry Fox Talbot

 

Book From the Same Publisher

Black Photojournalism

Dec 2025 - Carnegie Museum of Art

Charlene Foggie-Barnett, Dan Leers

 

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