It was on this day 185 years ago (1839) that the invention of daguerreotype was officially presented to the members of the French Academy of Sciences, making one of the first practically usable photographic methods available to the world. Named after the French painter and scientist Louis Daguerre (1787–1851), who is considered one of the pioneers and fathers of photography. Others also include his collaborator, the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), who is considered to be the author of the first surviving photograph, created in 1826. The photographic method was then perfected, for example, by the British chemist John Herschel, who was the first to use the terms "photograph" or "negative" and "positive". Furthermore, the British inventor, linguist and mathematician William Fox Talbot (1800–1877), author of a photographic technique called calotype (characteristic of high contrast, sharp image and paper negatives), which in the 1940s definitively replaced the daguerreotype. Talbot was also the author of the first design of a portable camera and was the first in the world to lay the foundations of light ratio and flash photography. Others have their significant place in the history of photography, for example, the French photographer and inventor Hippolyte Bayard (1801–1887), who invented his own photographic process known as direct positive printing and organized the first public exhibition of photographs in the world, and Hercule Florence (1804–1879), French-Brazilian painter and inventor developing the negative-positive method. An important milestone in the development of photography was the discovery of color photography (1861), the replacement of glass photographic plates with plastic film (1890s) and the emergence of digital photography (1969, respectively 1981), which is actually quite recent history. The very first prototype of a portable digital camera was developed in 1975 by Kodak engineer Steve Sasson, but real digital cameras did not appear until the mid-1980s. Digital photography is a trend that is developing at a tremendous speed today. It has become an integral part of our lives, when we record our emotions, everyday experiences and important events through the camera in our mobile phones.

And who else to remember on this day than the icon of Czech and European photography Josef Sudek (1896–1976), the author of unforgettable motifs of Prague, studio arrangements, still lifes, landscape shots, reports and advertising images. His contemporary, the painter and illustrator Josef Brož (1904–1980), captured him in a painting from our collections. In addition to portraits and figurative compositions, he mainly painted landscapes, which took him to the Highlands, among other places. After studying at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the studio of Arnošt Hofbauer, he studied for a year with František Kupka in Paris, was a member of the Umělecká beseda group and Group 58. He captured the aging photographer in 1958, sitting and meditating in a baroque red armchair, with his characteristic spirited painting style, rich colors applied with pasty painting and frugal composition.

Jana Bojanovská, August 2024