Conference: within the exhibition William Henry Fox Talbot. At the Origins of Photography

Conference dates: March, 21 – March, 22, 2018

Venue: Bldg. 6/2/3, Kolymazhny Pereulok, Moscow, Russian Federation
Museion Educational Centre

Organization: The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

The exhibition William Henry Fox Talbot. At the Origins of Photography will be held from February, 5 to April, 9, 2018 at The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.

Objectives and Topics of the conference

The prime objective of the conference is an analytical comprehension of a new phenomenon in the history of photography of the 19th century – negative-positive process, invented and patented by British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot in 1841. In this regard it is planned to discuss the next range of questions:
1. Concept photographical in sociocultural and art meaning;
2. The peculiarities of the calotype process: the negative and the print;
3. The first cameras of the 19th century;
4. Copying: technical process and its possibilities;
5. The peculiarities of the one-layer printing technologies of the 19th century.

The conference aims to consider the unique phenomenon of early analogue photography as an aesthetic category. Equally important is the range of issues related to the uniqueness of the historical prints, and therefore to the problems of their historical existence, collecting, study and advanced storage:

a) the problems of restoration and preservation of the early negative-positive prints and negatives;
b) the problems of identification of early photographic processes;
c) the problems of cataloging and storage of the photographs.

The conference reports will be published on the website of The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

The conference programme will be published later.

For all questions, please contact:

Olga Averyanova, Head of the Art of Photography Department, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
olga.averyanova@arts-museum.ru
Tel. +7 (495) 697 60 35

Marina Davydova, Curator of the conference, Researcher of the Art of Photography Department, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
marina.davydova@arts-museum.ru
Mob. +7 (926) 652 38 91