1009
using the instantaneous photographic process, Noack
took important pictures of street life in Genoa, giving
an idea of ancient crafts and social habits. He died in
1895 and his archive was taken over by Carlo Paganini.
In 1926 his heir, Maria, sold the entire archive, with
more than 4,000 negatives, to the City of Genoa, where
it is now kept.
Silvia Paoli
NORMAND, ALFRED-NICOLAS
(1822–1909)
French architect and photographer
Alfred-Nicolas Normand, architect, Prix de Rome
scholar at the French Academy, arrived Rome 1846
and took up the calotype, usually signed ‘A Normand’
and dating from 1850–52. This small collection depicts
views of Rome and Pompei, along with Palermo, Athens
and Constantinople. His expert images, evocative and
sensitive, redolent with the pathos of classical antiquity,
surpassed the topographical and architectural study
which became common in the commercial albumen
period which mostly extinguished such private calo-
type photographers. The French artists on their Grand
Tour to Rome were to form one of the fi rst signifi cant
groups of calotypists in Italy, subsequently described as
La Scuola Romana di Fotografi a although there is no
evidence of a group as such. Along with the other artists
from Northern Europe and America they frequented the
social life in Rome centred around the Caffè Greco. The
French ‘group’ included Jean-François-Charles André
(1813–83), known as Count Frédéric Flachéron, sculp-
tor, lived Rome 1839–67; Eugène Constant, painter,
lived Rome 1848–55, probably the fi rst in Rome to
use the new albumen on glass; and Prince Giron des
Anglonnes, a contemporary of Normand, also working
1850–52. Normand also became known for his archi-
tectural drawings and studies which continue to be sold
today in the poster market. He remained a member of the
Academy des Beaux-Arts in Paris until 1890, although
little would appear to be known of his life.
Alistair Crawford
NORWAY
Through the year of 1839 the publisher Hans Thøger
Winther (1786–1851) kept the Norwegian public
informed about what was happening in France. In
October of 1840 the fi rst daguerreotype was exhibited
in Bergen and at the beginning of 1841 another was
shown at an exhibition arranged by the Art Society in
the capital Christiania (now Oslo). Winther was himself
experimenting with fi xing images and in 1842 he pub-
lished his fi rst photographs as lithograph reproductions
“from life.” Three years later he published an extensive
handbook explaining the direct positive process, the
negative/positive process and a method for conversion
of positives into negatives and vice versa. People could
also buy cameras made of wood or cardboard, built after
his instructions; his work inspired a growing group of
photographers in Norway.
Norway was a rural society with a small population
mainly living from agriculture and fi shing. There were
no really big cities and only a few industrial settlements
in the beginning of the 19th century. At the same time,
a growing national awareness based on new political
circumstances, was making room for new activity, such
as building universities, industrialization, railroads, a
growing media and political parties. The artistic com-
munity formed an important part of this project. So did
the growing population of photographers: from 80 active
photographers in 1855–60 to about 700 in the national
census of 1900 (Erlandsen 2000, 175). It is an interest-
ing fact that the new technique developed side by side
with the growing society. We can very much read what
was considered important by what was photographed
and how the images were used. First and foremost, the
community of photographers catered to the demands of
the growing middle class for portraits. But they also both
documented society as it developed, contributed to new
fi elds and helped give Norwegians images to understand
and develop a culture and an identity.
One of the most important early participants in the
fi eld of photography in Norway was the Danish phar-
macist Marcus Selmer (1818–1900). He came to Bergen
in 1852 and established a portrait-studio were he made
daguerreotypes and photographs in other techniques.
He soon started on a big project: photographing people
in local costumes and landscapes from different parts
of the country. The images were offered to the popular
illustrated press and tourists—both growing industries.
The probably fi rst news photography can also be at-
tributed to Selmer: a photograph of the remains of a
house burnt down in January 1863 and advertised for
sale two weeks later.
Knud Knudsen (1832–1915) probably learnt to
photograph from Selmer whom he worked for for many
years before he started his own studio in Bergen in- He was the fi rst to systematically photograph the
whole of Norway: from Kristiansand to the North Cape.
He also documented a rapidly vanishing rural culture.
Knudsen made all together 9,000 images before 1898,
when he retired and left his business to a relative. No
doubt earlier painters and their choice of places to go
infl uenced him, but he expanded the repertoire and that
way also peoples knowledge of the country.
The Swedish photographer Axel Lindahl (1832–
- was engaged by the publisher Richard Andvord
in 1882 to photograph Norway. He travelled all through