Advances did not come until the 1930s when Leo-
pold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, Jr., working
at Kodak Research Laboratories, invented Koda-
chrome film. The following year, the Agfa Com-
pany of German, arrived at the Agfacolor negative–
positive process. Like the Kodachrome process, it
made possible reversal film, which produced color
transparencies suitable for projection (as slides) and
for reproduction (as prints). In 1942, Kodak intro-
duced Kodacolor film, which, after years of refine-
ment, became the most popular color photography
process of all.
Camera artists at mid-century cautiously made
works in color, some courted by Kodak and other
companies to demonstrate its practicality and ex-
pressiveness. Important early practitioners of color
processes include Paul Outerbridge, Jr., Madame
Yevonde, and Helen Levitt. The Austrian Ernst
Haas, a Magnum photographer, made remarkable
colored abstract and blurred motion works at mid-
century. In 1958, the Belgian Pierre Cordier began
making his abstract ‘‘chimigrammes,’’ color photo-
grams made chemically on photosensitive paper. In
America, in the 1960s and after, photographers such
as William Eggleston and Nan Goldin explored
color, especially the warm end of the tonal range.
The nature photographer Eliot Porter captured the
shimmering surfaces of the outdoors and produced
books sponsored by the Sierra Club. The chromo-
genic print, or C-print, as it is known, is a further
stage in the development of color processes and has
been a choice of artistic photographers. Ektachrome
is an example of this process, which relies, like much
color photography, on layers of variously color-sen-
sitized emulsions.
The instantaneous Polaroid process, invented by
Edwin Land and marketed after 1948, is an exam-
ple of a dye diffusion print that produces a unique
positive print. The SX-70 process produced fin-
ished prints within the camera itself. It was eagerly
taken up by amateurs. Photographers in the 1960s
and 1970s, such as Maria Cosindas and Lucas
Samaras, made works of startling originality some-
times by manipulating (rubbing and scratching) the
emulsion process as the image develops. Still, many
photographers resisted what they saw as the gaudy
tones of color photography, which had long been
associated with amateurs and used for advertising
and reproduced in popular magazines. Until the
last two decades of the century, the dominance of
black-and-white photography for artistic expres-
sion was unchallenged. Additionally, the cost of
reproducing color photographs in monographs
and other publications has been, until recently,
prohibitively expensive. By 1990, however, color
photography—in prints of monumental scale and
bright tones—had become an important aspect of
contemporary art, much of which includes photo-
graphy. Sandy Skoglund made bright dye-destruc-
tion prints from shots taken of her elaborately
staged painted sets. Indeed, many heralded con-
temporary artists, including the generation who
emerged in Germany in the late 1980s, including
Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth, work exclu-
sively in large color photography formats.Post-War Photography
The readership of picture magazines declined in the
1950s and 1960s because of the popularity of tele-
vision and the ease of travel. As amateur pho-
tography flourished, the need for professional
photography—portraiture, architectural photogra-
phy, journalistic imagery, and the like—began to
wane. By this time, the public recognized a split
between the pragmatic uses of the camera, and
more expressive/aesthetic pursuits. Important mus-
eum exhibitions of photography became a regular
occurrence in the twentieth century. They often
gave legitimacy and names to various movements
and groups. TheFilm und Fotoexhibition in Stutt-
gart, Germany, in 1929, included about one thou-
sand images, mostly ‘‘straight’’ and Constructivist,
from photographers around the world.
By mid-century, the straight approach to photo-
graphy was being transformed into highly subjec-
tive, even mystical statements. Minor White wished
his symbol-laden imagery to convey profoundly
personal, symbolic content. He was also instrumen-
tal in the institutionalization of fine art photogra-
phy in the United States. He was a founder of
Aperturemagazine (1952), a publication devoted
to superbly printed artistic photography, and also
became an important teacher. Aaron Siskind ex-
plored the abstract imagery of paint-spattered
walls, old billboards, and pavements. Harry Call-
ahan’s work was less abstract but just as formal in
its spare sense of line. Both became influential tea-
chers, first at the Institute of Design (Chicago) and
later at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Until the 1950s and 1960s, totally abstract photo-
graphy was uncommon, although abstract photo-
grams were made by the Constructivists and by the
followers and students of Moholy-Nagy. In 1917,
Alvin Langdon Coburn had made kaleidoscopic
abstract photographs, ‘‘Vortographs,’’ with the aid
of a mirrored box. Francis Bruguiere also made
images filled with abstract light effects around the
same time. In the 1940s, photographers such as Fre-
derick Sommer made horizon-less images of the Ari-HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TWENTIETH-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS