577
See also: Art Photography; Hill, David Octavius,
and Adamson, Robert; Nègre, Charles; Pictorialism;
Rejlander, Oscar Gustav; Robinson, Henry Peach;
Sutcliffe, Frank Meadow; and Tableaux.
Further Reading
Chiarenza, Carl, “Notes on Aesthetic Relationships between
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting and Nineteenth-Century
Photography” in One Hundred Years of Photographic History:
Essays in Honor of Beaumont Newhall, edited by Van Deren
Coke, Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico
Press, 1975, 19–34.
Hulick, Diana Emery, “Alfred Stieglitz’s Paula (1889): A Study
in Equivalence” in History of Photography, vol. 17, no. 1
(Spring 1993), 90–94.
Langdon, Helen, Every-Day Life Painting, New York: Mayfl ower
Books, 1979.
Smith, Graham, “Edinburgh Ale by David Hill and Robert Ad-
amson,” in Source: Notes in the History of Art, vol. 2, no. 3
(Spring 1983), 14–16.
Spencer, Stephanie, “O.G. Rejlander’s Photographs of Street
Urchins” in The Oxford Art Journal, vol. 7, no. 2 (1984),
17–24.
Spencer, Stephanie, O.G. Rejlander: Photography as Art, Ann
Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1985.
Stechow, Wolfgang, and Comer, Christopher, “The History of the
Term Genre” in Bulletin, Allen Memorial Art Museum, vol.
33, no. 2 (1975–6), 89–94.
Sutcliffe, Frank M., “On Genre Photography (1901)” in A Pho-
tographic Vision: Pictorial Photography, 1889-1923, edited
by Peter Bunnell, Salt Lake City, Utah: Peregrine Smith,
1980, 129–130.
Talbot, William Henry Fox. The Pencil of Nature (1844), reprinted
with an introduction by Beaumont Newhall, New York: Da
Capo Press, 1969.
“The Photographic Society” in The Athenaeum, no. 1472 (12
January 1856), 46.
GENTHE, ARNOLD (1869–1942)
German photographer and studio owner
Arnold Genthe was born in Berlin, Germany in 1869.
Upon completion of a degree in classical philosophy at
the University of Jena, Genthe took a job as a tutor in
San Francisco, California. While in San Francisco, Gen-
the became fascinated by its Chinatown neighborhood.
He taught himself photography to accurately capture
its residents. These early photographs are among his
most well-known work. In 1897 he opened a studio and
began to photograph celebrities, society people, and the
changing face of the city, including photos taken in the
immediate aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. In 1911
Genthe moved his studio to New York, where he focused
mainly on portraits of the wealthy and well-known. He
photographed modern dancers and fi lm stars, including
Isadora Duncan and Greta Garbo, and became well-
known for those images. His portraits were unposed and
artistic, mainly in the pictorialist, romantic style, and
often used intricate lighting and soft-focus. Genthe was
an early experimenter with color photography, and fi rst
exhibited color autochromes in 1911. Although primar-
ily known for portrait work, Genthe documented his
travels to Japan and Guatemala, and published a book
of photographs of New Orleans. Arnold Genthe died on
August 9, 1942 in New Milford, Connecticut.
Jenny GotwalsGEOFFRAY, STÉPHANE
(1827–after 1895)
French lawyer, banker, and photographerBorn on 17 April 1827, in Roanne, France, Stéphane
Geoffray was the son of Antoine Geoffray, a confec-
tioner, and Claudine Julie Chavalland. Although he
went by the name of Stéphane, his actual fi rst name
was Étienne.
Nothing is known about Geoffray’s childhood. From
1852–1854, he apparently studied law in Rouen. By
May 1855, he was established as a lawyer in Roanne,
at 8, rue du Collège. He took up photography around
1850–1852, using the waxed-paper negative process of
Gustave Le Gray from 1852–1854.
Most of Geoffray’s renown as a photographer stems
from 1854–1856, when the wet-collodion process was
superseding the paper negative process. During this pe-
riod, he wrote technical articles aimed at making paper
a viable alternative to glass.
Geoffray’s fi rst procedure, published in 1854, was
known as the cerolein process and was modifi ed from
Le Gray’s original waxed-paper negative process.
However, instead of saturating the fi bers of the paper
with melted beeswax prior to iodizing, as Le Gray had
done, Geoffray fi rst boiled the wax in alcohol, causing
it to separate into three constituent components: cerotic
acid (cerin), myricin, and cerolein. Upon cooling, only
the cerotic acid remained in solution (which Geoffray
consistently, but inexactly, called “céroléine”) and the
re-solidifi ed myricin and cerolein were fi ltered off.
Iodizing consisted of a second, alcohol-based iodizing
solution being blended with the cerotic acid solution and
sheets of paper being plunged into the bath, followed
by drying. The sensitizing, developing, and fi xing steps
were similar to the waxed-paper negative process—with
an additional fi nal waxing step, utilizing the leftover
myricin and cerolein.
This procedure had two advantages over Le Gray’s:
fi rst, granularity and image defi nition were improved
because the iodizing chemistry was directly dissolved in
the cerotic acid solution; and second, the time required
to iodize, sensitize, and develop the negative was greatly
reduced.
Following the publication of Geoffray’s procedure,
a debate arose as to whether or not it was justifi ably