Julie Mellby (Princeton University), "What Did Muybridge and Darwin Have in Common? The Heliotype"

Julie Mellby (graphic arts curator emeritus, Princeton University) originally delivered this talk at University of Pennsylvania's Workshop in the History of Material Texts on September 23, 2024.
Julie Mellby writes:
During the nineteenth century, publishers, printers, artists, and chemists struggled to make fugitive photographic images permanent. Ernest Edwards solved this problem by developing the heliotype, a method of printing photographic negatives in ink, without a screen or need for cropping, making it the ideal solution for illustrated books and journals. Among the most important publications to use this process were Charles Darwin’s seminal 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, followed by Edward Muybridge’s massive eleven volume Animal Locomotion begun in 1883. This is an overview of the Edwards process and how it was used.
Julie Mellby is the graphic arts curator emeritus at Princeton University. Recent papers include “Never Fade Away: the Permanent Photograph,” National Gallery, Washington D.C.; “Edward L. Wilson and the Mechanical Photographers,” Royal Photographic Society, Bristol; and “Printing Big: Audubon, Havell, and the Double Elephant,” The Centre for Printing History and Culture, Pescara, Italy.