PhotoResearcher No. 44, 2025: The Autochrome in Imperial History.
Published by: The European Society for the History of Photography.
Editor: Dr. Hanin Hannouch (Weltmuseum Wien)

Table of Content

Hanin Hannouch
Housing Privileges: Tassilo Adam’s Autochromes of the Bosscha Estate in Java

Janine Freeston
Autochromes for Empire: J. C. Warburg at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition

Rachel Lee Hutcheson
Extracting the View: Fred Payne Clatworthy’s Autochromes of the American West

Inga Lára Baldvinsdóttir
The Autochrome in Iceland: Colour Photography on the Far Periphery of Europe

Nadezhda Stanulevich
The Reception of the Autochrome in the Russian Empire around 1900

Kitti Baráthová, Katarína Beňová & Janka Blaško Križanová
Between Center and Periphery: Autochrome Photography Through the History of Present-Day Slovakia

Bronwyn Lace & Anna Seiderer
Pepper’s Ghost. A Living Autochrome

The Autochrome in Imperial History: Color Photography’s Global Entanglements

This issue of PhotoResearcher centers on the role of the Lumière brothers’ Autochrome in global colonial and political contexts. The impetus behind creating “The Autochrome in Imperial History” is the Tassilo Adam Collection, housed at Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna. Adam, a plantation manager and photographer in the Dutch East Indies, gifted the collection, including his Autochromes, to the Weltmuseum Wien in 1940. A handful of these depict the lavish estate of Karl Bosscha in Java, Indonesia. Their representation marks a shift in the conventional colonial gaze, turning inwards, by meticulously showcasing the European settler’s domestic sphere.

This collection of essays broadens interpretative avenues, motivating the invitation of international scholars to re-situate the Autochrome within broader imperial dynamics. This volume distinguishes itself from prior scholarship on the Autochrome by prioritizing the medium’s political deployment over poetic or aesthetic interpretations. The global perspectives presented through various case studies span cases across Iceland, Great Britain, the Russian Empire, colonial Indonesia, the United States of America, the French Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They demonstrate the Autochrome’s function as an instrument of imperial modernity, facilitating both the creation and dissemination of colonial viewpoints and the documentation of the empire’s aftermath.

Orders (physical journal or Pdf) to be sent to: officeeshph.org