1, 2, 3... Couleur !

The great American photographer Edward Steichen (1879-1973) wrote that it was the “most beautiful process that photography has ever given us to capture nature”. The enthusiasm for the new technique was both intense and relatively brief, lasting just over two decades before the process gradually fell into disuse in the 1920s and 1930s. The Autochrome then went through a long period of neglect. Being too fragile, difficult to expose, and non-reproducible, it was for a long time one of the great neglected branches of photography, like a dead branch that seemed to have yielded only too few fruits.

For the past two decades, the Autochrome has been brought back to life by a few historians and collectors who, against the current, have been able to appreciate its finesse, sensuality, and strangeness.

The exhibition brings together 176 works from two collections, including around forty original plates. The diversity of the presented Autochromes illustrates the very wide use of this medium within society, from anonymous or renowned photographers to the photographic service of the armies.

Accompanying the exhibition presented at the Château de Tours, the album published is a contribution to this renewed interest illustrated by the two collections. On the one hand, the AN collection gathered since 2006 by Soizic Audouard and Élizabeth Nora, which, due to its very high quality and diversity, constitutes a wonderful introduction to the very singular aesthetics of the Autochrome. On the other hand, the fascinating collection of Autochromes from the First World War held at the MPP (Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie). This selection, however rich, is not intended to recount a history of the process but rather to be more of an introduction.