Carbon Pigment Prints
The fading of color photographs led me to the discovery of, and soon thereafter, total immersion in, the carbon printing process. This historic color print technique produced the first color print in 1869. Widely used by commercial and advertising photographers in the 1930’s-40’s, it was replaced with modern (simpler, faster, cheaper) color print systems by1960. My research into this process, famed for the beauty and longevity of its color prints, began in 1976
and led to the development of new color print materials and printmaking techniques.
This new approach to making permanent color photographs resulted in the Polaroid Permanent Process which was introduced in 1986 and then, in 1993, to the founding, with Richard Kauffman, of Ultrastable Color Systems, Inc, which developed, manufactured and distributed four-color carbon pigment print materials until 1999. Today, UltraStable Carbon Pigment prints are considered to be among the finest and most durable color photographs ever made and are in private and public collections world-wide.
My personal work in this process, spanning over twenty years, is comprised mostly of portraits and still life studies. The accompanying examples were selected from a 1994 exhibit at the San Francisco Art Institute.
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