Autochrome Transparency
Two Hopi women, Ruth (daughter) and Sehepmanma (mother), standing in front of plastered adobe wall. Both are wearing western style dresses (one checked, one polka dotted) and both have plaid woven blankets wrapped around their shoulders. The woman on the left is also wearing a red, green and white sash around her waist and her hair is in two braids. (see also 97.078 and 97.079)
- Object: Autochrome Transparency
- Artist: George Holt
- Circa: Early to mid 1920s
- Dimensions: 3 1/4" x 4"
- Culture Area: Southwest
- Cultural Group: Hopi
- Cultural Context: The autochrome transparencies in the Flegal collection were taken by George Holt, the donor's father. He was a chaplain for the baptist church and travelled all over the world visiting missionaries and subsequenthy photographing neophytes in various locales. The autochrome process was the first commercially successful color application of photography which enabled photographers like Holt to get high quality color photos of their subjects. However, the burden of carrying numerous unexposed glass plates to remote locations often proved cumbersome, at best. As a sidebar, the historic significance of autochrome is worth noting. As mentioned earlier, autochromes were "the first viable color photographic process." The process was patented in 1907 by Auguste and Louis Lumiere of France. "The autochrome 'screen' was created by forming a layer of minute starch grains dyed in the primary colors (red, blue, green) ..." which was over lain with a layer of lampblack (filling the space between the grains) then a layer of shellack. "So when exposed, the light traversed the glass through the grain and exposed the light/color sensitive emulsion from the back. After exposure (using a view camera on a tripod) the plate was processed to reverse in an acid dichromate-type process."
- Donor: Mrs. Carl Flegal
- Catalog #: 97.064