Autochrome Transparency
Still life photo of 2 Hopi baskets and 2 Hopi plaques sitting on a Hopi rug. Inside the 2 deep baskets in the foreground are corn (1 blue ear, 1 red ear), a Kachina, and piki bread. The shallow plaque on the left contains piki bread, but the plaque in the background is empty. The rug has a grey field with black, red and cream design elements in geometric patterns. The display is on a series of 3 steps, outside, illuminated by sunlight from the right.
- 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: Piki bread is a specialization of the pueblo peoples, perhaps introduced by the Hopi. The flour is ground from blue corn and an additive of sage ashes preserves the blue color (the addition of coxcomb turned the bread pink, the addition safflower produced yellow). The dough is spread very thinly over a heated piki stone, which is flat and smooth. As the stone is heated, tallow (from sheep or goat) is applied to the surface which enhances the application, cooking, and removal of the piki bread. Once removed, the thin slice is rolled and ready to be eaten. 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 #: 97.067