Autochrome Transparency
Hopi plaque and two ceramic pieces posed on textile. The plaque is one of the plain plaited wicker variety. Commonly woven in a "spiderweb-like design". The two small pieces of pottery (seemingly non-Hopi as per Foley Benson) are both polychromes, one a miniature olla, the other a bovine figurine (definitely post-contact!).
- Object: Autochrome Transparency
- Artist: George Holt
- Circa: Early to mid 1920s
- Dimensions: 3 1/4" x 4"
- Culture Area: Southwest
- Cultural Group: Hopi, Oraibi
- Cultural Context: "Plain plaited wicker basketry is made on third mesa, the principal pueblo of which is Oraibi. The spiderweb-like design ... looks like a series of geometric cogged bands. 'Spiderweb' plaques might be used in the Snake Dance of the rain ceremony or in other basket dances associated with the harvest festival. The legendary Spiderwoman taught the Hopi how to weave.She also wove the rain clouds, ...(so) by using a 'spiderweb'design on the sacred plaques, the Hopi ceremonially en- couraged spider woman to weave clouds that brought their life -sustaining rains." (see reference) 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 #: 97.068