Autochrome Transparency
Hand-tinted photo of three women firing pottery at the edge of the pueblo in a fire pit kiln. The pots appear to be greenware (indicating that the firing process is just being initated) and they are decorated with geometrical designs typical of the Hopi pueblos. A large plume of smoke rises from the fire pit and the women are all hunched over the kiln attentively. There are rocks and wood strewn about the ground around the fire. A pueblo is visible atop the hill in the background and a burro is grazing casually a few yards away. The photo is handtinted rather crudely. The colors are garish and very noticeable. The pueblo is tinted a sort of mustard color and the pottery is dotted with bright orangeish-red (presumably these were polychrome pots). A note on the margin of the photo states that this image "took a silver medal at San Francisco."
- 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: For a thorough (and lengthy) description of the firing process of Hopi pottery, see Historic Hopi Ceramics by Edwin Wade and Lea McChesney, from the Harvard University Peobody Museum Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1981. 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 subsequently 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 #: 97.076