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Nadar (Paul), photograph album of Turkestan
2022.R.1
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Title: Paul Nadar photograph album of Turkestan
Date (inclusive): 1890
Number: 2022.R.1
Creator/Collector:
Nadar, Paul,
1856-1939
Physical Description:
1.25 Linear Feet
(74 photographs on 37 mounts)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The album contains 74 photographs taken
during the three-month sojourn French photographer Paul Nadar made in Turkistan (present-day
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) when he was invited to exhibit at the 1890 Tashkent Exhibition.
Nadar's images capture everyday scenes and people in the streets and environs of Samargand,
Tashkent, Bukhoro, Mary (near the ancient site of Merv), and the Murghab steppe. Included
are photographs depicting people and activities in and around bazaars and mosques, camel
caravans, and local methods of transportation. Several scenes show a falconry contest and a
baigue, a strategic horse race run over rugged terrain.
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Language: Collection material is in
French .
Paul Nadar (1856-1939) inherited the Nadar portrait studio in Paris from his father,
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, the innovative photographer, caricaturist, and writer, who went by
the pseudonym Nadar (which he adopted at age 18 in 1838). As the only child of Félix and
Ernestine Nadar, and the nephew of artist-photgrapher Adrien Tournachon, Paul Nadar grew up
in the bohemian milieu of Belle Époque Paris. He was devoted to the business, and by the
early 1870s was already working both behind the camera and helping Ernestine Nadar to run
the business side of the studio which had moved from 35 boulevard des Capucines to 57 rue
d'Anjou. By 1880, Paul Nadar was running the studio and shifting its business model from the
artistic aesthetic his father's portraiture was known for to the more conventional studio
aesthetics of the time which relied on elaborate studio furniture, props, and backdrops that
attracted a wider clientele. While this change, along with the the adoption of more
profitable production methods, gave the studio a more secure financial footing than it had
ever had under his father, it also caused a considerable rift between the two men.
By 1886, their differences were put aside as father and son collaborated on what is
considered to have been the first photo interview, conducted as part of the festivities
celebrating the 100th birthday of scientist Michel-Eugène Chevreul, the organic chemist and
color theorist who was a beloved figure in France. The Nadars interviewed Chevreul in their
studio over the course of three days. As Nadar père interviewed Chevreul, Paul Nadar
captured their conversations with approximately 100 instantaneous photographs, while also
recording it on Clément Ader's phonophone, a type of early phonograph. An article matching
thirteen photographs with excerpts from the transcript of one of the conversations was
published in
Le Journal illustré (no. 36, September 5, 1886).
Titled "L'Art de vivre cent ans: trois entretiens avec M. Chevreul à la veille de sa cent et
unième année," it was the first photo essay to be published in the press, placing Paul Nadar
on the cutting-edge of news reportage. A few years later Paul Nadar's photographs from the
interview were one of the main attractions at the 1889 Exposition universelle. Later that
year
Le Figaro commissioned him to photograph Charles
Chincholle's interview with Georges Boulanger, the nationalist general and politician
popularly known as "Général Revanche" ("General Revenge").
Like his father, Paul Nadar was an innovative experimenter throughout his career. He
furthered his father's forays into aerial photography using a hot-air balloon as their
vehicle. While Nadar père's surviving aerial photographs were taken from a tethered balloon,
in 1886, Paul Nadar succeeded in taking about thirty images during a six-hour balloon flight
between Versailles and Camp Conlie in the Sarthe. The Nadars were among the first
professional photographers to use the gelatin silver dry plate process, a method which
propelled the development of instant photography. Paul Nadar was an especially keen user and
promoter of instant photography. He was quick to adopt Kodak's flexible film and portable
cameras, both of which were instrumental to his photography of the performing arts and to
his live photojournalism. Paul Nadar developed the Nadar Express Détective camera with
Eastman in 1888, and in 1893, he became the exclusive distributor of Eastman Kodak products
in France. That year he also invented the glass negatives known as "Nadar extra-fast
plates."
Invited to exhibit at the 1890 Tashkent Exhibition, Nadar traveled through Central Asia on
the Trans-Caspian railway which was built by the Russian army between 1866 and 1888. He used
both Kodak and Nadar Express Détective instant cameras to take over 1,800 photographs during
his three-month journey. Nadar exhibited his Turkestan photographs at several World's Fairs
in the 1890s, and in 1894, the geographer, Édouard Blanc, used Nadar's images to illustrate
an article that he published in the
Annals of Geography. At
Nadar's studio the images were available for purchase in several formats including prints of
various sizes, stereoscopes, and projection plates.
Paul Nadar became the legal owner of the Nadar Studio in 1895 and ran it until his death in
1939. His daugther Marthe then ran the studio for a few years before closing it. In 1950,
Anne Nadar, Paul's second wife, sold the entire contents of the studio to the French
government.
Sources consulted:
Aubenas, Sylvie, et al.
Les Nadar: une légende
photographique
. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2018.
Bernard, Anne-Marie and Claude Malécot.
L'odyssée de Paul Nadar au
Turkestan, 1890: photographies de Paul Nadar
. Paris: Monum, 2007.
Farrell, Jennifer. "Paul Nadar," in Paul Hannavy, ed.
Encyclopedia
of Nineteenth-century Photography
, vol. 2: 974-975. Routledge: New York and
London, 2008.
Bibliothèque nationale de France. "The Nadars, a Photographic Legend."
http://expositions.bnf.fr/les-nadar/en/the-nadars.html.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions
and Permissions
.
Paul Nadar photograph album of Turkestan, 1890, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles,
Accession no. 2022R.1.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2022r1
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 2022.
Beth Ann Guynn processed the collection and wrote the finding aid in 2022.
The collection was digitzed by the repository in 2022 and the images can be viewed
online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2022r1
The repository holds 13 photographs made by Paul Nadar during the Nadar's interviews of
Michel-Eugène Chevreul. See: Meeting of Chinese ambassador, Shu King Chen, and Michel-Eugène
Chevreul at Atelier Nadar, Special Collections accession number 2019.R.7.
Scope and Content of Collection
The album contains 74 photographs from Paul Nadar's three-month sojourn in Turkistan
(present-day Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan). Nadar's images capture everyday scenes and people
in the streets and environs of Samargand, Tashkent, Bukhoro, Mary (near the ancient site of
Merv), and the Murghab steppe. Included are photographs depicting people and activities in
and around bazaars and mosques, camel caravans, and local methods of transportation. Several
scenes show a falconry contest and a baigue, a strategic horse race run over rugged
terrain.
The disbound string- or post-bound album lacks its original covers which were replaced by a
cardboard portfolio with "Opération BPC courrier divers" written on the front in green and
blue marker. Each album page contains a pair of photographs with circular images printed on
rectangular sheets. The photographs are numbered on the sheets to the lower right of the
image; the numbers are not arranged in sequence. Each mount is headed with a place name in
French and captioned below the images. These captions have been used as titles for the
individual photographs.
Arranged in a single series: Series I. Paul Nadar photograph album of Turkestan, 1890.
Bazaars (Markets) -- Asia,
Central
Falconers -- Asia, Central
Horse racing -- Asia, Central
Mosques -- Asia, Central
Asia, Central -- Description and travel
Bukhoro (Uzbekistran) -- Description
and travel
Mary (Turkmenistan) -- Description and
travel
Samarqand (Uzbekistan) -- Description
and travel
Tashkent (Uzbekistan) -- Description
and travel
Photographs, Original.
Photograph albums -- Asia, Central -- 19th century
Gelatin silver prints -- Asia, Central -- 19th century
Nadar, Paul,
1856-1939