Article Posted (RE: Sury & Misonne)
I have received the copy of the article. Thanks, Judy.
In general the OCR software does a good job. It has some problems with
numbers, so I manually edited some of them. Other than that, I haven't done
much editing. Occassionally some character are mis-recognized but you can
probably guess what the originals are. I haven't read through the article
(the xerox or the converted file) myself. If you find some words that are
not clear, please let me know, and I will check the xerox copy for you.
I haven't done much formatting either. I am putting this up quickly so that
those who are interested can check quickly. Eventually I might go back and
do some formatting so that it would look nicer.
The link is
http://members.aol.com/fotodave/Articles/PhotographicReview.html
Dave
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Judy Seigel [mailto:jseigel@panix.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 3:49 PM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
> Subject: Re: Sury & Misonne
>
>
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2008, henk thijs wrote:
>
> > It is written 'Leonard Misonne', born in Charleroi -
> Belgien, and i
> > saw an exhibition of his work some time ago in the photomuseum of
> > Charleroi, and the pictures i saw were a.o. (brom)oil
> prints and gum,
> > very pictorialistic and depressing images of daily life
> and factories
> > next to romantic landscapes with sheeps et al.
> >
>
> I took a longer look at the American Photography Annual (No.
> 18, 1924) which I'd previously riffed through, and note a
> couple of points:
>
> page 308,"THE PHOTOGRAPHIC REVIEW," by E. J. Wall, begins:
>
> The "COLOR PROCESS": E.Rombaut gives a brief description of
> the working of this new Process, which has been introduced by
> E. Sury, of Antwerp. It recalls the old powder process and it
> is distinctly different.
> The paper is sent out unsensitized, and it is advised to turn
> up the edges of the sheet.... and pinch the corners so as to
> form a temporary tray...."
>
> There follow formulas (Am bi & methyl alcohol), &
> instructions for coating, draining, drying & printing...
> using a screen of black lines between negative &
> (insolation?-- which is -- the coating?). Some 2 pages of
> instructions in small print which follow are tempting to try
> -- (tho not to copy out).
>
> Is this the "patented" method do you suppose, or something
> else? The powder brushed on adheres in the unhardened cracks
> where the lines in the screen "or "reseau" lay, hence color
> (or colors) may be added by brushing in.
>
> After this topic a section on Resinopigmentype lays out the
> Namias process, using a "powder" made by "fusing resin, a
> fatty body and the desired pigment, then grinding when cold."
> There are plenty of fatty bodies & grinding around here, but
> I'm still doubtful I could follow those instructions... What
> for instance is the "resin"?
>
> Then the name is in fact Leonard Misonne, thanks Henk, tho no
> further word on his nationality.
>
> Other info gleaned from turning all 770-odd pages is that
> females of the day tended to get tangled up naked in window
> drapes or table cloths that persisted in flying open when the
> shutter snapped (an affliction to which men were apparently
> immune) and that F. Drtikol showed a couple of comically arch
> figure studies that look like I Love Lucy drunk as a skunk,
> while the penchant for titling photographs of
> African-Americans of any age and mien with irrelevant
> expressions in crude dialect was in full fettle.
>
> On page 493 we see a pleasant-looking middle aged man with
> pipe, beard and hat, comfortably seated with hands crossed,
> over the title: "Befo' De War." (No better or worse than
> dozens, perhaps hundreds of the genre...
> There oughta be a book. Proposed title: "Praise de lawd" --
> after the photo titled thusly, also for no discernible reason.)
>
> PS. If someone has a... I forget what you call them, a
> program that scans and converts to text-- and others are
> interested I can copy these pages on printing the
> above-mentioned Sury process & mail to him or her tp put on a
> website....( unless that's already been done?)
>
> Judy
>
> > happy 2008 ,
> > Cheers,
> > Henk
>
> likewise,
>
> Judy
>
>