Thank you for sharing the contents of Bill Foster's letter. I would not be
at all surprised but that his description of Fresson as having four layers,
one of clear gelating and three in colored gelatin is not correct.
Almost ten years ago Russ Young, the editor of The New Pictorialist,
published a short article by me on Ortiz Echague in which I engaged in some
conjecture about the manufacture of Fresson paper. My conclusion, based on
several references in the literature and conversations with Gerardo Vielba
(a friend of Echague who knew a lot about his working technique), was very
close to what Mr. Foster indicates. In that article I wrote:
"In addition to its documentary and ideological values, the photography of
Echagüe has an aesthetic quality which is substantially enhanced by the
plastic qualities inherent in the direct carbon process he used. He
apparently began experimenting with direct carbon and gum bichromate
sometime in 1906; in October of that year an article in Graphos Ilustrado
observed that Echagüe was "competing with a clear disadvantage because of
his inability to use the pigment processes, which he is only now beginning
to cultivate." What is certain is that by 1915, the year he returned from
Africa, Echagüe had become an acknowledged master of Fresson, a process
which he continued to use throughout his life, eventually producing some
1500 of these direct carbon prints. When in 1966 the Fresson family ceased
distributing to the public their Fresson papers they provided Ortiz-Echagüe
with detailed working procedures which he used to manufacture the paper.
However, by agreement with the Fresson's Ortiz-Echagüe did not refer to
this paper as Fresson, which is why after 1966 he call his printing process
carbondir (carbon + directo), which of course means direct carbon in
English. In 1979 an aging Ortiz-Echagüe sold to the Canadian Luis Nadeau
this carbondir process, including the coating machine used in the
manufacture of the paper. Although Ortiz-Echagüe did not reveal the secret
of the process, and Nadeau himself has shed little light on the manufacture
of his Fressontype paper, a study of the early literature suggests that
Fresson paper was manufactured by coating a sized paper with several layers
of pigmented colloid, varying in terms of pigment density from very pale to
almost completely opaque. Moreover, for the process to work well each of
the colloid layers needs to be of a different sensitivity than its
neighbor, with the most sensitive coating (and palest) on the bottom and
the least sensitive (and most opaque) on the top. The theory behind this
coating procedure is identical to that which is employed in the production
of multiple-layer gum prints, the only exception being that in Fresson all
of the layers were applied at once and only one printing and developing
were required. Théodore Henri-Fresson was probably not the first to
understand the principle that made his paper work but better than others he
was able to apply solid engineering principles to the problem of coating a
paper with several thin colloid layers."
Regards,
Sandy King
>Sandy,
>
>I just received some paper mail that supports what you posted as follows:
>
>
>On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Sandy King wrote:
>>
>> Last week I promised to post the results of the analysis of a piece of
>> unprocessed Fresson paper. As I mentioned, the analysis was made on a piece
>> of paper manufactured in the 1940s or early 50s. The information was given
>> to me in the early 80s. Based on the stated source of the information and
>> the credentials of the person who gave me the information I believe it to
>> be accurate and correct. The paper from which this analysis was made is of
>> a very deep, neutral black color.
>>
>> According to the analysis, the Fresson paper in question consisted of the
>> following, in this order:
>> 1. a paper base, followed by
>> 2. a thin coating of soft gelatin with a relatively thin black pigment
>> dispersion, with a slight cool, ultramarine tone, followed by
>> 3. a thicker layer of gelatin, harder than the first, with no pigment,
>> followed by
>> 4. a powdering of a very fine, dry pigment
>>
>> Hope this information proves interesting to some of you.
>>
>> Sandy King
>
>
>
>Sandy,
>
>I thought you would be interested in knowing about a letter I just
>received from Bill Foster (former Fresson printer; he knew Jose
>Ortiz-Echaque personally and to the extent that they traveled and
>photographed together).
>
>A portion of Bill Foster's letter follows:
>
> "and to see that this Sandy King had discovered some more info on the
> nature of the coatings in the 1980's." . . . . . "but I must quote what
> Echague wrote me in the 1970's about the process, I quote(translation);
> letter extract. "on the other hand I have only prepared "Fresson" for
> myself, the machine, indispensable to manufacture the paper, which has
> four coatings, one in gelatin and three in colored gelatine, and I think
> that Mns.Fresson still has a machine.""
>
>He goes on to write that this machine is the one that Nadeau ultimately
>purchased and moved to Canada. Keep in mind that this is still hearsay but
>it is interesting to note that though slightly different than your
>analysis it is surprisingly similar. If one assumes that the raw paper is
>first coated with a base layer of white pigmented gelatin and that Ortiz
>was not giving the exact order in which the layers went down then the two
>descriptions could both be of the same process/material.
>
>One other significant comment from Bill Foster is that after Oritz-Echague
>bought the machine he seemed to produce very few prints due to; being 80
>plus years old OR was his homemade paper not up to the standard of
>"Fresson Paper". I personally wonder if the process and/or machine were
>incomplete.
>
>I hope that the analytical work in progress will provide some new and
>valuable information.
>
>Sincerely, Art
>
>
>
>Art Chakalis
>Columbus, Ohio, USA