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Gustave Le Gray
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Gustave Le Gray
image
Gustave Le Gray

Born: Jean-Baptiste-Gustave Le Gray
Other: J.B. Gustave Le Gray
Joint: Le Dien & Le Gray
Joint: Le Gray & Mestral

Born: 1820, 30 August - France, Seine-et-Oise, Villiers-le-Bel
Died: 1884, 29 July - Egypt, Cairo
Gender: Male
Active: France / Italy / Egypt
 
Early French photographer and developer of new photographic processes. He took photographs of the forests at Fontainebleau, recorded monuments for the ‘Commission des Monuments Historiques‘, took seascapes and military maneuvers (1857), before fleeing his financial troubles and going to live in Egypt.

Genealogy of Gustave Le Gray

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Lightbox > Portraits
   
Henri Le Secq, 1844, Gustave Le Gray, Oil on wood panel, Musée Lesecq des Tournelles, LL/67803
Image: LL/67803
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Auguste Mestral, 1848, Portrait of Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884) with his daguerreotype camera, Daguerreotype, IBF private collection, LL/61123
Image: LL/61123
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Unidentified photographer, 1850 (ca), Gustave Le Gray, Photograph, Private collection of Henri van der Tol, LL/77139
Image: LL/77139
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Gustave Le Gray, 1850-1852 (ca), Self portrait, Albumen print, from glass negative, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie (BnF), LL/44714
Image: LL/44714
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Le Gray & Mestral, 1851, Gustave Le Gray posant dans le cloître de l'église abbatiale Sainte-Marie d'Arles-sur-Tech (durant la Mission héliographique), [Mission héliographique], Salt print, from paper negative, Pierre Bergé & Associés, LL/58210
Image: LL/58210
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Gustave Le Gray, 1851 (ca), Self-portrait, Salted paper print, National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, LL/39108
Image: LL/39108
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Alphonse De Launay, 1854, Gustave Le Gray, Salted paper print, from paper negative, Metropolitan Museum of Art, LL/44718
Image: LL/44718
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Gustave Le Gray, 1856-1859 (ca), Self portrait, Albumen print, from glass negative, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie (BnF), LL/44713
Image: LL/44713
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Gustave Le Gray, 1862, [Tombeaux des Califes et types égyptiens], Albumen prints (13), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie (BnF), LL/88459
Image: LL/88459
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Gustave Le Gray, 1862, Alexandre Cesar Le Gray Napoleon, Albumen print, detail, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie (BnF), LL/88460
Image: LL/88460
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Gustave Le Gray, 1862, Alexandre Cesar Le Gray Napoleon, Albumen print, detail, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie (BnF), LL/88461
Image: LL/88461
Lots of additional options for subscribers.
   
Approved biographies

Approved biography
Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK)
 
Gustave Le Gray had high aesthetic ambitions for photography, creating virtuoso images and in particular dramatic seascapes. Previous photographers had found it difficult to capture skies, because of the different exposures needed to get detail in the sea and the sky. Le Gray solved this by using two different negatives.Le Gray was also one of the first to claim that photographs could be appreciated as works of art in their own right.
 
This biography is courtesy and copyright of the Victoria & Albert Museum and is included here with permission.
 
Wikipedia
 

 

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