Because a platinum print is a “contact” print (one places the negative directly on the sensitized paper) and therefore limited in size, it was long confined to photographers’ personal archives for use as a tonal reference. A platinum print posesses a larger gray scale than a classic gelatin silver print. It reproduces more details and brings depth and subtlety to the image. Popular among the artists of the Photo Secession (Haviland, Kühn, Stieglitz, Steichen…), modern masters like Paul Strand or Josef Sudek, and revived in the 1980s by Irving Penn and Robert Mapplethorpe, this technique produces robust prints, the surface of which, in the absence of gelatin, does not break, and the image, fixed in platinum salts embedded in the upper layer of the paper, does not fade, even after decades of exposure to light. Considered the “Rolls Royce” of black and white prints, the platinum print is coveted by museums and collectors who seek to acquire perrenial works. Many contemporary photographers are returning to this technique for its aesthetic and archival qualities. The exhibit offers a large choice of images by confirmed and emmerging artists. Oversize platinum prints are possible through the production of internegatives, enlagements of the original negative. Today, the pioneers in this technique, using two different methods, are editors Salto (Ulbeek, Belgium) and Amanasalto (Tokyo, Japan). Several examples of their handiwork will be on view at A. Galerie.
A group show of platinum prints by :
Nick Brandt, Patrick Demarchelier, Elliott Erwitt, Kenro Izu, Steven Lyon, McDermott & McGough, Irving Penn, jean de Pomereu, Satoshi Saïkuza, Hamid Sardar-Afkhami, Mark Seliger, Takeshi Shikama and Albert Watson
EXHIBITION
Platinum
Through June 6th, 2015
A. Galerie
4, rue Léonce Reynaud
75116 Paris
