The Dawn of the Color Photograph: Albert Kahn's Archives of the Planet

by David Okuefuna

In 1909 the French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn launched a monumentally ambitious project: to produce a color photographic record of human life on Earth. An internationalist and pacifist, Kahn believed that he could use the new autochrome--the world's first portable, true-color photographic process--to create a global photographic archive that would promote cross-cultural understanding and peace. Over the next twenty years, he sent a group...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691139075
• ISBN13: 9780691139074
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 3.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 9.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Early Colour Autochromes of the World

This is a large and lavishly illustrated book of early Colour Autochromes. It is beautiful, well produced and is a bargain. Albert Kahn was a wealthy finanacier living in Paris in the teens - 20s that decided to spend much of his money sending photographers to document the world with the newly developed Autochrome Colour process... The scope of the book provides images I have seen published nowhere else. I first glanced through the book to see all of the fantastic color photographs, but on a second reading discovered the excellent travelogues of many of the photographers themselves. These are very well written accounts from their often 1.5 year tour of places such as China , Vietnam , Japan, the middle East and elsewhere which point to political tensions and travel hardships and restrictions of the period. One particular image of a beautiful Vietnamese woman in a private opium den gives the reader the sense of being a time traveling voyeur...in perfect color! There is some "revisionist" fuss made about that particular photographer's fascination with the boudoirs of various Vietnamese ladies, but there is nothing in the book that children could not see. I'll defend him on this count- there are no other colour images of Vietnamese boudoirs from the period! The images are tame ( and clothed ) compared to Bellocq's New Orleans Storyville Portraits... Richard Vallon Jr. , Photographer with an interest in the History of Colour Photography, from New Orleans

A jewel representing a real treasure

An abslolute marvel. Things have been said about the editor's political views shining through in the commentaries, but they fit the original goal of Albert Kahn. This wealthy pacifist thought that less wars would be fought if people knew more about each other, and that's why he sent out his photographers. The pictures they took weren't meant to have merely artistic value, but, as far as can be told from this impressive selection, most of them add this value to the actual purpose. I would have liked a slightly more extensive technical explanation of the process, but, after all, it isn't a book about photography techniques. The book is a jewel. Behind the jewel lies the treasure: the complete collection of colour pictures shot between 1908 and 1931 (72,000 "autochromes"!), preserved in the Musée Albert Kahn.

A Color World Before Globalization

When color photography was created in 1907 by the Lumière brothers in France, philanthropist Albert Khan assigned photographers to travel the world documenting the many peoples they found, using the new technology. More than 72,000 pictures resulted, and "The Dawn of the Color Photograph" is a sampling of them. These don't just focus on the exotic cultures from the reaches of civilization, but Europeans, Americans, and the battlefields of WWI. Those exotic cultures are also well represented, when native dress was day to day wear, and not something worn for tourists. This is also well before globalization, so there are no modern distractions in the background, no Micky Mouse T-shirts, McDonalds, or Starbucks. This book is a supplement to a BBC TV program of the same name, but is extremely stand-alone. A prefect book for photography or history buffs and being a nice sweet spot for those that are both.

good overview

This book draws on the same material and uses many of the images contained in the BBC documentary on Kahn. It is well laid out, contains useful - but not exhaustive - commentary on the images selected. It is very well produced in terms of quality of paper, reproduction and binding

5 For Photos 3 For Commentary

I learned about Albert Kahn and his project only a year ago and I eagerly anticipated this volume. The pictures do not disappoint. They are the star of the show. Unfortunately the curator's modern political views come in to play in the text and in the photo descriptions. Instead of reveling in the historic glory of these images we are instead given a banal political discourse which is an intrusion into the intent and product of this project. It is truly a shame. 5 stars as the historical significance of this collection cannot be denied. But a separate 1 star for the commentary which attempts to hijack a noble project for a particular political viewpoint nearly 100 years after the original project was completed. Despicable.