Charles Nègre

Charles Nègre was born in Grasse, France on May 9, 1820. His grandfather came to Grasse from Milan in 1778.

In 1837, Nègre took drawing classes in Aix-en-Provence, and from 1839, he began to study painting in Paris under the direction of Paul Delaroche, Drolling, and finally Ingres, before establishing his own studio at 21 Quai Bourbon on the Île Saint-Louis. Delaroche encouraged use of photography among his students for research for painting.

In about 1844 Nègre learned how to make daguerreotypes at a demonstration at the Institute de France, and in about 1848 he began experimenting with paper photography processes. Gustave Le Gray and Roger Fenton were fellow students, and it is thought by some that Le Gray taught Nègre photography--at least the waxed paper negative process.

Nègre was a founding member of the Société Héliographique, as well as the Société Française de Photographie. In 1852, acting independently from the official Mission Héliographique project, Nègre embarked on his own photographic survey of his native Midi, making nearly 200 negatives in the process, but the project was a financial failure.

Nègre's most prolific period of photographing using the waxed paper negative was from 1849-1855. From about late 1853 Nègre began using wet-plate collodion and albumen on glass negatives, which he used for the commissions 'Portraits de Rachel'. He also used the wet-plate process in 1859, when he was commissioned by Empress Eugénie to photograph the newly established Imperial Asylum de Vincennes, a hospital for disabled workingmen. He was one of the creators of the photogravure process and was awarded a medal for his heliogravures at the second Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867.

In 1863, he returned to southern France, where two years later, he opened a photographic studio. He closed the studio in 1878, returning to Grasse, where he died on Jan. 16, 1880.

Submitted by Contemporary Works/Vintage Works