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Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph

A major exhibition on William Henry Fox Talbot, polymath and pioneer of Victorian photography, Dawn of the Photograph showcased one of the world’s most comprehensive and important collections of his work, including original prints from his seminal publication ‘The Pencil of Nature’.

The English Vine (Bryonia Dioica), probably 1839, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

A Scene in a Library, before 22 March 1844, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

Statuette of an Angel with experimental patches, c.1852, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

A Scene in York (York Minster from Top Lane), 28 July 1845, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

The Latticed Window (with the Camera Obscura), August 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

Bust of Venus, c.1841, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

High Street, Oxford, possibly July 1842, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

Talbot and Nicolaas Henneman at the Reading establishment, 1846, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

Nicolaas Henneman (1813-1898), c.1842, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

The Bridge of Orleans, 14 June 1843, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

Wooden Bridge in Scotland, 1844, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

The Ladder, April 1844, William Henry Fox Talbot

© Science Museum Group collection

It frequently happens moreover—and this is one of the charms of photography—that the operator himself discovers on examination, perhaps long afterwards, that he has depicted many things he had no notion of at the time.

William Henry Fox Talbot, ‘The Pencil of Nature’, 1844

In the 19th century, as the industrial revolution boomed, Fox Talbot revolutionised culture and communications by inventing the negative-positive process, a technique that formed the basis of photography around the world for over 150 years and immortalised him as father of the photograph.

Talbot’s revolutionary technology, techniques and practices had a huge influence on his contemporary practitioners, including Anna Atkins, Hill and Adamson, and Calvert Jones.

★★★★ ‘Amazing shots from photography’s infancy... Magical to behold’

Time Out

‘These dreamy, and at times haunting, images show that [Talbot’s] historical importance should never be allowed to eclipse his skill as a photographer’

The Economist

‘Incredible images’

Daily Mail