Photography
The cornerstone of the photography collection is the renowned Helmut and Alison Gernsheim collection, which is best known for its treasures of nineteenth-century photography, including the world's first photograph, a unique image created in 1826 by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Since that landmark acquisition, the photography collection has expanded into such diverse areas as fine art, photojournalism, documentary photography, the history of photography, and its technology. These holdings currently amount to over five million prints and negatives, supplemented by books, manuscripts, journals, and memorabilia of significant photographers since the medium's invention.
General Information
Photography Holdings
Photography Database
First Photograph
Maintenance of the conservation housing of the First Photograph will temporarily delay the photograph's return to permanent display. The reinstallation date will be shared as soon as it is determined.
The Reading Room Will Be Closed:
May 18-27, 2013
July 4, 2013
August 17-24, 2013
August 31-September 2, 2013
November 28-30, 2013
Always closed on Sundays
Connect with the
Harry Ransom Center
Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson [Lewis Carroll]
Xie Kitchin
ca. 1875
Albumen print
15.7 x 12.7 cm
Publications
The Gernsheim Collection - Illustrated catalog with more than 125 full-page plates
Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty - Catalog of major retrospective exhibition of Fritz Henle's life and career
David Douglas Duncan: One Life, A Photographic Odyssey - Introduction to Duncan, with selected photographs from the 1940s to the 1980s
Henry Peach Robinson: Victorian Photographer - Introduction to the imagery of this successful British artistic photographer
