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Niépce Now: Origins and Futures of the Photographic Image

Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

April 8–9, 2027
Free and open to the public.

The 15th biennial Flair Symposium, “Niépce Now: Origins and Futures of the Photographic Image,” will take place April 8–9, 2027, at the Harry Ransom Center. This Flair Symposium takes the occasion of the bicentenary of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s groundbreaking heliograph [View from the Window at Le Gras], the earliest surviving photograph made with the camera obscura in 1827 and held at the Harry Ransom Center. The symposium will explore both the rich history of early photographic experimentations as well as the futures of photography and the photographic image. Recognizing that the early history of experimental processes in photography was transnational and collaborative in scope and considering the future of photography—implicated in new digital and emerging AI technologies—this symposium explores how Niépce’s heliograph continues to inform and inspire the field of photography.

Sessions will examine the complex histories of nineteenth-century photographic experimentations, the role of collectors and conservators of both public and private collections in how we experience photography, and the enduring questions around image-making and technology that shape the future of photography. The symposium will be held in conjunction with an exhibition drawn from the Ransom Center's renowned photography collection opening February 27, 2027, titled Radical Forms: Photographic Experimentation from the Ransom Center's Collections, curated by Dr. Christine Robinson, Nancy Inman and Marlene Nathan Meyerson Curator of Photography.

The Flair Symposium is supported by the Fleur Cowles Endowment and is named for Cowles' innovative Flair magazine.

  • Flair Magazine and the Ransom Center

    In 1950, Fleur Cowles (1908-2009) created a publication that became a landmark in publishing. Flair's provocative design, enlightened feature articles, and sophisticated advertising layouts left an indelible mark on publishing history. Fleur Cowles and Flair were and remain synonymous.

    Cowles prescribed a refreshing juxtaposition of the works of writers, artists, critics, and other notables. Indeed, the heart of Flair was its success in pulling together the new, the controversial, the innovative, and the creative.

    Like Flair, the Ransom Center brings together literature and the arts in an innovative way. The works of a rich cross-section of authors, artists, and designers exist side-by-side in the Center, yielding the same sort of insightful adventures found among the pages of Flair.

    Since 1994, the Ransom Center's Fleur Cowles Flair Symposium has honored the ideals set forth by Fleur Cowles and her landmark Flair magazine.

  • About Fleur Cowles

    Fleur Cowles was an American original. She made her way into the public eye as Associate Editor of Look magazine in the late 1940s, and made her distinct mark in 1950 when she published Flair, still considered one of the most innovative magazines in the history of publishing.

    For over 50 years Cowles was a prolific writer, producing 16 books, including her collections of autobiographical anecdotes Friends and Memories and All Too True. Her paintings, filled with jungle beasts and enormous flowers, first received international recognition at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1965. She exhibited her artwork more than 40 times in galleries and museums around the world.

    Throughout the years, Fleur Cowles received numerous honors: she was Ambassador of the United States to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, received the Queen's medal and has been decorated by four other governments, is a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, and carries an honorary degree of Bachelor of Law. She also served on boards supporting such activities as art, literature, and the preservation of wildlife.

Niépce Heliograph

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French, 1765–1833), [View from the Window at Le Gras], 1827. Heliograph on pewter. Gernsheim Collection, 964:0000:0001.

Since 1994, the Ransom Center's Flair Symposium has continued the work of editor, writer and artist Fleur Cowles and her landmark Flair magazine by convening interdisciplinary conversations unlikely to happen elsewhere.