Publication on cyanotype

    Cyanotype:
    The History, Science and Art of Photographic Printing in
        Prussian Blue
    by Mike Ware

    Published by the Science Museum and the National Museum of
    Photography, Film & Television
    Price UKP 18.95
    ISBN 1-900747-07 3
    208 pages, 245 x 186 mm, paperback
    31 line drawings

This is the first published monograph on the cyanotype process. The
unpublished experimental memoranda of Sir John Herschel, inventor of
the process, are interpreted to unfold his discovery of iron-based
photography, including his various formulae for cyanotype. The
chemistry of the process is explained for the non-specialist, and
many experimental variations on blueprinting are described. The
works of the principal artistic users over the entire span of its
history are placed in context. For the contemporary practitioner,
there are detailed instructions on how to make fine cyanotype
prints, including the first significant practical improvement in the
process for a century.

New experimental studies are reported of the vulnerability to
light-fading, alkaline hydrolysis, and aqueous peptization, which
should assist the care and conservation of cyanotypes.

For the scientifically-inclined reader, there are also technical
appendices on the chemistry of Prussian blue and the photochemistry
of the blueprint process, which is brought up to date in the light
of recent research, correcting some widespread earlier
misconceptions. A fully referenced bibliography to the primary
research literature is included.

This book should interest photohistorians, curators and conservators
of photographs, photoscientists concerned with 'non-silver'
processes, and photographic print-makers who use cyanotype today as
an expressive artistic medium.

The book may be ordered from:

    Dillons The Bookstore
    Science Museum
    Exhibition Road
    London SW7 2DD
    UK
    +44 0-171-938 8255
    Fax: +44 0-171-581 2899
    scimus [at] dillons__eunet__co__uk

Dr. Michael J. Ware
20 Bath Road, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 6HH, UK
+44 1298-78604

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:15
                 Distributed: Wednesday, August 5, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-12-15-011
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