No. 2 Kodak family photograph album

Art Historical Context

Step into the intimate world of late 19th-century American life with *No. 2 Kodak photograph album*, a cherished bound volume created between 1890 and 1894. This American artifact captures everyday moments through a mix of gelatin silver prints, albumen prints, and collodion prints, reflecting the rapid evolution of photography during the era. Measuring 23 x 61 cm when open, its pages preserve candid snapshots likely taken with the revolutionary Kodak No. 2 camera, introduced around 1890, which made snapshot photography accessible to ordinary families. The album's diverse printing techniques highlight a pivotal transition in photographic history. Gelatin silver prints, emerging in the 1880s, offered sharper, more stable images suited to amateur roll-film cameras like Kodak's. Earlier albumen and collodion prints evoke the wet-plate era's meticulous processes, suggesting a blend of professional portraits and homegrown efforts. This variety underscores how Kodak's slogan—"You press the button, we do the rest"—democratized the medium, turning photography from a elite pursuit into a personal storytelling tool. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's CPH department as a gifted volume, this album offers a window into Victorian domesticity, where families documented vacations, gatherings, and milestones. It reminds us how snapshots began shaping modern visual culture, preserving fleeting joys for generations.

About the Artist

American 19th Century · 1800–1900

The artist cataloged as "American, 19th Century" represents a collective of unidentified painters active in the United States during the nineteenth century, with 380 known artworks preserved in this virtual museum's collection. These works span a diverse array of genres typical of the era, including portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre scenes, reflecting the burgeoning artistic output of ...