Hands of Paul Valery

Laure Albin-Guillot’s work spanned portraiture, advertising, and science photography. She experimented at times with a Pictorialist approach that involved painterly technique and romantic or idealized imagery. This image features the hands of poet Paul Valéry—with whom Albin-Guillot collaborated on books of photographs and poetry—as he writes with an inky flourish. This print was produced through the Fresson process beloved of Pictorialists; its secrets are closely guarded by the Fresson family, who manufactured the paper and printed the images. We do know, however, that it is the direct transfer of pigmented gelatin to paper which gives the velvety texture that here brings out the softness of skin and the vividness of ink.