It was only when we were in the process of curating some of Anna Atkins's work, where she recorded British and foreign algae using the cyanotype method, that we stumbled upon an enlightening discovery. Little did we know, that Anna Atkins’s book 'Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions', is the very first compilation of sun-prints, establishing it as the first photo-book in history.
This exquisite book of nineteenth-century photograms, rarely on display, can be seen in person in all its delicate glory at the New York Public Library. Photographs of British Algae is now widely seen as the first photographically illustrated book, thanks to the scholarship of Larry Schaaf; an expanded reprint of his original Aperture catalog accompanies the exhibition.
Suchlike other better-known British women photographers of her time, Atkins started photography as late as her early 40s. To create approximately fourteen copies of British Algae, Atkins printed some six thousand cyanotype photogram exposures on hand-treated paper. The book was produced without the backing of a major enterprise or society, though a few works, some containing peacock feathers and ferns, are collaborations with Anne Dixon, a childhood friend, and Atkins apparently had the help of household staff.
The New York Public Library’s copy of British Algae originally belonged to John Hershel, the scientist-inventor of the cyanotype. Never bound, it consists of delicately hand-stitched signatures, each a dozen or so pages, like little zines meant to be assembled and bound by the owner. This vulnerable form—not hidden by the officious leather cover and spine—gives the viewer a more intimate glimpse of Atkins’ process: streaks of Prussian blue, hand-sewn binding, and the watermarks by J. Whatman Turkey Mill, the distinguished nineteenth-century art-paper maker, all add to its allure. A title page has little pieces of seaweed spelling out the words on the cover: “British Algae Vol. 1”—the strands slightly fuzzy, like electricity hit them.`
The algae photograms appear not just in silhouette but also with some gradations of blue showing the thickness of the strands of seaweed, giving a delicate floating quality to the prints. One can almost smell the seawater. The page layouts are beautiful—the relatively modest size of the paper at times seems vast for a tiny centered sprig, while other tentacled strands have to be wrapped artfully to fit on the page. Latin text (always present) is usually tucked to one side, a reminder that these photograms are products of scientific inquiry, and even an unconscious colonial impulse, an endeavour to categorise and name seaweed, and capture its unfathomable detail with the gift of photographic precision.
