Daguerre's Legacy by Mike Robinson

This presentation retraces Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre’s pathway of discovery and innovation that led to the invention of the daguerreotype process. The historical canon is revised with new details obtained by revisiting the historical record informed by artisanal, tacit, and causal knowledge gained from making new daguerreotypes in the laboratory. Dr. Mike Robinson is an artist-practitioner, teacher, conservator, and historian of the daguerreotype. In June 2017 he earned his PhD in Photographic History with dissertation titled The Techniques and Material Aesthetics of the Daguerreotype. He has researched and written on the studio practice of Southworth and Hawes for the Young America catalog and for The Daguerreian Society Annual. Mike taught graduate and undergraduate courses in 19th Century Photographic Processes at Ryerson University in Toronto, and has lectured and taught daguerreotype workshops in Toronto, Rochester, New York City, Lacock Abbey UK, Bry-sur-Marne France, and Kolomna Russia. Mike’s daguerreotypes are in the collections of The Portrait Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum, The Carnegie-Mellon, The Snite Museum, The Fox Talbot Museum, The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, Musée Metienne, The Russian Museum of Photography and in many private collections. Presented on June 6, 2020.