Hans P. Kraus Jr. is pleased to present Form Follows Function in Early Photographs through 26 November 2025. The images on display show structures exemplifying architect Louis Sullivan’s principle of “form [ever] follows function.” Work by William Henry Fox Talbot, Victor Regnault, Félix Teynard, Henri Le Secq, Frederick H. Evans, and others, in addition to a selection of photomechanical prints by Talbot, Le Secq, and Hippolyte Fizeau, portray structures that are both visually compelling and eminently suited to their function.
Being a Cambridge man did not preclude William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) from experiencing the pleasures of photographing the ancient buildings of Oxford. On the High Street, Talbot’s camera was placed in what is now part of the busy roadway looking toward the Radcliffe Camera. This exceptional salt print depicts one of the most inspired views Talbot made in Oxford.
Physicist, chemist, and amateur photographer, Henri-Victor Regnault (1810-1878) was president of the French Academy of Sciences and a founder of the Société Française de Photographie. He was director of the ceramic factory at Sèvres where this 1852 salt print from a paper negative was taken. Regnault's picture of the carpenter's house is among the largest of these ever made. The play of shadow and light transforms the house and grounds into a series of graphic shapes and angles ahead of their time.
Félix Teynard (1817-1892) was one of the first visitors to Egypt to photograph its monuments and landscape. A civil engineer from Grenoble, who may have learned the waxed paper negative process from Gustave Le Gray, Teynard made 160 images, among which is this iconic and superb salt print of the Pyramid of Cheops. These constituted the most complete photographic record to date of the Nile Valley from Cairo to the Second Cataract.
George Barker (1844-1894) was known best for his photographs of Niagara Falls. He was born in London, Ontario where at age 18 he had opened his own photography studio. From 1862 he worked with Platt D. Babbit (1823-1879) in Niagara Falls where Barker had opened a second studio by the late 1860s. He became nationally known for his large format prints. From 1886 to 1890 he had documented much of northern and central Florida. At the time, photography in Florida was challenging, as much of the state remained undeveloped. The view shows a mixed commercial-residential street in an African American community in St. Augustine. Among the commercial signs are “Gardiner Bros. Produce & Poultry, Fish, Oysters & Clams” and “Restaurant.” An African American man and boy with a pail and cane stand at the left foreground. Behind them are a Caucasian man and his two children.
Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943) was the British master at recording ecclesiastical interiors. Shown as part of the London Salon of 1912, this gelatin silver print of “Durham Cathedral: Font & Pillar…” moved the reviewer in The Times of London to write, “architecture… should be photographed… with the masterful fidelity of Mr. Frederick H. Evans (who exhibits several notable views of Durham).”