Get To Know Gustave LeGray (1820-1884)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art website has a series of essays on art history. One dealing with photography in particular was written by Malcolm Daniel for the Heilbrunn Timelline, summarizing the life and work of Gustave LeGray.

LeGray was an advocate of photography as an art form, and his devotion to landscape photography, which did not bring in as much money as his portrait studio, is said to be the root of the financial problems that caused LeGray to abandon his family and leave France in an attempt to evade his creditors.

Find the entire article here. Also see information from the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Eugenia Parry Janis’ book that accompanied the 1987 exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.