That Heinrich Kühn’s photograph might easily be mistaken for a painting or charcoal drawing is no accident. Like other turn-of-the- century artistic photographers, he chose inti- mate subjects more characteristic of fine art than documentation and processes such as gum-bichromate that allowed for painterly manipulation of the image during development. Even his title—Study in Tonal Values II—was meant to signal to the viewer that Kühn’s intentions differed from those of amateur “Kodakkers” or commercial documentarians and to assert the artistic potential of photography.