The Viennese photographer Heinrich Kühn was among the
leading European Pictorialists at the turn of the century, remarkable for his
intimate portraits and large, colorful, and painterly landscapes reminiscent of
Impressionism. Kühn used gum bichromate, a pigment process that yields prints
that often resemble paintings, pastels, or drawings in red chalk or charcoal.
At a time when the Kodak sales slogan promised amateur snapshooters “You press
the button, we do the rest,” and when photography already seemed to permeate
all aspects of life, photographic artists such as Kühn sought to prove that
their medium could rival the scale, beauty, and expressiveness of the
traditional arts.