Master Miller
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 20.4 × 15.4 cm (8 1/16 × 6 1/8 in.); Mount: 37.3 × 26.7 cm (14 11/16 × 10 9/16 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
100836
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Coming from backgrounds in fine arts and chemistry, respectively, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson began their photographic collaboration in 1843. Hill wanted to produce a large history painting documenting the Disruption movement, which culminated in the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland. To document the more than 450 individuals who appear in the painting, Adamson made portraits of them with the calotype (paper negative) process, a technology that yielded prints rich in masses...
About the Artist
David Octavius Hill · 1802–1870
David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) was a Scottish painter, photographer, and arts administrator whose pioneering photography partnership with Robert Adamson from 1843 to 1847 transformed the medium into an art form. Born in Perth and trained in Edinburgh, Hill established himself as a landscape painter and became secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy, a position he held for nearly forty years. His ...