The Diana Korzenik Collection of Painted Tintypes

Historical/Biographical Note

Historical/Biographical Note

The tintype was invented in 1856 by Hamilton L. Smith. It became popular during the Civil War and remained in use into the first decades of the twentieth century. Like its immediate predecessor, the ambrotype, the tintype was formed by the wet-plate collodion process. To produce a wet-plate collodion image, a photographer would treat a photographic plate with a collodion emulsion (a combination of gun cotton, ether, and alcohol) and various chemical solutions before placing it, still wet, into a frame within the camera. The exposure lasted roughly six to ten seconds, then the photographer removed the plate. Finally, he bathed it in chemicals again to develop and fix the image, and dried it under heat.
The final product was a direct positive image and a lateral reversal of the photographer's view of the subject. And while ambrotypes used glass plates that could be flipped to closer reflect reality, tintypes were made of metal plates and the image could only be flipped with the use of a reversal lens in the camera or by taking another tintype of the original. Since the wet-plate collodion process didn't produce replicable negatives, tintypes were made one at a time or by employing multiple lenses.
i720 The tintype photographic process was fast and relatively easy. Customers could have their picture taken and leave with an image within the hour. Made of light and durable sheet iron, the tintype traveled well in the mail. During the Civil War, itinerant tintype photographers followed the Union troops, producing portraits for soldiers to send home to loved ones. Even after the war, many tintype photographers continued to travel from town to town, serving rural areas and small villages rather than set up permanent studios. The tintype was also more affordable than the earlier daguerreotype. For the first time, large numbers of immigrants, laborers, and people of color could record and preserve their likenesses. Under-documented and minority populations become a part of the photographic record and a budding American photographic tradition.
In the early days of photography, people applied paint to photographs to resemble the painted portraits with which they were already familiar. Of all early photographic forms, the tintype was the most frequently overpainted. It was a cheap alternative to an original painting, a way for the average working American to have a painted likeness and all the pride and respectability traditional painted portraiture represented. Some painters-or “colorists”-sought to replicate the look and feel of a crisp and colorful painting by covering a tintype's photographic origins. Paint could also hide undesirable features or cover over an unglamorous studio setting. Other colorists used less paint, intending to “touch up” a low-contrast copy image or add definition.
In addition to painting over the emulsion, colorists outlined, etched, and tinted the tintype plate. Different methods cost different amounts. Some people could only afford the cheapest enhancement, like a little powder to color the cheeks or some gold paint over the portrait subject's jewelry. For a little more money, colorists used primary colors to subtly tint an image, or India ink to outline and define the subject's features. They painted the clothing or lined the eyes, but frequently left other features, like the ears or hands, unpainted. These were much harder for a colorist to enhance and more paint cost the customer more money.
Overpainted tintype portraiture maintained popularity into the 1890s. The tintype, as a photographic form, survived even later. Well into the twentieth century, the tintype booth was a feature of carnivals and amusement sites across America. Ultimately, the tintype was never the most popular form of photograph. Nevertheless, it documented the lives of American people for roughly seven decades, longer than nearly any other photographic form.

Sources

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