Nadar

(Paris, France, 1820 - 1910, Paris, France)

French

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known by the pseudonym Nadar or Félix Nadar, was a French photographer, known widely as the first celebrity photographer. He took photographs of politicians, stage actors, writers, painters, and musicians. He wore many other hats: journalist, bohemian, left-wing agitator, playwright, caricaturist, and aeronaut. 

The sitter in the photograph proposed for donation, Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) was a German opera composer who merged German orchestral style with the Italian vocal tradition. He was the most frequently performed composer at the world's leading opera houses in the nineteenth century. 

Other prints of this image are in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Musée d’Orsay. The Akron Art Museum has over 100 photographs from the nineteenth century, but no salt prints, so this acquisition would allow us to tell stories about the history of photography and the use of different materials to develop photographs. 

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