How J. George Midgley Made Bromoil Prints

The years right after 1900 were the golden age of amateur art photography. Devotees formed camera clubs, launched attractive publications and experimented with new print methods. One of these methods was the bromoil process, that reproduced altered photographic images with lithographic ink. First, an enlargement was made. It was immersed in a chemical that bleached out the silver and tanned the gelatin image. When wet, the light parts of the picture swelled, repelling greasy ink, while the dark parts absorbed it. J. George Midgley then gently and delicately brushed on ink. It was here that the picture left the realm of the photograph and entered that of the lithograph. Artistic tonal relationships and rich textures resulted. The artist was also able to add to or change the image. The print was left to dry, or it could be placed face down on a blank sheet of watercolor paper and run through a small press, thus making a "transfer." Additional inking was repeated for each transfer. Bromoil was one of several techniques favored by art photographers during the Pictorialist era from 1895 to about 1920, but J. George Midgley used this esoteric method as late as 1975, when he was age 93.