AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

Vivex prints were initiated in 1928 by Color Photographs Limited (CPL, London) as a modified version of Carbro printing that was the dominant process in the 1930s for advertising and retail fashion. Vivex prints were produced in an industrial manner, using a standardized, mechanized protocol. It was the first laboratory to offer a color printing service to professional photographers. Fully operational in 1929, CPL produced several thousand prints in a ten years laps time, becoming the most widely used and reliable printing service in the UK. Despite being a cost-efficient company, CPL closed in 1939, with the beginning of World War II. 

The Vivex process uses three separation negatives created during shooting, using a one-shot camera or a Vivex repeating back. The process produces – in 80 steps – a pigmentary trichromatic print from the successive transfers of three primary images (yellow, magenta, cyan) inscribed in a pigmented gelatin relief. The colored carbon tissues used by CPL for printing were likely purchased from Autotype Company, based in London as well. 

Five Vivex color photographs by Egidio Scaioni, created between 1933 and 1939 and held at the Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, Palais Galliera, were studied. The conservation state of these prints, and an advanced conservation project - as part of Loys Boivin's Master thesis at Institut National du Patrimoine - have triggered the need for analyses to better understand the materiality of these little-known objects.  

Fortunately, all five prints showed accessible margins for each colored layer. Thus, non-invasive XRF analyses were carried out in these areas to identify the pigments used. The cyan layer showed the presence of iron, evidence of the use of Prussian blue. Surprisingly, the yellow and magenta layers did not show any elements related to the presence of pigments. Samples were taken from lacunar areas in the margins of one print for additional investigations using Raman spectroscopy. The yellow sample showed a signal specific to Pigment Yellow 4 of the Color Index (C.I. 11665) or Hansa Yellow. The magenta sample showed an intense signal with multiple bands – likely an organic pigment – but has not yet been attributed due to the lack of published databases. 

The discovery of the synthetic organic nature of these pigments instead of the mineral pigments traditionally used for historical pigment prints raised doubts about the light-fastness of these objects. Microfading tests were performed on the colored margins of three prints: all layers are highly sensitive, despite a slightly more stable yellow layer. 

The industrial context of manufacturing might have guided the choice of new components, with the great color rendering required for the fleeting advertising and fashion fields, but less durable in time. These strategic choices are most likely part of a global context of industrial development, with massive production demand and high profitability. This study opens up new insights into the light sensitivity of pigment color prints, and the development of new approaches to exhibiting these rare historical prints.