Jakub Husník

Jakub Husník

Jakub Husník (born March 29, 1837 in Vejprnice near Pilsen , † February 26, 1916 in Prague ) was a Czech painter, drawing teacher and inventor of the improved collotype .

Life

Husník was one of ten children of Vavřinec Husník (1805–1873), a forester in the Lobkowitz family on Konopiště . He grew up near Pilsen , attended the Piarist High School in Prague and began studying at the Art Academy in Antwerp in 1853, where he was a student of the painter Joseph van Lerius . He continued his studies in Prague, painted altarpieces in churches near Kolovatry and Karlovice in 1861, became professor of drawing at the secondary school in Tábor in 1864 , which he left a year later to devote himself to photography.

Husnik was particularly interested in the chemical fundamentals of developing and reproducing (printing) photos. He first repeated the experiments of William Henry Fox Talbot (talbotype) and Louis-Alphonse Poitevin (collotype) and improved the photolithography process so that in the end he was able to produce 1000 prints. " In 1868 he succeeded in inventing collotype, which process he sold to Josef Albert in Munich, who also worked independently on this process " (Photographische Korrespondenz 1916). Albert brought the process to market maturity and for a long time was considered the inventor of this form of collotype, which also bore his name: "Albertotype".

In 1873 Jakob Husnik was appointed to the Imperial and Royal State Printing Office in Vienna to introduce collotype printing and photolithography, especially for printing securities. Back in Prague he wrote books on collotype, zinc etching, heliography, and reproduction photography in general. Initially still in school service, he went into business for himself in 1877 with a zincography workshop and a photo studio. In 1888 he founded the “ kuk photochemigraphische Hofkunstanstalt Husnik & Häusler ”, which existed in 1916, together with his son Jaroslav and his son-in-law, Arthur Häussler .

research

Together with Professor Schwarz, he examined the so-called wet process when developing photographs. His first discovery was a so-called two-tone photograph. In 1893 he perfected three-color reproduction for letterpress printing and applied for his first patents.

Works

Husník wrote specialist books about his inventions.

Honors and memberships

• 1907 - Honorary member of the Photographic Society
• Honorary member of the Photographisches Verein Berlin
• Knight's Cross of the Franz Josef Order

literature

• Rudolf Skopec : Jakub Husník, Prague 1952
• Jiří Fleyberk : Jakub Husník: Přemožitelé času, 16, 61-64, MON Prague 1989
• "Obituary Jakob Husnik". In: Photographischen Korrespondenz, Volume 53 (1916), pp. 142-143. ( Digitized version from ANNO )

Web links

Commons : Jakub Husník  - collection of images, videos and audio files