b. 9 May 1820; d. 16 January 1880
Negre was born in Grasse in 1820. At the age of 19 he went to Paris, where he enrolled as a pupil in the studio of a master painter Paul Delaroche. In 1844 he saw a demonstration of the daguerreotype process, and a few years later began to make his own. Three years later he turned to making calotypes.
He often retouched his negatives, shading areas and accentuating tonal contrasts. His work includes the recording of lifestyles of working class people, studies of street life (for example, of chimney sweeps) and architecture.
Though he was active as a photographer for only ten years or so, he is regarded as a particularly talented one. His architectural pictures (he photographed all the monuments in Paris - quite an undertaking) are far more than merely topographical, they are creative as well.
© Robert Leggat, 1997.