Jean-Jacques Heilmann French, 1822-1859
Originally from Mulhouse, J. J. Heilmann made his living as a photographer, publisher, and printer in Pau, a town in southern France near the northern border of the Pyrenees. Most of his work was produced between 1852-57. Using rapid collodion plates perfected by Adolphe Bertsch and Farnham Maxwell Lyte, Heilmann also made calotypes and ivory types of considerable sophistication. In 1853 he developed a mechanism for enlarging negatives.
Heilmann frequently photographed the landscape of the Pyrenees, although he also did portraits, urban scenes, and photographic reproductions of paintings of Alsace and Pau. His images often resemble those of Lyte and John Stewart, British photographers whose scenes of man and nature were produced in the Pyrenees during the same era. Heilmann's photographs, however, have a more defined composition. His use of figures, animals, vehicles, and natural elements reveals an interest in depicting civilized man in a primitive setting. A founding member of the Société française de photographie, Heilmann was also affiliated with the Photographic Club of Great Britain. He exhibited his work at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris. T.W.F.
