The first color photograph in the state of Utah: we know who created it and have a description of what it looks like, but we don’t know if it still exists.
In 1908, John Leo Hafen created the first color photograph in the state of Utah, using the Lumière process, first developed in 1903 and patented the previous year in France. What became known as Lumière Autochrome involved lampblack and dyed (red, green, blue) starch grains mixed on glass plates. These served as a color screen that made the panchromatic silver halide emulsion it was coated with appear as a color image. The finished slide tended to be dark, and special lighting arrangements were necessary for optimal viewing, but the colors were true to nature.
Since Hafen was producing this first color work in the winter months, he visited the nearby Huish greenhouse, where he could capture hues from across the visible spectrum. The Deseret News, whose editorial staff saw the photograph, described it as representing “the inside of a Provo greenhouse, showing geraniums, lilies, ferns, hyacinths, daffodils, rubber plants, callas, etc., all in their natural colors.”(March 9, 1908)
At the time, Hafen, oldest son of painter John Hafen, had a thriving photography business in Provo with partner Ed Olson. Hafen’s brother Joseph has written that the firm held an exclusive contract with Eastman Kodak for all work in Utah south of Salt Lake City, and did a large mail order business for the company. When Hafen developed his color photograph, Joseph recalls, leading chemists from Kodak came to Provo to learn Leo’s technique.
Hafen’s life turned out — at least briefly — as colorful as his color plate from inside the greenhouse. After becoming ill and having to give up his photography business, he earned a living as a farmer and gardner, and in the West Tintic Mountains joined family members and friends in a separatist community that evolved into a controversial end-of-days sect, complete with economic failure, sexual scandal, secular trials and ecclesiastical excommunication. After the dust settled, Hafen joined others in the group’s core in California, and, while he may have quit the business of photography, a recently discovered document referencing one of his works, produced shortly before his death, reveals he never gave up the art. All of that, though, is the subject of a longer article in a future edition.
The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.
Categories: Historical Artists | Visual Arts
