Duxochrome / Colorstil / Duxocolor
Description
“Duxochrome, introduced around 1930 by the Johannes Herzog Company of Bremen, Germany, combined the colored gelatin layers of pigment processes with the tanning development procedure of dye imbibition. Exposures from three separation negatives were made through the transparent support of a silver bromide emulsion stripping film that already contained water-insoluble cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments. After regular processing with a tanning developer and an acid fixing bath, the sheets of film were immersed in warm water to dissolve unhardened gelatin. The silver image was then bleached away and the three gelatin reliefs transferred onto a single paper support (Fig. 3.23). For Duxochrome transparencies, nonstripping films with a thinner base were supplied. The three films were stacked in register and bound between two sheets of glass. Duxochrome prints were somewhat grainy in appearance and hardly competitive with carbro or Vivex prints in a critical market (Spencer 1938: 182). Popular in Germany for many years, the product was also introduced in England and the United States (1935), where it was marketed under the name Colorstil (sometimes spelled Colorstill). A different version of the product, named Duxocolor, was first announced in 1955; it was intended to facilitate the making of prints directly from color negatives instead of monochrome separation negatives. Duxochrome materials were still in use in the early 1960s (Coote 1963).”
(Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, on pp. 106–107.)
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Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, p. 106.
Secondary Sources
Pénichon, Sylvie (2013): Twentieth Century Colour Photographs. The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London, Los Angeles: Thames & Hudson, on pp. 106–107. View Quote
