Two blacksmiths work together forging iron: the smith at right operates the bellows while the other sits and watches.

Charles Persons Marshall: 1861-1929

Albert G. Marshall: 1857-1925

Together, the Marshall Brothers took over the operation of the former Johnson Studio in Cazenovia, New York in the latter half of the 19th Century. Their partnership ended by July, 1892 as reported in The Photographic Times, with C.P. Marshall carrying on the business.

In early 1891, a cabinet-card collaboration between the Marshall brothers combining landscape photographic views and artwork by Albert Marshall was commented on by the editors of Wilson’s Photographic Magazine:

THE handsomest of all souvenirs, we believe, is one of Cazenovia, New York, issued by Messrs. MARSHALL BROS., of that “garden-spot of this State.” Over one hundred petite views of all sorts of local subjects–of lake, land, river, residence, and what not–are here tastily arranged upon fifteen gilt-edged cabinet cards. The senior Marshall, who is an enthusiastic brush artist, has adorned the clusters with dainty designs, which add wondrously to the beauty of the souvenir. The shape of the tiny views is varied, too, thus getting rid of that monotonous uniformity which too often characterizes and ruins such collections. This souvenir is well worth the price ($3.00) to any photographer, for the purposes of study.—Feb. 21, 1891  p. 125

Charles P. Marshall would go on to establish the Marshall Advertising Company in Cazenovia by the turn of the 20th Century. Its’ speciality was advertising promotion for commercial photo studios. An ad in Wilson’s Photographic Magazine, December, 1901 carried the following copy:

THE MARSHALL AD. CO. the will furnish you with sound, sensible, well-written, well displayed ads that bring business. Read on-

MR. C. P. MARSHALL, whose personal skill goes into every ad., is a practical and artistic photographer of years’ experience, which gives him peculiar power to present the strongest possible arguments!

Will give you regular, up-to-date weekly service. Write to-day and secure his skill for your studio. Don’t wait till your competitor comes out in convincing colors and captures the cream of trade. Remember, only one studio in a place is furnished with the MARSHALL AD service. Let it be yours, and send now for plan for promoting your business, whether in city, town, or village!

MARSHALL AD. CO. in Wilson’s Photographic Magazine, December, 1901

After 1892, Albert G.  Marshall would establish himself as an artist, which he continued with his own studio, as listed in the 1920 U.S. Census.

Obituary: Charles P. Marshall, Abel’s Photographic Weekly, August 17, 1929

Charles P. Marshall, noted photographer of Watertown, N. Y., died at the age of 68 on July 25th. He had been in ill-health for the past year, and had entered a hospital for treatment on July 14th. Death was caused by a heart condition and was un-expected. He originally studied photography at the Johnson Studio, Cazenovia, N. Y., and with his brother eventually purchased the studio. He started in business in Watertown in 1908. While still affiliated with his brother, who later became a well known New York portrait painter, they invented the Algamar colors for use on photographs. These colors were unique at the time and received world-wide recognition, although they have not been made for many years.

Sun & Shade: An Artistic Periodical

“Within the covers of Sun and Shade…We shall especially endeavor to encourage the artistic side of direct photography in all its phases,”—Ernest Edwards, president & publisher, 1889

In July, 1888, the first issue of Sun & Shade: A Photographic Record of Events, was published in New York City by The Photo-Gravure Company. Essentially a high-class art periodical, each issue featured eight or more beautiful hand-pulled photogravures as well as plates printed in photogelatine, (collotype) and halftone. These were collected within a stapled, folio-sized magazine issued monthly.  The subject matter included the work of leading amateur and professional photographers, as well as works of art—many from the galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. The December issue—Christmas themed—featured a specially designed cover printed in green ink.  Success was swift. The first issue sold 1000 copies “in a fortnight”. (1.) Within the first year, Sun & Shade quickly increased circulation to 4000 copies a month. With a public demand for reprinting earlier issues, this success lead to a rebranding, after which, beginning with the September, 1889 issue, the magazine was renamed Sun & Shade: An Artistic Periodical. The final issue was March, 1896, when financial issues to the parent company, spurred by the eventual May, 1896 bankruptcy of the N.Y. Photo-Gravure Company, forced its closure.

Sun & Shade would become the ultimate statement of the many skills and inquisitive mind of Englishman Ernest Edwards. (1836-1903) Essentially his own printed passion project, the magazine was fueled by his ongoing love of photography in the field (issues featured many plates by him over the years) and a deeply scientific mind which pushed the advancement of the state of photo-mechanical reproduction and fine printing.

The son of a clergyman from Bloomsbury in London, he initially made a name for himself taking photographic portraits of eminent people in his Baker Street gallery. (Charles Darwin sat for him several times) His love of the outdoors also bore fruit and he became an accomplished alpine photographer. But his real interest centered around photo-mechanical reproduction. In 1869, he took out a patent in England for his own rudimentary collotype process called heliotype. In the Fall of 1872, he moved across the pond along with his wife Charlotte, and became superintendent of Boston’s Heliotype Printing Company after selling the American rights to American publisher James Ripley Osgood. (1836–1892) Edwards ran the Heliotype Printing Co. there until the end of 1884. The following year the James R. Osgood & Co. went bankrupt, although not a result of the heliotype division.

Growing restless in Boston, he then moved to New York City, where he established a new firm in March, 1885: The Photo-Gravure Company, (subsequently renamed The New York Photo-Gravure Company) with offices in Manhattan and a leased printing factory in Brooklyn. In 1887, his company received perhaps the one commission it’s best known for today: the printing of  781 collotypes, which Edwards called photogelatine plates, making up the monumental publication:

Animal Locomotion. An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements, 1872-1885, with the landmark sequenced motion study photographs taken by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge. 

Restructured in 1891 as the New York Photogravure Co., Ernest Edwards continued to advance the state of photo-mechanical printing during his final decade, with Sun & Shade publishing some of the earliest examples of his own invention by 1894: plates printed in a three-color process called chrome-gelatine, a variation of his heliotype process.

Quality Rather than Quantity

Even though it survived less than eight years in print, describing Sun & Shade in Ernest Edward’s own words is perhaps the best posterity for this important photographic periodical with an artistic heart. One year after its’ debut, he wrote the following, published in The Photographic Times for August 2, 1889:

“A year ago we commenced the publication of our novel venture in journalism Sun and Shade, a Picture Periodical without letterpress, almost as an experiment, with a modest list of less than fifty subscribers. To-day we are printing an edition of 4,000 copies monthly. A sufficiently convincing proof of the wisdom of our hope that there was room for us.

“In our rapid growth the wish has been indicated unmistakably for the higher grade of pictures, and of the higher class–always for quality rather than quantity. Following rather than leading such a wish, we feel that we make no mistake in marking the future career of the magazine to be rather that of an artistic periodical than a photographic record of events.

*Our efforts shall be directed in the future to make Sun and Shade an artistic periodical which shall be not only pleasing but educational in its broadest sense, Some of our plans may be briefly referred to.

“We shall reproduce the leading pictures in the great collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Within the covers of Sun and Shade will be found from time to time, reproductions of the works of American artists. We shall especially endeavor to encourage the artistic side of direct photography in all its phases, And we shall supplement these special features with examples of sculpture, architecture, and industrial art. If in the future we receive as hearty a response to our efforts as we have received in the past, our task will be indeed pleasant and our road to success a royal one.” (p. 394)

1. Notice: Sun & Shade: October, 1888. The August and September issues did not appear.