One of my first discoveries, artistically speaking, in the Sotheby’s Institute of Art Library, was a photography book featuring some of Anna Atkins‘ beautiful cyanotypes. So I was delighted to see that Google today chose to commemorate her 216th birthday in their Google Doodle.
I’m still not up to writing long blog entries, but if you click on her name, in my opening sentence, you will learn more about the botanist who turned to photography to help document her collections. You can see much more of her work in the multi-volume photobook Photographs of British Algae : Cyanotype impressions, privately published in 1843. I’ll leave you with some of my favourite Atkins photos.

Cystoseira granulata, from ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions’, published 1843-53 (cyanotype), Atkins, Anna (1799-1871) / Spencer Collection, New York Public Library, USA / Bridgeman Images
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