Translations:Jean Baptiste Louis Gros/8/en

Gros's artistic work began in painting and demonstrates meticulous academic training. He is catalogued among the generation of “traveling artists” for his periods of work in countries such as Mexico and Colombia between 1830 and 1860, where he produced landscapes in a scientific spirit that were at the same time nourished by the romanticism of the Humboldt school. He also had experience as a lithographer. As for photography, Gros began his exploration for his own interest, just a few months after the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839. His privileged position allowed him to acquire the equipment, supplies, and manuals necessary to begin operating in this new technique that dazzled him with the possibility of capturing images with photosensitive plates. Through his self-taught learning, he achieved expertise in the field, producing important photographic archives as well as written works in which he shared his own findings on the use of the medium. Within a decade, his experience earned him a place as president of the Heliographic Society of France.