Page from new First Photograph web exhibition.

The Ransom Center launched updated websites for its two permanent exhibitions, the Gutenberg Bible and the First Photograph. The websites contain information, interactive components, and content geared toward children related to each exhibition.

The Gutenberg Bible is the first substantial book printed from movable type on a printing press. It was printed in Johann Gutenberg’s shop in Mainz, Germany, between 1450 and 1455. View a video demonstrating Gutenberg’s printing process.

Gutenberg’s invention revolutionized the distribution of knowledge by making it possible to produce many accurate copies of a single work in a relatively short amount of time. View a map that shows the spread of printing after Gutenberg.

Visitors can turn the pages of the Gutenberg Bible, view the pages in…

Each Friday, the Ransom Center shares photos from throughout the week that highlight a range of activities and collection holdings. We hope you enjoy these photos that reveal some of the everyday happenings at the Center.

Mary Alice Harper, head of photography and art cataloging, shares new David Douglas Duncan materials with Ransom Center Director Thomas F. Staley. Photo by Alicia Dietrich.

Undergraduate intern Rachel Platis selects photographs for a forthcoming exhibition. Photo by Pete Smith.

Visiting educators learn about the history of the King James Bible during Saturday's teacher workshop. Photo by Lisa Pulsifer.

Multimedia Coordinator Lee Tran videotapes the First Photograph for an ongoing kiosk project. Photo by Daniel Zmud.

The exhibition Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gernsheim Collection opens today at the Ransom Center.

Drawn from the peerless collection of Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, the exhibition features masterpieces from photography’s first 150 years, alongside other images that, while lesser known, are integral to the medium’s history. Highlights include the first photograph (on permanent display at the Ransom Center); works by nineteenth-century masters such as Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Henry Peach Robinson; and iconic images by modern photographers such as Man Ray, Edward Weston, Robert Capa, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The Harry Ransom Center will celebrate the opening of the exhibition with “A Picture Perfect Evening” on Friday, September 10th from 6 to 8 p.m. The event is free for Ransom Center…

Costumes in the Ransom Center’s ‘Making Movies’ exhibition. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

The Harry Ransom Center’s exhibitions Making Movies and ¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence close Sunday, August 1.

Featuring items from the Ransom Center’s extensive film collections, Making Movies reveals the collaborative nature of the filmmaking process and focuses on how the artists involved—from writers to directors, actors to cinematographers—transform the written word into moving image.

If you can’t visit the exhibition before it closes, view a video interview with Associate Curator of Film Steve Wilson discussing how the Ransom Center’s holdings document the history of the motion picture industry.

¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence showcases materials from the Ransom Center’s collections including the 1529 document appointing Hernán Cortés Captain General of New Spain; unpublished letters exchanged between Ferdinand Maximilian, Emperor…

Click on the four-way arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the slideshow to convert into full-screen mode.

In 1952, photohistorian Helmut Gernsheim rediscovered the first photograph lying forgotten in a trunk, 125 years after Joseph Nicéphore Niépce captured the famous image. “I held the foundation stone of photography in my hand,” Gernsheim recalled. “I felt myself in communication with Niépce. ‘Your nightmare existence in a trunk is over,’ I thought. ‘At long last you will be recognized as the inventor of photography.’”

Today, the first photograph is on permanent display in the Ransom Center’s lobby. In 2002, the Ransom Center and the Getty Conservation Institute began a collaborative conservation project for the first photograph. Dr. Shin Maekawa, Senior Scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute, designed an oxygen-free display case to protect the heliograph from potential oxygen-induced deterioration. Both institutions regularly monitor conditions in the display case through a website, which logs oxygen, pressure, relative humidity, and temperature.

Maekawa returned to Austin in March to teach Ransom Center Photograph Conservator Barbara Brown how to maintain the case.

“We’ve been working on maintenance for the oxygen-free case in which the photograph is housed and presented,” Brown said. “This is something that needs to be done periodically. There have been no problems, but it’s always good to double-check the sensors every couple of years to make sure everything is running the way it’s supposed to.”

In addition to assisting Brown with maintenance, Maekawa also came to help the Ransom Center determine whether or not the first photograph could possibly tour.

“When you take a sealed case into an airplane, there’s a lot of pressure acting on the case. So the idea is [to find out] whether we can transport the case or not, and how we can go about it. Since I designed the case, being here will give me a better idea of exactly what other issues there are to consider. The main issue is to maybe build a special container for traveling,” Maekawa said.

New official image of the First Photograph in 2003. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras. c. 1826. Gernsheim Collection Harry Ransom Center / University of Texas at Austin. Photo by J. Paul Getty Museum.