"Have you seen the Big Daguerreotype Wagon?"

An ad in the Washington (Pa.) Examiner asked that question on Feb. 11, 1854.

The horse-drawn wagon containing a daguerreotype studio was sketched and promoted in the advertisement, which said it would remain in the area for three days.

Lake Fong, Post-Gazette
Thomas M. Weprich, left, a daguerrotype hobbyist, and Mark S. Johnson, president of the Daguerreian Society in Dormont, discuss a daguerreotype portrait at the society in Dormont.
Click photo for larger image.

Gary Grimes, 68, a retired art dealer living in Mt. Lebanon, studies local art and photography from the 18th century as a hobby. He forwarded the information to his friend, Thomas Weprich, 55, also of Mt. Lebanon, to use in lectures.

Both are members of the Daguerreian Society, which is located in a commercial building at 3043 W. Liberty Ave, Dormont. The group is dedicated to the study of the history, science and art of the daguerreotype.

The Daguerreian Society has 900 members from all over the world and its president, Mark S. Johnson, 54, lives in the building where the lobby most recently was dedicated to a free daguerreotype exhibition that closed yesterday.

Local connections are of interest to Mr. Grimes, who does research in area libraries and cemeteries. He will be giving a lecture on local artists in February at the Duquesne Club.

Mr. Grimes noted that Henry Purviance, who owned a daguerreotype studio on what is now Pittsburgh's North Side, was editor of the Tribune Reporter in Washington County from 1858 to 1863. Mr. Purviance is buried in Washington Cemetery.

The daguerreotype was the first successful photographic process and had its heyday in the 1840s and 1850s before being replaced by other technologies. Cities cross the nation had shops specializing in the art; Pittsburgh had shops on Fifth Avenue and on Wood Street, as well as traveling artists, Mr. Weprich said. By the late 1840s there was a portrait industry employing thousands of such artists all over the U.S.

The technique was introduced by commercial artist Jacques Louis Mande Daguerre, 1787-1851. He took a copper plate coated with a layer of silver and made it sensitive to the light through chemical treatment. The plate was exposed in the camera and developed with fumes of mercury and toned with a heated solution of gold chloride.

The process is known for its clarity and precise detail and was a popular new technology because it gave the average individual and family the opportunity to have portraits made.

However, its subjects often seem to have a dour expression on their faces.

As an example, Mr. Johnson showed a daguerreotype of a young Sam Clemens with a grim expression on his face. Clemens, 1835-1910, is, of course, the American humorist and author we know as Mark Twain.

The reason for the dour look is "that it is hard to hold a smile for 20 seconds" and the process was intimidating, with a head rest that felt "like a vice around the ears," Mr. Johnson said

The lack of joy in the photos was accepted because "no one ever smiled in paintings," he said.

Also, there was a cholera epidemic around that time which caused the deaths of many children. That is at least one of the reasons that it became popular to photograph children, before and after death, Mr. Weprich said. He is a University of Pittsburgh office worker who studied the early photography of Pittsburgh as part of his graduate work at Penn State University. Part of the recent Dormont exhibit depicted portraits of children.

Mr. Johnson, who has a degree in fine arts from Adrian College in Michigan, owns a graphic arts company, Mark S. Johnson & Associates. He remembers becoming interested in photography as a boy in Chicago, when he was given a Brownie camera and used his bathroom as a darkroom.

He became interested in collecting daguerreotypes after moving here in the 1970s.

He said his hobby was easier to do back then when there were antique shops that sold daguerreotypes at low prices. There are fewer shops and more expensive prices these days, he said.

He heard about the society in 1989 -- it was incorporated in 1988 -- and quickly joined.

When he went to its first symposium he found himself "among people who spoke in common tongue," he recalled.

The society held its annual symposium in Pittsburgh at the Omni William Penn Hotel in mid-November with trade fairs, banquets, auctions and guest speakers.

One speaker was Jean Pierre Spilbauer, mayor of Bry-sur-Marne, France, where Louis Daguerre lived from 1841 to 1851. He talked about a long-range project, the establishment of a Daguerre museum in the villa where Mr. Daguerre spent his final years.

Other speakers, Rick and M'Lissa Kesterman, presented an eight-plate daguerreotype panorama of the city of Cincinnati in 1848. He is the library assistant and she is an assistant reference librarian at the Cincinnati Historical Society Library at Cincinnati Museum Center.

Mr. Johnson said he welcomes questions about the value of daguerreotypes people have found in their cellars or attics. He also can arrange visits to the society building for individuals or classes. Point Park, Carnegie Mellon and the Art Institute often send students.

He has been president for 14 years and said societies often are located where the president lives. The society publishes a bi-monthly magazine, The Daguerreian Society Newsletter.

The society's phone number is: 412 343-5525 and the Web site is: www.daguerre.org.

First Published: January 7, 2007, 5:00 a.m.