Alison Gernsheim

Gernsheim, Alison (née Eames; c. 1911-1969) and Helmut (1913-95), British photographic historians and collectors. Helmut, born in Munich and trained at Bavaria's State Photographic School, worked freelance until he settled in Britain in 1937, becoming a British citizen in 1946. On his arrival, he began a photographic survey of historic buildings and monuments for the Warburg Institute, London. In 1938 he met Alison, and they married in 1942, beginning a highly influential scholarly collaboration. Together they wrote important monographs on Julia Margaret Cameron (1948), Charles Dodgson (1949), Daguerre (1956), and Alvin Langdon Coburn (1966). Although they also wrote separate larger works they are best known for their joint surveys Masterpieces of Victorian Photography (1951) and The History of Photography (1955). Their collection of early photographic incunabula and images, including Niépce's View from the Study Window, and their research notes, are preserved as the Gernsheim Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.

— Kelley E. Wilder