FRANCIS DOUBLIER - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH 04/20/1941 - HFSID 350393

FRANCIS DOUBLIER
Inscribed and signed photo of the film pioneering showing off photographs of the Lumière brothers and some early pieces of movie equipment.
Photograph inscribed and signed: "To Mr. Marx Reimers/From/Francis Doublier/1894./Motion Picture Pioneer/April 20th 1941/Fort Lee, N.J." B/w, 7¼ x 9½. Doublier, who is surrounded by relics from the early days of motion pictures, has also initialed: "F.D." under a description of several pieces of equipment. In full: "Camera, printer,/projector used/in 1895 to 1900". He has also identified two photographs displayed around him: "Louis Lumière" and "Auguste and Louis Lumière". FRANCIS DOUBLIER (1878-1948), the first to see moving pictures projected onto a wall, signed and dated this photograph while Vice President of Major Film Laboratories, Inc. of New York. His photographic career began in 1894, when the 16-year-old became associated with brothers AUGUSTE MARIE NICOLAS LUMIÈRE (1862-1954) and LOUIS JEAN LUMIÈRE (1864-1948) and their experimentation with motion picture photography. Doublier served as laboratory technician and principal cameraman for the Lumières, who developed the first screen projector, improving upon Thomas A. Edison's peep-show Kinetoscope. Using various attachments, the Lumière Cinematographe could photograph (13 meters of film or 45 seconds of exposure at a time), develop and project moving images, the first of which were projected in the Grand Café in Paris on December 28, 1895. The speed standard of their camera remained the choice of silent filmmakers until 1927, when sound was added to film. From 1896-1900, Doublier was sent on a four-year tour of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, recording the first motion picture images of their major cities. He gained recognition for filming the coronation of Czar Nicholas II on May 14, 1896, the first news event ever captured on film. Doublier then recorded the first motion picture coverage of a human disaster when thousands trampled each other to death as the frenzied crowd pushed to see the Czar two days later (Doublier's film was confiscated). The poster displayed in this photograph is from a later visit to Russia. It announces the showing of his "moving live photography" on Sunday, February 14, 1898. Doublier, who came to the U.S. to work at the Lumière North American Company plant in Burlington, Vermont in 1902, later went to Fort Lee, New Jersey, where he continued to work as a lab technician. Minor surface crease at upper left background. Slightly soiled at blank margins, tack hole at lower right corner. Fine condition. Framed to an overall size of 25x19. Minor wearing at frame corners.