Oscar Gustave Rejlander

Oscar Gustave Rejlander was a Swedish-born photographer who helped establish photography as an art form. Born around 1813, he trained as a painter before settling in England and taking up the camera. He became known for ambitious, staged photographs that imitated the look of grand paintings, most famously a complex scene assembled from many separate negatives.

He also worked with the naturalist Charles Darwin, providing photographs of human expressions for a scientific book on emotion. His inventive, sometimes theatrical images pushed the boundaries of what early photography could do. Rejlander is remembered as a pioneer who insisted that photography could be a means of serious artistic expression.