The Last Cibachrome

Created from an image in The Anonymous Project slide collection, which includes nearly a million anonymous images dating from 1940 to 2000, this print was produced on January 23, 2023, at the Cadre en Seine laboratory and then donated to the museum by artist Lee Shulman. It marks the end of an iconic photographic printing process.

Cibachrome was developed in Switzerland, in Marly (Fribourg), in the early 1960s by the companies Ciba, Ilford, and Lumière. It was first presented to the public at the 1964 Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne. This unique process made it possible to produce a color print directly from a slide, without using a negative. The photosensitive paper initially appeared dark brown because it contained colored pigments. During the printing process, these dyes were gradually bleached by exposure to light, leaving only the original colors of the image visible.

Renowned for its vivid colors and long-term stability, Cibachrome became the most popular color printing process among photographers and institutions specializing in photography between the 1970s and 1990s. It attracted artists such as Nan Goldin, Andres Serrano, Jeff Wall, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Cindy Sherman.

The bankruptcy of Ilford in 2013 marked the gradual end of this process. Only a few laboratories that managed to acquire the last stocks of paper could continue offering this type of printing. The Cadre en Seine laboratory maintained this service until 2023, but the aging of the equipment and chemical products eventually brought this activity to an end.