Britain's pioneers of photography to be feted in New York exhibition

They were the pioneers of photography, the artists of a medium that would transform our perceptions of reality through the invention of the calotype – a delicate print made from a paper negative – by an Englishman, William Henry Fox Talbot.

Now, the first major exhibition of this British art form is being held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives will trace the first two decades of photography in Britain, 1840 to 1860. While previous exhibitions have looked at individual calotype photographers, this is the first time that pieces from 27 lenders have been brought together.

Talbot's invention, announced to the public in 1841, used fine writing paper, photosensitised with chemical solutions, placed in a camera and exposed to light to create a negative from which prints could be made.

It was superseded in 1851 by the glass negative, which quickly became the favoured method of commercial photographers. But for another decade, a band of gentlemen-amateurs continued to use the calotype, which they considered of greater aesthetic value. Harking back to a softer, pre-industrial age, their preferred subject matter was scenes from nature – flowers, rocks and trees in winter, which possessed a startlingly graphic quality.

It was also the preferred medium of many travel photographers, as paper negatives were easier to carry around than glass.

The exhibition features images from India and Burma, as well as a section entitled Echoes of the Grand Tour, a virtual journey through France, Spain, Italy and Greece for the 19th-century armchair traveller.

Ruins also fitted the romantic spirit of the photographers, with pictures of the abbeys at Whitby, Melrose and Glastonbury.

Roger Taylor, professor of history at De Montfort University in Leicester and the guest curator of the exhibition, sourced the images from private and public collections in Britain and the United States.

"Many of the artists included in the exhibition are unfamiliar even to specialists because their photo-graphs were intended for private albums ... and family exchanges rather than for publication," Mr Taylor said.

Artists featured alongside Talbot include David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, Roger Fenton, Benjamin Brecknell Turner and Linnaeus Tripe.