In his home area the family name Baldus is still common, but hardly anyone associates that with a great photographer. As well in France, Baldus, the first professional architectural photographer, the photographer of the railways and the progress, had disappeared from focus for a long time. But since the early 1980s Baldus and his photographs receive new attention - probably also a reflection of the "New Topography" in the photography of the 1960s and 70s. Néagu and Heilbrun consider him to be the first modern photographer at all, his photographs being the birth of modern perception. His albums and series of preferred motives, such as the railway bridges, anticipate the serial concepts of Sander and the Bechers by a half or a full century and today remind of Atget or Friedlander, but actually were made many decades before their works.

It is the meticulous work of Malcolm Daniel, who – first with his doctoral thesis – later as Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York investigates systematically the life and work of Baldus, which starts a rediscovery of this pioneer and his truly great photographs.

The results of Malcolm Daniel's studies and Baldus’ oeuvre are presented to the public in great exhibitions in the MET in New York (1994), in Montreal and Paris (1995) and with a monograph of 300 pages. In 2006 Martin Parr and Gerry Badger include Baldus’ Album „Chemin de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée" (1863) into their collection of the most important photobooks of all times. In this very special selection we find so with Edouard Baldus (Grünebach 1812-1889), August Sander (Herdorf, 1876-1964) and Bernd Becher (Siegen, 1931-2007) three world-class photographers from the ‘Siegerland’ region. Such esteem echoes in the prices: Small prints of early photographs of Baldus start at a few hundred Euro, larger formats of rare motives are sold in international auctions at prices up to € 50.000. 

Despite all this attention in recent years, despite all the research on his work and life, his past remained a secret – but no longer anymore. For the solution let us have a look on the time before his arrival in Paris. Let us make a step back into the year 1835:

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