A landmark visual exploration of nature printing, featuring 45 different techniques and hundreds of astonishing rare images.

By Matthew Zucker and Pia Östlund

Hailed as the earliest precursor to photography, nature printing is the practice of using impressions from the surface of a natural object such as leaves, flowering plants, ferns, seaweed, snakes, and more to produce an image. Author Matthew Zucker has spent decades curating the most extensive collection of nature prints ever assembled, with more than 13,000 images across 120 rare and seminal works, including journals, published books, unique manuscripts, American currency, and instructional texts related to nature printing from 1733 to 1902.

This gorgeous volume explores Zucker's collection, allowing readers to see these nature prints presented side by side for the first time and enabling unique comparisons while creating a visually stunning journey through the developments over a 150-year period in printing methods, including photography with examples of cyanotypes.

Capturing Nature is the ultimate guide to nature printing, a beautiful reference work for scholars, artists, designers, botanists, and anyone interested in nature, botanical illustration, and printing.

With contributions from Harry Willis Fleming, Nicole Hanquart & Régine Fabri, Naomi Hume, Jessica C. Linker, Adam Lowe, Harriet Rix and Michele Rodda. Includes historical texts, in English, by Alois Auer von Welsbach, Franz Ernst Brückmann, Ernst Fischer, Ernst Wilhelm Martius and Eric P. Newman

Designed by Haller Brun

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2023

Hardcover, 352 pages, 9.125 × 13 inches

ISBN: 978-1-79-722246-2