Illustrators Special
Rich:
It has taken me a long time to read your question.
David Vestal in the January 1965 issue of Popular Photography did a round up of 106 enlarging papers that included Illustrators Special. Here is the quote:
"Kodak Illustrators' Special E (used as No. 2 paper)
"Illustrators' logically follows Portriga: it is the only other "warm tone" paper I can call excellent. One grade, one surface, but versatile because it is rich. Caution: use really clean trays and fresh solutions, or you risk ugly stains. Clean working solves this, but a problem remains. Illustrators' changes in printing and in drying and can fool you. It gains contrast in the hypo, and drying darkens it and dulls the surface. When you allow for these changes, illustrators' is a friend.
"I have two special uses for it. It can save pale pictures that would be anemic on most papers: and it can exploit fully the juiciness of especially rich pictures. Feeble grays become delicate, authoritative silvery-olive grays; and more life than you would expect can be brought out of lively, long-scale negatives. I don't use it for most pictures. It's for deserving weak one, and for strong ones that need special handling to come through fully. "Special" is the right adjective for Illustrators'.
"Surface: Duller than is ideal for tone, but pleasant, like smooth eggshell. Careful, light-handed use of lacquer or wax can revive some wasted tone.
"Paper color: A warm, ivorylike off-white.
"Emulsion color: Brown gray to brown black with an olive tinge. Warmer or cooler according to the developer used. D-72, Dektol, and Ansco 120 work cooler than Selectol and Selectol-Soft; I prefer the cool tones.
"Speed:Moderately slow (28 sec at f/8).
"Contrast: with normal two-minute development, contrasty: 2.5, not 2.0. Other developments give about 1,0 to 2.8 or 2,9.
"Flexibility: Considerable; limited mostly by color.
"Long development response; Long development cools tones and increases contrast. Watch out for stains; Illustrators' can't be push far without rishing the.
"Durability: Good. Not a fragile paper.
"Toning response: The one toner I've seen work really well with Illustrators' (but never tried myself) is Nelson's gold Toner (Kodak T 21 or Ansco 223) used with restraint. it cools and enriches the tones.
"Personality: Like Portriga with muscles. Capable of profound murk and gloom as well as sunshiny or pearly printing."
The other papers Vestal rated "excellent" in 1965 were Dupont Valour Black BT grades 2 and 3, Agfa Portriga-Rapid 111 No. 2, Kodak Medalist J 2,3,4, and then a bunch of multigrade papers.
Obviously, one person's opinion. What i recall is that the paper was discontinued within a year or two of Vestal's report, so it was still being made in 1964, but not by the late 1960s when I tried to buy some.
What Vestal says about long-tone negatives and print color explains why Paul Strand liked the paper and why Strand used both gold toner and varnish on his prints. The most beautiful Strand prints I ever saw were on Illustrators Special, including negatives dating back to the 1920s like the Ackeley movie camera interior, but also the Rancho de Taos Church and the Luzzara Family. These were in a museum collection. The upcoming Strand retrospective at Philadelphia Museum of Art will, I hope, have some Illustrators Special prints.
Ansco also had a portrait paper called Cykora. I have seen one Frederick Sommer print from the 1940s or early 1950s that must have been printed on it. Like Illustrators, it had a textured surface, but the Cykora I saw was glossier.
