HUSNÍK, Jakub

Upon completing grammar school in Prague, H. studied painting at the Academy of Arts in Prague and Antwerp. After returning from Holland for a short time, he lived as a freelance artist, until he began to teach at grammar school in Tabor in 1863. He was interested in photography already during his studies at the academy. He dealt with photography more accurately at L.M. Winter’s Prague studio. H. was concerned with the further development of photographic techniques and photographic reproductions. One of his first inventions in 1863 was the photography with two shades. H. informed the professional public of his invention of phototypy in 1869 in the January edition of Berlin newspaper Photographische Mitteilungen.
He succeeds in making the imprint on the gelatinous side, to which the negative was transferred on. The gelatinous layer of stone (later a glass plate) brought him success. He managed up to 1500 high-quality prints on one stone. Despite his successes, the Imperial state printing house, to which his invention was offered, showed no interest. As a state official he was forbidden to commercially exploit his invention, therefore, he offered to sell it to his competitor Josef Albert in Munich. This is the reason that this type of printing is called the Albert type. H. continued to work with Josef Albert which in 1870 led to the development of three-coloured printing.
In 1869 H. constructed a handle for Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine, which significantly improved the reliability of the seam of this machine. Because of his apparent modesty and inability for business he was never able to obtain any benefits from his inventions. In 1873 he left teaching job and became the adviser of Viennese Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing House.
In 1876, after the termination of employment he returned back to the Czech Republic. As a teacher in Prague H. wrote specialized books concerning printing and in 1878 set up a photographic studio and zincograph workshop, where he was making blocks with granular autotype raster. In collaboration with his son-in-law Häusler he managed workshops for the reproduction and making of three-colour printing blocks. They initially had a granular raster, and later also a linear one.

After his early retirement in 1888, H. dealt with preparing the ground for the reproduction for printing. The company reproduced natural images and often well-known images from galleries. H. and Häusler managed to have their first three-colour imprint published in 1893 in a half-yearly journal Aus dem Reich von Wissenschaft und Arbeit (From the world of science and labour).
At that time H’s son Jaroslav already collaborated with his father. Being a consultant for the preparation of printing plates, Jaroslav H. was Head of Expert Group for printing and photography, which participated in foundation of the Press department of Technical Museum in Prague.