Thusdays is supposed to focus on "Galleries/Art News" in the Post's Style section, and today's "Galleries" column by Jessica Dawson has a couple of reviews as well as some interesting words and comments on the longevity of color photographs.

The archival nature of artwork is an important issue, often ignored by artists and by gallery owners, but more and more of interest to art collectors. The advent of Iris digital reproductions (also called Gyclee) brought many new choices for artists and photographers, and in the early days the issue of color longevitiy was ignored. Several lawsuits later, there are archival inks and pigments now available to the reproduction industry, but it is a complicated matrix of what ink or pigment gives you what longevity on what kind or brand of paper.

The absolute last word on these issues is always held by Wilhelm Imaging Research. They conduct research on the stability and preservation of traditional and digital color photographs and motion pictures. The company publishes brand name-specific permanence data for desktop and large-format inkjet printers and other digital printing devices. Wilhelm Imaging Research also provides consulting services to museums, archives, and commercial collections on sub-zero cold storage for the very long term preservation of still photographs and motion pictures.

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