Background
Gustav Wilmanns was born on October 8, 1881, in Bremen, Germany.
Gustav Wilmanns was born on October 8, 1881, in Bremen, Germany.
Gustav Wilmanns studied chemistry at Bonn, Heidelberg, and Hannover in Germany.
After a short period as an academic assistant, Gustav Wilmanns joined the scientific laboratory of Agfa in Berlin (1905). He transferred to Agfa's new Wolfen film factory in 1910 to manage film-coating and to develop a serviceable emulsion. From 1931 on, Gustav Wilmanns developed Agfa's Technico-Scientific Department at Wolfen, organizing a project in 1934 to develop a multilayer color film based on Rudolf Fischer's color-coupler proposal.
In his early work, Gustav Wilmanns came up with an emulsion formula using albumen that eliminated fog and was adopted in the manufacture of photographic papers.
His discoveries in the following years included a high-sensitive cooked emulsion replacing ammonia that paved the way to the development of a practical motion picture film negative emulsion; a way to stabilize photographic emulsions for years rather than months; and the first panchromatic emulsion in Europe.
The multilayer color film developed by Gustav Wilmanns and Dr. W. Schneider consisted of a protective coating, a blue-sensitive emulsion, a yellow filter, a green-sensitive emulsion, a separation layer, a red-sensitive emulsion, and an antihalation coating - all on cellulose support 0.023mm in thickness.
In 1936 Gustav Wilmanns and his associates developed color negatives and color paper prints.
