No one person can be credited with having discovered the gum process. Rather it was the continual investigation of several pioneers who evolved the process into its current form. Today gum printing continues to evolve as each practitioner brings their own interests and sensibilities to the process.

While Mongo Ponton and Talbot are credited with understanding the chemical reaction that makes gum prints possible, it was a Frenchman, Alphonse Louis Poitevin, who in 1855 added pigment to the gum arabic/dichromate mixture. In the 1890s Poitevin’s process was revived by the Pictorialists who were attracted by the ease with which the wet emulsion could be manipulated. In 1898, Van Hubl introduced the practice of re-sensitising the image and then reprinting it in registration under the same negative. This adaptation to the process was probably one of the most significant, for it allowed the gum printer to build up tone and texture through repeated printings. Single printings in gum tend to be rather flat with poor detail and tonal separation. But the multiple gum print allows the print-maker to build up considerable tonal range and detail. Perhaps the most noted and technically proficient of the Gum printers was Robert Demachy.

While photographers continued to work with the process up till the 1920s, by the early years of the century the process had been discredited by those who sought to establish the “straight” silver print as the photographic standard. From the 1970s onward gum printing along with other 19th century and non-silver photographic processes have been revived by photographers seeking to expand available print-making options.