NEW YORK—The investor and philanthropist Daniel H. Stern and long-time Polaroid artist John Reuter have reached "an agreement in principle" to assume production of the chemicals and products needed to make Polaroid images, the Wall Street Journal reports. In February, Petters Group Worldwide, owners of Polaroid Corp., announced that they would stop producing the company’s well-known instant photography film.

Despite the development, Stern and Reuter only appear to be interested in a particular, and rather rare, form of Polaroid. Their new company, 20X24 Holdings LLC, will support only the Polaroid 20x24, which was introduced in the late 1970s as a glamor product. The 20x24 produces large-scale images and, according to the Journal, “requires a camera as big as a refrigerator, an enormous lens, movie-bright lights, and, crucially, skilled operators.” Though only six of these cameras were ever made, the 20x24 was critical to the careers of such artists as Chuck Close, William Wegman, Lucas Samaras, Elsa Dorfman, and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

In 1985, Reuter, along with Eelco Wolf, a former marketing director at Polaroid, set up a 20x24 studio in SoHo. As the Polaroid Corp. declined, Reuter began to worry how long his contract and supplies would last. Now 20x24 Holdings has set up a new studio in Tribeca, where Reuter continues to work with artists and commercial photographers on what he calls the "king of all Polaroids." 

In addition to his camera, four other 20x24s are still active. There is one each in New York, Cambridge, Mass., San Francisco, and Prague.