April 2020 Blog Posts (25)

I wonder if anyone can shed light on the possible existence of a Chevreul photographic process. I’ve come across the following announcement in the Lynn Advertiser of 28^th March 1857.

"W. Taylor begs to announce that he has completed his arrangements for carrying out the beautiful system of pure, untouched Photography, so successfully practised by M. Chevreul, of Paris, – producing Portraits equal in richness to the highest finished Mezzotint Engravings, and leaving…

Recording of a Facebook Livestream, first broadcast on Thursday 23rd April 2020. Whether self-isolating or with the family, this special live stream event with Lost Glasgow’s Norry Wilson is a must for all to gather round. In this presentation Norry offers his take on Oscar Marzaroli’s incredible photographic record of the city and the legacy his work gives, as well as looking at the photographers who preceded Oscar and those who were…

The following vintage cameras and photographs were stolen from a house in north-east London on 9 April. If you are offered them or have sight of them please contact: CONTACT:CMS@MET.POLICE.UK

1.Detective camera disguised as a pair of binoculars c.1890.

2.Another detective camera disguised as a pair of binoculars c.1900.

3.A Ticka detective camera disguised as a pocket watch, hands at seven minutes past eleven.

4.Dr.Kreugner…

This is a recently acquired salt print, 'Col. Dickson, Royal Engineers' by Roger Fenton. It is mounted on the usual large 18 x 24" page. Rather than having the number printed in the title, it is hand written in ink on the obverse. Is this an early 'proof'? A later copy?…

One of the great pleasures in collecting old negatives is finding the odd 'ruby in a mountain of rock'. Whilst recently scanning a group of glass negatives I had recently purchased and had loosely titled 'Camberwell, Southwark and Richmond Collection' I came across the image of a middle-aged gentleman sitting with a young girl in the back garden of a house…

Sue Davies who has died, after a short illness, aged 87 years, was the founder director of London’s The Photographers’ Gallery, the first public space dedicated solely to photography and photographers in the United Kingdom. During her twenty years as gallery director she established it as the go-to place for photography, particularly in its early years when…

I have recently been comparing collections holding Roger Fenton’s Crimean war images and have discovered that the titles of some portraits in the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington are different to the same images in the Royal Collection Trust (RCT). The portrait entitled Colonel Goodlake at the LOC is entitled Lieutenant Colonel…

The Wiener Holocaust Library has made available an online version of its 2019 exhibition of Gerty Simon's life and work Gerty (Gertrud) Simon (1887-1970) was a German-Jewish photographer renowned in the 1920s and 1930s for her portraits of important political and artistic figures in Weimar Berlin and interwar London. In the 1930s, as a refugee from Nazism in…

Source magazine has provided free access to the digital edition of Issue 96 - Privacy: Picturing Our Inner Selves until the end of April. It features portfolios from Rachel Glass, Maurice Hobson and Gillian Wearing, fashion and marketplace columns, reviews, and interviews. 

Accessible here: …

Glasgow's Street Level Photoworks has made available a Facebook live stream artist talk with Frank McElhinney on his project 'Only for Freedom', followed by a Q+A with Street Level director Malcolm Dickson.…

Produced to coincide with our Oscar Marzaroli retrospective this short AV work features poignant narration by Marie-Clare Marzaroli sharing recollections of her father and reflecting on the huge legacy he left behind.…

Might anyone have any details of a process introduced 1861 by Squire & Co for colouring a paper photograph to resemble a painting on ivory. It is was announced in Photographic News, vol . 5, no . 171, 13 December 1861, i

It was marketed as  the elephantinon process  and was evidently for making paper photographs look like paintings on ivory but with libraries shut I cant find the PN to consult.

The term is the ancient Greek name for a black dye made from burnt ivory  but…

I am looking for any information about the Photographer of this recently acquired albumen photo: Sir Henry Fletcher being served by mess waiter Robert. Seller says it's from an 1853 Album from the Musketry School at Hythe.

Curiously, The Grenadier Guards website is selling copies of this image, but listing the waiter or location as Windsor.…

Leicester's De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre annual conference for 2020 titled Camera Education: Photographic Histories of Visual Literacy, Schooling, and the Imagination will take place on 15-16 June 2020. Due to COVID-19 it will be run online and can be booked through the…

Chiswick Auction's Fine Photographica sale will go ahead online on 29 April. The auctions includes a number of British photographers from Robert Howlett's portrait of I K Brunel (lot 105) to work from George Rodger, Richard Sadler, Fay Godwin, John Swannell, T R Williams (lot 111), Francis Bedford and others. Of particular note is a group of ten…

The only known wartime film footage of a secret site connected to Bletchley Park has been discovered. The 11-minute silent film, believed to be a compilation of footage recorded between 1939-1945, shows members of MI6 Section VIII at Whaddon Hall, Buckinghamshire. During World War Two, this was a most secret site where Ultra intelligence produced by the…

COVID-19 has meant that the new print issue of The Classic will not be made available at its usual distribution points in selected galleries and institutions as they are currently all closed. The publisher, Michael Diemar, has decided to make  the latest issue available as a pdf from its website.

Issue 3 includes:  

• Frozen Films -…

Matthew Broadhead, a descendent of the Victorian Leicester photographer F. W. Broadhead (1846-1925)  has made over 250 photographs from his third great grandfather's studio available online for the first time.

The photographs can be seen here: www.flickr.com/photos/fwbroadhead

Matthew can…

The James Hyman Gallery has launched a special fundraising sale in support of the NHS. James and Claire Hyman' collection of British photography is one of the UK's most important private collections and Claire works as surgeon within the National Health Service. 

The Gallery has put together a selection of works by some of the major photographers of…