Michael Pritchard's Blog – May 2020 Archive (15)

Being There is a new publication from Michael Hallett. It consists of fragments of biographies that collectively follow the progress of picture journalism from the advent of the miniature camera through to the arrival and impact of the digital age. It covers a ninety-year period from c1923 to 2012 and provides a critical compilation of…

The latest issue of the free, online, Science Museum Journal (Spring 2020, issue 13) includes two articles of particular interest to British photography. Jeffrey Sturchio writes about Kenneth Mees, Eastman Kodak and the challenges of diversification and Jason Bate writes about Projecting soldiers’ repair: the ‘Great War’ lantern and the…

Huxley-Parlour has launched an exhibition of over 40 vintage and early Cecil Beaton photographs in its dedicated online viewing room. The site is populated with in-depth essays and a range of detailed imagery, bringing context and information to each work. The photographs survey Beaton's career, ranging from portraits of the 'Bright Young Things' in the…

James Hyman Gallery presents an online exhibition of largely unseen photographs by Shirley Baker selected from the British photographer’s estate. The exhibition, which goes live from 22 June to 24 July via the Gallery’s website , includes her rare colour work as well as a selection of iconic black and white images.

Focusing on Shirley Baker’s…

Drawing: The Muse of Photography is a webinar from Drawing America and presents a conversation on the relationship between drawing and photography with Hans P. Kraus Jr., Malcolm Daniel, Curator of Photography at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and moderated by Allison Wucher, Director of Master Drawings New York. 

The talk will…

Bonhams is to auction a collection of material, including cameras, tripods, workbench and woodworking tools, and the sign from the Gandolfi camera makers workshop in Borland Road, London, in a single lot on 29 July 2020. The property was originally offered by Christie's by private treaty in 1994 and is offered by that buyer, a Swiss collector. The collection…

Lai Fong (c.1839-1890): Photographer of China is the first exhibition devoted to a nineteenth-century Chinese photographer. Unfortunately, the exhibition at Cornell University's Johnson Museum of Art is inaccessible due to current circumstances. To share a view of the exhibition, Stephan Loewentheil, one of the principal supporters of the exhibition,…

Dr Richard Sadler FRPS, one of British photography's important post-war figures, has died aged 92 years after a short illness. Originally from Coventry, Sadler was in his home city during the Coventry Blitz of 1940 and later documented the reconstruction of the city and the iconic Coventry Cathedral, becoming its official photographer. He was also the heavily involved with the city's Belgrade Theatre from 1958 until 1994 and part of his work there has now been digitised. 

He began…

The John Rylands Library in Manchester has a wonderful collection of historic and contemporary photography. Tony Richards from its imaging team is using COVID-19 lockdown as an opportunity to experiment with very modern imaging techniques to visualise spaces and objects from its collection. One of the objects visualised is a daguerreotype which presents its…

Queen Victoria's accession to the throne in 1837 coincided almost exactly with the invention of photography. She would be the first woman in the world to live both her private and public lives in front of the camera.

At first, photography was a private pleasure, a way of capturing images of herself and her family for their own personal amusement. But…

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has asked the public to help identify over 5,000 archive images which are now available online for the first time. In 2019-20, over 170,000 archive items from the HES archives were digitised, with the images now being added to Canmore – the online catalogue of HES archives. The new online records include digitised copies of…

The British Museum has revamped its website and made 1.9 million images of, and from, its collection - including photographs - available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Commercial use…

For a number of reasons the 1851 Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace hold a particular interest for photographic historians for whom it is familiar through the photographs of T R Williams, Negretti and Zambra, P H Delamotte and others. For the first time, visitors can take a 360 tour around The Crystal Palace, the venue of the formidable 1851 Great…

In the light of the closure of The National Archives at Kew due to COVID-19 the decision has been taken to provide free access to digital records available on its website for as long as TNA remains closed to visitors. Registered users can now order and download up to 10 items at a time, up to a maximum of 50 items over a rolling 30 day period. The limits are…

When the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland jointly acquired the MacKinnon Collection of historic Scottish photography, they knew it contained many exceptional…