The National Portrait Gallery has acquired a group of portraits of leading British cultural figures photographed in the 1990s - including Daniel Day-Lewis, Damon Albarn, Alan Bennett, Tilda Swinton, Bob Geldof and Salman Rushdie.

They have been saved from destruction after being rescued from a condemned warehouse in King's Cross. The important body of portraits from British photographic team The Douglas Brothers had sat in a disused storage unit in London for two decades.

The Douglas Brothers began working together in the 1980s, producing photographs for the magazine press and music industry. Their photographic partnership ended in 1995, with both pursuing separate careers in the United States directing movies and commercials. They are both now based in Los Angeles. The brothers stored their photographic archive in a King's Cross lock-up that, nearly 20 years later, was earmarked to make way for redevelopment.

Andrew Douglas says: 'The storage company took over a year to track us down. Even then it was nearly too late'. Stuart Douglas says: 'The building was about to be demolished. Ten years of work came very close to ending up as landfill.'

The brothers contacted London-based artist manager Tim Fennell (bonabattoir.com). 'I received a phone call asking me to drop everything,' says Fennell, 'and clear a lock-up on a demolition site. I had 48 hours before the building was bulldozed. I retrieved 30 crates of negatives and prints that hadn't seen the light of day for nearly two decades. It was a remarkable body of work, just sitting there, forgotten.'

Fourteen of their evocative and atmospheric portraits were accepted for the National Portrait Gallery's Primary Collection. The photographs feature Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Tilda Swinton, Damon Albarn, Alan Bennett, Bryan Ferry, Daniel Day-Lewis, Eric Clapton, Ian McEwan, John Le Carre, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kenneth Branagh, Peter Gabriel and Salman Rushdie.

The Douglas Brothers (thedouglasbrothers.com) spent a decade photographing leading figures from the worlds of art, literature, film, music, sport and fashion. The brothers - real life siblings Stuart and Andrew Douglas - were once described as 'the most desirable photographers of their generation.' They were the last people to photograph Salman Rushdie before he went into hiding following the death threats made against him in response to the publication of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

Dr Phillip Prodger, Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London, says: 'The Douglas Brothers produced some of the most distinctive portraits of the 1990s. Although their photography has since become less well known, this is work that has stood the test of time. Making use of older, historic processes, their pictures are still as fresh and exciting as the day they were made, and make a wonderful addition to the national collection of photographic portraits.'

The Douglas Brothers' portraits will go on display at the National Portrait Gallery in August 2017.

Image: A portrait of Damon Albarn from the collection. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London

The National Portrait Gallery houses a unique collection of all forms of portraiture of the people who have made or who are currently contributing to British history and culture. The Gallery attracts over 2 million visits a year and is among London’s most popular attractions, it reaches and engages these, and further UK and global audiences, with its extensive display, exhibition, research, learning, outreach, publishing, digital and national programmes.

This seminar will offer a talk about – and in the guise of – the South Kensington Museum, which was the original home of what was later split into the V&A Museum and the Science Museum. It was created by the government's Department of Science and Art, which was run by Henry Cole, the South Kensington Museum's founding director and the prime mover behind the Great Exhibition of 1851. The seminar will have a particular resonance for photographic historian because of the different ways that photography has been considered by the two institutions over their history. 

 By considering the prehistory of the Department and Museum, we intend to put the Victorian relationship between science and art into both long and local perspectives. We will cover the period of roughly 50 years during which the two collections lived in a single organisation, the reasons why they were split circa 1900, and the present-day opportunities in museums and universities for reconnecting them.

The Department of Science and Art Revisited: The View from South Kensington
Tuesday 18 October 2016, 13.00–14.00, Science Museum Lecture Theatre
Dr Tim Boon, Head of Research and Public History at the Science Museum Professor Bill Sherman, Director of Research and Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Full programme details can be found on the Science Museum webpages:http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about-us/collections-and-research/news-and-events/autumn-research-seminars

The transit of Venus in 1874 has long been of interest to the photographic historians and the periodicals of the period. A newly released collection of digitised papers at Cambridge Digital Library has been added to the successful Board of Longitude Collection that was released in 2013. The Transit of Venus collection includes a selection of papers and photographs from the Royal Greenwich Observatory archive, including journals kept by Captain George Lyon Tupman as he oversaw training at Greenwich from 1872, led the expedition to Honolulu in 1874 and returned to the Observatory to process the mass of observations until 1880. There are also images and lists of the instruments and stores taken, and the Kailua sub-station journal kept by George Forbes.

In addition to this we have had permission to photograph private papers from the Tupman family, including an album and private journal kept by Tupman and two wonderful volumes of caricature drawings by one of the Honolulu observers, Lieutenant E.J.W. Noble. 

You can see and search the collection here: https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/tov

You can read an introductory post here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/oct/10/astronomy-expedition-history-hawaii

The ACP is looking for a new Director with the vision, skills and capacity to lead the institution successfully through the next phase of its history.

The Director is ACP’s chief executive officer reporting directly to the Board and is responsible for leading the organisation strategically and operationally to achieve its goals and deliver its artistic program.

This position requires a visionary individual with exquisite judgement who can engage with the artistic and photographic community both nationally and internationally, and prominently represent the art of photography and photo media in Australia.

ACP is at a crucial and exciting phase in its development as a national cultural institution, which will generate challenges and opportunities for our new Director. The organisation has the benefits and strength of its powerful reputation, a strong digital and web capability, an energetic and committed Board, significant operational agility and an optimistic and entrepreneurial spirit.

It is crucial that our new Director has the interpersonal and communications skills to engage with multiple and varied stakeholders, and especially with the community of photographers and artists who closely associate with the ACP. It is also vital that the new Director has a strong understanding of the role that digital technologies and platforms can play in this engagement, from social media right through to exhibition and education.

Other key stakeholders include elected officials and public servants in all three tiers of government, business partners and corporate sponsors, private donors and philanthropic foundations as well as representatives of arts and cultural organisations generally.

ACP has a track record of partnering with other arts and cultural organisations so it is critical for the Director to identify and leverage resources in order to sustain our operations and achieve our artistic objectives.

The Director needs to have a close working relationship with the Curator in the development and realisation of ACP’s artistic program of exhibitions. Working closely with and supporting other staff is critical to achieving successful outcomes in Education & Public Programs, and the ACP Workshop.

Having the ability to provide informative and appropriate reporting to the Board and in particular to develop an honest and robust relationship with the Chairman will be important to the successful execution of the Director’s responsibilities as the CEO of ACP.

See more here and apply by 4 November. 

Photo historians Brian May and Denis Pellerin will give a 3D talk on the birth and rise of the stereoscopic craze between 1832 and 1862, and on the prominent place held by King’s College London lecturer, Charles Wheatstone, in the history of 3D, then known as Stereoscopy. Professor Wheatstone was the first to demonstrate, using drawings and an optical instrument that he designed and named the ‘stereoscope’, how binocular vision works. Work began to demonstrate why most of us can see the world around us in three dimensions, and how, with only two flat pictures, our brain can recreate the illusion of depth.

King’s College London Archives house an important collection of Wheatstone’s personal papers and material, including over 90 large stereoscopic pairs that were made by various photographers from 1851 onwards, to be viewed in Wheatstone’s reflecting instrument. In the talk, some of these will be shown in 3D for the very first time, thanks to the use of two projectors and interferometric passive glasses.

Given on the 141st anniversary of Wheatstone’s death, this talk is the result of a collaboration between Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company and King’s Archives. In part, it acknowledges and celebrates the role that King’s Archives has played in preserving our unique scientific heritage. The talk will also put the name and work of Charles Wheatstone back in the limelight, recognising him as the pioneer of today’s age of 3D movies and Virtual Reality.

Wednesday,  19 October 2016, 1930 – 2100

at the Edmond J Safra Lecture Theatre, King's Building, Strand Campus, King's College London, London, WC2R 2LS

Admiisson is free but must be pre-booked click here:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/charles-wheatstone-the-craze-for-the-stereoscope-tickets-27431266657

The Swains involvement in photography spans over 150 years and encompasses the making of cameras and magic lanterns, studio, wedding, commercial, aerial and war photography, photographic retailing, photographic processing, photographic wholesaling, cinematography and much more.

Little has been written about the work of individual photographers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and there are few contemporary accounts by photographers themselves. This book is intended to shed some light on the work of provincial photographers and the development of some of those businesses.

The book explores the history of photography through the lives and work of members of the Swain family in the context of photographic developments generally. It is extensively illustrated with photographs held by the author, members of the Swain family, and a range of archive sources. Historic images from the Royal Photographic Society Collection are used to illustrate key photographic developments.

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: The Cloister House Press
• Price: £17.44
• ISBN-13: 978-1909465527

Available online here. 

Life in Qing Dynasty Shanghai: The Photographs of William Saunders features a selection of over 35 original nineteenth-century albumen silver prints, most hand-tinted, by William Saunders from the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection. This is the first exhibition devoted to Saunders’s work. 

Saunders holds a distinguished place in the history of photography for the exceptional body of work he produced in Shanghai during the late Qing dynasty. For over a quarter of a century, Saunders operated Shanghai's leading photographic studio, adjacent to the Astor House Hotel, a centre of social activity on the Bund in the 19th century. Saunders made his photographs, some of the earliest of the city and its people, at a critical time in Chinese history, just as Shanghai was emerging as an international commercial city.  Saunders’s images are an unrivalled photographic resource for the study of life in late Qing dynasty Shanghai.

Venue: China Exchange, 32A Gerrard Street, London W1D 6JA 

4 November –12 November, 10am – 6pm

Gallery Talks and Panel Discussions:

November 4 at 6pm -7:30pm
Preservation of Culture: Custodianship of 19th Century Photography

By Stephan Loewentheil, Dr. Phillip Prodger, Terry Bennett, and Richard Fattorini

As part of the historical photography exhibition 'Life in Qing Dynasty Shanghai: The Photographs of William Saunders' the panel will discuss custodianship of 19th century photographs taken in China and Asia.

November 10 at 6pm -7:30pm
Traditions of Photography in China

By Dr. Michael Pritchard, Betty Yao, Grace Lau, and Stacey Lambrow

As part of the historical photography exhibition 'Life in Qing Dynasty Shanghai: The Photographs of William Saunders', the panel will discuss early photographic studio practices and traditions of photography in China.

In 1892, brothers Richard and Cherry Kearton took the first ever photograph of a bird’s nest with eggs. Realising the camera’s potential to reveal secrets of the natural world, they resolved to make the best possible records of their discoveries in the habitats, habits and behaviour of birds and other creatures. The following three years of field work resulted in the first nature book to be illustrated entirely with photographs.

This was the springboard to two outstanding careers in wildlife photography. Richard developed the photographic hide through a series of devices which included the extraordinary Stuffed Ox, was author of numerous best-selling nature books, and with an exhaustive programme of public lectures did more than anyone of his generation to popularise nature studies. Cherry excelled at both still and cine photography, made the first recording of birds singing in the wild, and brought back the first film footage of African big game. They were, as numerous natural history photographers have proclaimed, founding fathers of their discipline.

This new and definitive study by John Bevis concerns itself with the lives and partnership of the Keartons, especially their role in the history of nature photography; their attitudes to and interaction with nature; and the status of invention in their work. Reproduced throughout the book are the remarkable photographs that they declared as having been taken ‘direct from nature’. 

The Keartons. Inventing nature photography
John Bevis
ISBN 978 1 910010 09 9
192pp, 234 x 142, paperback with flaps
2016, £14.00

To Order click here: http://www.colinsackett.co.uk/thekeartons.php?x=64&y=7

The latest online publication from the RAI Photography Committee is now available. Volume 5 Carol Payne's Culture, Memory and Community through Photographs: Developing an Inuit-based Research Methodology can be download free of charge, To see - and download - all the publications available click here: https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-and-photography

Peter Brunning has written a short biography of the London studio photographer Robert Hellis. The piece was published in the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery newsletter. The newsletter containing the article can be downloaded here: newsletter87.pdf. The same newsletter also contains an article on J H Pepper, of Pepper's ghost fame. 

BPH would like to thank Peter Brunning, Bob Flanagan and FOWNC for permission to make the newsletter available. 

The National Media Museum is looking for someone with a genuine passion for contemporary museum practice who can help us showcase some of our iconic objects in a way that is engaging and exciting to our visitors.

Using your knowledge of museum practice in collections, experience in research and excellent communications you will support the development of our new galleries. For the first time we will be presenting our collections together in two newdisplays telling the story of photography, film, television and sound technologies. You will support the creation of these displays working on a range of tasks from cataloguing and researching our objects, championing audience engagement and building strong relationships with our stakeholders.

This a great opportunity to become part of a curatorial team at a national museum working with an iconic collection. For the right candidate this is a chance to start your career and should not be missed! 

The salary range is £18,500-£20,000pa and the deadline for applications is 9 October. 

For further information see the vacancy information pack.

The Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester has announced its autumn seminar programme, themed Photography and the Greater Middle East. All seminars are free and open to everyone, Clephan Building 2.30, Tuesdays 4-6pm. 

• 18 October. Faces of  Insurgents: Encountering the Taliban through Judith Butler’s Ethics and Jacques Rancière’s Dissensus. Dr Jenifer Chao
• 29 November. Re-imagined Communities: Understanding the Visual Habitus of Transcultural Photographs. Caroline Malloy
• 6 December. Digital ‘Deep Play’: The Soft Politics of Iranian Photoblogs, Dr Shireen Walton

See more here: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/research-seminars-in-cultures-of-photography-autumn-term-2016/

Dominic Winter Auctions have a number of lots of relevance to British photographic history in their upcoming 6 October auction which has just gone online. Of particular note is a self-portrait in watercolour of Oscar Gustav Rejlander (lot 254, shown right), a group of early albumen and salt prints, and a 1931 portfolio from the RPS's Tyng Collection (lot 235). 

The Rejlander lot can be seen here: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/sale/fine-art-and-antiques-oct16/lot-254

The full catalogue can be seen here: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/sale/fine-art-and-antiques-oct16

Estate agents Knight Frank are advertising Rock House for sale with offers in excess of £1,795,000. Rock House came to worldwide fame as the home and studio of David Octavius Hill, the artist and pioneering photographer who, in 1843 together with Robert Adamson, developed their expertitse at working the calotype process there. The house is now a family home on Edinburgh's Calton Hill.

The current owners have managed to create a 21st-century home that is sympathetic with the original period of the house. Built in the 1750s, it is reputed to be one of the oldest houses in Edinburgh’s New Town. 

See more here: http://search.knightfrank.com/edc160037

A day of presentations and discussions around the theme of Ireland, Photography and the Photobook. The day will be a celebration of photography and the book form and is an opportunity to hear some important international photographers who have made photobooks in Ireland talk about their processes and achievements. It will also introduce some emerging photographers who’ve recently published their first books to wide acclaim and acknowledge the growing significance of the area in contemporary visual culture.

Speakers to include Bertien Van Manen, Krass Clement, Martin Parr, Bill Kirk and Frankie Quinn, Jose Luis Neves, Mary Hamill, Jan McCullough and others to be announced. A final schedule will be confirmed in late September. The day has been organised by Belfast School of Art in collaboration with Belfast Exposed Gallery. Belfast Exposed will be showcasing books made by those photographers presenting at the event along with recent publications made by the next generation of photographers in Ireland. The day will be of interest to photographers, artists, students, cultural historians, researchers and all those interested in the medium and of photography, publishing and its place within creative visual culture today. Booking is essential.

Teas, Coffees and a light buffet lunch will be provided.

Book tickets here. 

William Henry Fox Talbot first conceived of the art of photography in 1833 and achieved results by 1834. However, it was not until Daguerre announced his process in January 1839 that Talbot was prompted to make his method public.  The two approaches were radically different.  Daguerre produced beautifully detailed unique images on silvered sheets of copper.  Talbot’s photographs were technically inferior, but he conceived of the idea of a negative that could produce multiple prints on paper. In the end, Talbot’s more versatile approach was to define the mainstream of photography right down to the digital age.  

The resources available to the historian for these two men are also radically different.  Only a handful of Daguerre images and Daguerre letters survive and no research notebooks.  For Talbot, there are more than 10,000 letters, hundreds of notebooks and more than 25,000 negatives and prints surviving worldwide.  Around fifteen years ago Professor Larry Schaaf made full transcriptions of the 10,000 letters available online.  However, to have put 25,000 images in a research structure with 1990s technology would have ‘broken the web’.  Today, with advanced technology, the online Catalogue Raisonné of Talbot’s photographs is being prepared for the Bodleian Library in Oxford.  Both the letters and the photographs have implications for the history of photography, conservation, and for historians in many fields.

Larry Schaaf will talk about Talbot at on behalf of Le Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation et la Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine on 26 September at 4pm at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (in the l'auditorium de la Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, 36, rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, 75005 Paris). The presentation will be given in English.

See more here: http://www.sciences-patrimoine.org//index.php/evenement/conference-du-professeur-larry-schaff-out-of-the-shadows-henry-talbot-invention-historiography.html

The Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum’s collection holds nearly three hundred albumen prints from the 1860s and 1870s in China and Japan. These images were collected by Andrew Carnegie in 1878 during his trip around the world. The collection includes photographs by both local and western photographers, such as Lai Afong, Felice Beato, Milton Miller, William Saunders, Shuzaburo Usui, Uchida Kuichi and Baron von Stillfried.  This event brings together scholars of Chinese and Japanese art, photography and cultural geography with the aim of uncovering the rhetorical complexities of these prints, and exploring the fluidity of the lines between local/western, insider/outsider, art/photography and commercial/fine art images, as well as analysing the relationship between landscape photography and political power.

This symposium which takes place on 7 October at Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Moodie Street, Dunfermline, with presentations by: 

• Professor Nick Pearce, Richmond Chair of Fine Arts (Chinese Art and Photography), University of Glasgow
• Dr Chia-Ling Yang, Senior Lecturer of at the School of Art History (Chinese painting), University of Edinburgh
• Dr Luke Gartlan, Senior Lecturer at the School of Art History (History of Photography), University of St Andrews
• Dr Rosina Buckland, Senior Curator (Japanese Collections), National Museums Scotland
• Dr James Ryan, Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Geography, University of Exeter

See more and book tickets here. 

Photo London returns to Somerset House in May 2017. Featuring over 90 of the world’s leading galleries Photo London has in its first two editions established itself as a key destination for everyone who is intrigued by the rich history of photography and fascinated by the future directions of the medium. In the lead up to Photo London 2017, it will offer a course on collecting photography, led by the curator, editor, lecturer and consultant Zelda Cheatle.

The course is aimed at seasoned collectors, as well as those who have begun, or are beginning to think about collecting photography. The course will explore the practical handling of photographs; it will host talks and lectures, will visit private and museum collections, as well as exploring photography at auction and in commercial galleries, in view of larger conversations on the art market, and how photography sits within the commercial art world.

The six week course will culminate in a private VIP tour of Photo London - the international gathering of the best photography galleries, exhibitions, education programmes and photobook publishers, and the leading global platform for the new artists, new work by established artists and gems from the dawn of photography.

The 6 week course will be hosted on Monday evenings, 7pm-9pm, from Monday, 27 March 2017 (except for the private event at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is hosted on a Friday and the VIP day at Photo London on Wednesday 17 May 2017).

Programme of events:

Monday 27th March 2017
Venue: The Screening Room, Somerset House
The group meets one another; we discover wish lists, likes and dislikes within photography, and explore a general outline to the history of photography and its history in London.
A chance to meet the Founders of Photo London and look through some photographs to begin the process of acquiring knowledge through identifying many print processes and types.

Monday 3rd April 2017
Venue: The Screening Room, Somerset House
A presentation given by the highly esteemed Angels Arribas, an expert in Conservation, who was educated at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
This will be a practical and useful guide to conservation, preservation and storing of photographs, archiving and handling, framing, hanging, UV light and much more.
 

Monday 28th April 2017 
Chelsea, London
A special opportunity to visit an important private collection, normally closed to viewings. An insight into 20th century collecting, with magnificent 19th century examples from Fox Talbot up to the most recent practitioners of the 21st century.

Friday 5th May 2017
Venue: The Victoria and Albert Museum
As an exclusive to this course, a late evening in the Print Room at the V&A will look at selected works in the National Collection as we listen to a V&A curator speak about photography in this National Collection, the role of Friends of Photography and the new acquisitions from the Royal Photographic Society.

Wednesday 10th May 2017 
Around the City
A gallery tour of the newest, most hidden, youngest and ones to watch - finishing in Kings Cross.
We will arrange private view invitations to the auction previews, and several galleries will host openings during the week of Photo London to which students of this course will be included. VIP events will also be extended to members of the class.

Wednesday 17th May 2017
Photo London, Somerset House
VIP day at Photo London with first tour of the galleries and exhibitions, before the Fair is open to the public. This group will be the first to see the galleries, some artists and gallery directors will speak to the group for a few minutes each on the tour.

The cost is £850.00, six week course
Numbers are limited

For any further information, or to reserve a place on the course, please email sid.motion@candlestar.co.uk

A one-day symposium accompanying Museums Sheffield’s new exhibition Street View: Photographs of Urban Life at the Graves Gallery, takes place on 24 November 2016. Featuring images primarily drawn from Sheffield’s own photographs collection, the exhibition explores the diversity of the street; as a social space, as a battleground for protest and as a source of artistic inspiration. Visitors will discover a range of works which, in many cases, have not been exhibited for over twenty years.

The symposium will contextualise the exhibition within the broader theme of street photography and the long-term development of photography in Sheffield. It also aims to emphasise the importance of UK-wide photography networks to continued development and research in the field. The symposium will offer the first chance to find out about the Photographic Collections Network. This is a new organisation, supported by Arts Council England, for anyone involved with photography archives and collections. It launches in October 2016 and there will be a presentation about its aims and plans.

Symposium speakers include Susanna Brown (Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum), Simon Roberts (UK-based contemporary photographer), Paul Herrmann (Director, RedEye: The Photography Network and representing the Photographic Collections Network), Paul Hill (UK-based photographer and Professor of Photography) and Ken Phillip (Sheffield-based photographer and former Lecturer of Photography, Sheffield Hallam University).

The symposium will be followed by a special evening viewing of the Street View exhibition 5.45pm-7.45pm with curator Catherine Troiano.

Symposium - Street View: Photography in Sheffield, the UK and Beyond

Thursday, 24 November, from 11.30am-5.30pm

Exhibition evening view:

5.45-7.45pm       Millennium Gallery, Sheffield    

Tickets are priced 12 / £10 concessions and are available now – please book via Eventbrite

For further information please contact Catherine Troiano: c.troiano@vam.ac.uk

See: http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/graves-gallery/exhibitions/coming-soon/street-view-photographs-of-urban-life1

Image: Langdon Clay, Kings Inn from the series Cars, New York, 1977 © Langdon Clay