Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales and the European Centre for Photographic Research (eCPR), University of Wales, Newport are pleased to announce a series of free lectures reflecting on photography and the Museum. To launch the series, leading Spanish artist Joan Fontcuberta, reflects on his edited anthology ‘Photography - Crisis in History’ of 2002 on 17 October 2012. The book explored the significant challenges of producing histories or archaeologies of photography. For this lecture he will offer a fresh perspective - 10 years on - of these complex relationships in a new age outlined by the internet and digital culture.

With nearly four decades of dedication to photography, Fontcuberta has developed artistic and theoretical work that focuses on conflicts between nature, technology, photography and truth. The lecture series accompanies a major project being undertaken by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections – a project made possible through a major gift from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. 

In partnership with the eCPR, at University of Wales Newport, the lecture series will reflect the exciting work that the Museum is undertaking from 2012 to 2015.

A full programme of forthcoming lectures will be available shortly.

For further partner details visit:
http://www.newport.ac.uk/research/ResearchGroups/ecpr/Pages/eCPR.aspx
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk

Doors to the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre open from 5.15
The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited.
To reserve your place, please email: Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk

Media Space's Gala Opening has been put back to June - on a day yet to be confirmed - according to information published by the Science Museum for its Patrons. The brochure notes: 

Media Space gala opening
Date to be confirmed
Join us for the gala opening of our new flagship gallery. Using the unrivalled collections of the National Media Museum, Media Space will present photographers’ and artists’ perspectives on science, technology, photography and visual media through a rich programme of exhibitions and events.

This represents a change from the previously published March or 'Spring' opening previously publicised.

BPH exclusively published the first photograph of Media Space recently (http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/michael-wilson-honoured-and-media-space-revealed) 

Since 1978 the History and Archives department of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) has given an award that recognises scientific research into the history and theory of photography. A call for the 2012 award has been made.  

The Erich Stenger Award was initially aimed exclusively at published books, it was transformed into an advancement award in 1981.

 Its present reorientation as the DGPh Research Award for the History of Photography emphasizes the award’s international, broadly-based orientation to all elements of the photographic. Besides traditional history and theory of photography, topical areas are thereby also addressed that deal with photography’s societal significance and the traces that it has left behind, beyond its own object, in societal life.

The award is aimed at researchers from all fields of the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences whose scientific work represents an autonomous, innovative, and original contribution to these areas.

Applications and manuscripts for the DGPh Research Award for the History of Photography may be submitted in either English or German. It is possible to divide the award into two halves. Allocation will be the decision of an expert jury, whose decision will be published. The jury may hand the award to one applicant or to two applicants in equal parts. The jury’s decision will be final and binding.

The award is worth a total of 3,000 Euro and will be handed over at a public ceremony.

Required submissions:

• a completed manuscript in paper form () and in electronic file form (pdf). 
• The final date for submissions is 1 December 2012 (date of postmark). Recipient’s address is: Geschäftsstelle der DGPh (Overstolzenhaus, Rheingasse 8-12, D-50676 Cologne, dgph@dgph.de).

To be enclosed with the application:

• An abstract of the submitted work (approx. 3,500 keystrokes), including information regarding the status of the manuscript (dissertation, research project – funded or not funded), essay (accepted in specialist magazine or not accepted); is there already a publisher for this manuscript (target publication date); has publication of the manuscript already been funded by another body?
• A Curriculum Vitae (résumé)
• A list of publications

More information about the German Photographic Society: www.dgph.de

DCMS has released visitor numbers broken down by month for various UK museums for financial years from 2004/5 to 2011/12. BPH has published these in the past.  These have been put together in an accessible form and are available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdEpQUFZHUC0yYUtXUHZxczFIc0NBSHc#gid=5

The figures for the first few months of 2012 appear to show an increase in numbers compared to 2011 reflecting the opening of the new Life Online gallery. 

The National Media Museum numbers are shown below: 

The history of photography has largely been dominated by concerns about aesthetic production and its political framings. Such ‘art historical’ approaches have marginalised the study of the economic base of the medium manifested through a developing photographic industry, its related trades and its mass consumers.  Work is now emerging in this field, scattered across a number of disciplines: history, anthropology and history of science in particular. While there has been extensive research on both the politics and the affective qualities of popular photography, family albums, for instance, the missing component in the analysis is often a detailed and empirically informed understanding of the social and economic conditions of product development, labour forces, marketing and consumer demand. This two-day conference aims to bring together a critical mass of research in this area, to explore the state of play in this overlooked but crucial aspect of history of photography, and to suggest new directions for research in the economic, business and industrial history of photography. The conference will explore the period 1860-1950: from the rise of a clearly defined photographic industry, which had a profound effect on the practices and thus social functions of photography, to the expansion of mass colour technologies.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, for 30 minute papers , should be sent to Professor Elizabeth Edwards (eedwards@dmu.ac.uk) and Dr Kelley Wilder (kwilder@dmu.ac.uk) by November 30th  2012.

Details of the conference will be posted in December 2012.

UPDATED: 

DMU is pleased that the generous support of the Economic History Society has enabled us to offer three student bursaries to the value of £150 each towards travel and accommodation costs for PhD students to present their work at this conference. If you wish to be considered for a bursary please state this in your abstract submission.

Workers and Consumers: The Photographic Industry 1860-1950

Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester

24-25 June 2013

Photo: The Thornton-Pickard camera factory, Manchester, c.1890. Courtesy: Michael Pritchard

The Black Star Collection of approximately 292,000 black and white photographs is one of the world’s most significant collections of photojournalism. Tracing the social and political history of the 20th century, the iconic images were gifted to Ryerson University by an anonymous donor. The Black Star Collection now makes its home at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC), Toronto's newest cultural destination.

The collection includes spectacular images of famous figures from every avenue of life (Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali, Marc Chagall, etc.) as well as photo essays documenting key historic events of the past century, such as the Great Wars, the Spanish Civil War, the American Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War.

New York’s Black Star Agency commissioned the images for publications that defined 20th century journalism, including Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, Time and Newsweek. The agency worked with some of the most influential photographers in the history of photography: the father of modern photojournalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson, legendary war photographer Robert Capa, Britain’s famed Bill Brandt and the early 20th century female photographer Germaine Krull among many others.

“The Black Star Collection forms a valuable repository of collective global memory,” says John Isbister, Interim Provost and Vice President Academic, Ryerson University. “The Black Star Collection — the single largest gift of cultural property ever made to a Canadian university — has allowed us to build our Centre on a foundation that will lead to years of cutting edge scholarly research and creative activity.”

The story of The Black Star Agency is fascinating in and of itself. In 1935, Ernest Mayer, owner of the Berlin-based Mauritius photo agency, fled Nazi Germany, bringing with him some 5,000 images to New York. Together with fellow émigrés Kurt Safranski, a literary editor, and Kurt Kornfeld, a literary agent, he created The Black Star Agency, located in the Graybar building near Grand Central Station. The Black Star Agency went on to represent major photographers documenting cultural, social and political history.

Ryerson University has been entrusted with preserving this historic visual archive, and making the photographs accessible to the public through exhibition and publication. The Black Star Collection - the “raison d'être” of the RIC, as Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, puts it - already functions as muse to Canadian artists and image makers. The Ryerson Image Centre’s grand opening exhibition, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection, features the multi-disciplinary response of internationally renowned Canadian artists Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow, to the collection. Reflecting on their respective processes of working with the Black Star Collection, each of the artists has also produced six artist pages for the exhibition catalogue. Their interpretations bring new and contemporary meaning to the powerful, historic Black Star Collection.

Co-curated by Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, and Peggy Gale, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection opens on September 29, 2012 to December 16, 2012

New works by Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University.
Curated by Doina Popescu and Peggy Gale. 

Ryerson Image Centre: 33 Gould Street, Toronto, Canada

Admission to The Ryerson Image Centre is free.
www.ryerson.ca/ric

Image: Charles Moore; Reproduction from the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University. Courtesy of the Ryerson Image Centre

Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection is made possible through the generous support of the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ryerson University, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, Partners in Art, The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Charitable Foundation, and The Paul J. Ruhnke Memorial Fund.

The Ryerson Image Centre (RIC), a new public gallery in the heart of the city, has opened heralding the transformation of Gould Street into a public cultural destination and a pedestrian-friendly environment, complete with the Ryerson Image Centre art gallery, adjacent park with pond and rock garden, Balzac's café, outdoor patio, trees, and a car-free street.

The RIC is part of Ryerson University's major city-building initiative in the core of downtown Toronto – Canada's economic, academic, research and cultural capital. The RIC is located in the new Image Arts Building, designed by Toronto-based Diamond Schmitt Architects, one of the world’s top ten design firms for the cultural building sector.

The Image Arts Building is a rare example of a building that is digitally programmable, making the structure itself a work of art as the public and artists can program the illuminated glass walls transforming Toronto’s night time skyline. The building also features the Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall, a unique grid of arts-dedicated LED screens that are visible from the street. “The Ryerson Image Centre is an international academic facility for teaching, research and exhibitions, but it is also a terrific opportunity to make so many of Ryerson’s holdings - amazing images and works of art - accessible to the public,” said Sheldon Levy, President of Ryerson University. “We are thrilled to be opening this new gallery in the heart of our campus, in the heart of our city.”

The inaugural exhibition, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection, co-curated by Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, and Peggy Gale, features new work by eight of Canada’s foremost artists. Internationally-renowned Canadian contemporary artists Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow have each created new work, commissioned for the grand opening of the Ryerson Image Centre and inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University.

The RIC grand opening also features an exhibition of works by current students and recent alumni of the School of Image Arts, entitled The Art of the Archive, curated by Gaëlle Morel, Exhibitions Curator at the Ryerson Image Centre. The Ryerson Image Centre brings an exciting new voice to the arts dialogue in Toronto and across the country. Exhibitions and public programs that reflect highly relevant contemporary themes speak to and welcome people from many different walks of life, part of a growing trend toward creative inclusion and openness that will bring the world to Toronto.

Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection is made possible through the generous support of the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ryerson University, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, Partners in Art, The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Charitable Foundation, and The Paul J. Ruhnke Memorial Fund. Ryerson Image Centre Grand Opening Saturday, September 29, 2012 7 p.m. to Sunday, September 30, 2012 7 a.m. Part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection New works by Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University. Curated by Doina Popescu and Peggy Gale. September 29 - December 16, 2012 Admission is free. Ryerson Image Centre: 33 Gould Street (one block northeast of Yonge and Dundas), Toronto, Ontario, Canada www.ryerson.ca/ric

Autograph ABP one of the UK’s leading arts agencies, working nationally and internationally in the fields of photography, cultural identity and human rights is looking to appoint a Deputy Director with the proven track record to help the organisation build on its successes and assist in the next phase of business and artistic development.

The candidate will play a key role in managing the organisation’s staff, projects and business, including finance and HR issues. They must have extensive experience in a public sector arts organisation at a senior level, be calm under pressure and able to prioritise and undertake a wide range of duties.

The post holder will report to the Director.

Deadline for applications: 22 October 2012.

We regret that applications received after that time will not be considered.

We proudly promote cultural diversity and equal opportunities.

See: http://www.autograph-abp.co.uk/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ABP_Programme&FRM=CMSRightFrame:ABP_558

During 11-15 February 2013 the world's photographs conservation specialists will be meeting in Wellington, NZ.  The meeting will bring together, for the first time in the southern hemisphere, the photographic materials groups from the International Council of Museums, Conservation Committee (ICOM-CC) based in Paris and the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) based in Washington, DC.  The event, initiated by ICOM-CC, will include three days of meeting at Te Papa Tongarewa, and two days for tours and workshops.

The two international groups exist to:

• promote the science and art of conservation of photographic materials
• inform and advise their policy makers and organisations on the preservation and access to photographic material
• foster cooperation and exchange of information and ideas between professionals in their field.

We are expecting 200-250 delegates, representing the greatest number of countries and individuals doing the most diverse work in photographs conservation and preservation.  They will come from the great libraries, museums, archives and galleries of the world and of course from New Zealand.  As well as conservation specialists the delegates will include directors, curators, collection managers and teachers of conservation, museology, etc.

The website for the meeting is www.wellington2013photographicmaterials.org.nz  and over the next couple of weeks and months it will be added to and enriched. Registration opens in October when there will also be more information about workshops and Wellington accommodation available on the site. A large number of abstracts for papers was received and there has now been a Call for Posters. Details for the call for posters are on the website.

The Call for Posters is available for download at the meeting website:

http://www.wellington2013photographicmaterials.org.nz/index.html  and the information is included below in this email message.

The deadline for Poster submissions is November 2, 2012.

-----------------------

Call for Posters

The joint meeting of the AIC Photographic Materials Group and the ICOM-CC Photographic Materials Working Group will be held at the Museum of New Zealand

Te Papa Tongarewa, during 11–15 February, 2013. The meeting will include three days of conference (Wednesday - Friday, February 13-15) and two days for workshops and tours (Monday and Tuesday, February 11 and 12). Additional information about related events and activities appears on the website: http://www.wellington2013photographicmaterials.org.nz/index.html    (Information will continue to be added to the website over the next couple of weeks and months.)

The combined meeting brings together the world’s practitioners in the field of photographs conservation. There will be a limited amount of space at the meeting venue for posters. Submissions of posters concerning all aspects of photographic preservation and conservation are welcome.

The posters cannot exceed 1.2 m (48 inches) in height by 1.0 m (40 inches) in width.

The deadline for submissions is 2 November 2012.

Please send your abstracts for posters, including the following:

1. Title

2. Author(s) name(s) and contact details 3. A summary of the poster, outlining its purpose, principal findings and conclusions, not exceeding 300 words.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the PMG Program Chair and the PMWG Coordinator.

Please email your submissions or questions to:

AIC PMG Program Chair

Monique Fischer

mfischer@nedcc.org

or

ICOM-CC PMWG Coordinator

Marc Harnly

mharnly@getty.edu

On receipt of an abstract, authors should receive an email confirming the receipt of their submission.

Notification of acceptance for posters will be confirmed by 14 November, 2012.

-----------------------------

Barbara Brown

PMG Chair

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film announced today the appointment of Dr. Bruce Barnes as the Ron and Donna Fielding Director. Barnes will assume his role as eighth director of the museum—the world’s oldest museum of photography and one of the largest motion-picture archives—in October 2012. 

Barnes is the president and founder of American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation (ADA1900), a private foundation based in New York City, that works independently and in collaboration with museums across the United States to foster understanding and appreciation of American decorative art from the period around 1900.

Barnes is coauthor and editor of The Jewelry and Metalwork of Marie Zimmermann (2011), which was copublished by ADA1900 and Yale University Press. ADA1900 also copublished The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs (2008), an award-winning scholarly book that accompanied an exhibition of the same title co-organized by ADA1900 and the Milwaukee Art Museum. The exhibition traveled to the Dallas Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Huntington Art Collections, and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Barnes was chief executive officer of Element K, a Rochester-based company and pioneer in online learning, from 2000-2004, overseeing more than 800 employees. Over the course of his career, Barnes has held senior executive positions at Ziff Communications Company, Ziff Brothers Investments, Wasserstein Perella & Co., Reservoir Capital Group, and QFS Asset Management. He received a B.A., magna cum laude, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.       

"I am honored to be selected to serve as the next director of George Eastman House,” said Barnes. “The range of its activities and opportunities is exhilarating. George Eastman House is a vital part of Rochester’s community. The museum’s unparalleled collections—in the areas of photography, cinema, and their technologies—and curators make important contributions on the international cultural scene, and its leading post-graduate programs advance the imperative of photography and film preservation around the world."

“Having devoted most of the last seven years to collaborating with major museums across the country and furthering art scholarship, I am eager to apply my strategic and management skills to leading George Eastman House,” he said. “The house and a great many of the museum’s objects fall precisely within my longstanding interest in American art, decorative art, and architecture of the period from 1876 to 1940. My background in innovative online education will be invaluable to the creation of a virtual museum that will provide global access to its superb collections. I look forward to returning to Rochester and working with the Eastman House board of trustees and staff to advance the museum’s tradition of excellence and service to the community.”

“George Eastman House is an international treasure, a source of local pride, and a complex organization,” said Thomas H. Jackson, chairman of the George Eastman House Board of Trustees. “In Bruce Barnes, we have found the perfect individual to continue the museum’s progress and build the local, national, and international infrastructure and connections that will be essential to Eastman House’s future.

“Our collections and location, important in themselves, are also the springboard for essential work in preservation and an understanding of how the image can inform as well as reflect society,” Jackson said. “Dr. Barnes understands these interconnections in an impressively deep way and has the vision to take our past accomplishments and turn vision into reality. His extraordinary talents across so many dimensions are matched by his passion for George Eastman House and its potentiality. That’s a wonderful, winning, combination.”

Barnes’s appointment is the outcome of an international search process. He succeeds Dr. Anthony Bannon, who retired from George Eastman House in May after 16 years in the position.  

“The Search Committee feels extraordinarily fortunate to have found in Dr. Barnes the combination of skills, experience, and passion needed for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the George Eastman House,” said James A. Locke III, the George Eastman House trustee who chaired the Search Committee. “He is quite a remarkable fit for us with his excellent academic background, financial acumen, with prior positions with top Wall Street financial firms, and tested leadership as a CEO in Rochester.

“He is also an engaged collector with scholarly and passionate interests in the arts and museums,” Locke said. “Dr. Barnes can and will be an energetic and transformational leader who surely will make a great difference at George Eastman House and, in the view of the Search Committee, he will make a great difference in the presence and importance of the museum and its varied missions here and globally. We are thrilled with his appointment.”

About George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film

George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film combines world-class collections of photography and film with an active program of exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, and the National Historic Landmark house and gardens of George Eastman, the philanthropist and father of popular photography and motion picture film. Eastman House is also a leader in film preservation and photograph conservation, educating archivists and conservators from around the world through historic-process workshops and two graduate schools, the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and the Photographic Preservation and Collections Management master’s degree program. Eastman House, which was established as an independent non-profit museum in 1947, is one of the world’s foremost museums of photography and the third largest motion-picture archive in the United States. The museum intertwines unparalleled collections, totaling more than 4 million objects, of photography, motion pictures, and cameras and technology, as well as literature of these fields of study. Learn more at eastmanhouse.org

Foto8 is pleased to announce an exhibition of photography by Mike Seaborne, comprising two of his long-term projects, Thames Estuary and Facades. East of the City of London, the Thames was traditionally both the industrial backbone and backyard of London. The gradual loss of docks and heavy industry in favour of business and residential development has drastically transformed parts of east London. Seaborne’s Thames Estuary series explores the effects of neglect, dereliction and development on that large swathe of London which comprises the estuary and its hinterland. It shows us places we had never noticed and raises questions about the relationship between the city’s river and the people and wildlife that coexist along its edges.

Seaborne began the Facades series in 2004, photographing what he refers to as the ‘zone of transition’ in inner city London where the urban fabric reflects the constantly shifting population. In these images he has focused on the south and east of the city where run-down residential, commercial and industrial buildings, often built during the Victorian period or earlier, were relatively cheap to rent or to buy and therefore attractive to economic migrants and new businesses. These are the buildings that Seaborne concentrates on, the derelict and undeveloped that are ‘For Sale’ or ‘To Let’, awaiting change. These areas are now subject to the economic forces of regeneration and the buildings await their fate from either redevelopment or gentrification.

Mike Seaborne began photographing London in 1979 when he was appointed Curator of Photographs at the Museum of London. Since then he has explored much of the capital and has completed many projects for the museum and independently. In 1986 he began a long-term landscape project recording deindustrialisation, changing patterns of land use and new city infrastructures. He has concentrated on using medium and large-format cameras to reveal the minutiae of his subjects and, while embracing digital technology, his finished work retains obvious links with that of earlier practitioners whose aim was to assemble visual collections of aspects of the city that might soon be lost or have simply been overlooked or forgotten.

Mike Seaborne
London: Landscapes in Transition
16–27 October 2012
In collaboration with BERNARD QUARITCH

An illustrated catalogue is available. 

For further information and images contact yasmin@foto8.com, 020 7253 8801

The 2012 UK conference of the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography (AHFAP) is to be held at the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Monday, 19 November. It  promises as ever to be an exciting event with speakers on a wide range of subjects and with plenty of opportunity for social and professional exchange. Highlights of the day will include:

• Tate Gallery painting conservator Annette King, will speak on a project to xray some of the gallery’s paintings by Picasso
• James Davis from Google talks about Google Art
• James Stevenson talks about the life and work of photographer Claude Cahun
• Sophie Gordon from the Royal Collection will speak on the collection’s extensive photographic archive
• Dave Baker will speak about his photographic project Urban Guerilla
• Poster display, members are invited to submit proposals, printing will be arranged by the association

Members and their guests are invited to attend, with limited availability on the day.
Conference fee is £25. Further details will be posted on the association’s website as soon as they become available. http://www.ahfap.org.uk/conferences/2012-uk-conference/

The details for Day 2, the customary and popular day of social activities for members are also now available on the website page above.

About AHFAP
AHFAP was founded in 1985 by groups of photographers in the photographic studios at some of the national museums in London. Hitherto these studios were working in isolation from each other and there was little communication between them. It was recognised that closer ties would benefit the profession and the association has met regularly ever since with an annual conference held in London in the autumn. The association’s main function is to raise the profile of image professionals in the cultural heritage sector and to encourage the exchange of professional knowledge and experience. There are now over 300 members in the UK in all types of cultural institutions, from the largest museums to small commercial galleries and freelance fine art photographers.  AHFAP membership is restricted to imaging professionals in the cultural heritage sector. Please contact the membership secretary for further details. http://www.ahfap.org.uk/contact-us/

Birmingham's Library has loaned two sets of important photographs from its nationally and internationally significant collections to a major exhibition in Guangzhou, China. The photographs are being hand-carried by curator Pete James. 

The exhibition, The Unseen, to be shown at the Guangdong Museum of Art, forms part of the Guangzhou Triennial Festival. The Fourth Guangzhou Triennial, one of the biggest art events in China, is curated by Jiang Jiehong, Director of Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (Birmingham City University) and Ikon Gallery director Jonathan Watkins. The Unseen refers to the complexity of ways of seeing, focusing our attention on the invisible, but by no means precluding the visible. http://www.gdmoa.org/

The Library is loaning 18 photographs by Felice Beato taken in Canton in 1860 and 12 photographs by Dr Harold E. Edgerton, the pioneer of high-speed photography, from his portfolio Seeing the Unseen, 1977.

The loan of the Beato images follows the visit of Dr Luo Yiping, Director of Guangdong Museum of Art, to the Library earlier this year to see a range of historical and contemporary photographs of China held in the Library Collections. The Beato photographs were first shown in an exhibition From Canton to Guangzhou, curated by Pete James, Head of Photography at the Library and Dr Jiang Jiehong, at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2008.

The Edgerton photographs are drawn from a portfolio of prints, Seeing the Unseen, which were shown as part of a collaborative project with the Ikon gallery in 2010. Edgerton’s invention in the 1930s of a photographic process based on rapid, stroboscopic instances of light or ‘flash’ was a catalytic event in the history of photography, science and art. Using this method Edgerton’s images reveal in precise detail previously unseen aspects of reality.

See: www.nicolashipleyarts.blogspot.com

Image: Dr Jiang Jiehong, Centre for Chinese Visual Arts, Birmingham City University, and Dr Luo Yipping (2nd right) and family visiting Birmingham Central Library.

An enquirer is seeking information about the 'Greatest collection of photos of Novelties and Freaks' which was collected and exhibited by Showman Harry Addison between 1872-1912. Half of this collection was bought by showman Tom Norman and the other half was purchased and put on permanent exhibition in the windows of the Marquis of Granby public House, Shaftesbury Avenue, London.

 My great grandfather was Harry Addison (see photo, right) and I am wondering what happened to his photographs.

Contact: Pat Jones e: patjones25@gmail.com

The Art Newspaper carries an interview with the curators of the National Gallery's upcoming exhibition Seduced by Art. The piece also gives a wider perspective on how photography has been collected in Britain over recent years. The short extract below gives a flavour of the piece: 

Most strikingly, the National Gallery holds its first photography show, “Seduced By Art: Photography Past and Present”, this month.Why has the National Gallery taken this step now? “It is the right moment in that we are continuing to look at all the ways in which the European Old Master painting tradition continues to be relevant for artistic practice today in its broadest definition,” says Christopher Riopelle, the show’s co-curator. 

His collaborator, Hope Kingsley, a curator at the Wilson Centre for Photography, London, points out that photography at the National Gallery should not seem so novel, given that the museum’s first director, Sir Charles Eastlake, was also the inaugural president of what became the Royal Photographic Society, and his wife, Elizabeth, was an important writer on photography. 

“They were embedded in the nascent photography scene in London,” Kingsley says.The National Gallery’s show charts the effect of the museum’s collection on photographers in that early period, including French pioneer Gustave Le Gray and Julia Margaret Cameron, and on contemporary artists, including Richard Billingham and Martin Parr. 

“By choosing the very beginning of photography, the first 30 years, and the past 30 years, we can focus this as a specific and visually intense show rather than it being a diffuse survey of points at which photography and painting intersect,” Kingsley says. 

To read the full piece go to: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/whatson/event/Seduced-by-Art:-Photography-Past-and-Present/1120734

Since 1897, when Sir Benjamin Stone established the National Photographic Record Association (NPRA), photographers have had a fascination with the rites and rituals of Britain. Photography and folklore practice have a complimentary relationship – the medium of photography captures the ephemeral moment. Despite existing in the here and now, both photography and folklore are an act of remembrance. Photographs act as a repository of these fleeting happenings, and constitute an artefact of folklore in themselves.

With contributions from Faye Claridge, Matthew Cowan, Doc Rowe, the Benjamin Stone Collection, Flickr and more.

Founded in 2009 by renowned art director, Simon Costin, the Museum of British Folklore aims to promote, celebrate and re-evaluate the folk culture of Britain.

The Museum is currently producing a two year exhibition programme in conjunction with regional art organisations across the UK, giving audiences a taste of what will be on show when the Museum of British Folklore is established in a permanent home.

Collective Observations:

Folklore & Photography from Benjamin Stone to Flickr Towner Art Gallery, Eastboune

13 October 2012 - 6 January 2013 (free)

http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/collective-observations-folklore-photography-from-benjamin-stone-to-flickr/

Image: Doc Rowe, Padstow Oss Mayday © Doc Rowe

Bexley Heritage Trust unveils Illuminated World exhibition at Hall Place. A unique exploration of early photography from an extraordinary local man Hall Place, situated in Bexley, a Tudor mansion set in magnificent sixty five hectares of gardens, is this autumn welcoming a unique photography exhibition; Illuminated World.

Opening October 6, it showcases local man, Arthur Boswell’s (1880-1966) rare collection of early Victorian photography that he took and compiled throughout his lifetime. Visitors will be taken on a fascinating journey of people and places from African plains, Norwegian fjords to Italian cities, contrasted with Bexley and the local area all as they were a century ago. Illuminated World will provide a magical encounter of life in Victorian times and an appreciation of the customs and cultures that would have enchanted observers during an era when people were travelling more than ever before. Visitors can also learn about photographic techniques of the time with original apparatus on display.

The exhibition will lead visitors through a series of splendid rooms in Hall Place each more captivating than the last as it charts Boswell’s exploration through imagery of the world, coming back to his beloved Bexley. Unearthed from the town’s local archive, this is the first time the images created from original glass lantern slides have been on show to the public and the selection represents only a fraction of the total of some 14,000 images.

Piecing together this curious collection was Kirsty Macklen, Collections Manager, Hall Place: “Little is known of both Boswell and indeed of many of the subjects shown in the pictures which makes them both captivating and mysterious. By definition photography was so different then which makes for an interesting counterpoint to the pervasiveness of
digital photography today.”

What is known anecdotally of Boswell was his apparent joie de vivre which extended to every part of his life as he took on a variety of professions from historian to palmist. However, no passion was so apparent as his love for his local area and for visual arts, working both as an amateur photographer and cinema projectionist.

The exhibition that runs until March 17 aims to put Hall Place firmly on the map of must sees in Kent, and marks its recent inclusion in the National Trust Partners scheme. Caroline Worthington, Chief Executive of Bexley Heritage Trust commented: “Illuminated World is an exhibition we are delighted to unveil. We know it will appeal equally to photography and history lovers as much as it will to local residents. This continues a series of innovative and engaging exhibitions as we aim to cement Hall Place as a must-visit tourist destination and attract more visitors from the capital and around the UK.”

The exhibition was made possible with support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Max Communications Ltd. in association with Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre.

Visitor Information

Opening hours
October 6 – March 17, 2013 (daily 10am-5pm, last entry 4.30pm)

Location
Illuminated World, Hall Place, Bexley, Kent, DA5 1PQ
By road
Just off the A2 at the Black Prince interchange 5 miles from Junction 2 of the M25 towards London.
Free parking.
By train:
From London via Cannon Street, Charing Cross, London Bridge.
Oyster card applicable route from London

Admission
Adults £7, concessions/under 16s £5, family £20
Admission is free with a National Art Pass. National Trust members discount applies
Gift Aid your ticket for unlimited entry for one year

A major photographic exhibition, Man Ray Portraits, opens at the National Portrait Gallery on 7 February 2013. Devoted to one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation, the exhibition will include over 150 vintage prints from Man Ray’s career taken between 1916 and 1968. Drawn from private collections and major museums including the Pompidou Centre, the J. Paul Getty Museum and New York’s The Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, and special loans from the Man Ray Trust Archive, the majority of the works have not previously been exhibited in the UK. 

• First museum exhibition to focus on Man Ray’s photographic portraiture
  
  
• Includes works never before exhibited in the UK including studies of Barbette, Catherine Deneuve, Ava Gardner, Lee Miller and Kiki de Montparnasse.
  
  

Portraits of Man Ray’s celebrated contemporaries will be shown in the exhibition, alongside his personal and often intimate portraits of friends, lovers and his social circle. His versatility and experimentation as an artist is illustrated throughout all of his photography although this was never his chosen principal artistic medium. The exhibition brings together photographic portraits of cultural figures and friends including Marcel Duchamp, Berenice Abbott, Andre Breton, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, James Joyce, Erik Satie, Henri Matisse, Barbette, Igor Stravinsky, Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dali, Le Corbusier, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, Coco Chanel and Wallis Simpson. Also on show will be portraits of his lovers Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin) and Lee Miller, who was also his assistant, Ady Fidelin and his last muse and wife Juliet Browner.

Philadelphia-born Man Ray (1890 – 1976) spent his early life in New York, turning down a scholarship to study architecture in order to devote himself to painting. He initially taught himself photography in order to reproduce his works of art but in 1920 he began to work as a portrait photographer to fund his artwork. In 1915, whilst at Ridgefield artist colony in New Jersey, he met the French artist Marcel Duchamp and together they tried to establish New York Dada. His friendship with Duchamp led to Man Ray’s move to Paris in 1921, where, as a contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, he was perfectly placed to make defining images of his contemporaries from the avant-garde. In this period he was instrumental in developing and producing a type of photogram which he called ‘Rayographs’, and is credited in inventing, alongside his lover and collaborator Lee Miller, the process of solarisation. The use of solarisation can be seen in the portraits of Elsa Schiaparelli, Irene Zurkinden, Lee Miller, Suzy Solidor and his own Self-Portrait with Camera included in the exhibition.

Following the outbreak of World War II, Man Ray left France for the US and took up residence in Hollywood. Although officially devoting himself once more to painting, new research has revealed that Man Ray made a number of significant photographic portraits during his Hollywood years, and several are shown for the first time in this exhibition. Film star subjects included Ruth Ford, Paulette Goddard, Ava Gardner, Tilly Losch and Dolores del Rio. Returning to Paris in 1951 he again made the city his home until his death in 1976. His portraits from the 1950s include experiments with colour photography, such as his portraits of Juliette Greco and Yves Montand, and the exhibition closes with his portrait of film star Catherine Deneuve from 1968.

Man Ray Portraits is curated by the National Portrait Gallery’s Curator of Photographs, Terence Pepper, whose previous exhibitions at the Gallery include the award-winning Vanity Fair Portraits (2008), Beatles to Bowie: the 60s exposed (2009), Angus McBean: Portraits (2006), Cecil Beaton: Portraits (2004) and Horst: Portraits (2001).

EXHIBITION AND TOUR

The exhibition will run from 7 February – 27 May 2013 at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Advanced booking is recommended. Gift Aid admission £14. Concessions £13 / £12. Standard price admission £12.70. Concessions £11.80/ £10.90. Tickets: www.npg.org.uk/ManRay or 020 7766 7331

Man Ray Portraits will tour to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery from 22 June – 8 September 2013 and the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow from 14 October 2013 – 19 January 2014.

Actress Alex Kingston knows that her great-grandfather, William Keevil, died during the First World War, leaving behind a wife and young family - including Alex's then 4-year-old grandmother. Alex sets out to investigate exactly what happened to William, and discovers how his pre-war career as a photographer put him in an unusual position.

Alex has also heard rumours of Jewish ancestry in her family tree. Her quest to discover if this is true takes an unexpected turn, leading to a story involving her four-times great-grandmother, Elizabeth Braham, another widow with young children. As Alex delves further into Elizabeth's life, she is astonished to discover the unconventional enterprise Elizabeth undertook to avoid sliding into poverty.

BPH's Michael Pritchard discusses Alex's ancestor in the stores of the National Media Museum.

The programme airs on BBC1 on Wednesday, 19 September 2012 at 2100. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mxvn2

The link to the BBC iPlayer is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mxvn2/Who_Do_You_Think_You_Are_Series_9_Alex_Kingston/

Photo: Michael Pritchard and Alex Kingston at the National Media Museum, Bradford, with a framed photograph of her ancestor.

In conversation with Andrew Lacon, Stuart Whipps, Pete James.  Pete James, Head of Photographs at Birmingham Central Library talks to Andrew Lacon and Stuart Whipps about the work they are making for REFERENCE WORKS: the Library of Birmingham Photography Project.

The project, Birmingham’s largest photography commission, sees four photographers and four students/graduates from Birmingham City University making creative responses to the existing and new library building. The discussion will outline the scope of the commission; describe the process of making new work and the vital role of the Library’s nationally and internationally significant collections at the heart of the new iconic cultural institution.

The event is the first in a series of Photographers Talks linked to REFERENCE WORKS, the Library of Birmingham Photography Project.
www.reference-works.com
Thursday 1 November 2012
6.00 – 7.30pm
Library Theatre, off Chamberlain Square, Birmingham B3 3HQ
Admission Free