An online petition has been launched save Newcastle's Side Gallery which opened in 1977. The Gallery has a commitment to documentary in the tradition of the concerned photographer. It commissions work in the North of England and shows historical and contemporary work from around the world. Talks are organised around most of the exhibitions. The Arts Council has axed Side Gallery as a revenue client in its ‘National Portfolio’. The reasons for the decision are:

• The gallery is part of a collective and therefore doesn’t have a board;
• The gallery needs Arts Council funding and therefore isn’t sustainable;
• There are too many galleries dedicated to humanist documentary photography in Side’s geographical location.

This flies in the face of the fact that the collective has continued to deliver what is unquestionably the strongest cultural legacy created in the North East over the past forty years.  Unlike many Arts organisations, its egalitarian collective governance has meant Side Gallery has never approached the Arts Council or Northern Arts for a bail-out. It is the only gallery in the country dedicated to documentary photography.

For see the petition click here: http://www.gopetition.com/petition/44355.html

To visit the Gallery's website click here: http://www.amber-online.com/sections/side-gallery

Rescheduled from Autumn 2010, this symposium explores the impact and legacy of the photography magazine TEN.8. Published throughout the 1980s before it folded in 1992, TEN.8 was conceived by then Birminghambased Derek Bishton, Brian Homer and John Reardon to bring together the city’s photographers. Its impact however, reached far beyond this initial aspiration.

Speakers include Derek Bishton, journalist and founder member of TEN.8; David Brittain, Manchester Metropolitan University; Dr. Eugenie Shinkle, University of Westminster; and Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph ABP (Association of Black Photographers).

The Symposium takes place on Wednesday 4 May 2011 from 1pm-5pm at mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH. Tel: 0121 446 3232. See: http://www.macarts.co.uk/events/Get%20Involved/Symposium 

I am completing a project to create a searchable database of Photographic Society of London, later the Royal Photographic Society, members from 1853-1900. The database will be made publicly and freely available through the internet by De Montfort University in the Summer. If it is well received then its coverage may be extended. The project is well advanced with some 2200 unique names, addresses, membership category(ies) and relevant dates.

The data has been sourced from published Society membership lists, the Photographic Journal and Council Minutes held in the RPS Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford, and from other libraries and research collections. However, there are membership lists missing for particular years, especially for the early period, although it is probable that no such list was published for some of these. To ensure that the database is as complete as possible I am looking to track down missing membership lists for the following years: 1855; 1856; 1858; 1860-65; 1867-68 (PJ states none published); 1871-73; 1876-77; 1894; 1898. They are usually found bound in the respective volume of the Photographic Journal.

Perhaps those of you with institutional files, libraries or collections could check these for me. If you find you have any such lists please contact me off-list.

With thanks.

Dr Michael Pritchard

De Montfort University, Leicester, has appointed Dr Elizabeth Edwards as Research Professor in Photographic History. She joins the De Montort team from her previous role as Senior Research Fellow at University of the Arts, London, on 1 June 2011. Her research interests are noted here: http://www.lcc.arts.ac.uk/Elizabeth_Edwards_research.htm.

The post was advertised in November last year and was previously noted on BPH http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/job-research-professor-in.  Edwards will offer some support to De Montfort's acclaimed History of Photgraphy and Practice MA course led by Dr Kelley Wilder, but as with her predecessor Roger Taylor who held the Professorship from its inception, Edwards' focus will be on securing research funding, developing the research base and profile of the photographic history department, and she also becomes the first Director of the Photographic History Research Centre based at the university. The PHRC is currently recruiting a PhD student to examine the nature of Kodak research.

The university will be making a formal announcement in due course but as news now appears to be public BPH feels able to note the appointment now.

Although the following is a little outside of BPH's main areas of interest it does fall in to the category of material that is of wider interest... The Rochester, NY, City Newspaper carried a feature on Eastman House which looked at future plans. Details are Here: http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/entertainment/art/2011/03/ART-FEATURE-George-Eastman-House-focuses-on-the-future/ 

BPH can reveal the strategic priorities and medium term plans for the National Media Museum (NMeM), Bradford. These are set within the context of a 15 per cent government grant-in-aid reduction for the period 2011–12 to 2014–15. This is alongside a capital allocation that has reduced by over 50% from the previous spending review period. Bradford and the expectation that external private funding will be much harder to secure. The impact of the closure of the UK Film Council is still to be gauged in relation to the NMeM.

As a result the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI), the parent body of the NMeM and the other constituent museums, has a programme of change aimed at reducing costs, increasing efficiency and increasing income which will inevitably impact on the NMeM and its activities.  Across NMSI Staff costs are due to be reduced by 10 per cent. On a positive note the development of the NMeM gallery, Media Space – formerly known as the London presence – in London, completing the Internet Gallery, and agreeing a plan for the longer-term development of the NMeM are all seen as NMSI priorities.

Action plan

The museum has redefined its objective which is now: to be the best museum in the world for inspiring people to learn about, engage with and create media

·         Collections care and management

The NMeM, as part of NMSI, has already started work on realising a number of objectives. It is in the process of relocating objects held in its Black Dyke Mills store, just outside of Bradford, to the NMSI’s high density store at Wroughton.  One of its 2011-12 deliverables it to ‘realise improvements in environmental standards at the NMeM main site, including the extension of conservation facilities’.  A conservator was recently appointed.

NMSI is also developing an archives management system aimed at presenting material in the collections online. Alongside this effort the NMeM is tasked with progressing ‘targeted strategic acquisitions at the NMeM and their links to programme revenue generation including photographic and film archives, gaming and animation, driven by brand essence and values’

·         Audience targets and context.

In 2010–11 the National Media Museum is on target to reach between 500,000 and 550,000 visitors – well below the historical average. Visitor numbers have declined for a second year after a previous period of significant growth. Although some factors influencing the numbers have been beyond the Museum’s control, the decline has brought into sharp relief the need to make urgent improvements to the visitor welcome and day-to-day programme delivery, to accelerate the refreshing of galleries and to convey a clear, confident and high-impact message about the Museum to the outside world.

In 2011–12 the visitor target is 575,000. It is believed that a brand awareness campaign, developments to the Museum’s on-going programme (including more live interpretation, the development of an evening offer for adults and a stronger exhibition programme) and the opening of the new city centre park can help deliver this target.

In line with physical visitors, online visitor numbers were also down in 2010–11. The 2011–12 online visitor target seeks to improve on 2010–11, with 772,000 online visitors, although this will remain below the 2009–10 high of 846,000. The launch of the Internet Gallery, coupled with regular content updates to the website and a more focused social media campaign, should mean this target is achievable.

2011–12 deliverables

·         Gallery developments

o   Complete and open the Internet Gallery

o   Carry out a series of short-term gallery improvements including the Magic Factory, Profiles, Kodak and Animation galleries and relocation of the Games Lounge

·         Exhibitions, programmes and displays

o   Deliver an enhanced temporary exhibitions programme and  associated web content including: The Lives of Great Photographers; David Spero: Churches; Donovan Wylie: Bradford Fellow; Daniel Meadows: Fieldwork

o   Cultural Olympiad exhibitions: In the Blink of an Eye: Studies in Time and Motion; Crossing Boundaries: Bodies in Motion

o   Design and deliver more daily live interpretation including live shows

o   Design and deliver themed programming with contemporary relevance six times a year, covering the main school holiday periods

o   Design and deliver a new evening adult programme

o   Deliver the new film strategy to achieve a higher profile for the cinema operation and financial breakeven

o   Continue to develop the touring exhibition programme

·         Learning

o   Support the creation and delivery of exhibitions, programmes and displays, especially through audience research and advocacy

o   Deliver training for volunteers, casuals and explainers to deliver learning programmes

o   Promote and disseminate the Anim8ed web resource to museums and schools throughout the UK

o   Deliver the Internet Gallery youth engagement programme

o   Increase visits from booked groups and associated income, including enhanced school programme packages generating revenue

o   Deliver collections-based programmes for booked HE photography groups along with an HE photography online resource on landscape

o   Deliver regular non-school group leader and teacher preview events

o   Deliver 60,500 booked educational visitors

o   Deliver 93,500 adult and child visitors participating in onsite and off-site organised activities

·         Digital

o   Develop a digital strategy

o   Support and promote the non-digital exhibitions, film and learning programme, repurposing content online where cost-effective, using experimental solutions where appropriate

o   Develop media ‘debate and share’ web presence

o   Continue curatorial and digitisation input of content into a newly redeveloped website

2012–13 to 2014–15 planning and deliverables

·         Media Space in partnership with the Science Museum (due to open in 2012)

·         Fully costed ten-year development plan for the galleries and other spaces, exploring additional affordable space through a joint redevelopment with the adjacent Bradford Central Library to include larger purpose-built and more efficient temporary exhibition and collections care and management spaces, improved group learning spaces, media training facilities and multipurpose spaces as well as improved catering and retail spaces

·         Explore whether any joint development with the library might also form part of a wider development with other organisations to help the regeneration of central Bradford

·         Deliver live programmes that inspire our audiences to learn about, engage with and create media to 130,000 visitors by 2015.

De Montfort University, Leicester, is offering a  PhD research studentship within the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC), an international leading multi-disciplinary research institute, to suitably qualified UK or EU students.

The researcher will investigate an aspect of his or her own choosing that will address ‘The Nature of Kodak Research’. The researcher will have access to our partner institutions with substantial Kodak holdings: the British Library, the University of Rochester, the Victorian Museum, Melbourne, the National Media Museum, Bradford, and the George Eastman House, Rochester.

This research opportunity is funded by DMU in 2011/12 to build on our excellent achievements in the RAE 2008 and looking forward to REF 2014. It will develop the University’s research capacity into new and evolving areas of study, enhancing DMU’s national and international research partnerships.

The Nature of Kodak Research
Kodak, the company trading variously as Eastman Dry Plate Company, Eastman Kodak, Eastman Chemical Co, Kodak AG, Kodak Pathé and Kodak Ltd, is one of the icons of globalised industry.

‘Kodak’ became an uncommon eponym – a verb as well as a noun – and its research reached the heart of the global industries of defense, medicine, paper manufacture, chemistry and leisure. The four areas of Kodak marketing, business practice, research and manufacturing that united this global company provide unique insight into twentieth century history, through the lens of a photographic company.

In 2009, the Kodak Ltd archive entered the British Library, while the research journals were given to De Montfort University. These complement holdings at the University of Rochester, NY; The Media Museum, Bradford; the Victoria Museum, Melbourne, the George Eastman House, Rochester and Ryerson University, Toronto. A networking bid is already underway from the PHRC to unite these institutions in a formal Network.

The Photographic History Research Centre seeks a PhD candidate to research a specific aspect of The Nature of Kodak Research. The Kodak Research Laboratory was founded in 1912, with the installation of the Director Dr Kenneth Mees.

Subsequent research laboratories in other territories also took up directed and blue-sky research within their own organisations. Research at Kodak was many things: Emulsion research for scientific projects; chemical industry research; medical applications of photography; defense industry research on infra-red film; and colour research, among other things. The candidate may choose one of these specific areas, or an area reflecting his or her own specialist knowledge. The successful candidate will demonstrate an interest in the history of photography and the history of science.

Utilising the full spectrum of the networked archives, the successful candidate will participate in Network activities, and will have unprecedented access to the international spectrum of Kodak research. He or she will also have access to advice from all named partners in the Network, as well as the DMU supervisory team.

The Photographic History Research Centre has a strong track record in both the history of science and research of photographic industries. Among our active members working in this area are: Dr Michael Pritchard (British Industry), Dr Kelley Wilder (science and photography) and David Prakel (PhD candidate working on Kodak).

The PHRC seeks an energetic and team oriented person to join this growing scholarly community.
Applications are invited from UK or EU students with a good first degree (First, 2:1 or equivalent) in a relevant subject. Doctoral scholarships are available for up to three years full-time study starting October 2011 and provide a bursary of £13,770pa in addition to University tuition fees.

Applicants should contact the Faculty Research Office to receive an application pack, which requires a full CV with two supporting. Applications close Monday, 11 April 2011.

Contact:  Helen Harrison e: hharrison@dmu.ac.uk. Tel: +44 (0)116 257 7520 quoting ref: DMU studentships 2011

For a more detailed description of the studentship project please contact Dr Kelley Wilder on +44 (0)116 207 8865 or email kwilder@dmu.ac.uk  

Click here for more information: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/aad/scholarships-and-bursaries/phd-studentship-the-nature-of-kodak-research.jsp

Photographic collections are found in libraries, archives and museums all over the world. Their sensitivity to environmental conditions, and the speed with which images can deteriorate present special challenges. This one day training session is led by Susie Clark, accredited photographic conservator. It is aimed at those with responsibility for the care of photographic collections regardless of institutional context.

The day provides an introduction to understanding and identifying photographic processes and their vulnerability, information on common conservation problems and solutions, and the preservation measures that can be taken to prolong the life and accessibility of photographic collections. Contact with real examples of different photographic processes is an important feature of this training session which is therefore limited to only 16 places. At the end of the day participants will be able to:

•identify historic photographic processes
•explain how damage is caused
•implement appropriate preservation measures
•commission conservation work.
Feedback from previous participants
•I learned how to store photographic material, how to identify different photographic processes and techniques to preserve photographic stock.
•Very worthwhile due to practical nature of the training day. I am able to leave here today confident that we can improve and upgrade basic preservation solutions, particularly storage, based on information learned about photographic processes and supports.
•I will review our approach to preserving photographic collections, upgrade storage media, and survey collections to identify preservation priorities.

Programme
9.45 Registration
10.00 Welcome and introduction
10.15 History and identification of photographic processes
11.30 Break
11.45 Conservation problems and solutions

12.45 Lunch
13.45 Conservation problems and solutions
14.45 Break
15.00 Preservation measures
16.15 End (and further opportunity to look at examples)

Details: http://www.bl.uk/blpac/photographic.html

Preservation Advisory Centre Training Day

Friday 20 May 2011

British Library Centre for Conservation
96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

There is a back story to this item. The daguerreotype had been taken into Tennants, a large regional auction house in the north of England, for valuation and authentication. The auction house, properly recognising the daguerreotype’s potential wider interest and possible high value, did some research and made contact with one of the UK’s leading Carroll experts who consulted a second. Both pronounced the subject of the daguerreotype as someone other than Carroll. They made four key points: firstly, Claudet’s Adelaide Gallery was only operating between 1841 and 1847, secondly, by 1858 the daguerreotype process in Britain had been largely superseded by the wet collodion process in commercial photographic studios such as Claudets, and, thirdly, Carroll was a diligent and noted diarist and made no mention of a visit to Claudet’s studio, and finally, the gentlemen shown in the daguerreotype was not Dodgson which was immediately apparent to the experts - as a simple comparison with other known portraits (including a well-known 1857 portrait - see right, below) of Dodgson would reveal. The auction house rightly decided that they were not able to offer the daguerreotype at auction and it was returned to the owner.

It resurfaced on eBay on 3 March 2011 offered by virtually-cameras. As has now been confirmed to me by someone with direct knowledge of the daguerreotype and the authentication (not the expert) the eBay seller was the same person who took it to the auction house for authentication. But Peter described the daguerreotype only as he saw it, albeit misspelling Dodgson as Dodson, Claudet as Claude and Adelaide as Adelade, and quoting the typewritten label in full. He was careful to say only that the daguerreotype was ‘labelled’ and he made no reference to Lewis Carroll. Peter made no mention of the fact that the daguerreotype had been examined by an expert who had discounted any possibility that it showed Dodgson. On 5 May Peter corrected the Claudet misspelling and added some biographical details about Claudet, presumably found on the internet.

As one might imagine an image of Carroll would attract considerable interest and the description contained plenty in it to allow it to be picked up by buyers’ search terms. Almost as soon as the lot was listed ‘Matthew’ asked Peter if he could buy it straight away for £300. Peter, quite properly declined. Ending an auction early to sell it would breach eBay’s terms of business. But Peter was also expressed surprised by the reaction the lot was attracting and said he wanted to let the auction run its course. A couple of further questions followed which he answered including confirmation of the size: ‘the frame size is 7.5 x 8.5 cm. The visible image is 6 x 5.5 cm’.

I was tipped off about the lot by a friend on 12 March. Looking at the description and image something didn’t ring true and I did some checking. I compared the image with others properly identified as Dodgson and I checked material I had on Claudet which confirmed his business addresses. I also knew that by 1857 it was more likely that the image should be a collodion positive or ambrotype.  I emailed Peter via eBay asking one question: ‘what did he know about the provenance of the image?’ pointing out that the label might allow people to make a link to Carroll which could be unfortunate. Peter responded promptly not really answering my question: ‘I'm sure you will realise after giving some serious thought that it's certainly not possible that I could know how the typed label was placed with the photograph,when the typed label clearly appears to be as old as the photograph! Perhaps you are unaware that a Daguerreotype is a negative image unlike the positive images with which you are making comparison.’

In the meantime I did some research on typewriter history and I concluded that the label was post-1870 and probably c1890-1910. I responded to Peter saying that the provenance would have been useful as ‘I was hoping that the image might have come from a source that would have supported the identification of the subject’. I pointed out that the typewritten label was almost certainly post 1870. Peter again replied promptly: ‘The image was purchased some time ago along with another of a girl, an ambrotype, after being sold at auction in Darlington County Durham’. He also asserted that typewriters dated back to the ‘late 1700s’ and that daguerreotypes ‘show a positive image when tilted against the light however the sitters image is reversed onto backing silvered material during exposure making it a true negative image and only by changing the angle of lighting does the Daguerreotype give the impression of being a positive’. Peter decided not to publish my questions and his responses alongside the description (eBay automates this if it is wanted) – unlike those of his other questioners. I decided to leave it at that.

As I stated at the beginning the daguerreotype sold for £3300.

I think there are a couple of lessons here. For the seller, some simple research should have thrown up some concerns about the image's subject. Peter has been on eBay since 2008. Looking at his past sales he appears to mainly sell modern photographic equipment on eBay, for which he has received good feedback, so the daguerreotype was clearly out of his main area of expertise. Some simple checking would have flagged up that the image was unlikely to be Carroll. He was clearly surprised at the interest the lot was generating and this might have acted as a warning. Since originally writing the piece I have been advised by someone who had discussed the matter with Peter was Peter had been the person who took the daguerreotype to the auction house. As such he clearly had a duty to flag the opinion that the experts had raised in his eBay description.  

Buyers also have a responsibility – caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Peter carefully made no link to Dodgson and simply described the daguerreotype as he saw it - allowing buyers to draw their own conclusions. It might be possible that two buyers liked a possible Claudet daguerreotype and were prepared to pay well over the normal price for such an image. That is unlikely. What is more likely is that bidders thought that they were about to get a bargain which they could resell at a profit; or they bid having jumped to their own conclusion that the subject was Carroll and failed to carry out any further research. It would not have been difficult to do and for the eventual buyer it might have prevented an expensive mistake.

A cautionary tale, indeed.

Dr Michael Pritchard

Long-tailed-crowd-sourced-socially-enterprising-game-playing-platform-sensitive-open-sourced-world. Charlotte Cotton is the creative director of the Media Space - a partnership between the Science Museum and the National Media Museum that will open in London in 2012.

Charlotte Cotton began her curatorial practice in the early 1990s, at the start of a growing wave of institutional interest in photography as contemporary art. Concomitant to this cultural ascendance of photography, was the increasing programmatic role photography played in the 1990s and 2000s to create popular visitor-number draws to cultural institutions. In this research seminar, Cotton talks about curating photography and photographic issues in the profoundly transformed landscape of today where the literal majority of images and photography's social meanings get created without the support or necessary validation of cultural institutions and considers how museums and galleries could reframe their engagements with photography.

The History of Photography research seminar series aims to be a discursive platform for the discussion and dissemination of current research on photography. From art as photography and early photographic technology to ethnographic photographs and contemporary photography as art, the seminar welcomes contributions from researchers across the board, whether independent or affiliated with museums, galleries, archives, libraries or higher education, and endeavours to provide scholars with a challenging opportunity to present work in progress and test out new ideas.

Wednesday, 23 March 2011
5.30pm, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Research Forum South Room

Contacts:
Alexandra Moschovi (alexandra.moschovi@courtauld.ac.uk )
Julian Stallabrass (julian.stallabrass@courtauld.ac.uk ), or
Benedict Burbridge (benedict.burbridge@courtauld.ac.uk )

An appeal has been launched after a donation of near 90-year-old negatives depicting the construction of one of  RAF Henlow airbase. A base spokesman said: “We would dearly like to reunite these rare photographic examples and bring the whole collection together. We are appealing to you to search your attics or your garden sheds to see whether you can help us to reconstitute the collection and help us to properly celebrate the illustrious heritage of RAF Henlow.”

The donated pictures help bring to life the building of the base and date back to WW1, however a specific year is unknown. David Lloyd George’s government decided to construct repair depots, soley for the then Royal Flying Corps, and Henlow was selected as a site in 1917. Much of the station was under construction when the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Air Force the following year.

In the original list of RAF stations in April 1918, Henlow counts among only seven other stations that remain open as British bases today. Parish councillor and local history enthusiast Michele Joy urges residents to be on the look out for the remaining negatives, as they help shine a light on the base’s early days. She said: “It’s definitely worthwhile to say that glass negatives or something that could easily be thrown away because they’re not familiar to people these days. If you’re doing a house clearance then don’t get rid of anything that’s of definite interest to people and could be important to Henlow’s history.”

If you can help locate the missing negatives, or know someone who can, contact Denise O’Hara by post, at Building 105, RAF Henlow, Beds, SG16 6DN or by email, on shsa-ast@henlow.raf.mod.uk

See the fulls tory here: http://www.thecomet.net/news/donation_of_ww1_era_negatives_sparks_raf_appeal_1_828022

The Sixth Annual Annan Lecture will take place on Thursday 24 March 2011 at 6pm in the Jeffrey Room, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. John Hume, Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, will talk about Unknown Scottish Photographers - the role of the works photographer. 

The events has been organised by the Scottish Society for the History of Photography  / www.sshop.org.uk

Ida Kar died alone of thrombosis and penniless in a Bayswater bedsit in 1974, surrounded by boxes of negatives worth £50,000. Her funeral was a quiet affair, in stark contrast to the publicity attracted by an exhibition of her work fourteen years earlier.

Russian-born and of Armenian parentage, Kar arrived in Britain in 1945 with her second husband, Victor Musgrave, an art dealer. He founded Gallery One and the couple became a celebrated part of London’s post-war bohemia.

During the 1950s photographic exhibitions were uncommon and photography in Britain was at its lowest ebb and entrenched in the Victorian/Edwardian genre. In challenging British photography’s conventions - along with the notion that only sculpture and painting could be considered art - Kar drew upon the avante-garde circles she inhabited while applying the training she received in Paris.

Kar produced large scale confrontational portrait works of key modernist artists and writers of the era, using a Rolliflex purchased in 1957. Compositionally challenging and in black and white, they juxtaposed artistic portraiture and reportage subject matter in non-conventional settings. These re-examined their relationship to their environment, intensifying the relationship between photographer and subject.

Although little has been written about Kar’s work as an art form, her canon is of major interest to academics of postwar English photographic art. Ever the individualist, she photographed leading icons of the 1950s and ‘60s as well as taking to the streets to photograph shopkeepers in the Royal Arcade (London) Metropolitan Music Hall, solemn characters of the demi-mode, and capture life in the Cuban capital, Havana.

Ida Kar, the development of large format editorial magazine photography such as Picture Post and the creation of new galleries as Photographers’ Gallery served to re-examine what a ‘good’ photograph could be. They also helped to expand the boundaries of portraiture and reportage, with Kar’s work in London, Cairo and Havana widely attributed to having broken down barriers to the acceptance of photography as a fine art.

Kar's landmark exhibtion at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1960 marked a turning point in post-war photographic art as she was the first photographer to have a photographic exhibition at a London gallery. The result of a retrospective show of her work was to break the mould of photographic conventions and to spark a debate on whether photography could be considered art.

This exhibition presents nearly 100 works produced by Ida Kar. The Curator, Clare Freestone, sees particular interest in the letters from sitters. Correspondence from as Ivon Hitchens, for example, tell of a longstanding friendship – and a subject unafraid to pepper his correspondence with professional advice. Also noteworthy are may of Kar’s shoots in Petworth, some showing Ida with Mollie and Ivon eating relaxed on cushions and their son John, whom she subsequently spoke to and re-iterated the warmth and friendship of Kar towards the family.

Despite other successful photographers following the same theme as Douglas Glass for the Sunday Times, her vision was unique in the way she interacted with her sitters. Clare Freestone says, “She had a very sharp and instinctive
vision. Her connections (Victor Musgrave her husband, her early years spent in bustling Cairo and Paris of the surrealists) placed her amongst artists rather than fellow photographers.”

Material selected for the exhibition is from the NPG archive which features over 800 of Kar’s vintage prints, 10, 000 negatives, a sitters’ book and a portfolio book made in 1954 of her trip to the artists’ studios of Paris. This was purchased in 1999 in a sale through Christie’s on behalf of Monika Kinley, Victor Musgrave’s widow.

Featuring unseen archive material, the reappraisal provides a valuable record of the international art world as documented by Kar over three decades against a backdrop of wider plastic arts and literary subjects including Doris Lessing, T S Eliot, Man Ray, Jean Paul Satre, Eugene Ionesco and Colin MacInnes to name but a few.

Highlights of the exhibition of nearly 100 works include: An iconographic portrait of artist Yves Klein, shown at his first and highly controversial London exhibition in 1957 in front of one of his famous monochrome works, in the distinctive blue-colour he was to patent as his own. A portrait of the ‘art strike’ artist and political activist Gustav Metzger, taken at an exhibition entitled Festival of Misfits - another discovery in an exhibition which partly chronicles 1950s and 1960s Bohemian London society.  A photograph of Royston Ellis, a poet and friend of John Lennon who inspired the song Paperback Writer and introduced Lennon to ‘Polythene Pam,’ a subject of the Beatles song.  One of Kar’s earliest works, a portrait of the actress and director Sylvia Syms (1953) and a portrait of Dame Maggie Smith on the set of The Rehearsal (1961).  Images of conceptualist artists such as Gustav Metzger and John Latham.  Photographs of life in Cuba and Moscow.  A pack of Metzger negs how from a mislabelled packet of negatives we chanced upon, showing key images of Ida Karr and the first public demonstration of auto- destructive art.

Her later work includes the leading artists of the St Ives modern art movement (Tatler, 26 July 1961), featuring Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon, Barbara Hepworth and Terry Frost; documentary portraits of Soho bohemia; artists associated
with her husband’s Gallery One; and Kar’s contact sheet of her portrait of Fidel Castro, taken in 1964.

A story which did not make the catalogue is that of KarSEC, the collective that Kar formed in 1968. An interview with one member Les Smithers is available in Face to Face, in which he tells of Kar’s continued desire to work professionally and to re-invent herself.

However, within a decade of her fame she was forgotten. Critics claimed that, although Ida Kar expanded photographic vocabulary, she never took photographs of the same clarity or lucidity of her 1950s heyday. She was, according to her
former assistant and PR guru, John Kasmin, a "conventional bohemian". However Kar failed to achieve the success she craved, lacking an understanding of the politics of the art world and who departed it with overwhelming debts.

Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, 1908-74

The National Portrait Gallery (London)

10 March until 19 June 2011

Copyright: Pippa Jane Wielgos

DISCLAIMER: Pippa Jane PR is a non-profit making platform producing non-commissioned independent freelance arts journalism does not represent theThe National Portrait Gallery.

Telephone: + 44 (0) 20 7487 3486. Mobile: + 44 (0) 7957 319 056

E-mail: pippa.wielgos@tiscali.co.uk

The Bournemouth Echo reported that photographer George Courtney Ward has died. Courtney Ward who died at his home in Westbourne on Tuesday, February 15, aged 93, photographed some of the most famous names in cinema during his 30 years working at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Dirk Bogarde, Michael Caine, Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, Alec Guinness and Kenneth More were just some of the screen stars in George’s portfolio. Examples of his portraits are in the National Portrait Gallery Collection (http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?firstRun=true&sText=Courtney+Ward&search=sa&LinkID=mp16878&role=art)

He was understood to be a good friend of Lord Attenborough and worked on some of the best-loved British films, including The Ipcress File,  Oliver Twist in 1948, This Sporting Life in 1963 and Great Expectations in 1946, and also designed the artwork for Brief Encounter.

George was born in Christchurch in 1917 and grew up in the town before becoming a stills photographer at Pinewood. At first he commuted, but shortly moved to Fulmer in Buckinghamshire with his mother and aunt. After more than 30 years working at Pinewood, George moved to Elstree studios in 1969 when the photographic department was closed down. But when that studio was taken over in 1972, he decided to sell his house, retire and move back down to Bournemouth. 

George had no close family, but his dearest friend, John Smith, remembers him as his “second father”. The pair met while they were both working in the photographic department at Elstree. “He was a very independent man and he had a great love of music,” remembers John, who would visit George regularly and phone him almost every day.  “He had a wonderful knowledge of music, going back to the 1930 and 1940s, and musical films, he had a great love of that as well. One of his idols was Dick Powell.”  John, who lives in Hertfordshire with his wife Beryl, added: “He was a wonderful listener with a great sense of humour.

Gorge’s funeral takes place at 12pm on Tuesday March 8 Bournemouth Crematorium.

For a full report see: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/8876347.Celebrity_photographer__93_dies_at_his_Dorset_home/?ref=rss

and see: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0911557/ for a resume of his career and films he worked on

The Royal Photographic Society and Birmingham Central Library are holding a practical workshop on researching photographic history on Saturday, 5 March 2011. Amongst the formal presentations will be others from active researchers in the field presenting aspects of their own research.

Researching photographic history is of interesting to many different historians not least of which are genealogists. The day will offer practical advice about undertaking research into all aspects of photographic history from active researchers in the field. Traditional sources and digital sources will be discussed. In addition, genealogists, local historians and photographic historians attending are invited to share their own experiences. 

Speakers will include Dr Michael Pritchard and Dr Ron Callender who have both completed a PhD and a Fellowship in different aspects of photographic history and are active researchers. One session will discuss how photographic history can be used to achieve a RPS distinction.

There is no charge but as places are limited please book in advance. Details of the event are here: http://www.rps.org/events/view/1989?m=3&y=2011&d=&t=workshop&g=0&r=0&reset=reset

The National Media Museum saw its visitor numbers drop by more than 12 per cent last year, a report revealed today. Figures compiled by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions show the museum attracted 526,914 visits – a drop of 12.8 per cent compared to 2009. This follows an 18 per cent drop in 2009 to 613,923 from 2008.

Museum director Colin Philpott said factors such as the Imax cinema closing for maintenance affected numbers but a great deal was still achieved by the museum in 2010. He said: “We broke a world Nintendo DS record, revealed the results of groundbreaking research into some of the world’s oldest photographs which we house and care for in the National Photography Collection, and we hosted an exciting range of film festivals and temporary exhibitions.

“We continue to strive to inspire as many people as possible to learn about and engage with media, and I am confident that a fantastic line-up of forthcoming events, including opening a new gallery exploring the history and impact of the internet in 2012, will put us firmly in the 50 per cent of attractions showing an increase in visitors in the near future.”

See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bradford/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9406000/9406686.stm

The National Portrait Gallery has a number of events connected with its two photographic exhibitions the first dealing with E O Hoppé is open now and the next on Ida Kar opens in March. The events are summarised below but see the NPG website for more information and to book (www.npg.org.uk) In my experience events tend to fill up quickly so I would recommend early booking in order to secure a place.

HOPPÉ PORTRAITS: SOCIETY, STUDIO AND STREET
Until 30 May 2011

Exhibition Tour: Free with a timed exhibition ticket.
Friday 4 March 2011, 19.30
Join Curator of Photographs Terence Pepper for a tour of the exhibition.
Workshop
Hoppé’s London: Whitehall and St. James’s
Saturday 19 March 2011, 11.00 - 15.00
E.O. Hoppé’s camera lens was drawn towards the unusual and quirky sides of London and Londoners. Led by a Blue Badge Guide, this walk will explore the London that Hoppé knew. Walk lasts approximately 2 hours. Tickets: £15/£12.
Talk: Picturing Everyman
Thursday 24 March 2011, 18.30
Writer Geoff Dyer and artist Dryden Goodwin take the exhibition as their starting point in a discussion on photography and portraiture’s search for ordinary, representative subjects.
Tickets: £5/£4. 
 

IDA KAR: BOHEMIAN PHOTOGRAPHER
Opens 10 March 2011
Tickets: £3/£2.50/£2

Kar stood at the heart of the creative avant-garde and was the first photographer to have a retrospective exhibition in a major London Gallery. As one of the shining stars of the 1950s art world, Kar’s work has remained surprisingly hidden. This exhibition re-presents this key twentieth-century figure and offers a unique opportunity to see iconic works, which have not been exhibited publicly since the 1960s.

Curator Tour: Free with an exhibition ticket
Friday 18 March 2011, 19.30
Curator Clare Freestone takes a look at some of the highlights in the exhibition.

Finally one other photography events is:

Guardian Eyewitness Event: Photojournalism into the new Millennium
Thursday 3 March 2011, 19.00
Join Roger Tooth, the Guardian’s Head of Photography and editor of Eyewitness Decade, for a whirlwind tour of photographic journalism and its role within a national newspaper.
Tickets: £5/£4.