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.

Greenway Associates has reported that it is now working with the Science Museum, London in partnership with the National Media Museum, on Media Space a substantial exhibition and events space in London. The space offers not only a re-presentation of NMSI’s photography, film, and television collections, via temporary exhibitions and new programming, but also a space that is physically and programmatically geared towards adults and visitors coming to the South Kensington site. This is the previously designated National Media Museum's London presence.

Charlotte Cotton, the creative director of Media Space which is opening in 2012 will be giving a free history of photography seminar at the Courtauld, Londonm on 23 March (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/xn/detail/2680769:Event:17694?xg_source=activity) and http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/events/2011/spring/mar2_histphoto.shtml

As noted here (http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/antiques-roadshow-amp-early) the BBC's Antiques Roadshow programme featured an item of photographic interest in this evenings programme. A descendent of J B B Wellington brought along a selection of photographs and exhibition medals that belonged to Wellington. Described as 'museum quality' by expert Marc Allum the archive was valued at £10,000-15,000.  The programme can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z1h04 (the segment starts at 11m 24s in) for the next seven days.

As many BPH readers will know Wellington was Kodak's factory manager at Harrow for a short period in the 1890s before establishing his own paper and plate manufacturing firm Wellington and Ward at Elstree. The firm was eventually absorbed into Ilford Ltd. Wellington was also an accomplished amateur photographer and had his house, The Leys, in Elstree designed by George Walton, who also worked for Kodak and W & W.

Street photographs are at the heart of our understanding of London as a diverse and dynamic capital. They are characterised by an element of chance – a fortunate encounter, a fleeting expression, a momentary juxtaposition, capturing an ever-changing city.

This major new exhibition at the Museum of London showcases an extraordinary collection of London street photography with over 200 candid images of everyday life in the street. From sepia-toned scenes of horse-drawn cabs taken on bulky tripod-mounted cameras to 21st century Londoners digitally ‘caught on film’, explore how street photography has evolved from 1860 to the present day. Examine the relationship between photographers, London’s streets and the people who live on them, and reflect on the place of photography on London’s streets today as anti-terrorism and privacy laws grow ever tighter.

London Street Photography brings together the works of 59 photographers including:

• Valentine Blanchard experimented with a small-format stereoscopic camera in 1860s London to produce the first photographs of busy city streets in which everything in motion was arrested in sharp definition.
• John Thomson produced a ground-breaking survey of London’s poor with the publication of Street Life in London in 1877.
• Paul Martin pioneered candid street photography in London when, in the early 1890s, he began using a camera disguised as a parcel to photograph people unawares.
• Horace Nicholls was an early independent press photographer whose candid photographs of well-to-do Edwardians at leisure are particularly revealing.
• Wolf Suschitzky came to London from Vienna in 1935 and began a personal project to photograph the life of Charing Cross Road, both day and night
• Roger Mayne sought to record a way of life as he photographed a rundown area of North Kensington before it was redeveloped in the 1960s. Mayne became a familiar figure as he hung around the streets, camera at the ready.
• Henry Grant was a freelance photojournalist with a profound interest in the everyday lives of ordinary peoples. He photographed London’s changing streets from the 1950s to the 1980s
• Paul Trevor moved to Brick Lane in the East End in the early 1970s and photographed life on the street almost every day for the next 10 years. His photographs are a unique record of the area before large-scale immigration and gentrification wrought their changes
• Paul Baldesare frequents London’s busy shopping streets, looking for remarkable gestures and expressions by individuals going about their everyday lives.
• Nils Jorgensen is a professional news and celebrity photographer who always has his camera to hand to capture street images in between assignments.
• Stephen McLaren seeks out quirky and colourful street images, while also leading a career directing and producing for television. He is co-author of the book Street Photography.
• Nick Turpin is a great advocate for contemporary street photography, founding the In-Public collective in 2000 as well as a publishing company to promote the genre.

Click here for more information and details of related events

London Street Photography runs from 18 February – 4 September 2011 at the Museum of London and entry is FREE.

A museum is trying to trace biographical details for a commercial photographer called David Kronig who was working from a London studio at 1 Marylebone Street. London W1,  Telephone: WEL 6985 c1960s. If anyone is able to assist with any information (dates work and where, date of death, details if he is still living, or any other information) if would be gratefully received. Please contact me at michael@mpritchard.com or comment here. I will pass the information on.

Thanks!

A copy of Antoine Claudet's will has just been sold on eBay. The will was described by the American seller as: UK 19th C probate of the will of Antoine Francois Jean Claudet dated 30th January 1868, extracted by Scadding & Son, London, 100 pounds for filling, excise stamp, fold-out seal, 3 pages plus small page, 22" x 27" on vellum, left most of estate to wife, (even liquors and looking glasses noted) complete.

The link will take anyone interested to the full eBay entry: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300523505412&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT or search on item number: 300523505412

Speakers will include Dr Michael Pritchard and Dr Ron Callender who have both completed a PhD and RPS Fellowships in different aspects of photographic history and are active researchers. There will also be presentations from other researchers presenting their research. One session will discuss how photographic history can be used to achieve a RPS distinction.

Admission is free but please register in advance. Click here for more information: http://www.rps.org/events/view/1989?m=0&y=2011&d=&t=0&g=Historical&r=0&reset=reset

Ashley Givens from the V+A, London, will be presenting a short paper about her research titled Painted and Photographic Portraits of Napoléon III and the Empress Eugénie at the Courtauld's Postgraduate symposium in London on Friday 11 March. Details are here: http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/events/2011/spring/mar10_phdsymposium.shtml. Entry is free.

Her abstract is below:

Painted and Photographic Portraits of Napoléon III and the Empress Eugénie
This dissertation explores the issues surrounding the public display and circulation of portraits of one of the mid-Nineteenth Century’s best-known figures, the Emperor of France, Napoléon III. The purpose is to understand how images of Napoléon III were conceived and created in various modes, and how they were then assessed by critics and disseminated among constituents. Many portraits of the Emperor were officially commissioned or sanctioned as appropriate depictions of France’s sovereign. These provide some sense of the range of roles played by the Emperor (and his wife and son).
In this symposium paper the roles include military commander, diplomat and redeemer of the people. This paper analyses a range of depictions which were broadly considered genre paintings. Alongside the portraits, genre paintings present a parallel means of relaying and, further, reinforcing information about the sovereign to his people. Themes of the paper include the relationship between nature and artifice and efforts to find a rhetoric for inscribing Napoléon III in France’s unfolding history. It examines which events of the 1850s and 1860s were chosen for commemoration, or as opportunities to showcase the work of the Emperor, as well as the reception of the resulting paintings.

The National Archives has digitised thousands of unique images of Africa and published them on Flickr this week. The collection spans more than 100 years of African history, from as early as the 1860s, including images of people, places, national and imperial events, conflict and natural disasters.

The images were transferred to The National Archives from the Colonial Office Library's photographic collection and offer a unique insight into life in the colonies. Approximately 10,000 images, a third of the entire collection, have been digitised so far.

As some of the images have minimal context, the public is invited to contribute to these historical assets by adding comments and captions, filling in knowledge gaps.

Oliver Morley, Acting Chief Executive of The National Archives, said: 'An online collection like this reaches beyond the academic world and into people's living rooms, enabling everyone to contribute to our understanding of past events.'

The 'Africa through a lens' collection is available now to view. Find out more and access the images here: nationalarchives.gov.uk/africa.  There is also a news report here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/feb/10/national-archives-empire-era-photos

People looking to uncover the true spirit of the iconic and currently ubiquitous wartime poster, Keep Calm and Carry On, may want to head to the Royal Air Force Museum to see the real backdrop of this chirpy wartime notice. The Mayor of London’s photographic and image based exhibition, commissioned by Boris Johnson for City Hall to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the London Blitz, is heading from its temporary home for a spell at the historic Hendon site.
Dedicate to the individuals involved in the emergency, volunteer, transport and specialist services who kept London going during the darkest days of the War, the exhibition features hard-hitting wartime images together with histories culled from the collections of various London organisations.
Each of dramatic photographs vividly portrays the story of London’s people, their determination and ‘Blitz Spirit’ at time when 30,000 Londoners were killed, entire communities destroyed and countless thousands left homeless.
The aerial bombing campaign on London during the Second World War ran from September 7 to May 11 1941. During this period 50,000 bombs and millions of incendiary devices fell on the city.
“We are particularly honoured to display this collaborative effort,” said Ian Thirsk, Head of Collections at the Royal Air Force Museum, “Iwhich narrates the story of how so many of the capital’s organisations were central to the on-going delivery of vital public services during late 1940 and early 1941.”
Mayor of London Boris Johnson also welcomed the exhibition's showing at the RAF Museum and similarly paid tribute to the “bravery and dogged determination of the men and women who battled to keep London going in the face of a terrifying and unremitting bombardment. This tremendous spirit and resilience remain at the very heart of the capital and we owe a huge debt of gratitude and respect to all those who helped secure London's future.”
The rarely seen images have been provided by London Transport Museum, the Museum of London, the Metropolitan Police Historical Collection, the Fire Brigade Museum, London Ambulance Service, Barts and London NHS and the Royal Pioneer Corps Association.

The London Blitz 70th anniversary Exhibition, The Bomber Hall of the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon until May 31 2011.

Robert Leggat who researched and maintained one of the first useful photographic history resources on the internet died on 20 January 2011. His A History of Photography from its beginnings till the 1920s (http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/index.html) was designed for school and college students and started in 1995. It is still available today and was being maintained by Leggat until shortly before his death. Put many historical photographic terms or personalities into a search engine and the chances are that Leggat’s website will be somewhere near the top of the results list.

Since its launch the site has had nearly 10 million visitors and the online guestbook from the early years (the guestbook was later discontinued as Leggat was unable to keep up with responding to questions and queries) was full of praise and thanks from students who had made use of it.

Leggat was involved in photographic education throughout his career and took an active role in the Royal Photographic Society as its Honorary Education Officer amongst other positions. A fuller obituary has been prepared but if anyone has any recollections or further knowledge of Robert's career and life please contact Michael Pritchard (email: michael@mpritchard.com)

De Montfort University is recruiting students for the 2011/12 intake on its MA History of Photography and Practice course. The programme started in 2009 and his been widely acclaimed for its distinctive approach to the teaching of photographic history and its focus on handling original objects. The course has established close links with various photographic collections such as the National Media Museum, British Library, Birmingham Central Library and Wilson Centre of Photography.

Download the course poster here high res AAD_161_FINAL_High_Res.pdf or low res: AAD_161_FINAL_Low_Res.pdf.

The Royal Collection has two cataloguing vacancies available both of which involve working with photographs held in the Collection.

• Cataloguer Twentieth Century Photographs.
• Based in the Royal Photograph Collection the role will entail working under the direction of the curator on cataloguing the remaining material in the collection, which is primarily 20th century. This ranges from official works by leading British photographers like Beaton, Snowdon and Lichfield, to press photographs and to personal snapshots taken by members of the Royal Family. . The role is for a fixed term of two years.
  Required: A broad knowledge of 20th-century British history and the history of photography;  relevant graduate or post-graduate qualification or equivalent experience; sound IT skills and a familiarity with art-collection databases.
  
  This is a fixed term post from April 2011 to April 2013. At a salary of £19,100. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/6klg6zp The deadline for entries is 13 February 2011.
  
  
• Raphael Collection Cataloguer
• The Print Room is part of the Royal Library section of the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. It is responsible for the works of art on paper in the Royal Collection, including old master drawings, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century watercolours, and prints – over 150,000 items in all. Among this material is the Prince Consort’s Raphael Collection, a unique assemblage of over 5,000 prints and photographs begun by Prince Albert in 1853 and intended to record every work by or after Raphael and his workshop.
  
  Although the Raphael Collection was catalogued in 1876 it has never been widely accessible, and the intention is now to record it on the Royal Collection’s Collections Management System (CMS) and make it available on the Royal Collection’s website. We are therefore seeking a cataloguer on a fixed-term basis, who will be responsible for entering information about each item to a uniform scholarly standard on the CMS.
  
  This is a fixed term post from April 2011 to April 2013. At a salary of £19,100. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/63zng4a Download a job description here: http://tinyurl.com/5tcq3gl

The National Media Museum is one of the leading museums in the north of England, receiving over 500,000 visitors a year and we want you to contribute to our ongoing success.

We are looking for extrovert, engaging and entertaining communicators to fill these stimulating roles. With your excellent presentation and performance skills and your keen interest in media, you will help bring the galleries to life for our diverse range of visitors. As part of the Explainer team in the Learning Department you will present live shows and use your creative skills to develop and deliver art, craft and media based activities for families and groups. It will be up to you to ensure visitors including families, school groups and teachers have an enjoyable, safe and educational visit.

If you have a passion for media, for communication, and for engaging children and adults of all ages, we’d love to hear from you.

This post is 4 days per week including one weekend day.

Part time - 28.8 hours per week
£10,674.40 per annum (£13,343 FTE) plus weekend allowance
Fixed term until January 2013

Closing date for applications: 5 February 2011

For a full job description please email
recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk

Interested? Please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk