Writer and PhD researcher, Alice Mercier, reports on “In the Photographic Darkroom“, a conference organised by D Sara Dominici, scholar of photographic history and visual culture. Instead of viewing the darkroom as a neutral container for photographic production, this conference studied the darkroom as a space with its own materiality, rhythm and choreography.

Read the piece here: https://cream.ac.uk/features/darkroom-development/

New photographs asnd cuttings from the 1939 excavation of Sutton Hoo, once part of Mercie Lack's personal collection and discovered in an attic, have been gifted to the National Trust by her great-nephew, Andrew Lack. The  material 'completes' a set of photographic albums gifted to it in 2018.

Barbara Wagstaff and Mercie Lack, both members of the ROyal Photographic Society, photographed the unearthing of the Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Suffolk on the eve of World War Two.

Join the V&A for a day of talks dedicated to Korean photography. This symposium will highlight Korea's vibrant photographic scenes looking back at its histories from the colonial period to the present day. You will hear from curators, publishers and contemporary artists and explore Korean photographs and postcards from the V&A's permanent collection. There will also be a guided tour of the Photography Centre.

This event is organised in collaboration with the University of Arizona, and supported by the Korea Arts Management Service, with additional support from the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism – Republic of Korea.

Details and free registration: https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/24OYlYXm6G/korean-photography-history-and-practices-1-nov-2023

Image Credit: Nodeulseom (1958-63, Seoul), Han Youngsoo, © Han Youngsoo Foundation

Imperial War Museums (IWM) has announced that the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will open at IWM London on 10 November 2023, ahead of Remembrance Sunday. The new galleries will present a significant new venue in London for phootgraphy of conflict from 1914, based on the museum's holdings of 12 million photographs and 23,000 hours of moving image.   

Thanks to generous support from main funder, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will be the UK’s first to explore how artists, photographers and filmmakers bear witness to and tell the story of war and conflict. Works including John Singer Sargent’s monumental painting Gassed, Steve McQueen’s response to the 2003 war in Iraq, Queen and Country, and works by artists including Paul Nash, Laura Knight and Rosalind Nashashibi, demonstrate how artistic interpretation can uniquely shape our understanding of war. With diverse displays from filmmakers including Peter Jackson, Geoffrey Malins and Omer Fast, and photographers including Olive Edis, Cecil Beaton and Tim Hetherington, the new, permanent galleries will reflect global conflict from 1914 to the present day.

Caro Howell MBE, Director-General of Imperial War Museums, said: “Artists, filmmakers and photographers are eyewitnesses, participants and commentators on conflict. Their work provides critical insight and perspective, while also having the power to deeply move us. We are therefore extremely grateful to our supporters, particularly the Blavatnik Family Foundation, for their generous support in making these beautiful galleries a reality, for enabling us to shine a light on our exceptionally rich visual media collections and for bringing them to a wider audience. Within these Galleries visitors can explore the ways in which art, film and photography shape, challenge and deepen our understanding of war and conflict.” 

Sir Leonard Blavatnik, founder of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, the predominant funder of the project, said: “I have long taken an interest in the history of conflict and the experience of those who suffer its impact. I am proud that my Family Foundation has supported this new initiative at the Museum, which confirms its pre-eminence in the field."

The development of the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries is part of the third phase in the dynamic transformation of IWM London. They enable IWM to share works from its exceptional art collection, one of the world’s most important representations of twentieth-century British art. The Galleries will include around 500 works from IWM’s collection, showcasing some of the vast and era-defining film and photography collections, which include over 23,000 hours of footage and over 12 million photographs. This is the first time in IWM’s history that a permanent gallery space has been created to display the three collections together - visual art, film and photography.

Stepping into the Galleries, visitors will learn how the museum has been collecting and interpreting artistic responses to conflict since its inception during the First World War. Objects on display will include Peter Jackson’s award-winning 2018 film They Shall Not Grow Old, which transformed original archive footage into colour for a reimagining of the First World War. Artworks from renowned artists from the First and Second World Wars will include works by Paul Nash, John Lavery and Laura Knight’s Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breec -ring, one of the most inspiring artworks to come from the period. More contemporary works include Paul Seawright’s Mounds, commissioned by IWM in 2002 to respond to the war in Afghanistan and photographs from John Keane who recorded the war in Iraq in 1991. Together, these objects reflect a century of seismic change culturally, socially and politically.

A series of spaces further explore how artists, filmmakers and photographers have been driven to respond to and record conflict. For the first time, these galleries will be presented thematically – a significant change from other major galleries at IWM London.

At the centre of the Galleries Practice and Process will include objects such as a wooden pencil box belonging to artist and Second World War prisoner of war Ronald Searle and paintbrushes carried by John Nash on the Western Front. On display for the first time will be documents and a press pass belonging to Paul Eedle, a war reporter and filmmaker who produced Channel 4 News’s award-winning coverage from Baghdad of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Images of filmmakers, artists and photographers at work in conflict zones will reveal their privileged viewpoint and special access on the ground, as well as the challenges and risks – including threat to life – that they face.

Mind and Body will explore how the scale, brutality and disruption of twentieth and twenty-first century conflict has changed the way the human body is seen and recorded. John Singer Sargent’s Gassed will take centre stage, returning to IWM London for the first time since 2016. The six metre-long painting has recently undergone extensive conservation work, including the removal of discoloured historical varnish, providing fresh insights and an opportunity for state-of-the-art imaging work. Other works include A Shell Forge at a National Projectile Factory by Anna Airy, who was one of the first female war artists, employed by the newly founded Imperial War Museum in 1918. Images including those from the portfolios of renowned photojournalists Cecil Beaton and Tim Hetherington, reveal how the artistic decisions of practitioners made on the ground have evolved from the First World War to the present.

Perspectives and Frontiers will show how artists, photographers and filmmakers have defined how we imagine and understand conflict spaces. Notable First World War artworks, including The Menin Road by Paul Nash, and the newly conserved A Battery Shelled by Wyndham Lewis and Oppy Wood by John Nash, will show how artists have captured the harsh realities and devastation of war on the ground. Second World War film footage from the RAF’s Bomber Command, paintings by Eric Ravilious and Mahwish Chishty’s By the Moonlight – a striking reimagining of the menace of drone warfare - will explore how practitioners have captured how conflict is fought in the air.

Power of the Image will explore the role of visual art as a form of propaganda and protest in twentieth and twenty-first conflict. It will include material from First World War Germany, posters from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, as well as film created by Britain’s Ministry of Information in the Second World War. This section also looks at how artists, photographers and filmmakers bear witness to the crimes and atrocities committed in conflict, and how their work is used as evidence. The official War Crimes Photography taken by Sergeant Alfred Edward Mcroy Pearce, and a new acquisition, Abu Ghraib, 2022, by artist Mohammed Sami, will be on display.

The Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will also have a dedicated Screening Space, showcasing a rich and diverse programme of IWM’s historical film collection, including war epic The German Retreat and Battle of Arras, which has been recently restored by IWM in collaboration with the University of Udine. The space will also allow the public to see many of these films for the first time. The Art Box, the second of two dedicated screening spaces within the Galleries, will focus on contemporary moving image and will feature exceptional works by Coco Fusco, Omer Fast and Shona Illingworth.

As in previous developments at IWM London, the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will be free to enter, making more of IWM’s world-class collection available and accessible to all. The Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will open at IWM London on 10 November 2023.

www.iwm.org.uk

Step back in time and immerse yourself in the wonders of 19th-century Southeast Asia as seen through the lens of the intrepid adventurer and photographer, John Thomson. The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum is proud to present an enchanting new exhibition Siam: Through the Lens of John Thomson on display from 21 October 2023 to 14 April 2024, inviting visitors to embark on a captivating journey through time and space. This extraordinary showcase offers a unique glimpse into the captivating landscapes, diverse cultures, and fascinating history of Southeast Asia, as captured by the illustrious Scottish Victorian photographer, John Thomson.

A British photographer with an exceptional eye for detail, Thomson embarked on a groundbreaking journey to Siam during the late Victorian era, with a fairly new invention in those days: photography, capturing scenes that had been scarcely witnessed before in the Western world. Throughout his remarkable career, Thomson ventured into uncharted territories and documented the exotic beauty and cultural richness of Thailand and Cambodia in stunning detail. His evocative photographs offer an invaluable historical record and a testament to his artistic sensibility and his photographic vision marks him out as one of history’s most important travel photographers.

The founders of the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Merton and Annie Russell-Cotes travelled extensively in their lifetime, bringing back crates full of ‘objets d’art’,as Merton described them in his memoirs. These were to fill almost every room of the house alongside Merton’s vast art collection and, in some cases, inspired the Russell-Cotes to alter and adapt rooms to a particular theme. As they visited almost every continent during their grand worldwide tours, it is only fitting that this exhibition works in collaboration with the vast collections from around the world on display at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum today. Annie and Merton witnessed similar scenes to John Thomson, but chose to collect objects, rather than images.

Featuring dramatic images developed from negatives preserved in London’s Wellcome Collection, this exhibition introduces the sights and people of nineteenth-century Thailand and Cambodia as witnessed by Thomson first hand. In this new exhibition, visitors to the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum will have the privilege of witnessing many meticulously preserved photographs taken by Thomson during his travels, carefully curated to provide an insightful narrative of his exploration. Each image tells a story of its own, serving as a bridge between the past and the present, enabling visitors to forge a deeper connection with the cultures and history of Thailand and Cambodia.

The photographs on display encompass a diverse range of subjects, including awe-inspiring temples, architectural marvels, picturesque landscapes, and enchanting portraits of everyday life, ceremonies royalty, tradition, and customs. Each photograph serves as a testament to Thomson's skill as a storyteller, highlighting the allurement of these distant lands. Thomson also received special permission to visit Angkor Wat (then under Siam’s control), becoming the first to photograph its famous ruins.

He used the wet-collodion process as his method for taking photographs, so called because an exposure was made onto a glass negative. His process had to be carried out in complete darkness, requiring a portable darkroom tent and a large amount of equipment. He travelled around Siam with many crates of glass negatives and bottles of potentially harmful chemicals, which was remarkable considering the difficult terrain and unfamiliar regions he often visited. Despite these challenges, Thomson was able to capture the natural beauty of the land as well as the daily lives of the people he encountered. His style has been described as "photo-journalistic," a term which acknowledges his ability to capture authentic and natural moments through his photography.

In addition to the captivating photographs, the exhibition will also feature informative panels, present day photographs and an exciting calendar of insightful talks and workshops. Visitors will have the opportunity to engage with historical context of the time and gain insights into Thomson's wet collodion photography methods and techniques to understand the cultural significance of his work in Southeast Asia and the world of photography.

Siam: Through the Lens of John Thomson (1865-1866)
21 October 2023 to 14 April 2024
Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum  in Bournemouth.
Details: https://russellcotes.com/event/john-thomson/

Thursday 26 October 2023, 11am & 2pm : Exhibition Tour with Narisa Chakrabongse, exhibition curator and member of the Thai Royal Family
Tuesday 1 November 2023, 11am: Online Talk:  The Collodion Revolution: The process that transformed 19th century photography
Tuesday 14 November 2023, 10.30am -5pm:  Wet Plate Collodion Workshop:
Thursday 16 November 2023: Museum Late 5pm – 8pm: Thailand and Beyond

This conference has two public Zoom events with its keynote speakers. Carolin Gorgen's paper (‘I know what I’m doing’ – Female Empowerment and Gendered Ideas of Photography in the Transatlantic Camera Club Network) on 12 October will be diffused online at 1600 (BST). Zoom registration is necessary using the link here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UsqMYbm4S62y5SgY0-TJBw) and there will be an opportunity to attend Elizabeth Edward's paper ‘Bonds, Attachments and Networks: photographies of connection' in person only for the Oxford's community at 1600 (BST) on 13 October. 

Accompanying the conference is an exhibition which will run until 29 December 

Love and Lenses: Photographic Couples, Gender Relationships, and Transatlantic Networks in the Long Nineteenth Century
12 and 13 October 2023
Maison Française d'Oxford and Rothermere American Institute
The updated programme is available here.
Exhibition details: https://www.mfo.ac.uk/event/exhibition-love-lenses

Renowned photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is famous for her evocative portraits of eminent Victorians, including John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Taylor, George Frederic Watts, Ellen Terry and Julia Stephen. This study of her work reveals how deeply she was convinced of the poetic possibilities of her medium, particularly its capacity for suggestive rather than literal meaning. She did not get it right on all counts, and her practice violated the aesthetic orthodoxy of the day. But the blurring of the ‘real’ subject before her lens created unparalleled possibilities for a broader pursuit of the sublime and beautiful.

Drawing on over 100 items from the photographic collections at the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, as well as comparative works of art, this book celebrates a collection that illustrates the aesthetic development of the photographer from her earliest pictures to her most poetic photographs. It also includes her own poetry and the key images she created for her extraordinary Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, demonstrating her fascination with the artistic connection between poetry and photography.

Nichole J. Fazio is the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Research and Scholars Programs at the University of Chicago. She is also the founding executive director of the College Center for Research and Fellowships and lecturer in the Humanities Collegiate Division.

Julia Margaret Cameron: A Poetry of Photography
Nichole J Fazio
Bodleian Library Publishing
£50, hardback, 256 pages
ISBN 9781851245840

Details and order: https://bodleianshop.co.uk/products/julia-margaret-cameron

Sound & Vision brings together works that use photography as a vehicle for creative collaboration. The sale begins with ‘Sound’ - Lots 1- 43 reveal the relationships between musicians and photographers on stage and in the studio, including Philip Townsend’s (1940-2016) iconic photographs of the Rolling Stones, views of the young Beatles by Terry O’Neill (1938-2019) and Michael Ward (1929-2011) and a selection of portraits of David Bowie in his various guises.

Lots 44-166 showcase the photographers’ vision beyond the darkroom and into the world of layout: the photobook. Featuring an array of rare, collectable, and signed titles, we are please to present a selection from the personal library of Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins (b.1947), including rare, signed copies of books by fellow Magnum colleagues – Henri Cartier-Bresson, Abbas, Harry Gruyaert, Martin Parr, and many others, along with Steele-Perkins’ personal signed copy of Chris Killip’s sought-after first edition of In Flagrante (1988).

Also included in this section of the sale, Lots 84-93 present a selection of incredibly rare and significant titles in the history of the Chinese photobook. From a private London collection, compiled with a focus on visual texts that demonstrate the evolution of photography’s role in the People’s Republic and the Cultural Revolution, this is a unique opportunity to acquire works cited by Martin Parr and WassinkLundgren in their seminal text The Chinese Photobook: From the 1900s to the Present (2015).

Details here: https://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/auction/details/29-september-2023-sound--vision-photobooks--music-photography/?au=1040

BPH has just learnt of the passing of Stephen Herbert, an important historian of the motion picture, pre-cinema and photographic technology. Through his position at the BFI and Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI), and with his own imprint The Projection Box which he and his parner Mo Heard set up in 1994 Stephen undertook significant work in presenting new research and making moving picture technology accessible.

For many years he was the Magic Lantern Society's Research Officer and the driving force behind a series of publications, in collaboration with others, and usually published alongside the Society's convention. They remain important reference books. His Who's Who of Victorian Cinema ( print (1996) and online, with Luke McKernam) similarly was well-researched and filled a significant gap in knowledge. 

Stephen was a consultant to the Dubai museum of the moving image, and worked for the Qatar Museums Authority when it was considering setting up a media museum. He was also an advisor to Kingston Museums for its Eadweard Muybridge collections.  

His online websites, publications and articles and papers will remain an enduring legacy. he also worked closes with the late Gordon Trewinnard and the milestones in cinema history project was created replicas of key milestone cinemographic cameras from the first years of cinema. 

See a BPH note on The Projection Box
Stephen's personal website is here
An obituary written Luke McKernan appeared in The Guardian on 22 September. 
The Optilogue

A short bibliography and biographical details are here: https://lucerna.exeter.ac.uk/person/index.php?language=EN&id=6002387

Photo: Mo Heard, from The Optilogue

University of the Arts London (UAL) is seeking to appoint a highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Fellow (PDRF) to work on a research project entitled ‘Cold War and ‘Other’ Narratives’, led by Principal Investigator Professor Mark Sealy in collaboration with IWM (Imperial War Museums) London.

This fellowship will pave the way to grow an ambitious and impactful programme of joint research and knowledge exchange activity between the college and the museum.

The critical research tasks are to investigate and examine through the archives of the IWM, the diverse or buried stories that have impacted independence movements throughout the West’s colonial territories. Using the Cold War as a dominant narrative, the research process aims to perform forensic work on the ideological perspectives that influenced and shaped the majority world’s move to independence. In understanding our contemporary global political climate, we must continuously examine how East/West relationships post-Second World War concerning the pre-post-colonial eras have shaped our world, and critically investigate how images produced within the context of Cold War politics have framed and shaped the making of Allies and constructed ‘Others’. The project aims to present a different or alternative visual framework to create a new understanding concerning processes of liberation across the colonised world, and how images have been articulated, framed and put to work in cultures that have aided the construction of a dominant narrative concerning post-colonial political formations.

Details and applications: https://jobs.arts.ac.uk/job/10102-postdoctoral-research-fellow/

The Franklin expedition portraits reported on here several weeks ago have sold for £350,000 (£444,500 including premium, exceeding the upper estimate. There's no news regarding the buyer and the lot will be subject to an export licence should the purchaser choose to export it. 

Details of the lot and illustrations are here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/travel-atlas-maps-photographs/studio-of-richard-beard-a-set-of-14-daguerreotypes

The National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, has acquired a large collection of magic lantern slides, formerly part of the lending library of the Riley Brothers of Bradford. The slides were formerly owned by John Jones, a collector and historian of the magic lantern who died in 2010. 

The collection features images of local people and cityscapes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, telling a rich visual story of Bradford’s heritage. Comprising of 182 magic lantern sets with over 2600 individual slides, the images were produced by posing models, either volunteers or the photographer’s family and friends, alongside props or in real-life landscapes to tell a visual story.  

The images show locations from around Bradford including the former banking hall on Hustlergate. Some of exterior images are difficult to identify, and members of the public are encouraged to get in touch with the museum if they recognise any locations.  

The Riley Brothers established their own magic lantern business in Bradford on Godwin Street, selling slides and equipment while manufacturing their own magic lanterns.     

The newly acquired collection is now being documented, photographed, treated, rehoused, and stored by the museum to add to its extensive collection of magic lanterns and magic lantern slides. The museum also holds the vast Kodak Collection, that includes the Riley ‘Kineoptoscope’ projector which converted magic lanterns into motion picture projectors, bringing movies to the theatres of Bradford.  

Commenting on the new acquisition, Vanessa Torres, Conservator at the National Science and Media Museum said: “Our collections are constantly growing, and new acquisitions can take on many different shapes and sizes. When we acquired this large collection of magic lantern slides, it was a truly a cross-department effort to document, conserve, and digitise the objects to ensure that these fascinating images can be accessed and enjoyed by everyone.”  

To learn more about the process of bringing the new acquisition into the museum’s collection, visit: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/magic-lantern-slides-collection/  

10×10 Photobooks has announced a new grant cycle and call for applications as part of its annual photobook research grants program to encourage and support scholarship on under-explored topics in photobook history. The program began in 2021 and the first two cycles focused on research connected with 10×10’s project What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843-1999. For this round, we are inviting proposals on any topic or geography connected with the history of the photobook. Note that these grants are NOT for the making of a photobook.

10×10’s photobook research grant application is now open through Friday, 27 October 2023 and accepts submissions related to research and scholarship that seeks to fill gaps and supply missing information in the history of the photobook from any period. The concept of the photobook is interpreted in the broadest sense possible: classic bound books, portfolios, personal albums, unpublished books, zines, digital media, and scrapbooks. The evaluation of proposals will consider the importance of the proposed topic (how significant and/or unknown is the subject) and the strength of the proposed approach.

Details and applications: https://10x10photobooks.org/10x10-research-grants/

Paul Fischer's book The man who invented motion pictures (2022) about Louis Le Prince is now available as a free download.  The year is 1888, and Louis Le Prince is finally testing his "taker" or "receiver" device for his family on the front lawn. The device is meant to capture ten to twelve images per second on film, creating a reproduction of reality that can be replayed as many times as desired. In an otherwise separate and detached world, occurrences from one end of the globe could now be viewable with only a few days delay on the other side of the world. No human experience--from the most mundane to the most momentous--would need to be lost to history.

In 1890, Le Prince was granted patents in four countries ahead of other inventors who were rushing to accomplish the same task. But just weeks before unveiling his invention to the world, he mysteriously disappeared and was never seen or heard from again. Three and half years later, Thomas Edison, Le Prince's rival, made the device public, claiming to have invented it himself. And the man who had dedicated his life to preserving memories was himself lost to history--until now.

The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures pulls back the curtain and presents a "passionate, detailed defense of Louis Le Prince...unfurled with all the cliffhangers and red herrings of a scripted melodrama" (The New York Times Book Review). This "fascinating, informative, skillfully articulated narrative" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) presents the never-before-told history of the motion picture and sheds light on the unsolved mystery of Le Prince's disappearance.

Click here to download a PDF of  the book. 

Special Auction Services is to offer a rare - most likely unqiue - four lens magic lantern designed and built c.1897 by David William Noakes (1859-1934). The lantern is accompanied by a two large groups of slides. The lantern and slides were passed to the vendors' grandfather and he and his son used the lantern before it disappeared from view. 

In a technical foreword to the catalogue entry Dr Richard Crabgle, writing in the Magic Lantern Society Journal (no. 30 / 2022)  describes the history of the lantern. He notes 'The lantern itself is in its original wooden carrying case, with additional boxes for lenses, illuminants and slides. For transport and storage, the enormous brass lens tubes are removed and carried separately; even so the lantern in its case is too large for a single person to move any distance. Two groups of slides accompany the lantern. The first group comprises around 1500 wood-framed slides, in sets corresponding to the lectures Noakes gave in the 1890s...The second group comprises approximately 5,000 3¼ inch slides, mainly photographic ‘views’ but including some transfer slides (Primus, Theobald etc.) of fairy tales and other entertainment subjects.'

Accompanying the lantern are a number of technical papers, lantern programmes and photographs showing Noakes' workshop including the qud lantern.

Crangle notes 'I suggest that the lantern was built in or soon after 1897, for D.W. Noakes’s own use in his lecturing engagements. That date, paradoxically, coincided with his retirement as an optical manufacturer: an 1897 trade press account says that was because he took on more work for the family’s hay merchant business after his father’s retirement. In 1897 Noakes was planning to set up a “miniature workshop” at his new home, “so that when any idea pertaining to lanterns occurs to him he will be able to practically carry it out in a manner worthy of a lantern enthusiast.” It’s tempting to see the Quad lantern as just such a personal project, perhaps realising a long-nurtured dream.'

The ‘Noakes Quad’ will be offered with the principal collection of approximately 1,500 mahogany-mounted 3¼i n sq and other Magic Lantern Slides directly related to David Noakes, with associated artefacts and ephemera, as Lot 41.

The secondary collection of approximately 5,000 3¼in sq Magic Lantern Slides, which appears to be from diverse sources - although some slides appear to mirror the titles and contents of the principal collection with some titles possibly in David Noakes’ hand - will be offered separately as Lot 42 to Lot 78. The online catalogue will be available shortly. See: https://www.specialauctionservices.com/Auction-Calendar/2023/Photographica-and-Cameras-Auction-(5)

The National Portrait Gallery is hosting two events around its Yevonde: Life and Colour exhibition. On 15 September the NPG will hold a panel discussion chaired by Chanel Curator for the Collection, Flavia Frigeri, and include panellists Juno Calypso, Ajamu X and Marika Takanishi Knowles to discuss role-play in the arts. On 29 September a study day will consider the breadth of Yevonde’s innovative photography. 

The exhibition closes on 15 October 2023

Details: 
Yevonde panel discussion:  role-play in the arts / 15 September 
Study Day: Yevonde - an exploration / 29 September 

This one-day, in-person, interdisciplinary workshop will bring together researchers, archivists and curators to explore twentieth-century photo-magazines from across the British Empire and Commonwealth during the so-called ‘golden age of photojournalism’. Registration is now open - it is not being streamed so attendance in person is necessary.  

As well as the birth of photojournalism, the seismic political, cultural and technological revolutions of the interwar period also gave rise to a novel publication format – the photo-magazine. As Stuart Hall characterised it in his seminal 1972 essay on Picture Post, these were ‘image-over-text’ publications which gave primacy to the photographic image arranged into dynamic layouts and photo-stories by an innovative cadre of picture editors and art directors.

Exemplified by photo-reportage from the Spanish Civil War, this novel format was catalysed during the Second World War via widely circulated visual information campaigns by both commercial organisations and political actors. In the postwar period, the photo-magazine format was deployed by British occupying forces in defeated Germany. Photo-magazines were also a vital element of flourishing public relations initiatives by both newly established agencies of the UN and a host of industrial and manufacturing companies concerned about image management.

Thus, throughout the central decades of the last century, the general readership photo-magazine was developed and used to communicate with large, diverse and/or distant audiences. This format constituted a defining aspect of a public’s visual experience prior to the segmentation of magazine audiences from the 1960s and the dominance of television. This period – arguably, the golden age of photojournalism – coincides with the decline and disestablishment of the British Empire.

A selection of papers will look at publications from across the British Empire and Commonwealth in this period. These will address how such photo-magazines sought to instruct and entertain; how they represented social issues; how they othered and racialised indigenous communities; how they documented conflict; how they obscured, as much as revealed, historical developments; how they constructed, connected or divided audiences and publics; and how they explored or framed key tensions in the changing political landscape of the British Commonwealth and its constituent dominions and dependencies.

Hosted by the Tom Hopkinson Centre for Media History at Cardiff University, this initiative is a collaboration between Dr Tom Allbeson (Senior Lecturer in Media History, Cardiff University) and Dr Kevin Foster (Associate Professor in Literary Studies, Monash University).

Photo-magazines across the British Empire & Commonwealth, c.1930-65
Friday, 22 September 2023
Cardiff
Free
See the programme and register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/photo-magazines-across-the-british-empire-commonwealth-c1930-65-tickets-714578191607?aff=oddtdtcreator

Launched online last week is the Sankey Family Photography Collection of 10,000 photographs taken by father and son, Edward and Raymond Sankey in Barrow-in-Furness. The physical archive, now housed at Cumbria Archives, is a collection of glass plate negatives and postcards of Barrow and the north-west, which is believed to be the largest of its kind, documenting Barrow between the years of 1890 and 1970.

The images were catalogued and digitised as part of the Seeing the North with Sankey Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage fund with the support of a team of volunteers.

See: https://signalfilmandmedia.com/sankey-website-launch/

Image: Duke & Duchess of York at Walney Bridge / 4 Apr 1935

Bonhams auction of the Lesley Mees Collection Votes for Women includes several lots of photography including an album c.1908-1909 showing 'joyous scenes' of suffragettes leaving Holloway prison, and other subjects. It is estimated at £1500-2000. 

To accompany the Museum of Bath at Work's exhibition Face to Face: Victorian and Edwardian Portraits of Working People in Bath made from negatives from the studio of Tom Carlyle Leaman at number 7, The Corridor off Union Street and showing Bath people in the 1890s-1910s, the museum holding a study day.

The day will explore some of the themes in the exhibition. 

Study Day programme
Each talk will include time for questions and discussion
10.00 Welcome and introduction
10.10 Nick Russell on Photography in the 19th century and photography in Bath
10.55 Ann Cullis on Dress, accessories, hair, fashion styles, and making methods
11.40 Kirsten Elliott on Department stores and shops in Bath
12.30-13.30 Lunch break
13.30 June Hannam on Working lives: the jobs they did, with focus on women workers
14.15 Bath Record Office staff on Bath Record Office, introducing the resources available
14.55 Close, and concluding questions/discussion
15.15-16.00 Researching your family history beginners advice; where and how to start; problem-solving and problem-sharing

Details: https://bath-at-work.org.uk/event/introductory-talks-face-to-face-victorian-and-edwardian-portraits-of-working-people-in-bath/
Museum of Bath at Work
Julian Road, Bath BA1 2RH
e: mobaw@hotmail.com 
w: www.bath-at-work.org.uk