Michael Pritchard's Posts (3137)

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12201199496?profile=originalThe book is a developed history of the radiological sciences – covering the back-story to Röntgen’s discovery, the discovery itself and immediate reception the early days of radiology leading to classical radiology (the pre-digital world). The 1970s as the ‘golden decade’ of radiology will be covered in detail, with the development of CT, MRI and modern interventional radiology. It will appeal to interested members of the public, to those working in the field, and to historians of medicine and science. 


Invisible Light. The Remarkable Story of Radiology
Adrian Thomas
Routledge, 2022
Hb: 978-0-367-34426-9 | £31.19
20% Discount Available - enter the code FLE22 at checkout
Details: http://www.routledge.com/9780367344269


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12201171292?profile=originalThis is one of nine Assistant Curator posts that sit in the Art, Architecture, Photography and Design Department. As such, the main purpose of the job is to provide curatorial support in the development, care of, documentation and research, presentation and interpretation of a part of V&A’s Collection, in this case the Photography Section. Assistant Curators spend a significant portion of their time working on object-related activity that pertains to the care and display of collections, maintaining documentation and developing interpretation to allow for their presentation to wide audiences.

As a member of the Department, the postholder will also play a role in the wider work of the V&A, contributing to policy, projects and public programmes and supporting fundraising and income generation. Assistant Curators also play a role in their relevant department and will be part of the community supporting the museum’s scholarship in the Photography Section. In short, this is a wide-ranging role in which the postholder will be able to develop their skills in all aspects of museum curation.

Open to internal applicants only. 

Details here

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12201208053?profile=originalThis photobook collection was brought together over the past 30 years with the intention of representing a broad range of titles dating from the late 19th century to the modern day. There are many rare and beautiful books in outstanding condition which sit alongside a diverse range of titles which have been historically overlooked but have now become an important part of the contemporary photobook ‘canon’.

There is no single photobook history, thus the title of this collection which is intended to form the foundation of further discoveries from both the past and the future.

It was a labour of love gathering these books together and the intention is now for them to find a new home. For more details on pricing and information about The Photobook Histories collection please contact: Nick Higbee at the Pallant Gallery Bookshop shop@pallantbookshop.com

Details: https://www.photobookhistories.com/

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I12201209468?profile=originaln 1946, shortly after his retirement from the Department of Geography at Sheffield University, Dr R N Rudmose Brown donated a small collection of photographs taken in British Columbia in the late 1860s to the Royal Geographical Society.

Their presence in the Society's Collection invites reflection on their donor, maker, origins, initial circulation, repurposing, preservation, significance, and meanings. Rudmose Brown, founder member of the Institute of British Geographers was the younger son of botanist Dr Robert Brown (of Camster), and had likely inherited the collection from his father, who had been a friend of photographer Frederick Dally (1838-1914), when the two lived in Victoria, BC, during the 1860s.  At that time, geography – not in the sense of a rigidly defined academic discipline, but rather more broadly as popular quest for knowledge about the world, its places, and its peoples – had a firm hold on the Victorian mind; photography was a way to foster, facilitate, and further its pursuit.

Employed as an aid to field work, an accessory of travel, and a form of visual documentation, photography, like geography, was a way of picturing place. More broadly and with the authority of on-the-spot observation, Brown's photographs speak to the entangled and mutually reinforcing connections between photo-graphos (light writing) and geo-graphos (earth writing). Through them, we can begin to understand how nineteenth-century photographs were embraced as agents of sight to extend the powers of human observation across space and time, and served as sites of agency where the subjective experience of space and time was expressed and shaped. 

Picturing place: reflections on a photograph collection from British Columbia
Joan M. Schwartz
London, Royal Geographical Society, and online
25 November 2022, from 1430-1545, £5 non-members
Register: https://www.rgs.org/events/autumn-2022/be-inspired-picturing-place/

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12201210485?profile=originalAn online print sale featuring the work of more than 50 of the best photographers working in Britain today runs until 19 December. It will raise funds for the new Centre for British Photography and the Hyman Foundation’s support of emerging photographers in Britain, through commissions, grants, exhibitions and acquisitions.

Featuring the work of Julia Fullerton-Batten, David Hurn, Karen Knorr and Martin Parr among others and priced at £70, the A4 prints will be available to purchase from 17 November – 19 December 2022 on the Centre for British Photography website: www.britishphotography.org.

The Centre, a new home for British photography, will open in London in late January 2023. It will build on the world-renowned Hyman Collection of British photography and the work of the Hyman Foundation. Three floors of exhibitions will present the diverse landscape of British photography today, as well as an historical overview. The 8000 sq. ft. Centre will be FREE to visit year-round and will offer exhibitions, events and talks, a shop and an archive and library.

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12201206876?profile=originalCreated by Sampad in partnership with Birmingham Archives, Library of Birmingham and University of Birmingham, From City Of Empire To City Of Diversity: A Visual Journey is an exhibition which documents post-1945 migration and the huge contribution made by those who settled in Birmingham from the Commonwealth.

The exhibition has been created from The Dyche Collection, one of the most important photographic collections within Birmingham Archives and acquired by Birmingham Central Library in 1990.

The collection of photographs from The Dyche Studios gives a fascinating and personal insight into Birmingham’s transformation. People who had moved to the city visited the studio to have their portraits taken so they could send them home to their families, capturing key moments in their lives and often painting a more positive picture of life in Birmingham than they were experiencing.

The exhibition also draws upon other collections held by Birmingham Archives, notably Benjamin Stone, Helen Caddick, Paul Hill, Nick Hedges, Vanley Burke and George Hallet.

Together with personal memories and stories of migration, these have been transformed into an exhibition which shows the range of experiences that have shaped Birmingham into the city it is today.

From City Of Empire To City Of Diversity: A Visual Journey
Birmingham Back to Backs
55-63 Hurst Street/50-54 Inge Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B5 4TE
until 6 March 2023.
There will be a series of curator’s talks on23 and 26 January 2023.
Details: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/birmingham-west-midlands/birmingham-back-to-backs/exhibition

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12201207467?profile=originalBeginning in the 1920s, news agencies started distributing photographs using devices that transmitted images along telephone wires and radio waves. For the first time, large publics beheld images that had been separated from their material supports, travelling as electrical signals through telecommunications infrastructure. Yet, for another twenty years, wire photography remained limited to the industrialized world. All this changed during World War Two, when the American Office of War Information (OWI) established a news photography service that operated in colonial periphery, where privately funded news services had never distributed photos, since there was no chance of recovering profits.

Modern Enchantments, Anachronistic Space: The American Office of War Information Overseas Radiophoto Section in Central Africa and the British Raj, 1942-1945
Jonathan Dentler
Cpourtauld Research Forum

Monday 21st November 2022, 5:30pm - 6.30pm
Free, booking essential.
Online via Zoom, book here

 

 

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12201212889?profile=originalKatherine Howells at The National Archives, Kew, has written a blog about the copyright records held at TNA and how the data can around them be analysed.  In the 1860s photography as a new medium was coming under scrutiny and issues of ownership and copyright were being debated. This culminated in the 1862 Fine Arts Copyright Act, which allowed people to register photographs, paintings, and drawings with the Stationers’ Company for copyright protection for the first time. These records are now held at The National Archives in record series COPY 1.

This blog explores how the rich catalogue data for this collection can be cleaned and analysed in order to reveal how photographers and publishers responded to the new legislation and uncover information about the nature of photographic industries in the early 1860s.

Read the full blog here: https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/analysing-britains-earliest-copyrighted-photographs/

Thanks to Dick Weindling for flagging this up.

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12201205682?profile=originalThe latest issue of The Classic, a free magazine about classic photography is now available for download or can be picked up from its usual distributors. Issue 8 includes interviews with Charlotte Barthélemy  and Adrienne Lundgren, features on Café Royal Books, Erwin Blumenfeld, woman and late Qing Dynasty photographs and other. 

Download the last and back issues here: https://theclassicphotomag.com/

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Magda Keaney to leave London's NPG

12201200892?profile=originalMagda Keaney, Senior Curator, Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London, will be leaving her post at the end of December to return to her home country of Australia for family reasons.

Keaney has been in post since October 2018 and has been responsible for a a series of significant projects at the Gallery. When asked what she thought her main achievement had been she noted "leading the photographs curatorial team toward a complete collection re-contextualisation and display for the NPG 'Inspiring People' project. This includes major new acquisitions and a representation of the Gallery's daguerreotype collection." She added: "I have especially relished the opportunity to curate the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize 2019, 2020 & 2021. To meet and work with such incredible photographic talent through the award has been a particular joy. I will continue to work with my much-admired colleagues and the supportive and brilliant photography community and network that I've been a part of through my independent curatorial practice.

Keaney will continue to work as an external curator with the NPG towards a major photographic exhibition project currently underway and soon to be announced. The NPG reopens to the public after extensive refurbishment in spring 2023. 

Magda can be reached directly at: magdakeaney@hotmail.com

Her NPG profile is here https://www.npg.org.uk/research/staff-research-profiles/magda-keaney and below: 

Job description

As Senior Curator, Photographs, I lead a team of curators responsible for acquisitions, displays and exhibitions, research and care of the Photographs collection. I work across historical and contemporary periods to ensure that the Photographs collection is well researched, accessible and presented in thought provoking ways. The Gallery has produced many important photographic exhibitions and catalogues which we are continuing to develop. As Associate Curator, Photographs, I curated Irving Penn Portraits at the Gallery in 2010.

I am excited to be working toward our ‘Inspiring People’ project which is a remarkable opportunity to reimagine the interpretation and display of the collection. We are thinking about ways to weave photographic portraits and the stories they tell about who we are through the Gallery in unexpected, challenging and uplifting ways.

Biography

I started my curatorial career working as a researcher at the National Gallery of Australia. I developed my first photographic exhibitions as an Assistant Curator at the Australian National Portrait Gallery and I worked on the inaugural historic display of prominent Australians at the institution. I subsequently worked as an Assistant and Associate curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London. I was Curator at the Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion where photography was key to a cross disciplinary exhibition program I instigated. At this time I started work for my book ‘Fashion Photography Next’ published by Thames and Hudson, then also presented as an exhibition with Foam Photomuseum in Amsterdam and the Fashion Space Gallery. Before returning to London, I was Senior Curator, Photographs, at the Australian War Memorial, where I curated the Centenary of Armistice exhibition ‘After the War’.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in the History of Art from the Australian National University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies from the University of Melbourne and a MA in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Research interests

My current research at the NPG is focused on the major reconceptualisation and presentation of the photographs collection for the Inspiring People project spanning nineteenth century to the contemporary period. I am also researching the work of Julia Margaret Cameron and Francesca Woodman side-by-side for a forthcoming exhibition.

My research is most often object and archive based and considers an expanded field of lens based practice. I have particular interests in women photographers, Australian photography, fashion image making, the photographic studio, photography and conflict and contemporary practice. I was the curator of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2019, 2020 & 2021, including ‘In focus’ displays by Ethan James Green and Alessandra Sanguinetti.

I am a PhD candidate at the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at the Australian National University.

Recent Publications

Over two decades I have written extensively about photography for magazines and journals as well as for exhibition catalogues including:

100 Fashion Icons, National Portrait Gallery, 2019

‘Cindy Sherman’s Fashion Pictures’, in Cindy Sherman, National Portrait Gallery, 2019

‘Forced into Images’ by Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser, in Know my Name, National Gallery of Australia, 2020

Fashion Photography Next, Thames & Hudson, 2014

Irving Penn Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 2010

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The Photographic Collections Network has 12201205273?profile=originalannounced a series of events which includes a seminar on Diversity and Representation in collections. The first workshop in a series on the Care of Photographs led by the National Trust, and we have a talk from a PhD researcher on working with Family Albums. In January we will be having an event from Creative Commons looking at Intellectual Property with a Creative Common License, and a session from National Lottery Heritage Fund on their Dynamic Collections Fund.

As usual, all our events are free to book with the option of making a donation. 

Details: https://www.photocollections.org.uk/

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12201203481?profile=originalRose Teanby has written a blog for the V&A Museum on Anna Atkins cyanotypes in the V&A photography collection. She writes...'I recently returned to visit the V&A Archive viewing materials relating to Atkins’s contribution to the 1984 touring exhibition The Golden Age of British Photography where once again her images added a splash of early monochromatic colour to an exhibition charting the history of British photography. The archival documents revealed the behind-the-scenes hard work of assembling, documenting, insuring, transporting and finally exhibiting images at five USA venues in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art....'

Read the full blog here: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/caring-for-our-collections/a-blueprint-for-the-future-cyanotypes-by-anna-atkins

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12201199883?profile=originalJames Hamilton has announced the rediscovery of an eighth, previously unrecorded copy of Hill and Adamson's publication A Series of Calotype Views of St Andrews. The publication was found in the Signet Library having been miscategorised in a post-1882 catalogue. 

Details: https://twitter.com/lixmount/status/1589604007013920769

For the WS Signet Library see:  https://www.wssociety.co.uk/

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12201203099?profile=originalThe Kraszna-Krausz Foundation is delighted to be collaborating with the new Parasol Foundation Women in Photography project at the V&A to present a special event celebrating this year’s winning title, What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843-1999 (10×10 Photobooks).

A symposium of editor, curator and artist presentations will take place on Wednesday 14 December at the V&A in South Kensington. Hosted by Fiona Rogers (inaugural Curator of the Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project), an international group of participants will discuss their books, the challenges and joys of developing a project for publication and their practice more broadly.

Whilst this event and content is curated for adults, we welcome parents with young children. We will also be live streaming, if you are unable to attend or access the Museum

This is a free event but booking is essential. Reserve your place here.

Programme Schedule:

4pm: Welcome and introductions
4.10pm – 5.10pm: Presentations by Russet Lederman, Olga Yatskevich and Mariama Attah
5.10pm – 5.30pm: Break
5.30pm – 7pm: Presentations by Dr Marta Weiss, Erika Lederman and Rhiannon Adam
7.00pm – 8pm: Drinks reception

Speakers:

Editors Russet Lederman & Olga Yatskevich of 10×10 Photobooks will join us to discuss the development of their seminal new anthology. ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843-1999‘ which sheds light on photobooks created by women from diverse backgrounds and addresses the glaring gaps and omissions in current photobook history—in particular, the lack of access, support and funding for non-Western women and women of colour. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs of classic bound books, portfolios, personal albums, unpublished books, zines and scrapbooks, ranging from well-known publications to the more obscure.

Rhiannon Adam was longlisted for this year’s Kraszna-Krausz Photography Award for her book ‘Big Fence / Pitcairn Island’ (Blow Up Press). The Pitcairn Islands are Britain’s last Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. Pitcairn Island itself (25°4′0″S, 130°6′0″W) is the only inhabited island in the group, and though it is diminutive in both size (measuring just two miles by one mile), and population (now fewer than 50), it has garnered widespread interest for the last two centuries. In 2015, Adam, inspired by a childhood gift of The Mutiny on The Bounty and a desire to capture the island’s fragility on expiring analogue film, made the long journey to Pitcairn Island. Due to the quarterly shipping schedule, she remained trapped on the island for 96 nights.

Adam will speak about the long development of this project and its eventual manifestation in book form. Designed to be as impenetrable and complex as the island itself, the book is comprised of two parts: Adam’s own experience of the island as related through her captions and personal stories, and a volume of photographs and related archive.

Mariama Attah (Curator of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool) will speak about the essay she contributed to ‘What They Saw’, and will discuss what has been included in the book, what has been left out, and more broadly why this book is such a valuable and necessary addition to the canon of writing on photobooks.

Erika Lederman will focus on Isabel Agnes Cowper (1826-1911), the first official photographer for the V&A Museum, and, in particular, Cowper’s role in relation to South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) publications and contribution to photobook history.   

Dr Marta Weiss will speak about the pre-eminent nineteenth century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) with special reference to her use of the book form. In 1874, Alfred Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, invited Julia Margaret Cameron to make photographic illustrations to his Idylls of the King. This was a series of narrative poems based on the legends of King Arthur. After her large photographs were published as small, wood-cut copies, Cameron decided to produce an edition illustrated by original photographic prints. She accompanied these with extracts from the poems written in her own hand and printed in facsimile. She claimed to have made as many as 245 exposures to arrive at the 25 she finally published in two volumes.

Photography Book Award Symposium in partnership with the V&A
Wednesday 14th December, 4pm – 8pm
The Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre, V&A South Kensington

Details: https://kraszna-krausz.org.uk/kraszna-krausz-photography-book-award-symposium-in-partnership-with-the-va/

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12201213882?profile=originalIn the mid-1920s, a transatlantic team of physicians, surgeons, psychologists, and physicists gathered in the Boston séance room of the medium Mina ’Margery’ Crandon to study the extraordinary phenomena she produced in a trance state, especially the visceral, quasi-biological ‘ectoplasm’ that seemed to ooze from her body. Anxious to defend the scientific status of their research into this strange phenomena situated somewhere between the medical and mental, tangible and intangible, the all-male team of investigators produced a vast set of materials documenting and validating their research (many housed today in the Harry Price Archives at Senate House Library).

This talk centres on the stereoscopic photographs of Crandon taken by the researchers to index the ‘spiritualist’ phenomena witnessed and to supplement the poor observational conditions of the pitch-black séance room. It also considers the researchers’ use of their other senses — touch, hearing, smell — and the photographs’ material qualities to explore the complex relationships embedded in these photographs and practices between apparent polarities like trust and deception, vision and blindness, truth and illusion, proof and faith, and science and supernatural belief. The gendered dynamics of this investigation, related to issues of ‘control’ (scientific and otherwise), are also explored. What role did the photographs, and other forms of observation and control, play in the scientists’ efforts to validate, document, and (dis)prove the seemingly supernormal, yet peculiarly bodily, phenomena they witnessed? What of trust and deception? And what can the application of art-historical methods to such cases offer to the study of the relationship between science and extraordinary belief?

Dr Emma Merkling is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art as Principal Investigator on the grant project ‘Biomedicine and Belief:  Spiritualism, Observation, and Margery Crandon’s Extraordinary Body c. 1920–35′, funded by the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society. Her research focuses on the relationships between art history, history of science, and history of heterodox belief in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She has previously held postdoctoral fellowships at the Courtauld’s Centre for American Art, the Science Museum, and the University of Stirling.

Science in the Séance Room: Stereographs, Medical Men, and the Testing of ‘Margery’ Crandon’s Extraordinary Body, c. 1925
Dr Emma Merkling
Monday, 14th November 2022
5:00pm - 6.00pm
London: Courtauld, Vernon Square campus, Lecture Theatre 2 and online via Zoom
Booking: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/science-in-the-seance-room-stereographs-medical-men-and-the-testing-of-margery-crandons-extraordinary-body-c-1925/?dm_i=AHZ,838NK,ML3WGR,X469A,1

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12201203699?profile=originalAfter Exposure. Histories of Photographic Development and the New Theory of Photography is a new website dedicated to the links and gaps between photographic exposure and development at the science-industry nexus, inspired by a multi-stage account of photography. It will also be the subject of a workshop exploring these themes with papers from Dawn Wilson (Hull)Kelley Wilder (Leicester)Martin Jähnert (Berlin)Stephan Graf (Zürich), and Omar Nasim (Regensburg)
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12201171292?profile=originalThe V&A has announced today further details on the second and final phase of the V&A’s Photography Centre, which opens in spring 2023. The Photography Centre will become the largest space in the UK for a permanent photography collection, and the seven galleries – four of which will be new additions – will showcase the museum’s world-leading holdings and enable visitors to experience photography and its diverse histories in new ways.

The V&A has collected and exhibited photography since the founding of the museum in the 1850s, and today its collection is one of the largest and most varied in the world. Phase One of the museum’s Photography Centre opened in 2018, with three galleries designed by David Kohn. 2023 sees the completion of the second and final phase of the Photography Centre with an additional four galleries, with base-build designed by Purcell, and fit-out designed by Gibson Thornley Architects.

Two of the new rooms will showcase global contemporary photography and cutting-edge commissions in rotating displays. The other new spaces - a room dedicated to photography and the book, and an interactive gallery about the history and use of the camera – will shine a light on the processes involved in photography, as well as the study and presentation of the medium. These new rooms join the three existing galleries, with two galleries for changing displays from the collection and a space dedicated to digital media, which will also present new content.

Marta Weiss, V&A Senior Curator of Photography and Lead Curator of Phase Two of the Photography Centre, said: “Photography lies at the heart of the V&A. The museum has collected photography since 1852 and continues to acquire the best of contemporary practice. As photography plays an ever-increasing role in all our lives, the expanded Photography Centre will be more relevant than ever. We look forward to welcoming visitors to explore the medium’s diverse histories and enjoy our world-leading collection.

Highlights of the opening displays will include recent acquisitions exhibited at the museum for the first time, including works by Liz Johnson Artur, Sammy Baloji, Vera Lutter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tarrah Krajnak and Vasantha Yogananthan, as well as a monumental photographic sculpture by Noémie Goudal. Two major new commissions supported by the Manitou Fund will also be unveiled, with a photographic series by leading Indian artist Gauri Gill, and a digital commission by British media artist Jake Elwes. The Manitou Fund has committed to funding six commissions for the Photography Centre, which will see a new print and digital commission in 2023, 2025 and 2027. On completion, the Photography Centre will also feature new, themed displays, presenting works from the 1840s to the present day, beginning with Energy: Sparks from the Collection, exploring how all photographs need some form of energy to exist, and a smaller display, How Not to Photograph a Bulldog, featuring dog photography manuals from the Royal Photographic Society Library.

About the Photography Centre:

Phase 2 - Room 95 - Inside the Camera
Room 95 will be an interactive gallery exploring how cameras work and how they are used, from the Victorian view camera to the first iPhone. The highlight will be a walk-in camera obscura, demonstrating the optical phenomenon that is the basis of how all cameras work. A timeline of cameras will show their evolution, with accompanying animations explaining the inner workings of these iconic devices.

Phase 2 - Room 96, Room 97, The Parasol Foundation Gallery Photography Now
Two new galleries will be dedicated to showcasing recent acquisitions of global contemporary photography, including special commissions. Highlights in the inaugural display will include works by Liz Johnson Artur, Sammy Baloji, Vera Lutter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Vasantha Yogananthan, all acquired with the support of the V&A Photographs Acquisition Group. A series of self-portraits by Tarrah Krajnak, acquired with the support of the Parasol Foundation Trust, will also feature. A spectacular anamorphic sculpture by Noémie Goudal will bring photography off the wall to explore both geological time and the nature of perception.

A new commission, supported by the Manitou Fund, from leading Indian photographer Gauri Gill will also be unveiled. This new body of work depicts temporary architecture on the outskirts of Delhi, ingenuously constructed by farmers from repurposed materials. The makeshift dwellings housed farmers bringing their concerns from the village to the capital, in response to new laws that threatened their economic security.

Room 98, The Kusuma Gallery - Photography and the Book
A flexible space dedicated to Photography and the Book will reflect how books have been a fundamental way of presenting photography since the 1840s. The Kusuma Gallery, which has been funded by The Kusuma Trust, will visibly house the extensive Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Library, following the transfer of the RPS Collection to the V&A in 2017. The RPS Library contains journals, books, pamphlets and manuals from all over the world, spanning topics from aerial photography to X-rays. More than 20,000 books, published over nearly 200 years, will be available to visitors by request, with a selection of browsing books on open shelves.

The Kusuma Gallery will also feature changing displays of photographic books, periodicals and archival material. The first display will be How Not to Photograph a Bulldog, a light-hearted foray into one of the many topics covered by the photographic manuals in the RPS Library.

Films about the RPS Library and photographic processes will be shown on digital terminals for visitors to enjoy. This flexible space will also be used for teaching and other programming.

Phase 1 - Room 99, The Modern Media Gallery Digital Gallery

The Modern Media Gallery continues to be dedicated to digital media, challenging definitions of what photography is and generating questions around the use of photography today. The gallery will showcase a new digital commission by Jake Elwes, supported by the Manitou Fund.

Phase 1 - Room 100, The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery Room 101, The Sir Elton John and David Furnish Gallery - Photography 1840s-Now

Developed during Phase One of the Photography Centre, these galleries will be entirely rehung for the 2023 opening. A new display, Energy: Sparks from the Collection, will shine a light on the diverse kinds of energy in photography – both the hidden processes intrinsic to creating a picture, and the subjects in front of a camera. Featuring works from the 1840s through to the present day, it will explore how, from the advent of photography, power in all its diverse forms has sparked the imaginations of photographers.

Situated in the V&A’s Northeast Quarter, the Photography Centre reclaims the beauty of seven original 19th-century picture galleries, restoring them to their original glory and purpose. Planned in two phases, the Centre is part of the V&A’s FuturePlan development programme to revitalise the museum’s public spaces through contemporary design and the restoration of original features.

Beyond the physical gallery spaces, a key focus for photography at the V&A is research and the development of new sector-leading initiatives. A major strand is The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, established in 2021 to support women in photography. Led by the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography, Fiona Rogers, and funded by Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and The Parasol Foundation Trust, the Project encompasses a curatorial post alongside acquisitions, research, education and public displays. The Project’s first acquisition by Tarrah Krajnak will be included in the opening display, and an exhibition presenting the work of Laia Abril will open at the Copeland Gallery in Peckham, 10-27 November 2022, in collaboration with the V&A and Photoworks.

The V&A is also delighted to announce additional support from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. Alongside significant funding of Phase Two of the Photography Centre, the Foundation has generously extended their commitment to a series of two-year Fellowships in photography for early-career curators until 2028. The V&A is pleased to announce the appointment of Mary Phan as the second Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, who will be in post until 2024.

The Photography Centre is being made possible by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, The Kusuma Trust, The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, The Parasol Foundation Trust, Modern Media, Shao Zhong Art Foundation and many other generous supporters.

The V&A will be releasing visuals of the new spaces closer to the opening.  

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12201213458?profile=originalA new home for British photography will open in London in late January 2023. The Centre for British Photography will build on the world-renowned Hyman Collection of British photography and the work of the Hyman Foundation. Three floors of exhibitions will present the diverse landscape of British photography today, as well as an historical overview. The 8000 sq. ft. Centre will be free to visit year-round and will offer exhibitions, events and talks, a shop and an archive and library. 

The Centre will feature photographs from 1900 to the present, work by photographers living and working in the UK today, and images taken by those who emigrated to the UK. It will present self-generated exhibitions and those led by independent curators and organisations, as well as monographic displays. The Centre plans to stage numerous exhibitions throughout the year and also bring together the photographic community – professional and amateur - through its talks and events programme.

The Hyman Collection includes over 3,000 significant works by more than 100 artists including Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Daniel Meadows, Jo Spence, Karen Knorr, Anna Fox and Heather Agyepong. It is currently available as a global online resource, and it also has a history of lending to exhibitions outside London. Now, with this new home, regional museums, galleries and photography collectives will also be invited to use the central London space to present exhibitions and collaborate on talks and events. 

James Hyman, Founding Director, said: “The Centre for British Photography is for anyone with an interest in photography. Photography in Britain is some of the best in the world and we want to give it more exposure and support. With this new physical space, alive with exhibitions and events, we hope to create a hub that increases British photography’s national and international status. We hope that through this initial work to make a home for British photography we can, in the long run, develop an independent centre that is self-sustaining with a dedicated National Collection and public programme.”

Tracy Marshall-Grant, the Centre for British Photography’s newly-appointed Deputy Director, said: “The Hyman Collection is the pre-eminent British photography collection and that will be at the heart of our programming. Inclusivity and diversity have always been key to the Foundation and to the development of the Hyman Collection - for example, the collection is balanced in the numbers of works it holds by men and women. We will reflect this in the programming of the exhibition spaces and those we invite to show, talk and take part in events at the Centre. We also want to support British photographers through commissions, grants, exhibitions, acquisitions and sales.”

Opening exhibitions

12201213296?profile=originalThe opening events will include two major, new exhibitions: a self-portrait show co-curated by the campaign group Fast Forward: Women in Photography; and The English at Home - over 150 photographs which provide an overview of British photography focused on the domestic interior drawn from some of the major bodies of work in the Hyman Collection. Taking its title from Bill Brandt’s first book, The English at Home will range from Bill Brandt, Kurt Hutton and Bert Hardy to Martin Parr, Daniel Meadows, Karen Knorr, Anna Fox and Richard Billingham.

There will also be four In Focus displays that will spotlight specific bodies of work. These will include Jo Spence: Cinderella in collaboration with the Jo Spence Memorial Library at Birkbeck, University of London; and the series Fairytale for Sale by Natasha Caruana that was recently acquired by the Hyman Collection.

Also on display will be two bodies of work that were commissioned by the Hyman Collection: Spitting by Andrew Bruce and Anna Fox is a response to the original Spitting Image puppets in the Hyman Collection, and Wish You Were Here, a recent series commissioned from Heather Agyepong.

The gallery shop will also present a selling show Paul Hill. Prenonations. Large format platinum prints

Print sale

A print sale will go live on 17 November with funds raised going towards the Centre and the Hyman Foundation’s support of photographers in Britain, through commissions, grants, acquisitions and sales. Featuring the work of Martin Parr, Anna Fox, Julia Fullerton-Batten and David Hurn among others and priced at £70, the prints will be available to purchase from 17 November – 19 December 2022 on the Centre for British Photography website: www.britishphotography.org.    

The Centre for British Photography
49 Jermyn Street
London
SW1Y 6LX
www.britishphotography.org

Opens late January 2023

Instagram: @centre_for_british_photography

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12201210675?profile=originalAt the Crossroads: Qandahar in Images and Empires features the earliest known photographs of Qandahar, Afghanistan, taken between 1880 and 1881 at the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Today, they offer insights into the region, its local populations, and its rich cultural traditions.

The resource offers a free publication, an online preview of images, and stories which were developed by Getty in partnership with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

See: https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/qandahar/index.html

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