Peering into a small, magical box an eager new audience in the 1850s was transported into another dimension. Stereoscopic 3D images allowed them to experience the wonders of the world without ever leaving their fireside, see the heroes of the day in realistic detail, enjoy sentimental scenes or watch the construction of Brunel’s Great Eastern ship on the banks of the Thames. Millions of images were published and voraciously consumed by the public in just a few glorious years.

Dr Brian May and Denis Pellerin reveal some of the highlights of this extraordinary scientific, artistic and social revolution in this special event, transmitted live from the beautiful chapel at King’s College London. The stereoscope was first demonstrated in 1838 by Charles Wheatstone, inventor and Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King's College, which is now the home of his remarkable archive.

Join two of the world’s leading authorities on this early form of virtual reality, Brian May and Denis Pellerin, on the publication of their major new book, Stereoscopy: the Dawn of 3-D.

Stereoscopy: The Dawn of 3-D. Brian May and Denis Pellerin
Wednesday, 10 November 2021, 19:30 - 20:45
British Library, online, book here. 

The Photographic Collections Network has announced a series of events relevant to collections and archives of photography. These range from copyright to environmental sustainability. Details are below.  The PCN is working on a collaborative research project with The Photography and the Archive Research Centre at LCC, exploring what a new Directory of Photographic Collections could look like, how it would function and what it could provide. If you can spare a few minutes to be part of this research click this link https://fulcrm.link/2/15504/2712/95rr6ff0908l24r2cr621f2m708m4936 to answer a few short questions and help us shape a future directory.

Save the Date: Copyright,IP and archive photos Wednesday 1st December, 2-3pm GMT: online
We will be having an online talk led by the Intellectual Property Office on copyright and IP. If you have questions you can put them forward before the event by clicking this link leading to an online form. https://fulcrm.link/2/15505/2712/190849ru201m8408ulm8fmm9225680u8

Photo Histories PCN & Redeye collaboration: FREE Online events:
Redeye's Photo Histories is a new strand of events that looks at some of the many histories that photography can uncover. The strand features photographers, archivists, scholars and historians exploring some of the lesser-known and under-represented histories of photography.

Format Collective, 27 Oct 7-8:30 pm BST
Maggie Murray, founder of Format Collective. Established in 1983, Format was the first and only women's agency in Britain. If you’ve read the excellent recent book, Photography of Protest and Community by Noni Stacey, you might wonder how the radical collectives of the 1970s transitioned into the progressive photography of today. This talk sheds light on that era. Format Collective tended to focus on events and individuals who weren't being represented in mainstream media. From LGBTQ+ marches to The Miners' Strike to women's rights movements, these women photographed a range of important political events and social movements. 

In this talk Maggie Murray will take us through how and why Format was set up as a collective and agency for women photographers. As well as what it was like being a photographer, and especially a female photojournalist in the 1980s and 90s. Maggie will give us an insight into how the members juggled different aspects of their core aims such as creative, commercial and political. She takes us through the struggles they faced, how they overcame them with support, and how they developed, both collectively and individually. And finally, what led to the closure of the agency in 2003. 
https://fulcrm.link/2/15506/2712/1706r714c4m778rm46541005ur120516

Material Histories Online, 2 Nov 7-8:30pm GMT
The study of photographic history has often depended on interacting physically with materials - we learn a lot about prints, negatives, plates and equipment from handling them. But now much more of our life is online, and that’s likely to continue. So how do we adapt this subject to the restrictions of online learning - and what are the possible benefits and new opportunities of learning in the digital world?

We are delighted to welcome Professor Kelley Wilder to guide us through this renewed learning space. 

In this talk Kelley introduces some photographic materials and explores how we can interact with them in a meaningful way. She will invite us to consider how the digital world is changing what we learn about materials, and how we learn it. You are then welcome to take part in an open discussion, where she creates talking points, demonstrates a few things, and sets out some ambitions for a new world of learning. Come along and join in as much as you like; if you would like to sit back and listen, that is fine too!
https://fulcrm.link/2/15507/2712/f54r328cl89cu01mfu350m0u3855f2mu

Engage Gallery Education: 
Applying conversations on class and inequality in collections
28 Oct 10-11:30am £40 for non members

Workshop: Jon Sleigh will reflect on a recent project with the National Gallery on class, and its application in three physical tours at the gallery. Key questions and sharing will look at the value of applying contemporary lived experience to historical work. This workshop’s particular focus is around ideas of class and economic inequality. The workshop will also consider how the educator might orient themselves within such readings, in ways that support the educator’s own safeguarding. We’ll look at language, establishing ethics of content with audiences, and reading the pieces not as a form of division – but as a positive and usable tool that brings others together.

This session features artworks from the Government Art Collection. As well as contributions from the GAC’s Curator of Public Engagement, Chantal Condron, we will be applying art readings on class, to artworks, as practical examples. While each artwork holds significance as being part of a national collection, they also offer the potential of being incredibly emotive works with which to explore our arts practice.
https://fulcrm.link/2/15508/2712/9279lf5rcr3r723m17cc2llu0030488l

The National Archives: Archives supporting environmental sustainability 
8 and 10 November | Online  
Join TNA for an opportunity to be part of the sustainability conversation and reflect on climate change as COP26 – the world's most important climate change conference – takes place this November in Glasgow. Come hear about the past, present and future of environmental sustainability in the archives sector, share your ideas for change and take away tools to create a positive impact in your organisation. This event will take place over two mornings (Monday 8 November and Wednesday 10 November) and we encourage participation on both days. 
https://fulcrm.link/2/15510/2712/36l9967788922920ul6u9fc0l3fu343l

The auction catalogue for the sale of 251 lots of books, watercolours and photographic equipment from the estate of Eric Hosking is now available on the Tennants website. 

Eric Hosking OBE Hon. FRPS FBIPP (1909-1991) is a name which will require little introduction for ornithology enthusiasts. The first professional bird photographer, he photographed over 1,800 species, and his pictures have appeared in some 1,000 books, including the popular New Naturalist series, of which he was photographic editor. To complement his library, Eric Hosking also built a fine collection of pictures by leading 20th century wildlife artists including Archibald Thorburn, Keith Shackleton and C. F. Tunnicliffe. The sale of his photographic equipment provides an unmissable opportunity to own a remarkable array of high-quality cameras, lenses and other apparatus by manufacturers including Contarex, Hasselblad and Zeiss.

Books, Maps & Manuscripts including The Library, Cameras and Picture Collection of Eric Hosking
24 November 2021 10:30 GMT
The Auction Centre, Leyburn
See: https://auctions.tennants.co.uk/auction/details/bk180-books-maps--manuscripts-including-the-library-cameras-and-picture-collection-of-eric-hosking/?au=13900

In this special event, which accompanies the exhibition Line and Texture: the photography of Nancy Sheung, currently on show at St Hugh’s College as part of the Photo Oxford Festival, and featured in The Guardian, an expert panel will consider the work of pioneering Hong Kong photographer Nancy Sheung FRPS within the broader contexts of Chinese and Western photography.

The event will open with a drinks reception at 5.30pm, followed by the panel discussion between 6pm and 7.30pm.

The panel will be chaired by Shelagh Vainker (St Hugh’s College), Curator of Chinese Art at the Ashmolean Museum, and Associate Professor of Chinese Art in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. The panellists are:

• Tiffany Wai-Ying Beres, granddaughter of Nancy Sheung, who will discuss aspects of the artist’s life.
• Adrian Bradshaw, photojournalist specialising in the photography of China, who will contextualise Nancy Sheung’s photography within that of China and Hong Kong from the late 1950s.
• Michael Pritchard, exhibition curator, Director of Programmes at the Royal Photographic Society, and photo-historian, who will discuss the artist’s work within that of the RPS from the 1950s-1970s.

The event will be held in person in the Mordan Hall at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and recorded.

Book here: https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/events/the-photography-of-nancy-sheung-a-panel-discussion/

Image: Nancy Sheung, The Pigtail, 1966, silver gelatin print. Courtesy: Estate of Nancy Sheung

The National galleries Scotland will be showing a specially recorded conversation between internationally acclaimed photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper and Chief Curator of Photography, Anne Lyden. They will discuss the making and ideas behind his extraordinary photographs made at the most extreme points and locations surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. The conversation will be followed by a live Q&A.

The talk supports the exhibition: Thomas Joshua Cooper | The World's Edge which runs until 23 January 2022. 

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/event/worlds-edge-thomas-joshua-cooper-conversation

The National Archives at Kew has announced the release of the 1922 Census for England and Wales on 6 January 2022. Preparing the 1921 Census for online publication is the largest project ever completed by The National Archives and Findmypast, consisting of more than 30,000 bound volumes of original documents, stored on 1.6 linear kilometres of shelving. The 1921 census is of particular value as it will be the last census release for England and Wales for 30 years, with the 1931 Census lost in a fire and the 1941 Census never taken.

The census will be released online by Findmypast and will be charged at £2.50 for every record transcript and £3.50 for every original record image. . There is already disquiet at the cost from researchers for what are public records. which is justified as covering the cost of digitising and transcribing the 18,235,242 images created from the records. It is expected that they will be free to consult at the National Archives in Kew. 

See:

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/1921-census-online-publication-date-announced/

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/1921-census

The National Science and Media Museum, Bradford new Sound and Vision galleries development is underway .A tender has been issued for to the value of £430,000 by the Science Museum Group for a team to develop the gallery designs for Sound and Vision. The design team must include the lead spatial designer, graphic designer and lighting designer, structural, acoustic and Mechanical Engineering design specialists. The work will include architectural base build and exhibition design. This lead consultant will be responsible for co-ordinating all disciplines involved in the design.

Separately, the museum is recruit a part-time Project Coordinator to support the project. 

The museum recently secured a National Heritage Lottery Fund first pass grant of £318,963 for the development phase of the project. 

The ‘galleries will include collections of photography, radio, film, TV, sound and digital technologies, and has been created in consultation with local communities. Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum, said its aim was to “realise the Science Museum Group’s mission of making STEM education open for all”. She added, “[they] will explore the relevance and impact of image and audio technology throughout history, connecting the museum’s collections not only to this global communications age, but also directly to our home city.”

For the tender: https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/tenders/view/1236

For the role see: https://bit.ly/3mp5lCr 

The Reece Winstone Archive is searching for 400 lantern slides taken by Kuner of Bristol, which formed the basis of lectures he gave throughout the west, on historic and natural subjects, as far away as Cornwall, the Rivers Wye, Somerset Chew etc.- he was a keen cyclist and one-time secretary of Bristol Photographic Society. 

The slides were of sufficient interest to become the Kuner Memorial slides and were added to the BPS permanent collection after his death in 1923. We now know they were not lost when the BPS rooms were destroyed in the blitz and were brought to Reece 'to sort' by William J Foster ARPS, acting either for himself, the BPS, WCPF or PAGB, in 1954. Reece may have been gifted 28 duplicate slides, including hand-coloured ones for his own collection, although they were not added to his accession list in common with other gifts of slides from colleagues. He preserved Kuner's printed labels of lectures stuck on broken slide box lids, whilst renewing the slide boxes. These slides have now been digitised.

Foster was well known to Reece and had attended one of his 1931 rambles to Wells organised for the BPS (left)  All efforts to locate the glass slides have drawn a blank in local, club, national and archived collections, leaving only private collections unchecked. Foster lived latterly at 63 Ashley Hill, Bristol and had run a successful builders merchants of the same name, originally sited adjacent the Bristol River Frome which had been the subject of a source-to-mouth ramble by Kuner, repeated in reverse 50 years later by Reece for BPS. Foster died in 1966, aged 86 and a letter of 1980 from his great-grandson in the Archive written from Bedford says he gave away many photographs following his wife's death in the 1960s.

Holders of any Kuner's glass slides (usually not bearing his name, but spotted with title on top edge in black caps. - see photo of lecture labels) would be most welcome to partake in this digitising project. We may be able to identify Kuner slides by handwritten titles, if you are uncertain - please contact us at reecewinstonearchive@gmail.com.

Our search for 308 lantern slides by Reece covering the history of photographic clubs in the South-west found a successful conclusion in the WCPF's collection last year, held under the heading 'Fed(eration) Faces', and have now been digitised.

Grateful thanks to all involved in the search.

Images:

Top right: Kuner with moustache, on left, in the field.
Centre: Foster in light suit.

Photomonitor, the online photography platform, carries an interview with Tate Modern's Senior Curator International Art (Photography) Yasufumi Nakamori. He discusses Japanese photography and Tate Modern's strategy representing photography in its programmes. He was interviewed by Romina Provenzi. 

Read the full piece here: https://photomonitor.co.uk/interview/yasufumi-nakamori-in-conversation/

Since 2011, Photomonitor has been promoting photography and lens-based media, publishing images and texts from artists and writers around the world on its online platform. 

Image: Dan Dennehy, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Applications are open for Bodleian Visiting Fellowships which support scholars in any field of study and from anywhere in the world to undertake research in the Bodleian's special collections. Of particular interest to BPH is the Sloan Fellowship in Photography which supports a research visit by a scholar in the history of photography. In addition to the archive of William Henry Fox Talbot, the Bodleian holds photographs within nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial missionary archives; archives of other photographers; photographically-illustrated books; and those within the papers of individuals, famous families or organisations.

Applications for Bodleian Visiting Fellowships will be accepted beginning Friday 1 October 2021, with a submission deadline of noon GMT on Tuesday 30 November 2021.

See more and apply here: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowships/bodleian-visiting-fellowships

Dr Annebella Pollen has been awarded a £100,000 Philip Leverhulme Prize, which she will use to fund a new study into the history of photography by children from 1900. As a personal award rather than a research grant, the prize money can be used for any research purpose. Thirty prizes are awarded annually, to a changing group of six subject areas each year.

Dr Pollen, Director of the Centre for Design History, said: “I plan to use the fund to take extended research leave as well as to support the costs for a major new illustrated book and exhibition on photography by children from 1900 to the present. This draws on my long-standing interests in mass visual culture and its undervalued histories. To have two years to explore a substantial new area will be a huge privilege. I'm really looking forward to bringing to fruition ideas that I've been considering for some time but have not previously had the opportunity to pursue in depth."

Read more here: https://www.brighton.ac.uk/news/2021/university-of-brighton-academic-receives-prestigious-100000-prize

Under Newborn Stars tells the story of photographer Maja Blumenfeld - From her upbringing in Berlin to her escaping Nazi Germany and resettling in New Zealand. The film provides insight into her journey, her view on photography and the importance of objects connected to people and significant moments in her life.

Photographer Maja Blumenfeld’s collection of previously hidden and largely unpublished photographic negatives capture the faces, landscapes, architecture and lifestyles of interwar Berlin and mid-twentieth-century Auckland, New Zealand. The archive of glass plate and Kodak negatives resurfaced in 2014 still in its original packaging alongside handwritten notes. Maja’s granddaughter Roshannah Bagley has spent the last five years discovering the names and stories with Maja to preserve and eventually share with the world for the first time.

Born in Berlin in 1919, Maja trained as a photographer in her teens before being forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1938 with her family to Auckland, New Zealand. On arrival she took on a role at the local newspaper The Auckland Star as a photographer until her career was cut short due to the war. After moving back to Europe in the late sixties, she settled in London with her New Zealand husband and children in 1970. Now at age 102, Maja still lives an independent life in northwest London.

The film was shot in September 2020 at Maja’s home in North London and Kasia Wozniak’s photography studio in South London. It was created by Hedvig Ahlberg and Roshannah Bagley, and supported by Something™’s Pioneers initiative.

Roshannah is a multidisciplinary creative and curator. She spent a decade working in fashion before moving into advertising and the creative industries. She is currently a Studio Manager at Something™ and dedicates her spare time to curating and producing projects and events that champion underrepresented creatives. Hedvig is an independent director and editor with a focus on telling stories about women. She also works as a producer at Something™ where she has worked on a wide range of productions from short form to feature series and documentaries.

Link to film here.
English and German subtitles available.
Te Neo Māori subtitles will be available soon.
Download Trailer
Resources

Twelve experimental photographic artists exhibit their work in Oxford as part of Photo Oxford Festival opening in the Main Gallery, The Old Fire Station, central Oxford, from the 15 October-13 November. Each artist focuses on materiality within their practice. They are inspired by historical processes invented in the 19th Century, and work with the fundamental elements of the photographic medium: Light, Time and Material.

The exhibition brings together artists from Australia, France, Holland, Poland, Ukraine, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The artists explore the materiality of the photograph through experimentation within analogue photographic techniques to create unique contemporary art photography. Over the past twenty years, photography’s innovative presence of immaterial existence/cloud-based imagery and material existence anchored in objectivity has shifted focus.

This exhibition not only explores the movement of photography from representation to abstraction, it also looks at the thread of analogue practitioners who continue to practice with finite materials or new materials with fresh ideas on
what photography might be or do in the 21st century.

These artists reach back into the history of photography seeking new ways of thinking and making photographs. These photographers are part of a movement that push the boundaries of photography as a medium. The idea that analogue photography is obsolete is outdated and rather than a rejection of the historical techniques a raft of artists embrace the beginnings of the medium, using it in the most creative and energetic way to generate unique photographic art that is at the forefront of the definition of fine art photography.

List of artists: Neil Ayling, John A Blythe, Sylvie Bonnot, Ellen Carey, Alice Cazenave, Karel Doing, Nettie Edwards, Hannah Fletcher, Anna Luk, Rita Rodner, Megan Ringrose, Kateryna Snizhko. Workshops • Karel Doing (Phytography) 23rd October • John A Blythe (Cyanotype) 30th October • Nettie Edwards (Anthotype) 6th November • Alice Cazenave (Chemigram) 13th November

Fabric of Photography
Curated by Megan Ringrose
Venue: The Old Fire Station,40 George Street, Oxford.
Date:15th October - 13th November

Bookings: https://www.fabricofphotography.com/how

Essays by Anna Luk, Claire Raymond and Duncan Wooldridge.

Website: https://www.fabricofphotography.com

On 14 January 1971, The Photographers’ Gallery opened its doors with The Concerned Photographer, an exhibition that had previously been shown in the United States, Switzerland and Japan, and which presented photography as the optimum medium to document social conditions. This online conference has been organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of The Photographers’ Gallery in 1971 and will explore the legacy of its innovative programming within broader infrastructures of exhibition, display and photographic practice, from the 1970s to the present day.

It will take place over three sessions on 25 November, and the 2nd and 3rd of December 2021. Each is £5 or £3 concessions. 

Full details of the programme are here: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/concerning-photography-photographic-networks-britain-c-1971-present

The conference will be held entirely online and is a collaboration between the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and The Photographers’ Gallery. 

Sound and Vision will inspire one of the UK’s youngest, most diverse, and fastest-growing cities by providing wider access to iconic, world-class collections of photography, radio, film, TV, sound and digital technologies—from the world’s first moving image to the advent of the digital age. Created in close consultation with local communities, the galleries will make the museum the cultural cornerstone of many key projects including Bradford’s bid to be the City of Culture in 2025, the city’s culture strategy Culture is Our Plan, and the commitment to building a digital economy.

The initial first pass grant of £318,963 has been awarded for the development phase of the project, with the museum due to submit its second-round application next year to fund the delivery stage of the project. If the museum is successful in its second-round application, it will be awarded more than £3 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund towards the delivery of the £6 million Sound and Vision project.

Commenting on this significant milestone, Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum, said: “We are thrilled that The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded us this enormous opportunity to bring our world class collections to life in new and exciting ways. By working collaboratively with our local audiences, we will explore the relevance and impact of image and audio technology throughout history, connecting the museum’s collections not only to this global communications age, but also directly to our home city. The project will give us the vital opportunity to realise the Science Museum Group’s mission of making STEM education open for all, helping to close some of the disparities caused by the pandemic and providing fantastic opportunities for our communities.”

Sound and Vision will re-energise Bradford’s cultural offer through three distinct focus areas: the internationally significant Science Museum Group collection; STEM; and working collaboratively, increasing participation with the collection. The development of the new galleries will explore key stories which are relevant to all our lives, including the creation of the world’s first photograph; Louis Le Prince’s ground-breaking work in moving images and film; and the forgotten pioneer of the pixel who created the building blocks of digital photography.

Sound and Vision will engage visitors in STEM by uncovering the science behind the everyday, showing that science is relevant to everything we do. The project will also work with local communities through a detailed activity plan, including opportunities to collect community stories, inspiring more people to reimagine their relationship with STEM and support them with opportunities for employment and upskilling, and responding to Culture is Our Plan, the culture strategy for Bradford.

During the project’s development phase, the museum will continue to consult and engage with the wider community, as well as setting up an Access Panel and Youth Forum for specific consultation. Development of the Sound and Vision gallery interpretation and design brief will commence, alongside audience research, staff training and volunteering opportunities. A number of new posts will also be recruited to join the project team, and the museum will be piloting new learning programmes to complement the activity plan.

More information about Sound and Vision will be made available on the National Science and Media Museum website. You can also follow the latest updates on the National Science and Media Museum’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

A chance discovery of thousands of photographs in the archives of a London council has brought back to life a local community’s fight for survival and a new exhibition opening 29 October is telling the story. The exhibition features an extraordinary period of community action in the 1970s and 1980s in Blackfriars, Waterloo and North Southwark along London’s South Bank.

For many it was a fight for survival as businesses moved out and land was earmarked for office development leaving isolated communities struggling to maintain their way of life. “A timely exhibition around the effectiveness of community campaigning in the 70s and 80s as the area continues to face development pressures” said George Nicholson, one of the leading campaigners of those times and still a local resident.

It was a period of huge empowerment for local residents. Campaigns, protests and direct action were the tools to force local authorities and developers to recognise the communities’ needs. Estate tenants formed associations to negotiate with their landlords and community groups flourished. There were great successes like at Coin Street with new housing, the Colombo Street Sports Centre and the saving of important facilities like chemists, post offices and launderettes.

The exhibition is presented by “SE1 Stories”, an umbrella group of people who were active in the campaigns in the 1970s and 80s. The group came together in 2019 when thousands of photographs were discovered in the archives of Southwark and Lambeth councils. Many were taken by members of the group for SE1 Newspaper, a monthly paper produced by and for the local community. Many more come from the innovative Blackfriars Photography Project that gave people the equipment and skills to be photographers.

The exhibition focuses on the area around Blackfriars Road as part of Southwark Council’s Blackfriars Stories initiative. SE1 Stories plans to present more exhibitions to highlight the rich stories of community action in Waterloo, North Southwark and Bermondsey.

Blackfriars SE1 in the 1970s. Community action in a London neighbourhood
29 October 2021 - 11 November
Blackfriars Settlement, 1 Rushworth Street, London, SE1 0RB
The exhibition will travel to other local venues including Morley College, 61 Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7HT

https://se1stories.uk/

Recently acquired by The Burton at Bideford, An English Eye is a collection of photographs by renowned local artist-photographer, James Ravilious. The collection provides an important record of life in North Devon between 1972 and 1997, and also represents the best of James Ravilious’ work as a whole.

Son of Eric Ravilious (war artist, engraver and designer) and Tirzah Garwood (artist and wood engraver), James Ravilious worked as an art teacher in London before moving down to Devon in 1972 where he took up photography professionally. Beaford Arts commissioned him to take images for a project called Beaford Archive, set up to capture the fast disappearing traditional landscapes and practices of rural life in Devon. During the lifetime of the project, James Ravilious took more than 80,000 black and white photographs.

The English Eye is a retrospective exhibition of James Ravilious’ work. Curated by the artist himself alongside the photographer and writer Peter Hamilton (1996-97), the series of photographs grew out of a monograph of James’ work published by The Royal Photographic Society’s Pictorial Group in 1989. It showcases James’ natural ability to perfectly capture the inner narrative of his subjects, and chronicles both the people and the landscape of rural Devon from the 1970s to the late 1990s.

Working primarily in black and white, his work was influenced by English landscape artists as well as photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Edwin Smith. He developed a distinctive technique using older, uncoated lenses on his Leica rangefinder camera. A compensatory development process gave his photographs a subtle and ‘silvery’ quality.  

Last year, The Burton secured this collection for the future with the help of the Bideford Bridge Trust and the Friends of the Burton. It now forms an integral part of the Burton at Bideford’s Permanent Collection.

James Ravilious' An English Eye, (1997)
6 October-31 December 2021
Burton Gallery, Bideford, Devon

See: https://www.burtonartgallery.co.uk/exhibitions-activities/an-english-eye-james-ravilious/?portfolioCats=12

The Photographers’ Gallery presents a retrospective spanning fifty years of work by the landmark American street photographer, Helen Levitt (1913–2009). Taking place over two floors of the Gallery, this retrospective of more than 130 works will survey the full breadth of Levitt’s rich photographic practice, charting her journey from street reportage to documentary filmmaker and pioneer of colour photography.

One of the most influential street photographers of the 20th Century, Helen Levitt spent decades documenting local communities in her native New York, capturing everyday city life in neighbourhoods such as the Lower East Side, Bronx, and Spanish Harlem. Working from the 1930s through the 1990s, Levitt produced an extensive body of work consisting of a variety of projects and mediums, from photographs to artist books and was an early proponent of avant-garde filmmaking. From her early photographs of chalk drawings, to portraits of New York subway passengers and vivid colour photography, this retrospective brings together key works from across her lifetime.

After briefly working with a commercial portrait photographer, Levitt began to devote herself fully to photography in 1936. Inspired by a meeting with the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, she began to unobtrusively document the residents of her local neighborhoods with a 35mm Leica camera, rendering everyday scenes into a theatrical spectacle. Strongly influenced by surrealism and silent film, Levitt also explored the uncanny elements of the everyday, often capturing people in strange poses alongside surreal juxtapositions of people, places, and things. Although much of her work documented poor communities against a backdrop of depression or war, Levitt aimed to capture the poetics of everyday life rather than providing political or social commentary.

One of the early pioneers of colour street photography, Levitt was one of the first photographers to exhibit her colour work in 1974. In 1959 after receiving a Guggenheim grant to shoot the streets of New York City, Levitt visited many of
the same locations she had captured in the beginnings of her career, recreating these scenes in richly coloured dyet-ransfer prints. This exhibition presents a broad selection of Levitt’s colour photographs, showcasing the development of
a new pictorial language in her work.

Also showing as part of the exhibition is In the Street (1953), the experimental documentary Levitt made with filmmaker Janice Loeb and the writer James Agee which focused on street life in Spanish Harlem. The first of several film projects Levitt created, In the Street closely corresponds to her photographic work, providing a moving portrait of her still photography and is considered an essential forerunner of the cinéma vérité style emerging in the 1960s.

Whilst reportage of New York City remained at the heart of Levitt’s practice, this exhibition also displays photographs she made when visiting Mexico for several months in 1941. Her only body of work taken outside of New York, these images document the inhabitants of poorer neighborhoods in Mexico City, a place on the cusp of enormous social and economic change.

Helen Levitt: In The Street is curated by Walter Moser in collaboration with TPG’s Senior Curator, Anna Dannemann and co-produced by The Albertina Museum, Vienna and The Photographers' Gallery.

HELEN LEVITT: IN THE STREET
15 OCT 2021 – 13 FEB 2022
See: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/

Image: Helen Levitt New York, 1938 © Film Documents LLC Courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne

Picture Post was Britain's best-selling weekly magazine during the 1940s and early 50s. Through its picture stories, Picture Post pioneered a completely new approach to the portrayal of British life, and in doing so helped to shape modern British photography.

PICTURE STORIES, is a new feature-length documentary, explores that revolution through the eyes of some of Britain’s leading documentary and street photographers, and through archive interviews with Picture Post photographers, writers and editors.

See more and download or buy here: https://picturestoriesfilm.com/

Separately, RRB Books is offering a run of Picture Post magazines from vol 1-29 (1938-1957) with each volume in in original case binding and each issue with original covers.  The asking price is £1250. Click here to see more. 

The Bodleian Libraries has announced that, for the first time, a Curator of Photography will be appointed to care for and develop the libraries' growing photography collections, thanks to a transformational gift of £2 million from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. The endowment accompanies the Foundation's donation of the archive of renowned American portrait photographer and businessman, Bern Schwartz.

The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, inspired by the talent for photography that businessman Bern Schwartz developed later in life, is generously supporting the Bodleian Libraries in advancing the appreciation, understanding, and study of photography by donating the archive and funding the curatorship, which will be known as The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography. 

The study of and research into photography is increasing in prominence at the University of Oxford, and this post will be key to bringing together different strands of the University for research collaborations with various faculties, museums within the University, other organisations in the city, and with the History of Art department under the leadership of Professor Geoffrey Batchen, whose work focuses on the history of photography.

Details of recruitment will be announced shortly. 

Read more here: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/article/bodleian-libraries-to-appoint-curator-of-photography-for-first-time