Michael Pritchard's Posts (3014)

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12201165476?profile=originalDavid Hurn has donated a significant part of his archive to the Martin Parr Foundation collection. The gifted works include vintage press prints, exhibition prints, book layouts, and a complete set of David Hurn photographs made in Wales. This material joins a number of other David Hurn prints already housed at the Martin Parr Foundation.

Hurn has donated a significant part of his archive to the Martin Parr Foundation collection. The gifted works include vintage press prints, exhibition prints, book layouts, and a complete set of David Hurn photographs made in Wales. This material joins a number of other David Hurn prints already housed at the Foundation.

David Hurn projects accessible in the MPF Collection include, among others, Land Of My Father, Living In Wales and Carvings And Controversies: Sculpture Exposed. In addition, there are photographs from many press assignments, such as the Aberfan Disaster, The Beatles: A Hard Day’s Night and Churchill’s Funeral.

Much of David's archive is in the National Museum Wales, Cardiff. 

See more here in this film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0hNJgl34xk

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12201172276?profile=originalThe Kennington Bioscope, in conjunction with The Cinema Museum, presents another episode of KBTV, available on YouTube, at the KBTV channel. William Friese-Greene (1855-1921) was a pioneering British experimenter with moving pictures, whose monument in Highgate Cemetery hails him as “The Inventor of Kinematography”, and whose life – and death – were famously charted in the 1951 film The Magic Box, starring Robert Donat.

This online event, marking the hundredth anniversary of Friese-Greene’s death, features contributions from three experts on early moving pictures, who will talk about his life, his achievements, and his waxing and waning reputation. They are Peter Domankiewicz, Stephen Herbert and Ian Christie. 

See more here: http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2021/kennington-bioscope-online-back-in-focus-the-centenary-of-william-friese-greene/#more-29318

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12201169284?profile=originalApplications are invited for a fully funded PhD jointly hosted by the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and University of Brighton. The project will examine the ways in which a collection of apartheid-era photographs from South Africa held at the Pitt Rivers Museum, can be of value to South African and British audiences today. The photographs, taken by Bryan Heseltine and his aunt Irene Heseltine in the 1940s and early 1950s, are of particular importance to the visual history of South Africa. The research will establish a comprehensive digital research catalogue for the collections and use this as the basis for fieldwork in South Africa. Fieldwork will consist of local exhibitions, reception analysis, interviews, and historical research, to critically examine the range of meanings and uses for such historical imagery in the region.

Other lives of the image: examining the meanings of an apartheid-era collection of photographs in South Africa today
The studentship start date is 1 October 2021.
The deadline for applications is: Monday 26 April 2021 (16.00)
See mnore here:  https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/postgraduate-research-degrees/funding-opportunities-and-studentships/2021-ahrc-cdp-other-lives.aspx

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12201168654?profile=originalThe Tim Hetherington collection is based at the Imperial War Museum, and this AHRC-funded research network aims to explore Hetherington’s approach to recording conflict and to examine his legacy in the broader historical context of conflict imagery.

For our first network event, we focus on the visual tropes of war, including the idea of the ‘feedback loop’ which Hetherington spoke about, where soldiers co-opt popular culture into their own self-representations. Our expert speakers will discuss issues such as military masculinity, picturing injury, and the appeal of animals in combat imagery.

Tim Hetherington is best known as an award-winning conflict photographer, including four World Press Photo awards. In 2010, he was also nominated for an Academy Award for Restrepo, a feature-length documentary that chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.

This online event will include a short welcome, followed by two panels with invited speakers giving short presentations plus audience Q&A. There will be a short break between the two panel sessions.

Speakers include:

Suzannah Biernoff, “Flesh, stone, metal: the seductions of antiquity” | Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art at Birkbeck.

Max Houghton, “Restrepo: Locating the Self” | Senior Lecturer in Photography at London College of Communication

Paul Lowe, “Cats and Dogs: military representations of animals in combat” | Reader in Documentary Photography at London College of Communication, award-winning photographer.

Saumava Mitra, “Revisiting Restrepo: the men and boys beyond the wire” | Assistant Professor at Dublin City University.

Amru Salahuddien, "Individualism of the combatants” | Photojournalist covering the Middle East and Canada for international news agencies

Organised by the Imperial War Museum and University of Leeds. This event is supported by funding from the AHRC (Grant ref: AH/T008210/1). Principal investigator is Katy Parry (Leeds) and Co-Investigator is Greg Brockett (IWM). Please contact Katy if you would like to be kept informed about the network (k.j.parry@leeds.ac.uk).

The Tim Hetherington collection & conflict imagery research network launch
22 April 2021, from 1500-1700 (BST)
Online
To book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-tim-hetherington-collection-conflict-imagery-research-network-launch-tickets-148562511471

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12201167882?profile=originalApplications are invited for an AHRC-funded PhD studentship titled Amateurs, Scientists, Tradesmen, and Artists: The Royal Photographic Society (RPS), 1853-1914 to research the early history of the Royal Photographic Society supervised at Birkbeck University of London, in partnership with the V&A Museum, supervised by Professor Steve Edwards, Birkbeck, and Dr Duncan Forbes at the V&A.

The Royal Photographic Society (RPS) is the oldest surviving photographic society in the world. In parallel to the Victoria and Albert Museum it is the oldest institution in Britain dedicated to the historical preservation and promotion of photography. However, despite this venerable heritage, the Society has no substantive written history and its important collection remains in large part unexplored. This CDP aims to remedy this situation by rethinking the early evolution of the RPS against formations of culture, class, and the rise of the professions and professional societies in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. It pursues research central to the V&A's work in engaging the public with the RPS collection in the coming years.

Founded in January 1853 as a society open to 'ladies and gentlemen interested in Photography', the RPS was set in motion by a complex array of factors. These included the legacy of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (with its public display of photography as art and science), the desire of amateur photographers to escape patent restrictions imposed by W. H. F. Talbot, and the urge to forge an autonomous space for photography alongside established cultural institutions such as the Society of Arts and the Royal Academy. Initially an elite formation, the doctorate will begin to unpick the pathways of specialisation within the institution against the wider framework of mid-Victorian formations of commerce, art, and science. The aim is to connect the RPS to an existing historiography focused on the rise of the nineteenth-century middle class in Britain.

The student will be able to access a diverse range of training and professional development opportunities at Birkbeck and V&A.

See more here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/student-services/financial-support/phd-funding/ahrc-cdp-royal-photographic-society

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12201167855?profile=originalThe outcome of the second round of the UK government's Culture Recovery Fund funding has been announced with photography organisations in receipt of funds for both the first time and, for some, in line for a second tranche of funding,

Arts Council England which has been reviewing applications and disbursing funds claims that it has made some £751 million of investment. 

Amongst the photography bodies and galleries showing photography in receipt of second round funds are: 

  • Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol - ££169,149
  • Autograph ABP, Derby - £89,777
  • Derby QUAD, Derby  - £122,000
  • Farleys House & Gallery, Wealden - £85,000
  • Four Corners, London - £45,000
  • Ikon Gallery, Birmingham - £129,473
  • Photo London Ltd - £100,000

For a full list of funded organisations see: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/culture-recovery-fund-data

A summary of the first round funding can be seen here: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/culture-recover-fund-supports-photography 

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12201163490?profile=originalRyerson Image Centre has acquired the Francis Bedford Research Collection which has been assembled by Toronto-based architectural photographer and collector Steven Evans  It encompasses the life’s work of Francis Bedford (1815-1894), one of the pre-eminent English architecture and landscape photographers of the nineteenth century.

The collection comprises 1269 individual photographs in a variety of formats, six albums and 28 publications with original tipped-in photographs, and related ephemera. It also includes 16 lithographic publications, reflecting Bedford’s initial training as an architectural draughtsman and reproduction lithographer.

Ranging from the mid-1840s to 1870, the Francis Bedford Research Collection features views from the photographer’s extensive travels throughout the United Kingdom and the Middle East, where he famously served as official photographer for the Prince of Wales’ tour in 1862. Scarce early photographs, variant prints from the same negatives, examples of numerous stereographic formats, view albums and rare sales catalogues offer an unparalleled resource for scholarly study of Bedford’s working methods, the dissemination of his work through various commercial channels, and historical context.

Read more here: https://ryersonimagecentre.ca/collection/francis-bedford-research-collection/

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12201166689?profile=originalEd Bottoms has posted on Twitter that the first phase of the digitisation of the Architectural Association lantern slide collection has been completed.

He writes... Pleased to announce completion of the first phase of digitising the historic Architectural Association Lantern Slide Collection. One of the most important surviving holdings of architectural lantern slides in the UK. 20,000+ glorious slides built up between 1890s-1940s...

The collection was at the heart of AA teaching and also operated as a hub for the loan of slides to numerous institutions and architecture schools across the UK- including Cambridge, Birmingham, Aberdeen and, closer to home, Bartlett, LCC School of Building, and the Courtauld...

The collection's original order and classification system (invented 1923 by AA Principal + couple of tutors) has also survived, revealing the intellectual framework, biases and categorisation behind construction (and transmission) of a British inter-war architectural canon...

12201167084?profile=originalThe provenance records embedded in the collection provide a wealth of information on the networks of architects, artists, archaeologists, students and travellers engaged in architectural photography or slide collecting during this period...

In 2019 we begun making this remarkable collection fully accessible once more to researchers. A team of volunteers started cleaning, re-housing and digitising the collection - and over the last 12 months Lexi Frost overseen the completion of the first phase of the project...

As the slides are now being re-catalogued, the original order, inter-war categorisation, toponymy and terminology is also being preserved alongside - as evidence of the linguistic and classification structure underpinning the collection. 

See: @EdBottoms

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Autochromes return to the RPS

12201163052?profile=originalA collection of 224 autochrome plates made by Robert Bird from c1915-1920 has been given to the Royal Photographic Society more than one hundred years since the RPS first exhibited some of them in its annual exhibitions between 1915 and 1917. A few of the plates have only been seen publicly once since then in the 1950s when they were shown at a RPS Colour Group meeting. The plates were made by Robert Bland Bird and represent his entire oeuvre, before his business and political commitments took him away from autochrome photography, and his photographic interests moved on to cinematography. He was a member of the RPS from 1915 until his death in 1960.  

The RPS has produced a short film about the collection which is housed at its headquarters in Bristol. The film can be seen here: https://youtu.be/nYajirV_VU4 

The collection was also featured in the March/April 2021 issue of the RPS Journal and a copy can be had on request here

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12201174055?profile=originalSotheby's New York is celebrating fifty years of photograph auctions with a sale of fifty masterworks online between 12-22 April 2021, closing at 1801 (BST). Work ranges from Gustave Le Gray to Irving Penn and Martin Parr. 

Of particular interest is a group of  nearly 200 photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot, given by him to his half-sister Henriette Horatio Maria Gaisford (née Fielding) in the 1840s. The collection was remained with the family in Ireland since then and this is the first time that it has come to auction. 

It consists of loose photographs, albums The Pencil of Nature, Sun Pictures in Scotland and Horatia's personal sketchbook and sheet music. Sotheby's describe the lot as 'arguably the most important lot of 19th century photographs to ever come to market'. It is estimated at US $300,000-500,000. 

Included are: 

  • a group of 71 salt prints, several with manuscript captions in a contemporary hand in ink, two credited 'from nature H. F. T.' and 'H. F. Talbot,' likely by the photographer, and most with manuscript captions in a modern hand in pencil on the reverse; 
  • 12201174461?profile=originalHoratia's Album, comprising 25 salt prints, most with manuscript captions in a contemporary hand in ink on the mount; an album comprising 32 salt prints, most with manuscript captions in a contemporary hand in ink on the mount, inscribed 'Talbotypes 1843' in ink on the front pastedown;
  • an album comprising 24 salt prints, most with manuscript caption in a contemporary hand in ink on the mount;
  • the complete volume Sun Pictures in Scotland (London, 1845), 23 salt prints, on mounts with hand-ruled borders, each plate numbered in ink on the mount, 1844. 4to, gilt-lettered green cloth with a gilt-decorative cartouche, stamped 'A Tarrant Binder 16 Great Queen St' on the front pastedown, with the title page, plate list, and 'Notice to the Reader' inserted; 
  • 12201174499?profile=originalThe Pencil of Nature, (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1845-46), Parts II (plates 6-12), III (plates 13-15), IV (plates 16-18, with plate 16 in duplicate), and V (plates 19-21), 17 salt prints on mounts with hand-ruled borders, 15 numbered in ink on the mount; each with printed wrappers, Part II inscribed by its owner ‘Horatia Feilding / given me by Henry’ in ink on the front free endpaper, accompanied by letterpress text and two ‘Notice to the Reader’ pasted in; and 
  • Horatia's Sketchbook, with more than 20 pencil sketches and watercolors of botanicals, variously dated from September 18, 1820, to April 24, 1824 various sizes to 7½ by 9 in. (19.1 by 22.9 cm.)

Details of the auction are here.

For the Talbot lot see: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/50-masterworks-to-celebrate-50-years-of-sothebys-photographs-2/gifts-to-his-sister-horatia-gaisfords-collection

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12201173895?profile=originalFilm 2021, is a new year-long programme of activity celebrating the many aspects of Bristol’s film and moving image credentials launched by Bristol Ideas and Bristol City of Film, supported by the city’s film studios, cinemas, filmmakers and festivals.

Marking the centenary of the death of Bristolian inventor William Friese-Greene (1855-1921), a pioneer of early motion pictures, Film 2021 will include film screenings across the city, walking tours exploring cinema buildings, photography exhibitions, talks and panel discussions, and the launch of a special publication recounting the public’s memories of cinema-going throughout the past 70 years.

William Edward Green was born in 1855 in a house that used to stand behind the current City Hall, in College Street. He won a four-year scholarship to Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital School on Brandon Hill, leaving on his 14th birthday and going on to an apprenticeship with Marcus Guttenberg, a successful photographer at what is now 67 Queens Road. A plaque there credits Friese-Greene as ‘the inventor of the moving picture camera’. In 1874 he married a German woman, Helena Friese, adding her name to his. In the ten subsequent years Friese-Greene went on to establish two studios in Bristol, one in Plymouth and another in Bath.

William Friese-Greene 

Friese-Greene and fellow inventor John Rudge collaborated to create magic lanterns that gave an illusion of movement by showing a series of photographic images in quick succession. There is a plaque marking the location of Rudge’s home and a larger joint plaque for Rudge and Friese-Greene on the corner of New Bond Street Place, Bath. Friese-Greene is credited here as ‘the inventor of commercial kinematography being the first man to apply celluloid ribbon for this purpose’. Around mid-1891, Friese-Greene filmed the street life outside the King’s Road studio. It is one of the earliest films shot of a London street currently known, pre-dating the films of Lumière, Edison, Birt Acres and Robert Paul by several years. There are eye-witness accounts from neighbours and colleagues of him projecting films in that basement workshop, including one of the street. From the late 1890s Friese-Greene was working on a variety of systems to create motion pictures in colour.

On 5 May 1921, Friese-Greene attended a meeting of film distributors to discuss the future of the British film industry. After giving a speech urging unity to an audience who had little idea who he was, he sat down and died of heart failure. At the time of his death the 1 shilling and 10 pence in his pocket was thought to be the only money he possessed. He was given a grand funeral, funded by the British film industry, and cinema projectors across the country were switched off for two minutes in tribute. A highly imaginative film of his life and work, The Magic Box, was released in 1951 for the Festival of Britain. Martin Scorsese said: “the film that I think created the biggest impression on me about film and about filmmaking – the one that prompted me to say ‘maybe you could do this yourself’ – was The Magic Box.”  

About Film 2021

Film 2021 is a programme of activity celebrating Bristol’s film and moving image credentials, coordinated by Bristol Ideas and Bristol UNESCO City of Film. It marks the centenary of the death of Bristolian motion picture pioneer William Friese-Greene (1855-1921).

Film 2021 will include:

  • Footage of Bristol on film being shown at sites across the city
  • Film screenings in the city’s cinemas and film festivals
  • A day of talks and panel discussions on the city’s links to film, past present and future, presented as part of Festival of the Future City
  • Walking tours of the city’s film locations and former cinema building
  • A new poem specially written by the City Poet, Caleb Parkin
  • Special events across the city as part of Bristol Open Doors (https://bristolopendoors.org.uk/)
  • More activity and events will be added to the programme as it is developed over the coming months.

Film 2021 is backed by Bristol Film Office, The Bottle Yard Studios, Cary Comes Home, Bristol Photo Festival, Watershed, Destination Bristol, Bristol Libraries, Encounters, South West Silents and many others. Follow Film 2021 on Twitter using the hashtag #BristolFilm2021 and on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/bristolfilm2021

Follow Film 2021 on Twitter using the hashtag #BristolFilm2021 and on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/bristolfilm2021

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Standards: Glass plates

12201161698?profile=originalThe ISO Technical Committee 42 (Photography) looks after all the International Standards for Photography. It would like your help in relation to glass plates sizes used in photography; legacy and modern, collodion and gelatine, new and old equipment.

The standard is being updated to take into account some modern manufacture. Here is your chance to read the work for free and comments through the BSI portal.

Proposal: ISO 14548 Photography -- Dimensions of glass plates. Please visit http://standardsdevelopment.bsigroup.com/projects/2021-00138

If you have not used this system before, you will need to register https://identity.bsigroup.com/StdDevRegistration/Register?bpurl=https://standardsdevelopment.bsigroup.com/

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Photographer Charlie Phillips

12201166454?profile=originalThe Guardian newspaper has profiled Charlie Phillips,a British photograoher of Jamican heritage, living in London from the 1950s.

Charlie Phillips never planned to become a photographer. His childhood dream was to be an opera singer, or a naval architect. But then a camera fell into his lap. It was 1958. The 14-year-old had arrived from Jamaica two years earlier and was living in Notting Hill, west London, at that time the first port of call for many Caribbean immigrants. The area was also a destination for African American soldiers stationed at nearby military bases, who didn’t feel so welcome in central London’s white venues.

Read the full piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/25/charlie-phillips-why-did-it-take-so-long-for-one-of-britains-greatest-photographers-to-get-his-due

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Obituary: Janette Rosing

12201170097?profile=originalOne of British photography's most recognisable and charismatic photograph dealers and collectors, Janette Rosing, has died. There is a short obituary in the Antiques Trade Gazette from Pierre Spake and other tributes will be forthcoming. Janette was a regular buyer at auction and fairs from the early 1980s and often had a table at the London photograph fairs. 

See: 

https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2021/march/2485/backpage/obituary-photography-collector-janette-rosing/

Photograph: courtesy of Christophe Lunn / http://www.lunn-galerie.com/. Janette at a London Photograph Fair. 

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12201165288?profile=originalTo mark the launch of her important new biography of Herbert Ponting, Anne Strathie will discuss Ponting's career as a photographer and filmmaker and explore his remarkable achievements.

Herbert Ponting FRPS (1870-1935) loved stereoviews as a boy and, as a young Liverpool bank clerk, bought his first cameras. In post-Gold Rush California, he ran a fruit-farm, worked in a mine, courted an American wife and honed his photographic skill. In 1901 Ponting began a series of long trips to Asia, working for leading stereoview companies and illustrated magazines, including in Japan, China and Korea.

In 1907, after reporting on the Russo-Japanese war and touring India, Ponting returned to Britain, where his most striking images appeared in RPS and other exhibitions, leading magazines and his Japanese memoir. In 1909 Ponting signed up for Scott’s Terra Nova expedition and received tuition from camera-designer Arthur Newman on operating a kinematograph in hostile conditions. In Antarctica, Ponting stretched his skills and resilience to the limit, but in doing so made photographic and cinema history.

Anne Strathie’s new book will be widely available in Britain by mid-April, including from local bookshops and Waterstone’s (or their websites). It presents new research on Ponting, his life and career and is set to become the definitive work on this important photographer and former RPS member. 

See more and book here: https://rps.org/ponting

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12201169100?profile=originalThe appointed Archivist will lead on the first stage of the Feeney Archive Project with Vanley Burke, which we anticipate taking place in the physical space of the archive in May 2021 (although this start date is dependent on safety regulations and work permitted within Covid-19 regulations).

The content and timescale of the work required will be decided through initial conversations between the appointed Archivist and Vanley Burke in advance of physical archival work. Art360 has recommended that an archive appraisal is an essential first step to the project. The Archivist will specify their day rate for the work required following the setting out of initial plans.

Whilst the Archivist will lead on the delivery of the required work, wherever helpful, Art360 will offer support with the planning of archival work, as well as guidance and mentorship throughout the duration of the project.

In 2020 Art360 was thrilled to receive support from the Birmingham-based John Feeney Charitable Trust to support Vanley Burke in the organisation of the Artist’s extensive and extraordinary archive of photographic prints, negatives, research material, correspondence and ephemera.

This exciting project will take place in Birmingham in the context of the private space of the Artist. The overall project will involve several independent specialists, who will carry out work at different intervals over an 8 to 12-month period, and will involve some of the following activities: an archive appraisal, inventory-building, digitisation of materials, a Curatorial Residency (appointed through open call) and the production of a documentary film exploring Vanley Burke’s legacy.

See more and apply here

Please send a CV and cover letter of no more than 500 words to contact@art360foundation.org.uk.

Deadline is 6 April 2021.

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12201162471?profile=originalIn partnership with Chanel, the National Portrait Gallery has launched Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture, a new three year project, which aims to enhance the representation of women in the Gallery’s Collection and highlight the often overlooked stories of individual women who have shaped British history and culture. The project is part of the new Chanel Culture Fund, a global programme of unique initiatives and partnerships that will support innovators across the arts in advancing new ideas and greater representation in culture and society.

The role of women photographers in both documenting history and encouraging other women to enter the profession will be explored further, spotlighting Edwardian photographers such as Alice Hughes, who only photographed women and children, and at the peak of her career employed up to sixty female assistants.

Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture includes the appointment of a new team led by Chanel Curator for the Collection, Dr Flavia Frigeri, which will focus on researching the Gallery’s Collection with the aim of enhancing the visibility of select figures, as well as acquiring portraits of women not yet represented and commissioning new portraits of trailblazing contemporary women. The project will increase the proportion of women artists and sitters on display at the Gallery in London when it re-opens in 2023, following a major transformation, which includes a complete re-presentation of the entire Collection and a significant refurbishment of the building.

Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture will challenge traditional notions of women’s careers and how we think about women in relation to their male counterparts. Research will also explore the cultural, institutional, social, and political factors that shape difference, including class, race, gender and sexuality. Amongst the iconic and inspirational women whose portraits and stories will be explored are: Modern painters such as Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, one of Britain’s most important émigré artists; activist, writer and artist, Ray Strachey, and Gluck, who was also a trailblazer in gender fluidity. Significant sculptors, including Anna Mahler and Patience Lovell Wright, a famous 18th century wax sculptor whose portraits preceded Madame Tussaud, will also be reconsidered.

Image: Dorothy Wilding by Dorothy Wilding, 1930s © William Hustler and Georgina Hustler / National Portrait Gallery, London.

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12201164453?profile=originalLewis Carroll began photographing children in the mid-nineteenth century, at a time when the young medium of photography was opening up new possibilities for visual representation and the notion of childhood itself was in transition. In this lavishly illustrated book, Diane Waggoner offers the first comprehensive account of Carroll as a photographer of modern childhood, exploring how his photographs of children gave visual form to emerging conceptions of childhood in the Victorian age.

Situating Carroll’s photography within the broader context of Victorian visual and social culture, Waggoner shows how he drew on images of childhood in painting and other media, and engaged with the visual language of the Victorian theatre, fancy dress, and Pre-Raphaelitism. She provides the first in-depth analysis of Carroll’s photographing of boys, which she examines in the context of boys’ education and reveals to be a significant part of his photographic career. Waggoner draws on a wealth of rare archival material, demonstrating how Carroll established new aesthetic norms for images of girls, engaged with evolving definitions of masculinity, and pushed the idea of childhood to the limit with his use of dress and nude images.

This book sheds unique light on Carroll’s decades-long passion for photography, showing how his complex and haunting images of children embody conflicting definitions of childhood and are no less powerful today in their ability to challenge, fascinate, and shock us.

Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood
Diane Waggoner
Princeton University Press
Price:$65.00 / £54.00
ISBN 978 0691193182

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12201163680?profile=originalIn My Father And Me, documentary film director Nick Broomfield explores his relationship with his father, photographer Maurice Broomfield (right). The film is both memoir and tribute, and in its intimate story of one family, takes an expansive, philosophical look at the 20th century itself.

For decades among the foremost names in documentary (more recently for Marianne And Leonard: Words Of Love; Whitney: Can I Be Me; Tales Of The Grim Sleeper), Nick Broomfield has often implicated himself in the filmmaking process with honesty and candor. Yet never has he made a movie more distinctly personal than this complex and moving film about his relationship with his humanist-pacifist father Maurice Broomfield, a factory worker turned photographer of vivid, often lustrous images of industrial post-WWII England. These images inspired Nick’s own filmmaking career, but also speak of a difference in outlook between Maurice and Nick.

Alongside the family story, My Father And Me also documents the changes taking place in Britain itself, the rise and fall of industry in the North and the class divide. Rich in striking imagery, it is photographed by Nick’s son Barney Broomfield and Sam Mitchell, and is produced by Mark Hoeferlin, Shani Hinton and Kyle Gibbon.

Nick Broomfield is the recipient of awards including Sundance First Prize, Bafta, Prix Italia, Dupont Peabody Award, Grierson Award, Hague Peace Prize, Amnesty International Doen Award. My Father And Me was commissioned by Mark Bell for BBC Arts.

See the film on BBC2,  20 March 2021 at 2145-2315

The V&A Museum holds Maurice Broomfield's photography archive.

See: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O243084/maurice-broomfield-photography-photograph-broomfield-maurice/

An exhibition of Broomfield's work is due to open in the V&A's Photography Centre from November 2021, curated by Martin Barnes. See: https://mauricebroomfield.photography/

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12201170898?profile=originalSignificant Scottish photography collections feature in two forthcoming talks arranged by the RPS Historical Group. On 20 May Blake Milteer will be talking about the MacKinnon Collection which was jointly acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. The collection, originally amassed by Aberdeenshire collector Murray MacKinnon, represents Scottish life and achievements from the 1840s through to the 1950s, revealing a century of dramatic transformation, innovation, and upheaval in Scotland.

12201172096?profile=originalOn 22 June Ian Leith of the Wick Society will look at the Johnston Collection, a unique photographic archive which provides an insight into more than a century of life in and around Wick, from 1863 to 1976. Three generations of the Johnston family ran a photography business in Caithness which documented its social history, from the time the herring industry was at its height and Wick the herring capital of Europe. 

Both talks are free to attend. Read more and book here.

Image top:  John D. Stephen (Scottish, died 1917), Dawn of Light and Liberty, about 1908. Hand-coloured gelatin silver print. MMK.00449. The MacKinnon Collection. The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. Jointly acquired with assistance from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Scottish Government and Art Fund.

LeftImage: © The Wick Society / Johnston Collection / Alexander Johnston in his studio / JN43447P222.

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