Peter Domankiewicz has written a blog in which he suggests, and cites evidence, that William Friese-Greene was a supporter of women's rights. Friese-Greene was active when such issues were very topical and the subject of wide debate and in a lecture he gave to Bath Photographic Society in 1890 he stated: '‘Now the next subject I shall connect with this paper, or at least the movement or movements of photography, is the ladies. . .’. 

The blog can be read here: https://www.bristolideas.co.uk/read/friese-greene-protofeminist/?fbclid=IwAR3CmLidCZjL4CjWDRS23dHTNoIQh2m6bFlyHemtT_ozVkY7DRfx2qm9tr0

The 33rd Annual Daguerreian Society symposium will take place from 15-17 October. The event will include a virtual fair featuring 19th and 20th century photographs, books, and ephemera including images from the highest levels of the art to vernacular snapshots, collectible books, historical images, and a broad range of historical photographic material. It is a show for collectors, curators, galleries, and dealers. 

There will be expert panel discussions and (virtual) tours of exhibitions and collections. The full talks programme will be announced shortly. 

This is an excellent opportunity for curators and historians to reach a receptive -- and enthusiastic -- audience.  With the symposium now a month away, the Society is inviting proposals for Zoom presentations and/or video tours of 19th century photography exhibitions and collections. 

The Daguerreian Society is a non-profit organization devoted to 19th century photography, headquartered in the US but welcoming members from around the globe.

Details and registration here: https://www.daguerreiansociety.org/events/2021-daguerreian-society-virtual-symposium/

The Museum of Fine Art Houston is the final home for Julia Margaret Cameron's 'Norman' album. The album was the subject of an export licence deferral in 2018 but UK institutions were unable, or unwilling, to match an independent valuation of £3.7 million (see links below) and an export licence was granted. The album had been the subject of an earlier export licence application in 2013 when the album had been offered for sale at the Maastricht Art Fair. The application was withdrawn. The purchaser had been unknown until recently.

Malcolm Daniel, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography, at MFAH, revealed the news to BPH and in his Photography Newsletter  He writes: 'In my last letter, I spoke about two important acquisitions...and I hinted at a third, even more major acquisition that I couldn’t yet speak about. Now I can share that news with you—an acquisition that I described for the Trustees as the single most extraordinary item that I’ve proposed for acquisition in more than 30 years as a photography curator—an album of 75 photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the greatest portraitists in the history of photography—in my opinion one of the greatest in any medium...This album is exceptional in the number of startlingly perfect prints, no doubt because Cameron took great care in the selection of existing prints or the printing and toning of new prints for this very special presentation album. In a single stroke, with this acquisition the Museum can now claim one of the greatest collections of Cameron’s photography in the world.'

The album has found a worthy home where it will be properly cared and made available to the public and for study for by an empathetic and knowledgeable curator. 

Read the MFAH newsletter  MFAH%20Photography%20News%2053.pdf

See previous BPH posts about the Norman album here: 

https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/export-licence-deferred-on-cameron-s-norman-album

https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/export-of-cultural-objects-2018-19-julia-margaret-cameron-s-the-n

Ffotogallery is recruiting a new director to take over when David Drake steps down at the end of the year. The gallery is one of the UK’s leading organisations for contemporary photography and lens-based art. Based in Cardiff, Wales’ capital city, the organisation commissions and presents outstanding and diverse work from Wales and the world, supports the development of artists, and showcases exciting new work developed in Wales.

Since its formation in 1978, Ffotogallery has been at the forefront of new developments in photography and lens- based media in Wales and beyond, encouraging public understanding of photography and a wider appreciation of the role it plays in our understanding of the world around us.

We’re looking for a creative, ambitious individual to take on the role of Director, and to provide artistic and strategic leadership for the organisation.

Please see the Job Pack for more details of the role, along with further background information about Ffotogallery.

See: https://www.ffotogallery.org/channel/opportunity-cyfarwyddwr

In December 1920, The Strand Magazine published a series of sensational photographs taken by two young girls from Cottingley that allegedly showed real-life fairies dancing at the bottom of their garden. Their authenticity was vouched by no less a person than world-famous Sherlock Holmes creator and spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The images immediately triggered a fierce public debate: were they evidence of the existence of otherworldly nature spirits, of the technical craft and duplicity of their creators, or of the suspect nature of photography itself? The cameras used to produce the pictures, along with Elsie Wright’s famous 1983 “Confession” letter, are today held in the collection of the National Science and Media Museum.

In this talk, Professor Christine Ferguson, Chair in English Studies at the University of Stirling and Principal Investigator on the Media of Mediumship project, discusses what these objects can tell us about the long-standing relationship between technological innovation and alternative spiritual belief in modern Britain.

This talk will be delivered in hybrid format: bookings can be made to attend in person, or to watch online. All Media of Mediumship events are free and open to the public.

‘Fairies Photographed! The Cameo Camera and the Case of the Cottingley Fairies’, Professor Christine Ferguson
Part of the Café Scientifique series 
National Science and Media Museum, Bradford
Free, Online (available) and live (sold out) 30 September 2021, 1830-2000 (BST)
Booking information can be found here: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/cafe-scientifique

Tennants Auctioneers will be auctioning the library, pictures and camera collection of Eric Hosking OBE Hon.FRPS FBIPP (1909-1991), in its forthcoming Books, Maps & Manuscripts sale being held on 24 November 2021.

The collection is being sold by Eric Hosking’s son David, who is himself a professional photographer and collaborated extensively with Eric. Until recently he was with his wife Jean co-director of the Frank Lane Picture Agency, overseeing the management and licensing of Eric’s photographic archive. The collection contains a set of 30 original signed photographs by Eric Hosking, which are being sold in small groups to benefit the Eric Hosking Trust, with every group being offered with a complimentary copy of Eric Hosking’s Classic Birds (1993), each one of 1,000 copies signed by David Hosking. There are also signed copies of Eric Hosking’s own books including Which Bird? (1998), Just a Lark! (1984), Wildlife Photography (1973), Antarctic Wildlife (1982), and Eric Hosking's Waders (1986), together with items such as Guy Mountfort’s Portrait of a Wilderness. The Story of the Coto Doñana Expeditions (1958), inscribed by Mountfort and Viscount Alanbrooke to Hosking, who was the photographer on the expedition and whose photographs illustrate the book. Most books in the library contain Eric Hosking’s owl bookplate, recalling the famous incident in which he lost an eye to a tawny owl at the age of 28.

Eric Hosking 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 800 books, including the popular New Naturalist series, of which he was photographic editor. His technological innovations include the use of flash photography for birds, and the invention of an electronic trigger-mechanism for ultra-high-speed photography of birds in flight. He was also the first to photograph owls in the wild, and famously lost an eye to a tawny owl at the age of 28, an event which proved no measurable hindrance to his career. The incident later inspired the ingenious title of his autobiography, An Eye for a Bird (1970), the foreword to which was written by HRH Prince Philip.

Eric Hosking's centrality to the world of ornithological publishing is captured by a variety of outstanding presentation copies of books now up for sale, by figures including Peter Scott, Roger T. Peterson, Denis Healey (a keen amateur photographer) and David Attenborough, many with highly personalised and admiring inscriptions. Further highlights include excellent copies of Godman's Monograph of the Petrels (1907-10; estimate £1,500-£2,500), Legge's History of the Birds of Ceylon (1880; £1000-£2000), and J. G. Millais's Mammals of Great Britain (1904-6), inscribed by Millais for the illustrator G. E. Lodge, and subsequently inscribed by Lodge for Hosking (£300-£500).

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, and will give skilled users the chance of recreating his photographic feats. 

Offered together in a single sale, Eric Hosking’s library, pictures and camera collection will evoke the life's work of a true pioneer and represent a major event in the year’s auction calendar.

An illustrated catalogue will be available on the Tennants website leading up to the sale: www.tennants.co.uk

For further information please contact Dominic Somerville Brown (books@tennants-ltd.co.uk)

Brian Iddon is leading a project to restore the grave of Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, north Wales. Coburn's grave is an poor condition and the plan is to restore the grave and to produce an interpretation plaque at the graveyard in north Wales. The local stone masons have quoted £1122 for the work. The Universal Order which was the beneficiary of his estate has given permission for the restoration and has made a significant donation, along with several others. The balance is now sought. 

Anyone interested in supporting this initiative can reach Brian by email at: brianiddon53@gmail.com. 

Once the work has been undertaken a formal commemoration will be arranged. 

Coburn is a key figure in early twentieth century photography and significant collections of material are held in the Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A Museum, London, and at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library in Manchester. 

A picture of the grave can be seen here: https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=grave-of-alvin-langdon-coburn-llandrillo

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of Thomas Annan's Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, photographer Frank McElhinney re-traces Annan's footsteps with a photo trail along the same streets where Annan made the original photographs. Annan's famous street studies of this historic area of Glasgow are shown in the windows of modern businesses along High Street and Saltmarket, taking the viewer on a journey through history.

One hundred and fifty years ago Thomas Annan published a series of thirty-one photographs of the old streets and closes of Glasgow. They are recognised as perhaps the world’s first attempt at what we now call social documentary photography. An 1866 act of parliament had approved the clearance of Glasgow’s overcrowded and epidemic prone slums. With the exception of one photograph made in the Gorbals, all of the rest were made in and around the High Street and Saltmarket. It was once assumed the photographs were commissioned by the City Improvement Trust, but there is no real evidence of this. It is more likely that Annan began the series on his own initiative motivated not just by a speculative commercial imperative but by a desire to highlight the slowly improving condition of Glasgow’s poorest residents. The title of the work suggests architecture was the principal subject but the photographs are teaming with life, full of men, women and children. Annan’s photographs give us a privileged insight into the living conditions of our forebears as no other city, with the possible exception of Paris, has a comparable archive from such an early period in the history of photography. - Frank McElhinney

Find out more and associated events here: https://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/thomas-annan-photo-trail

Helen Trompeteler is giving a talk Prince Albert. Patron of early photography. She will discuss the integral role that Prince Albert played in the advancement of photography. Alongside Queen Victoria, Prince Albert’s support for the new medium was a cultural and social catalyst – furthering opportunities for creativity, experimentation, and the exchange of photographic knowledge.

During his lifetime, Prince Albert cultivated a collection of some 10,000 photographs by pioneering nineteenth-century photographers such as Frances Sally Day, Roger Fenton, Oscar Gustav Rejlander, Charles Thurston Thompson, and George Washington Wilson. The Royal Collection is relatively unique in that there is such strong primary material in the Royal Archives that illuminates our understanding of the development of the collection. Many of the photographs and documents presented in this talk are part of Prince Albert: His Life and Legacy (albert.rct.uk). 

Helen Trompeteler is a curator and writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a committed advocate for the civic role of special collections as catalysts for contemporary dialogue and cultural exchange. Helen has eighteen years of experience leading exhibitions and partnerships for internationally significant collections, including the Royal Collection (2016-20) and the National Portrait Gallery, London (2002-16). Further roles include board member of Four Corners (2017-present), the Museums Association Transformers leadership program (2018-2019), and the Josef Breitenbach Research Fellowship at the Center for Creative Photography (2016). trompeteler.com

Prince Albert. Patron of Early Photography
Saturday, 11 September 2021, 1:30 pm (EST) | 1830 (BST) | 1930 (CET)
Hosted by the Daguerreian Society, $25 donation 
Register: https://www.daguerreiansociety.org/the-daguerreian-society-talk-series-2021/

The V&A museum has announced The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, a major new curatorial programme to support women in photography. The Project, funded by Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and the Parasol Foundation Trust, encompasses a new curatorial post alongside acquisitions, research, education and public displays, aiming to foreground and sustain women’s practice in contemporary photography and highlight the role women have played throughout the history of the medium.

The Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography – a new curatorial position, endowed for 25 years – will lead the Project’s activities. Recruitment for the role begins today and details of the role can be found here.

The Project furthers the V&A’s mission to nurture contemporary artists and share the museum’s collections, knowledge, and expertise in photography. Through commissioning women to create new work, acquiring photography by women artists, devising women-led displays, and organising talks, educational programmes and events, the Project’s ambition is to support contemporary women artists, develop programming, and investigate the roles of women photographers within the V&A collection. International in scope, there will be a particular emphasis on digital art, and the digital distribution of resources and information via social media. The Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography will also develop a significant online presence for the Project, including a dedicated Instagram account to highlight works by women artists, which will launch in early 2022.

The Project is made possible through a major gift from Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and the Parasol Foundation Trust, a philanthropic trust established in 2004 that supports educational, health, culture and heritage initiatives. In addition to the Trust’s support of the Project, Gallery 97 at the V&A will be named The Parasol Foundation Gallery. This gallery, a space for displaying contemporary photography, is part of the V&A Photography Centre Phase Two development.

Duncan Forbes, Head of Photography at the V&A, said: “We are thrilled to launch this programme in support of women photographers at the V&A. It allows us to focus resources over a sustained period and to celebrate the creativity of women artists across the photography collections. The opportunity to bring work by contemporary photographers into dialogue with the V&A's rich historical archive is particularly exciting. The programme arrives at an energising moment for photography at the museum with the forthcoming expansion of the Photography Centre in 2023. We are very grateful to the Parasol Foundation Trust for its enlightened support.”

Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol said: “I’m delighted to be working with the V&A to create the Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project. We’re aiming to celebrate the achievements of women in photography and inspire the next generation of women photographers to fully express their creativity and achieve their potential. Our focus on digital art and social media will open up participation and help us connect with the widest possible audience.”

The V&A was the first museum in the world to collect photographs, beginning with its founding in 1852, and continues to collect and commission new work today. Phase One of the V&A Photography Centre opened to critical acclaim in 2018, sharing the breadth of the V&A’s world-leading photography collection, and Phase Two – with four new gallery spaces – will open in 2023.

The next 18 months will be a busy time for photography at the V&A. On 6 November 2021 the existing Photography Centre will be entirely rehung with two new displays. Maurice Broomfield: Industrial Sublime will open in Room 100, The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery, and next-door, Known and Strange: Photographs from the Collection in Room 101, The Sir Elton John and David Furnish Gallery. The V&A will also be recruiting the second Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation in 2022.

See ParasolCuratorofWomeninPhotography-JD-Sept21%20%281%29.pdf and the link here to apply. Applications close 8 October 2021.

On 18 September 2021 the Dialogue Foundation will organise the third edition of the Dialogue Vintage Photography Festival. As in 2019 the Festival will consist of a fair with dealers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and France.

In addition to the fair there is also have a lecture program which is put together by Maarten van den Heuvel, curator of the photography collection of the Leiden University. The theme of the lecture program is "NEW HORIZONS - PHOTOGRAPHY AFTER THE RESET", it will include talks by - among many others - Mattie Boom of the Rijksmuseum, Willemijn van de Zwaan of the Fotomuseum in The Hague and photo restorer Clara von Waldhausen.

Furthermore, there will also be workshops on collodion and cyanotype printing, an exhibition and presentations of highlights from Dutch photo collectors.

The full program can be found here https://www.dialoguevintagephotography.com/

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has published a short film interviewing Wilfried E. Keil who was Rome Fellow at the British School Room from April-June 2021. During this time he used the BSR's extensive photographic archive to closely examine Robert Mcpherson's original photographs. He made a number of discoveries including an unknown photographic technique, new provenances and even a nineteenth-century thumbprint.

Watch this film to find out more about the importance of experiencing source material up close and personal. This project was supported by a Rome Fellowship. Find out more about the PMC Fellowships & Grants programme at https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/... Find out more about the British School of Rome at https://www.bsr.ac.uk/

See the film here: https://youtu.be/hup8aRQifdQ

Etc Fairs has announced the return of the Bloomsbury Photograph Fair, running alongside the Bloomsbury Book Fair on Sunday, 10 October from 0930-1500 at the Holiday Inn, Coram Street.

The Bloomsbury Book Fair will be taking place as usual in the Booker and Turner Suites, with the Photograph Fair will be held in meeting rooms on the first floor. Exhibitors lists and further details will be published shortly. 

https://etcfairs.com/2021/09/02/bloomsbury-photograph-fair-is-back/

To celebrate the 130th anniversary since the Kodak factory opened its doors in Harrow, Headstone Manor Museum is launching a digital exhibition showcasing its history as well as the many faces of the people who worked there. Through oral histories and memories, this exhibition will highlight historic moments in Kodak’s history in Harrow. A film will be available to view in this exhibition featuring recent oral histories recorded in 2021.

See: https://headstonemanor.org/events/kodak-in-harrow-celebrating-the-130th-anniversary/

Slow Color Photography explores the remarkable science, art, and aesthetics of two of the German Empire's most ambitious photographers who created colour images using the Lippmann process around 1900: Doctor of medicine and anthropologist Richard Neuhauss (1855-1915) and physicist Hans Lehmann (1875-1917).

Slow Color Photography
until 30 January 2022
Preus Museum, Horten, Norway
See: https://www.preusmuseum.no/eng/Discover-the-Exhibitions/Current-exhibitions/Slow-Color-Photography

Photography arrived in China as early as the 1840s, fascinating Chinese and international communities as a revolutionary new way of making images. Photography has been a constant catalyst for creative dialogues in China: between modernity and tradition, past and present, and manual and mechanical reproduction. Photography resonated with China’s existing art ecosystem, encouraging a nationalist fervour, shaping popular interests and providing new meanings to China’s past. From its origins in the early 19th century to the present, photography has played a central role in the artistic, cultural, political, social, and economic challenges and changes that shaped modern China.

In this course you will be taught by leading international scholars, artists, and curators, allowing you to see this complex cultural phenomenon through multiple lenses. You will explore the changing practices and multiples trajectories that have shaped photography in China, from the advent of the medium in 1839 to contemporary times. How have photographs interacted with local and international cultures? What subjects, topics and themes have photographers been drawn to in the past 182 years? How do historic photographic archives shape contemporary experiments? How is photography from China curated and received today? By bringing together academic specialists, museum professionals and artists, these eight, weekly lectures will explore the role of photography in shaping and reshaping almost two centuries of Chinese visual culture.

Convened by Dr Marine Cabos-Brullé
SOAS and Photography of China

Photography of China: 1839-2021
Fridays, 8 October - 26 November 2021, 1200-1330
Online Learning, £500
https://www.soas.ac.uk/art-short-courses/photography-china/

Turning 80 this year and still as creatively productive as ever, acclaimed British photographer Paul Hill has produced a limited edition set of platinum-palladium prints of some of his most recognised and seminal images.  Prized for their rich, subtle tonal quality, wealth of fine detail and stability, platinum-palladium prints are at the summit of traditional photographic printing.

Proposing a fresh interpretation of a selection of the original 35mm negatives from his renowned Prenotations series of the 1970s, these exceptional images have been printed at a larger-scale to truly celebrate Hill’s remarkable compositions together with the superior qualities that platinum-palladium has to offer. Boasting fine detail and extreme archival stability, these beautiful prints have been handcrafted with the assistance of contemporary technology.

For the past 18 months, Hill has been working with Studio of Light at top ten University of Loughborough - specifically the photographic research and development expertise of Alan Duncan and Ben Dolman - who have devised an innovative approach to platinum-palladium printing by uniting this 19th century historical process with contemporary image making.

Opting for images that would offer a strong tonal range and impact, the negatives were scanned and digitally processed to make optimal files for the enlarged negatives ready for contact printing in the darkroom. Mastering this challenging process, they can now create consistently superior and exquisite prints, as presented in this exhibition of just 10 photographs from Hill’s most memorable work.

Speaking about the project, Duncan and Dolman state: “This has been a wonderful opportunity for us at the Studio of Light to work with such an outstanding and distinguished photographer as Paul.  Producing a set of platinum-palladium prints from his treasured negatives has allowed us to showcase what we can offer to photographers, galleries and, in particular, museums in the production and archiving of exacting photographic artwork.”

As for Hill, he comments: "I was so excited to get this invitation from Loughborough to participate in their venture into platinum printing and have my work printed by Alan and Ben. Their reputation as photographic innovators is well known, so I knew I was in safe hands. This is particularly important as there is only ONE negative existing of probably my best-known image - Man Against Snow - made in 1974!  When they told me that the prints would last for at least 1,000 years it was an easy decision. To think that if a photograph was made by this process at the time of the Norman Conquest and it would still be OK today is phenomenal!"

Argentea Gallery is working with Hill and Loughborough University to exhibit these outstanding prints in The Midlands where much of Hill’s work was conceived.  These rare prints of such beguiling luminosity, made with premium noble metals, attentive patience and meticulous precision will appeal to collectors who relish both the unique materiality and exclusivity of these influential images.

Signed copies of the recently released 3rd edition of Hill’s notable book Approaching Photography, which includes several photographs from the exhibition, is also available to purchase alongside a selection of smaller, vintage prints from the Print Room.

Prenotations Remastered opens Friday 17 September 2021
Opening times: Wednesday – Saturday, 12noon – 6pm
Strict social distancing guidelines so the opening reception will take place throughout 17th September from 12noon - 6pm.
www.argenteagallery.com  

Images: © Paul Hill. Top: Man against snow. Lower: Girl in striped shirt. 

Don’t Press Print is an annual conference organised by the University of West of England's Centre for Fine Print Research and the Royal Photographic Society. In 2020 the conference looked at the collodion process and its contemporary practice through the eyes of twenty artist-printmakers and photographic historians.

Registration is open. 

The conference will now be wholly online due to travel issues for speakers and potential registrants in attending and the cost has been lowered accordingly. 

See the full programme and register here: https://rps.org/photomech

The First Symposium of the Photography Network will be held virtually from October 7 through 9, 2021, jointly hosted by the Photography Network and Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen.

Over the last twenty years, the study of photography’s history has been characterized by, among other things, two opposing strands: a concentration on the photograph’s status as an object and a concern with the decidedly virtual quality of its images and practices. The 2019 FAIC conference »Material Immaterial: Photographs in the 21st Century« considered these two directions in photographic conservation, asking if the physical photograph still matters today as a source of teaching, learning, and scholarship when the intangibles of code now direct the production and archiving of images. Now, from a methodological direction, this Photography Network symposium seeks to inquire further into the historical implications of the increasing distance between photography’s status as an object and its life as what could be called the intangible »photographic.«

Given this consistent cleavage, the symposium asks; Where do the object-based and the virtual meet in photography’s histories? How can these two strands in photo studies be brought together and harnessed to reconsider existing problems or launch new investigations?

Full details and programme are here: https://foto.folkwang-uni.de/de/journal/news/the-material-and-the-virtual-in-photographic-histories/detail/

This online talk: 'the doing and the unfixing of family photographs' is a conversation event with Annebella Pollen (Reader in the History of Art and Design, University of Brighton) and Rachel Maloney (V&A / University of Brighton Research Fellow 2019-2021). This event will be held online but will be hosted live from the gallery space of Rachel's exhibition 'The Matriarchive' and will be chaired by Polly Wright from Brighton CCA.

'the doing and the unfixing of family photographs'
9 September 2021, 1630-1730 (BST)
Free, register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/online-talk-in-conversation-with-annebella-pollen-and-rachel-maloney-tickets-168716885747