Drawing: The Muse of Photography is a webinar from Drawing America and presents a conversation on the relationship between drawing and photography with Hans P. Kraus Jr., Malcolm Daniel, Curator of Photography at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and moderated by Allison Wucher, Director of Master Drawings New York. 

The talk will include a presentation on the early photographs and drawings by the pioneers of photography in Kraus’s current gallery exhibition, Drawing: The Muse of Photography. It will explore the techniques and innovations of early photographic artists, as well as how these new technologies were received by their contemporaries. Following the presentation, the panel will discuss the continued exchange and intersection between photography and drawing from the time William Henry Fox Talbot published The Pencil of Nature (1844-46) up to today.

To join this special free webinar via Zoom on Sunday May 31st at 1400 (EST) (1900 BST) please register here. 

Image: Oscar Gustave Rejlander, The First Negative, 1857, coated salt print. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

 

Bonhams is to auction a collection of material, including cameras, tripods, workbench and woodworking tools, and the sign from the Gandolfi camera makers workshop in Borland Road, London, in a single lot on 29 July 2020. The property was originally offered by Christie's by private treaty in 1994 and is offered by that buyer, a Swiss collector. The collection is estimated by Bonhams at £3000-5000. 

Read the full description here: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26339/lot/342/#/! 

Lai Fong (c.1839-1890): Photographer of China is the first exhibition devoted to a nineteenth-century Chinese photographer. Unfortunately, the exhibition at Cornell University's Johnson Museum of Art is inaccessible due to current circumstances. To share a view of the exhibition, Stephan Loewentheil, one of the principal supporters of the exhibition, has put together this short video with a selection of important photographs by the early Chinese master. The video is best viewed in full screen by following this link: https://loewentheilcollection.com/news/

The official exhibition page can be found here: 

https://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/lai-fong-photographer-china

The exhibition was curated by Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography at the Johnson, and Stacey Lambrow, curator of the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, with the assistance of Yuhua Ding, curatorial assistant for Asian art at the Johnson. It is supported in part by the Helen and Robert J. Appel Exhibition Endowment.

The Loewentheil Collection consists of more than 21,000 original photographs, most dating to the late Qing Dynasty. The Collection includes countless masterpieces, in superb condition, by the artistic giants of early photography of China. It presents a stunning visual record of China’s landscape, people, and culture. 

Dr Richard Sadler FRPS, one of British photography's important post-war figures, has died aged 92 years after a short illness. Originally from Coventry, Sadler was in his home city during the Coventry Blitz of 1940 and later documented the reconstruction of the city and the iconic Coventry Cathedral, becoming its official photographer. He was also the heavily involved with the city's Belgrade Theatre from 1958 until 1994 and part of his work there has now been digitised. 

He began teaching photography at Derby College of Art (later University of Derby) and was appointed course leader of the BA course in the 1980s. Derby University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2006.

Sadler's best known image is of the famous American photographer, Arthur Fellig -  Weegee the Famous - photographed when he visited Coventry in 1963. His photographs are held in several international collections, including The Royal Photographic Society Collection,the Centre for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

He joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1960 and was a former chairman of its Contemporary Group, editing its journal for many years The RPS awarded him its Fenton Medal in 2005. He was profiled by Mike Hallett in the Society's publication Portfolio Two (2010). 

In 2007 he moved to Monmouthshire where he died on Saturday. BPH's condolences go to his partner, Sue, his daughters and family. 

See: https://photomining.org/projects/sadler-at-the-belgrade

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O212252/weegee-the-famous-photograph-sadler-richard-ma/

With thanks to John Blakemore and Paul Hill. 

More to follow.  

The John Rylands Library in Manchester has a wonderful collection of historic and contemporary photography. Tony Richards from its imaging team is using COVID-19 lockdown as an opportunity to experiment with very modern imaging techniques to visualise spaces and objects from its collection. One of the objects visualised is a daguerreotype which presents its own challenges in showing the surface and characteristic transition between the 'negative' and 'positive'. These techniques have the potential to open up spaces and the collection for those unable to visit in person.   

Read the full blog here: https://rylandscollections.com/2020/05/11/from-2d-to-3d-photogrammetry/  

Image: Tony Richards, Daguerreotype of Catherine Hannah Dunkerley. John Rylands Library, Manchester.

Queen Victoria's accession to the throne in 1837 coincided almost exactly with the invention of photography. She would be the first woman in the world to live both her private and public lives in front of the camera.

At first, photography was a private pleasure, a way of capturing images of herself and her family for their own personal amusement. But during the course of her 64-year reign, Queen Victoria began to use the camera as a political weapon. The new art of photography was a vital tool in Victoria's battle to safeguard the British throne. It was a means to quell the forces of republicanism, a way to win the affection and sympathy of her people and an opportunity to establish her as the defining symbol of British imperial power.

By the time Queen Victoria died in 1901, photography had transformed the relationship between the monarchy and the people. The private life of the monarch was more visible to more people than ever before. But Victoria still managed to take one photographic secret to the grave.

On BBC4 and then online

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078y3p

Details of the rest of the series can be seen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04v8cqw/episodes/guide 

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has asked the public to help identify over 5,000 archive images which are now available online for the first time. In 2019-20, over 170,000 archive items from the HES archives were digitised, with the images now being added to Canmore – the online catalogue of HES archives. The new online records include digitised copies of photographic negatives and printed photographs from the Scottish Development Department (SDD) which was formed in 1962.

The archives showcase rural and urban Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s, from crofts in the Highlands and farms in Orkney to large estates in Fife and tenements in Glasgow. 

The collection gives a rare insight into what life was like throughout Scotland at that time with pub interiors, fashion trends and interior design choices all documented. There are also extensive records of Glasgow and Edinburgh and nearby locales, as well as Scotland’s new towns.

Over 5,000 images of locations and building exterior and interiors are currently unidentified as part of this collection, with HES aiming to identify as many as possible with the help of the public.

Also digitised this year were prints relating to significant archaeological digs including images of excavations at historic sites such as Skara Brae in Orkney and Edinburgh Castle. Approximately 14,000 prints were also digitised from personal research and work by prominent archaeologists such as Dr Euan Mackie, Roger Mercer and Vere Gordon Childe, with the oldest image dating from around 1927.

Lesley Ferguson, Head of Archives at HES, said: “These archives give a unique perspective on civic planning in the 20th century including the development and growth of Scotland’s new towns, while the images of excavations showcase the sites that helped archaeologists unlock the secrets of Scotland’s past – from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages."

“Unfortunately, we don’t know where some of these historic photographs were taken and that’s why we are asking for the public’s help. Perhaps there’s a photo of your street, or your local pub, or even the flat you lived in as a student."

Help us discover more of Scotland’s past by visiting Canmore and letting us know if you recognise any of the places documented in these archives.”Over 1 million archives documenting Scotland’s archaeological sites, buildings, industry and maritime heritage are currently available on Canmore."

See more and identify images here: https://canmore.org.uk/gallery/1096464

See Canmore here: https://canmore.org.uk/

The British Museum has revamped its website and made 1.9 million images of, and from, its collection - including photographs - available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Commercial use requires permission and payment of a fee. Reasonably sized files may be downloaded directly from the website. 

Such initiatives are not without their pitfalls. An 1858 photograph described as a stereoscopic daguerreotype on paper (!) is clearly not and a second image is also described as a daguerreotype on paper. However these are minor issues compared with the overall availability of images.

A highlight (shown left) s described as a Calotype c.1868 presented by Rev. J Inglis of a Ni-Vanuatu man, Williamu, posing in front of a neutral studio backdrop, seated in a chair next to a table; he wears a suit and tie.  Elsewhere there is work by Roger Fenton, the London Stereoscopic Company and many others, alongside field photography by museum staff. In addition there some random photography books and periodicals including Geijutsu shashin 芸術写真: The Pictorial Photography Magazine for Photographers (Art Photography. A group of photographs from Jabez Hughes studio in Ryde, IoW.  

See more and explore here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection

Images: © The Trustees of the British Museum

For a number of reasons the 1851 Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace hold a particular interest for photographic historians for whom it is familiar through the photographs of T R Williams, Negretti and Zambra, P H Delamotte and others. For the first time, visitors can take a 360 tour around The Crystal Palace, the venue of the formidable 1851 Great Exhibition held in Hyde Park.  The Royal Parks, the charity which manages London’s eight Royal Parks has partnered with educational virtual reality company, Seymour & Lerhn, to create the first virtual tour of the historic building, on location in Hyde Park.

The Crystal Palace was a marvel of its time when it opened in Hyde Park on May 1^st 1851. It was an enormous structure constructed from glass and cast iron, measuring around 563m by 138m, and 39m high. The giant building hosted the thousands of global exhibits of The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, the brainchild of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, to celebrate the industrial technology and design of the Victorian age, showcased to more than six million people.

In the light of the closure of The National Archives at Kew due to COVID-19 the decision has been taken to provide free access to digital records available on its website for as long as TNA remains closed to visitors. Registered users can now order and download up to 10 items at a time, up to a maximum of 50 items over a rolling 30 day period. The limits are there to help ensure the availability of our digital services for everyone. 

Digitised records are mainly census and genealogical in nature but also include Victorian prisoners’ photograph albums 1872-1873. 

You can read more about what is available to download on the TNA website.

When the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland jointly acquired the MacKinnon Collection of historic Scottish photography, they knew it contained many exceptional photographs representing the lives and achievements of Scots from the 1840s through to the mid-20th century. 

The recent exhibitions of a selection of some of the photographs and on-going cataloguing has allowed for new attributions and datings to be made. In this blog Blake Milteer discusses John D. Stephen’s Dawn of Light and Liberty. 

Read the full blog here: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/mackinnon-collection-cataloguing-dawn-light-and-liberty

The following vintage cameras and photographs were stolen from a house in north-east London on 9 April. If you are offered them or have sight of them please contact: CONTACT:CMS@MET.POLICE.UK

1.Detective camera disguised as a pair of binoculars c.1890.
2.Another detective camera disguised as a pair of binoculars c.1900.
3.A Ticka detective camera disguised as a pocket watch, hands at seven minutes past eleven.
4.Dr.Kreugner detective camera disguised as a book c.1890.
5.An unusual very flat seven inch diameter circular camera,the Stirn, made of copper c.1890.
6.Five mahogony/brass and bellows cameras by Watson,Sanderson etc.c.1900.
7.A group of brass encased lenses some engraved Ross,Goddard,Grubb, Harrison and Schnitzer.1850's to 1870's.
8.Two small circular Scioptic  balls incorporating two lenses set into rich brown lignum wood .c.1720.
9.Various small cased portraits (less than six  by four inches) of men,beautifull women and a labourer.One stamped in gilt Claudet,Regent St.,London.
10.A group of colour photographs on glass,portraits,scenes,flowers and still life scenes.Some stamped A and L.Lumiere.
11.A group of small positives  on glass of people and rural scenes in Ireland c.1890 in a green solander box.
12.Sepia photographs of Ireland c.1890
13,A large framed black and white portrait of James Joyce,three feet by two feet,black frame four inches wide signed by Bernice Abbott for the Tibet Fund.

 CONTACT:CMS@MET.POLICE.UK

Sue Davies who has died, after a short illness, aged 87 years, was the founder director of London’s The Photographers’ Gallery, the first public space dedicated solely to photography and photographers in the United Kingdom. During her twenty years as gallery director she established it as the go-to place for photography, particularly in its early years when photography was largely ignored by the UK’s arts establishment and there were no other galleries of photography. The Photographers’ Gallery exhibitions were diverse, ranging from historical photography, the work of contemporary photographers, and themed shows, often with an international perspective.  They were supported by an eclectic talks programme and a bookshop that was the best for photography anywhere in the country.

Susan Elizabeth Davies (née Adey) was born in 1933 and had a childhood that ranged from London, Iran and New York. She attended secondary school in London. She married John R T Davies (1927-2004) the jazz musician, recording artist, producer  and sound restorer in 1954 and they had three children, Joanna, Stephanie  and Jessica. Davies worked at various magazines including the Municipal Journal  and then had a part-time job at the Artists Placement Group in London before taking a job at the ICA.

Davies joined the ICA in 1968 as exhibitions secretary. It was at the ICA where she met Bill Jay who was using it as a venue for his Photo Study Centre which held regular photography talks. The Spectrum exhibition which ran at the ICA from 3 April-11 May 1969 was a landmark event for photography in Britain examining the role of photography, 500 women photographers and showcasing individual photographers including Tony Ray-Jones, Enzo Ragazzini, Dorothy Bohm and Don McCullin.

This activity awakened her passion for photography, and a determination that the absence of a proper place for photography in Britain needed addressing. By 1970 she was planning a gallery dedicated to photography. With the agreement of her family she re-mortgaged her home and gained the backing  of people such as Tom Hopkinson and Magnum agency photographers such as David Hurn. Jay’s Do Not Bend Gallery opened in 1970 and Davies was generous to acknowledge his influence and gallery as a first, although its brief extended beyond photography to the wider arts.

The Photographers’ Gallery opened on 14 January 1971. It aimed to provide a central London showcase for exhibitions of the best photography, to create a centre for the sale of photographic prints, and to offer a selection of photographic books, catalogues and magazines. It was also to act as an exchange house for exhibitions touring the continent and to initiate touring collections. The first exhibition was The Concerned Photographer curated by Cornell Capa. Following this was a show of Edward Weston’s photography, and thematic shows around industry, fashion and landscape, as well as young photographers.  As Martin Parr HonFRPS has recently commented: ‘to find a place that loved photography, it was absolutely exhilarating to go in there’.

The Gallery was set up as a charity, relaying on grant-aid and private benefactors. Hopkinson was the first chair of trustees and it was supported by an impressive roster of individuals, photographers, companies, and volunteers who made it all happen.  The premises at 8 Great Newport Street provided 3500sq.ft. of space to exhibit photography and for photographers and the public to meet and to listen to speakers. In 1980 the gallery expanded into No. 5 Great Newport Street and the freehold was purchased.

In 1972 the New York Times writing about London’s photography scene said: ‘In London's Photographer's Gallery, however, almost everything photographic is welcomed, including the kind of reportage whose only claim to attention is the interest of its subject matter...The Photographers' Gallery remains the only place in London that shows new photography regularly, and consequently, it has become a kind of catch‐all. ..And where else was it to go?

Davies’ work for photography was recognised with the Royal Photographic Society’s Progress Medal and Honorary Fellowship in 1982 and she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in 1988.

Davies was encouraged to step down as director in 1991. The British Journal of Photography suggested that the decision was, in part, based on the continual need to find funding to keep the gallery afloat. Even in 1972 Davies had said ‘we suffer from a chronic lack of money’ and this was always a challenge.  Her replacement’s first job was to deal with a dire financial situation, due, in part, to changes in how London boroughs funded the Gallery.  The BJP’s assessment of her time at the Gallery was fulsome: ‘Davies deserves the highest praise for what she has achieved in raising the profile of photography in Britain, not just via the walls of Great Newport Street, but by 20 years of example set to the many similarly successful funded galleries around the country’.  Its programming may have been mixed but at its best, as the BJP noted, ‘it was brilliant’.  

After leaving the Gallery Davies continued to be involved in photography as a visiting lecturer and curator.

The roll call of those who worked at the Gallery or took part in its activities is a long one and there are just a few personal recollections below. There are many others with their own memories of Davies and the Gallery.

Zelda Cheatle, who worked at the Gallery’s Print Room in the 1980s said : ‘it’s hard to remember that there was no photography anywhere before Sue....  she really defined British photography; but her Eastern European exhibitions by Kertesz and Brassai, etc, and Giacomelli and Fontana, and O Winston Link and so many more were brought to a British audience’.

Chris Steele-Perkins, the Magnum photographer commented: ‘Sue was responsible for encouraging young photographers as well as bringing the work of greats, like Winston Link, André Kertész, and William Klein to a British audience. For my generation TPG was like a clubhouse and I owe lasting friendships and important contacts to Sue and the atmosphere she created around the gallery. Without TPG's notice board I would never have worked on Survival Programmes.’

The curator India Dhargalkar who started her career at the Photographers Gallery under Davies said: ‘she was one of the most influential people in the early days of the photography art scene in the UK.  Under her direction it was a time of exciting and innovative exhibitions, opening the door to new photographers who have since become well established thanks to her support’.

Brett Rogers OBE, the current director of The Photographers Gallery, said: ‘Sue’s vision for the Gallery was rooted in a spirit of collaboration. From the outset, she gathered a group of like-minded people to work with her to ensure that TPG was first and foremost a place for photographers to exhibit, share, meet and sell their work. Equally she wanted to offer an environment to inspire, educate and inform audiences about the pivotal - and unique - role photography plays in our lives and communities.’

It can be hard, with a 2020 perspective, when photography exhibitions attract record crowds, receive massive media coverage and photography permeates our real and virtual worlds, to imagine how poorly it was seen in the late 1960s. That Davies was able to achieve so much for the public benefit, and for British photography, supported by others, is a testimony to her vision and perseverance.

It is poignant and sad that next year’s celebrations of The Photographers’ Gallery’s half century will now be held without her presence.  Her legacy is the Photographers’ Gallery and, even more importantly, the vibrant gallery scene and respect for photography that she helped to establish and define.

© Michael Pritchard

With thanks to Roxanne Maguire,  Zelda Cheatle, Chris Steele-Perkins, and India Dhargalkar.

Images: Chris Steele-Perkins HonFRPS, Sue Davies, 1982 (centre), Mayotte Magnus-Lewinska FRPS (top left); montage courtesy of The Photographers’ Gallery.

UPDATE - 2

Read more here: 

The Guardian obituary: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/apr/30/sue-davies-obituary

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Davies

BBC Radio 4's Last Word: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08c0h6g 

The Wiener Holocaust Library has made available an online version of its 2019 exhibition of Gerty Simon's life and work Gerty (Gertrud) Simon (1887-1970) was a German-Jewish photographer renowned in the 1920s and 1930s for her portraits of important political and artistic figures in Weimar Berlin and interwar London. In the 1930s, as a refugee from Nazism in Britain, Simon rapidly re-established her studio. She was soon photographing notable personalities from British public and cultural life to great acclaim. 

In 1934, Gerty Simon was described as the 'most brilliant and original of Berlin photographers'. But since Simon stopped taking professional photographs in the late 1930s, her career has been forgotten.

In 2016, The Wiener Holocaust Library received a large number of Gerty Simon's original prints of portraits taken in Berlin and London from the estate of her son Bernard (Bernd), along with documents relating to her life and work. In 2019, The Wiener Holocaust Library staged an exhibition on Gerty Simon's life and work featuring many of her works, including 18 original prints.

In 2021, a version of the exhibition will be shown at Villa Liebermann, where, for the first time in 80 years, the work of this pioneering photographer will be brought to public attention in Berlin.

Image: Gerty Simon, self-portrait montage, Berlin, c. 1925-1932.

Source magazine has provided free access to the digital edition of Issue 96 - Privacy: Picturing Our Inner Selves until the end of April. It features portfolios from Rachel Glass, Maurice Hobson and Gillian Wearing, fashion and marketplace columns, reviews, and interviews. 

Accessible here: https://bit.ly/2X9kZ8S.

Leicester's De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre annual conference for 2020 titled Camera Education: Photographic Histories of Visual Literacy, Schooling, and the Imagination will take place on 15-16 June 2020. Due to COVID-19 it will be run online and can be booked through the link here at a cost of £20. 

Read more about the programme and speakers here: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/annual-conference-2020/

Chiswick Auction's Fine Photographica sale will go ahead online on 29 April. The auctions includes a number of British photographers from Robert Howlett's portrait of I K Brunel (lot 105) to work from George Rodger, Richard Sadler, Fay Godwin, John Swannell, T R Williams (lot 111), Francis Bedford and others. Of particular note is a group of ten stereo-daguerreotypes by Schneider & Sohn (lot 114). 

The photographic equipment section includes a small selection of Leica and other cameras. 

The catalogue is available to review and download here: https://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/auction/details/29%20April%202020%20A-Fine-Photographica?au=518 

The only known wartime film footage of a secret site connected to Bletchley Park has been discovered. The 11-minute silent film, believed to be a compilation of footage recorded between 1939-1945, shows members of MI6 Section VIII at Whaddon Hall, Buckinghamshire. During World War Two, this was a most secret site where Ultra intelligence produced by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park would be sent, and then passed on to Allied commanders in the field.

Dr David Kenyon, Research Historian at Bletchley Park highlights the rarity of this find: “No other film footage of a site intimately connected with Bletchley Park exists. We don’t know who filmed it and the footage doesn’t gives away any state secrets or any clues about the work the people in it are doing. If it fell into the wrong hands, it would have given little away, but for us today, it is an astonishing discovery and important record of one of the most secret and valuable aspects of Bletchley Park’s work.”.

The reel of wartime footage, preserved in its original canister, has been donated to Bletchley Park by a donor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The film, shot mostly in black and white with some colour footage, shows men and women off duty at Whaddon Hall and at Whaddon Chase, where some staff were billeted. There is also footage of the Whaddon hunt, a football game, and a cricket match in beautiful summer sunshine. Identified figures in the film include Brigadier Richard Gambier-Parry, Head of SIS Section VIII, based at Whaddon Hall 1939-1945, as well as Bob Hornby, first Engineer, in charge of workshops and Ewart Holden, Stores officer. Several figures in the film have not been identified and Bletchley Park Trust is appealing for anyone who recognises someone in the film to get in touch via enquiries@bletchleypark.org.uk

Peronel Craddock, Head of Collections and Exhibitions at Bletchley Park said: “The Whaddon Hall film is a really significant addition to our collection. Not only does it show us the place and the people in wartime but it’s the first piece of film footage we’re aware of that shows any of the activity associated with Bletchley Park at all. We’re delighted it has been donated to Bletchley Park Trust where it can be cared for and help tell the story of the huge team effort that underpinned Bletchley Park’s successes during World War Two.”

COVID-19 has meant that the new print issue of The Classic will not be made available at its usual distribution points in selected galleries and institutions as they are currently all closed. The publisher, Michael Diemar, has decided to make  the latest issue available as a pdf from its website.

Issue 3 includes:  

• Frozen Films - The Andrée Polar Expedition 1897
• Samuel Bourdin on Guy Bourdin
• Jim Ganz at the J. Paul Getty Museum
• Photographs in the Royal Collection Trust
• Hugh Rayner on Samuel Bourne
• The McKinley Collection

Download The Classic here: https://theclassicphotomag.com/

Matthew Broadhead, a descendent of the Victorian Leicester photographer F. W. Broadhead (1846-1925)  has made over 250 photographs from his third great grandfather's studio available online for the first time.

The photographs can be seen here: www.flickr.com/photos/fwbroadhead

Matthew can be reached at his website: www.matthewbroadhead.com or by email: info@matthewbroadhead.com