A paid studentship funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council, supported by the South West & Wales Doctoral Partnership and co-supervised by the universities of Cardiff and Bristol is available. Titled Traces of Empire in the Built Environment: Exploring the Collective Memory of Colonialism through the Photographic Collections of the Historic England Archive, applications close on 25 January 2021. 

The project will use historic photographs to tease out the multiple ways in which the English built environment has been formed and reformed through its links to empire. This will include an examination of a wide range of areas, including the construction of monuments and statuary, the creation of buildings and spaces, and the work of the tens of thousands of people who travelled from the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia and found work as architects and builders in England’s cities. The photography collections of the Historic England Archive provide a unique and currently underexplored resource for exploring these themes. The Archive’s collection of 9 million images is one of the largest photography collections in the country, and provides a crucial window into the shaping of the built environment

Further details about the studentship can be found here: https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/CDA-1-Photographic-Traces.Further-Details.pdf

Details of the application process are provided here: https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/prospective-students/apply/collaborative-doctoral-award-projects-2021/

The deadline for applications is Monday 25th January 2021.

The Wolfson Foundation's New Collecting Awards give curators 100 per cent funding to research and buy works that grow their museums’ collections in new directions or deepen existing ones – such as commissioning new photographic portraits of people underrepresented in Scotland’s national collection and the acquisition of works by indigenous artists. Each winning curator receives a budget for acquisitions alongside funding for research, travel, and training, plus the support of a mentor and Art Fund staff and trustees. The programme invests in curatorial talent and allows museums to bring works of art and objects into public view.

Two of the 2020 winners will support new photography projects:

Louise Pearson, Curator (Photography), National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Louise Pearson will use Scotland’s census data to identify groups which are underrepresented in the national photography collection and address these gaps by acquiring and commissioning photographs that reflect the true breadth of Scotland’s population. These groups are likely to include single parent families, people of a mixed ethnic background, individuals from the Pakistani and Polish communities and residents of the Scottish islands.

Catherine Troiano, Curator, National Photography Collections, National Trust, Lacock
Catherine Troiano will develop a collection of photography since the 1970s, that represents diverse experiences of British heritage and speaks to local, regional and national histories. The project seeks to expand the Trust’s existing national collections of photography, which are richest in material from the 1840s to the mid-twentieth century. Collecting will focus on emerging and established photographers working in Britain, whose work engages with varied perspectives of identity, land and history.

Paul Ramsbottom, Wolfson Foundation chief executive said, “We are delighted to continue our long partnership with Art Fund. The finances of museums and galleries are under pressure, and so it is more important than ever to invest in curators. The items to be collected will be important acquisitions for the already remarkable collections at these five wonderful institutions.”

Jenny Waldman, Art Fund director said: “Supporting curators and their development is core to Art Fund’s charitable programme. Many museums’ collections are currently behind closed doors, but curators are still caring for, researching, and expanding them for the benefit of audiences. During a year in which we all are reflecting more deeply on critical issues including equality and diversity, we are delighted to support projects broadening representation when building collections.”

The New Collecting Awards programme is run by Art Fund and supported by a consortium of funders, including the Wolfson Foundation. For more information, please visit: https://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/programmes/new-collecting-awards.

The charity is also fundraising to support museums through the urgent crowdfunding appeal Together for Museums aiming to raise £1m to help museums adapt to Covid-19 and evolve in the future.

The latest issue of British Art Studies no. 18 has gone online and includes two papers of particular interest to BPH readers, from Sarah Parsons and Steve Edwards. 

Sarah Parsons, 'Women in Fur: Empire, Power, and Play in a Victorian Photography Album'. The craze for carte-de-visite portraits in the early 1860s established photography as an intensely social practice. As cartes were bought, gifted, traded, archived, and displayed, they captured and created social networks. This article asks what we can learn about the social language and networks of early photography by turning instead to amateur photography, specifically women’s amateur efforts.

Steve Edwards, 'Making a Case: Daguerreotypes'. This essay considers physical daguerreotype cases from the 1840s and 1850s alongside scholarly debate on case studies, or “thinking in cases”, and some recent physicalist claims about objects in cultural theory, particularly those associated with “new materialism”. 

British Art Studies is an opens source publication and the full papers can be read and downloaded from https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-18

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has digitised much of its collections and made them available to the public. Included are photographs and other material relevant to photographic history, including a series of letters from Francis Galton.

See: https://rcvsvethistory.org/

Image: Frederick Smith, Photographs of Smith's Laboratory at the Army Veterinary School, Aldershot

E. A. Hornel: From Camera to Canvas, a collaboration between the National Trust for Scotland and the City Art Centre, is the first major retrospective of Hornel's art for over 35 years. Featuring photographs and paintings from Broughton House in Kirkcudbright, this exhibition shows how photography was crucial to the development of Hornel's artistic technique. It examines his use of young, female models in Japan, Sri Lanka and Scotland, and demonstrates that he only became the painter he did thanks to the photographs he took and collected.

This extensive collection is housed at Broughton House in Kirkcudbright (Hornel's home 1901–33), which is cared for by the National Trust for Scotland. It includes c.1,700 photographs used by Hornel to create his paintings. He collected these from friends and contacts, purchased them commercially and took or posed them himself, both at home in Scotland and while travelling in Japan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

These photographs were crucial to the development of Hornel's artistic technique. E. A. Hornel: From Camera to Canvas shows that from 1890, the influence of photography can be seen in almost every facet of the artist’s painting. It provided him with access to people, places and networks. It helped him build a visual library from which he could refresh his memory and take inspiration. Hornel not only chose his subject matter based on his photographs, but copied figures, poses and imagery directly from photograph to painting.

The exploration of Hornel's photographic collection in From Camera to Canvas also reveals a more challenging hinterland to his paintings. While his photographs of Scottish girls (accompanied by their mothers and chaperoned by his sister, Elizabeth) are discomfiting to a modern eye, some of those he took of girls and young women in Sri Lanka and Japan appear intimate or intrusive.

E. A. Hornel: From Camera to Canvas
7 November 2020 - 14 March 2021, free entry, pre-booking essential 
See: https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/e-hornel-camera-canvas

Photokina, the world's largest and most important fair for the photographic trade and consumers is to end after seventy years. In an email to the trade the organisers state: 'it is an extremely difficult step for us to have to suspend implementation of photokina at the location in Cologne for the time being, in light of the continuing steep decline in the markets for imaging products and the increasingly heterogeneous needs of the different market segments.

After decades of shared history, this deep cut is a painful one indeed. Nonetheless, we must face the situation and the trend in the industry and take a clear, honest decision against continuing this event – a decision to which, unfortunately, we have no alternative'

Photokina was first held in 1950 in Cologne and acted as a biennial showcase for manufacturers, along with a supporting exhibition and cultural programme.  At its height major manufacturers such as Leica and Kodak would occupy a whole hall changes to the industry from the early 2000s saw a contraction in its size. 

The full statement can be read here: https://www.photokina.com/

A short history of Photokina can be found here: https://kwerfeldein.de/2012/09/05/die-geschichte-der-photokina/

 

Five unique Kinora reels - a form of early moving picture - have been digitised by the National Library of Scotland and made available online. The work started in 2009 and the reels show the fishing fleet and industry in the Scottish town of Wick in north-east Scotland from the early 1900s. Although the Kinora is best known for the published reels and viewers that were sold in Britain c1900-1915, it also offered a Kinora camera and service to make up amateur reels from c1908.  The Kinora history extends back to 1896 when it was patented by the Lumière brothers and it went through several iterations before it came to Britain. 

The NLS notes: In 1989 a Kinora Viewer together with a collection of reels was given to The Wick Society for display in the Wick Heritage Museum. The reels contained local scenes and events dating between 1897 - 1910 [sic]. It was originally believed that these reels formed part of The Johnston Collection, also preserved by the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive, however we now think that they could be the work of a contemporary local photographer John G. Humphrey.

The digitised reels can be seen here: https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/4627?search_term=wick&search_join_type=AND&search_fuzzy=yes

Read more about the history of the Kinora in Barry Anthony's The Kinora motion pictures for the home 1896-1914 (The Projection Box, 1996). 

A print from an album likely to have been compiled by Roger Fenton is being offered by Chiswick Auctions online on 3 December. The anonymous portrait, by Fenton, comes from the notorious 'grey paper album'. The important album was disbound and each image was offered, and dispersed, individually, at auction between 1977 and 1984.

No record of the album and its sequencing was made at the time and it remains an example of commerce determining to break up an album to maximise value for the consignor.  Pages from the album are now scattered across the world, including at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and prints periodically appear at auction. 

The Chiswick auction also contains other early photographs, stereocards and cameras. 

The Fenton lot description can be seen here.

The sale whole auction here. 

Bristol's Arnolfini arts space is presenting two photography exhibitions as part of its Health and Well-being series, both come from the Hyman Collection. A picture of health presents a group of women photographers and Jo Spence: from fairy tales to phototherapy presents work held in the Collection. 

The first, brings together a group of contemporary women photographers featuring autobiographical perspectives and social commentaries on the wider society, that aims to de-stigmatise subjects around mental health and create an environment in which people can have open conversations about their wellbeing. A Picture of Health includes work by Heather Agyepong, Sonia Boyce, Eliza Hatch, Susan Hiller, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Anna Fox, Rosy Martin, Polly Penrose, Jo Spence, and Paloma Tendero.

Jo Spence is drawn from one of the most comprehensive collections of Jo Spence’s works in the world, From Fairy Tales to Phototherapy focuses on the intersection between arts, health and wellbeing, celebrating her work as a photo therapist in which she used photography as a medium to address personal trauma, reflecting on key moments in her past.

Both exhibitions run from 4 December 2020-28th / 21st February 2021 respective. Both are free but will require pre-booking so social distancing can be respected. 

See: https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/a-picture-of-health/ and https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/jo-spence/

Images:  Wish You Were Here 1. Le Cake Walk: Rob This England Heather Agyepong; Only When I Got to Fifty Did I Realise I was Cinderella, (03). Jo Spence in collaboration with Rosy Martin

Two daguerreotypes of Charles Dickens and his wife, Catherine, by the London photographer J. J. E. Mayall, are being offered at auction on 17 December 2020. Both are dated c.1853-55 and are estimated £50,000-70,000 and £10,000-20,000 respectively.

Dickens was regularly photographed by Mayall and he wrote about his experiences in his publication Household Words in 1853 (vol. vii, no. 156, 19 March 1853).

See: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26015/lot/40/?category=list

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26015/lot/41/?category=list

Sworder's London auction is offering a lot of London photographs by James Hedderly. The eight photographs are estimated at £1000.

JAMES HEDDERLY (1814-1885)
a collection of seven photographs of Chelsea before the building of the  Embankment in 1871-3; Old Battersea Bridge (as depicted by Whistler); Chelsea Old Church; Cheyne Walk near Chelsea Physic Garden; Monument to Sir Hans Sloane at Chelsea Old Church; Statue of Sir Hans Sloane by John Michael Rysbrack in Chelsea Physic Garden; Houses on Cheyne Walk at the junction of Beaufort Street and Battersea Bridge; Cheyne Walk before the building of the Embankment; largest 20.5 x 42cm, unframed; together with a further photograph by W Brown of the Inspection of the Main Drainage Works at Barking, July 14th 1862 (8)

This collection by the Chelsea born artist James Hedderly gives a fascinating insight to what Chelsea was like in the 1870s, before the building of the embankment which changed the landscape of London so fundamentally. Hedderly's work focused on the Chelsea area and he did much to document the construction of the embankment. It was a time when Chelsea was established as a major artistic centre and community in London based around places like Cheyne Walk, which in 1870 boasted Dante Gabriel Rossetti (no.16) and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (no.96) as residents.

Hedderly's work can be seen in the Kensington and Chelsea Archives and National Monuments Record. Photographs are also published in John Bignall, 'Chelsea seen from 1860 to 1980', London Studio B, 1978.

See more here.

On behalf of Mattie Boom and Hans Rooseboom, Curators of Photography, we would like to bring to your attention our current research opportunities within the Rijksmuseum Fellowship Programme – in particular the new Terra Foundation Fellowship in American Photography.

Currently, the team of Photography Curators of the Rijksmuseum is preparing a major exhibition of its collection of American photographs—from the birth of the medium in 1839 to the present—in a wider context. Candidates are invited to submit a research proposal that links to the themes that were chosen for the upcoming exhibition: American landscapes, portraits, the private use of photographs, the application of photography in advertisement, fashion, politics, (decorative) utensils, and a number of social themes – from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement and from poverty to the experience of wars in the Homeland, as well as the relation of photography to modern art (especially after World War II).

The deadline for applications is 17 January 2021. We are hopeful to continue this programme as planned for the next academic year, with fellowships commencing in September 2021.

Marije Spek & Barbara Tedder
Coordinator Academic Programmes
e: Fellowships@rijksmuseum.nl

 You can find all further details and eligibility requirements here:

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/fellowships

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/fellowships/terra-foundation-fellowship

If you have a spare £20,000 then one fascicle from William Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature (1844-1846) - the first commercially published photographic book - can be yours. The fascicle is illustrated with two calotypes - including one view of Lacock Abbey, and one photogenic drawing of lace. Approximately forty complete or substantially complete copies survive. 

If you want to bid check out the lot here. 

UPDATE: The lot remained unsold with no bids, was re-offered and then withdrawn by the seller, suggesting a sale may have been done privately.  

The Icon Photographic Materials Group is delighted to announce that this year’s fourth Round Table discussion will take place online. We hope that a virtual format will allow more people to attend, nationally and internationally. 

As in previous years, the event will consist of a series of five-minute presentations followed by questions and discussion. As always, it is open to anyone with an interest in the care and preservation of photographic materials. 

We invite abstract submissions from conservators and non-conservators working in public institutions, private practice and education. Subjects could include (but are not limited to) treatment practices, preventive conservation, scientific research, education, outreach and funding. 

If you’d like to give a five-minute presentation, please send a titled abstract (c.100 words) with your name and affiliation to phmgicon@gmail.com by the 30th November. Presentations should include around five PowerPoint slides, which should be illustrative rather than textual. Please get in touch as soon as possible for further details or to discuss your idea. 

The Round Table event will be followed by a brief update from the group committee.

A Zoom link and programme for the event will be emailed to attendees closer to the date.

Registration is free. To register please follow this link to our Eventbrite page. A final version of the programme will be available by early December, but you can check our Eventbrite page for updates before then. We look forward to continuing the discussion for another year.

See: https://icon.org.uk/events/call-for-papers-virtual-round-table-discussion

The Reece Winstone Archive is planning to become a charitable trust in order to ensure the corpus remains intact...writes John Winstone. We also have a policy of seeing continuing growth. The Archive presently holds 100,000 images of Britain from the 1930s to the 1980s and, in particular, on Bristol. Included in this tally are some 10,000 collected photographs of Bristol and area down to 1840 and the work of other twentieth-century freelance topographic photographers working across England in black and white and colour.

Reece Winstone FRPS was founder of the RPS Photo-Journalism Group in 1957, a member of the RPS Historical Group and published many photographs of Bristol in 37 volumes in a long freelance career.

We are looking for volunteers interested in undertaking digitising various parts of the Archive, mostly medium format negatives. For reasons of ease of lending material in the pandemic we would like to hear from those living in the south-west in the first instance.

Please contact John Winstone at reecewinstonearchive@gmail.com.

Image: Reece Winstone in Queen Square, Bristol, on 9 October 1948 taken by Bristol CC member N. Dibble.
 

The Cinema Museum, established three and a half decades ago by Martin Humphries and Ronald Grant, is at once a visitor attraction, heritage site and sporadic cinema. While this means it carries broad appeal to a range of audiences, straddling several sectors has posed a problem when emergency pandemic funding programmes are staunchly siloed.

The venue, a Grade II Listed former Victorian workhouse that counts Charlie Chaplin among its previous residents, is now crying out for public support via a Crowdfunder page – with great success thus far.

Read more here: https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/features/people-power-cinema-museum-reliant-on-crowdfunder-campaign-after-missing-all-government-support/

The Crowdfunder can be seen here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/reopen-and-reimagine-the-cinema-museum

The long history of the renowned Alinari photographic firm, founded in 1852 in Florence, reached a turning point in December 2019 as the regional government Regione Toscana acquired the company's millions of photographic objects, documents, specialized publications and historical technical equipment; the acquisition of the digital assets will soon complete the process.

The Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia (Alinari Foundation for Photography) was established on July 16, 2020. The shift from private to public ownership represents not only a management challenge, but also a unique opportunity to root the activities of the newly created Fondazione into the fabric of the vibrant international scientific community at the highest intellectual level. So as to facilitate this transition, the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz in partnership with Regione Toscana and Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia will host a study day with prominent international scholars in dialogue with artist Armin Linke.

The goal of the event is to identify new directions and outline new research scenarios that will connect the past, present and future of the Alinari project.

The recordings from the individual presentations made at the study day are now available here: https://vimeo.com/khiflorenz

The University of Edinburgh's Centre for Global History's seminar series is hosting Dr Luke Gartlan of the University of St Andrews who will be presenting a paper Bringing Empire Home: St Andrews and the Global Networks of Victorian Photography on 18 November at 1600. Registration is free and open to all.  

Details here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/centre-global-history/events-and-seminars/current-programme

Rebecca Gowers uncovered a fascinating story within her family tree - that of Harry Larkyns. She learnt that Harry was an attractive cad who lived a charmed life right up until the moment he fell in love with the wife of noted photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Rebecca will discuss the scoundrel Harry Larkyns and will be joined by our The National Archives collections expert Katherine Howells, who will showcase some of the Muybridge pictures held within our collection at The National Archives. This talk will conclude with a live Q&A with Rebecca Gowers and Katherine Howells.

Presented by The National Archives
Online, 18 November 2020 at 1930
Book here.