Phillips is an international auction house, conducting sales of 20th Century and Contemporary Art, Design, Photographs, Modern & Contemporary Editions, Jewels and Watches. Phillips is currently seeking an ambitious and motivated individual to fill a full-time Associate Specialist position within our Photographs department.

Based in London, the primary focus of the position will be to lead the cataloguing of property for auctions, valuations and private sales and conduct research to determine authenticity, provenance, bibliography and exhibition history, liaising with outside experts where relevant, while cultivating networks among collectors, dealers, curators and others in order to develop and maintain best-in-class knowledge of the Photographs market and to support the department in sourcing and selling property.

In addition to this, the Associate Specialist will be responsible for supporting the department co-heads with business getting efforts by driving and handling the groundwork for department business getting trips, undertaking client research and assisting with client development tasks in collaboration with the global client development team, working with the department administrator to finalise a schedule for client visits and handling estimate requests.

The full job description and application link can be accessed here: https://www.phillips.com/careers

The Wiener Library’s summer 2019 exhibition displays the remarkable work of German-Jewish photographer Gerty Simon, and features many of her original prints from the 1920s and 1930s.

Gertrud (Gerty) Simon (1887-1970) was a prolific and successful photographer. Her photographs were presented in a number of exhibitions in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Gerty Simon worked first in Weimar-era Berlin, where it seemed likely from the identity of her subjects that she had connections with the thriving and innovative creative scene of actors, writers, composers, dancers and artists there, as well as with the world of politics. She photographed the likes of singer and actress Lotte Lenya, theatre critic Alfred Kerr and his young daughter Judith, the artist Käthe Kollwitz and Albert Einstein.

Gerty Simon and her son Bernard fled the Nazi regime in 1933 and settled in Britain. Very quickly, Gerty Simon was able to re-establish her photography studio and create a reputation for photographing subjects from the most influential circles of London society. Between 1934 and 1937, she photographed amongst many others: Sir Kenneth Clark, Peggy Ashcroft and Aneurin Bevan. Her work also featured in a number of exhibitions, including London Personalities held at the Storran Gallery in Kensington in 1934. The Sunday Times described her at this time as “most brilliant and original of Berlin photographers”.

The quality of the photographs and significance of many of Gerty Simon’s sitters, as well as her story of displacement from Germany and re-establishment in Britain meant that, for The Wiener Library – the world’s oldest collector of material on the Nazi era – this was a particularly compelling collection. This project will bring into focus, for the first time in eighty years, the work of this powerful and innovative photographic artist, particularly as Gerty Simon photographed so many important cultural figures from the lost world of Weimar Berlin. We hope that through this exhibition and the accompanying catalogue focusing on her life and work, Gerty Simon will once again receive the recognition she deserves.

This exhibition is part of Insiders/Outsiders, a nationwide arts festival taking place from March 2019 to March 2020 to celebrate refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British culture.

Berlin/London: The Lost Photographs of Gerty Simon
30 May 2019 – 15 October 2019
The Wiener Library,  29 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DP
Free admission. Monday-Friday 10am-5pm, Tuesdays 10am-7.30pm
www.wienerlibrary.co.uk / +44 (0) 207 636 7247

Image: Gerty Simon; self-portrait, date unknown © The Bernard Simon Estate, Wiener Library Collections.

The V&A is Britain’s national museum of art, design and performance, and is one of the greatest museums of decorative arts in the world. The V&A’s purpose is to enable everyone to enjoy its collections and explore the cultures that created them; and to inspire those who shape contemporary design. We are currently recruiting for the post of Curator of Touring Photography Exhibitions in the Word & Image Department. The post-holder will possess a broad knowledge of the history of photography, curatorial flair, and the requisite confidence and experience to liaise with exhibition venues and in China.

Photographs is one of the Sections that make up Word & Image (WID) Collections. It is a small and dynamic team with a high profile because of the international significance of the collection, photography’s wide audience appeal, the museum’s commitment to photography as a key area and the opening of the new V&A Photography Centre in autumn 2018. The Section maintains and develops the world-renowned national collection of the art of photography, which includes the Royal Photographic Society collection. The new touring exhibitions will be drawn from this world-class collection.

Purpose of job
The post-holder will have responsibility for a series of 3 exhibitions, which will tour to multiple venues in China from late 2019 to 2021. The post-holder will be expected to plan, curate and implement exhibitions. The role will involve collaboration with museums and galleries across China. The post-holder will be required to travel regularly to the exhibition venues and act as a confident and articulate ambassador for the V&A. The role will also involve liaison with photographers and their estates, and numerous V&A departments, including the Exhibitions and Loans Department and the Collections Services teams (Conservation; Technical Services; Photography Services; Documentation and Collections Management Services.)

The post-holder will have responsibility for a series of 3 exhibitions, which will tour to multiple venues in China from late 2019 to 2021. The post-holder will be expected to plan, curate and implement exhibitions.

See more here.

The Icon Photographic Materials Group and the National Library of Scotland are delighted to announce a practical workshop with photographic conservator Clara M. Prieto. Conservators, archivists and curators of historical photograph collections are invited to participate. The one-day workshop will be taught at the National Library of Scotland on each of two consecutive days: Thursday 4th and Friday 5th July 2019.

Clara M. Prieto de la Fuente is an independent conservator and restorer of photographs and graphic art. In addition to conservation treatment and research, she teaches conservation and restoration at the Escuela Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales in Madrid. Until 2010 she worked for Anne Cartier-Bresson in the Atelier de Restauration et Conservation des Photographies de la Ville de Paris as Conservation Project Manager. After receiving a grant from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía she returned to Madrid, and in 2012 became a fellow of the Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural de España. She holds a Master’s degree in heritage conservation and a degree in the conservation and restoration of graphic art; in 2008 she was awarded a scholarship from the Ministerio de Cultura de España in order to specialise in photographic preservation at the Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris.

This workshop will familiarise participants with the history, processing and housing of daguerreotypes. Theory on the documentation and system design for developing the new structural housing system for cased daguerreotypes will be outlined, and each participant will carry out practical work developing one or two protection systems for cased daguerreotypes

The new structural housing system is designed to strengthen the first line of defence of the daguerreotype - the case - and protect it during storage, exhibition, handling and viewing, thereby mitigating the risk of further deterioration. The main objective of the workshop is to build a housing system that takes into account the whole object in its functionality and original structure, while allowing for its handling and viewing without increasing the risk of damage. The proposed system not only comprehensively protects daguerreotypes, and other encased photographs such as ambrotypes, but also recreates something of the original intimate viewing experience.

Each workshop will host a maximum of eight participants, who are encouraged to bring their own encased daguerreotypes or ambrotypes for practise. ¼" plates will be used most frequently, but the exercises can be done using plates of any size; smaller plates will be more complicated while larger ones will require more material.

To book tickets visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/protecting-daguerreotypes-a-new-structural-housing-system-tickets-61227450954 

This major exhibition will examine the relationship between photographers, photography and the British seaside from the 1850s to the present. It is Turner Contemporary’s first ever photography exhibition.

As well as featuring the work of eminent photographers including Jane Bown, Henri Cartier Bresson, Vanley Burke, Anna Fox, Susan Hiller, Paul Nash, Martin Parr, and Ingrid Pollard, the curators have included rich and often unknown work from across photography’s history, including Raymond Lawson’s remarkable chronicle of family life in Whitstable.

Enzo Ragazzini captures the anarchy of the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, while Stuart Griffiths makes a bleak narrative of the 1990 rave scene in Brighton. Daniel Meadows, Barry Lewis and Dafydd Jones all photographed at Butlins in the 1970s and Grace Robertson records the raucous goings-on of a women’s’ day out to the coast in the 1950s.   Composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears, partners in music and in life, created a haven by the sea that they preserved in photographs.

Images of hotel life, the beach, the holiday camp, dressing up and dressing down, wild waves and coastlines all combine to create a rich picture of the British seaside.

In response to Seaside: Photographed, artists Bethan Peters and Stacie Lee Bennett-Worth have been commissioned to create a new artwork inspired by local residents. In Spring 2019, they will deliver workshops to families in collaboration with Thanet Early Years Project exploring the seaside through play, movement and digital media. They will create a work based on the ideas generated that will be available for the public to see in Summer 2019.

Curated by Val Williams and Karen Shepherdson, Seaside: Photographed is a touring exhibition organised by Turner Contemporary. The exhibition will take place at Turner Contemporary in summer 2019, touring to three other UK venues in 2020, each with their own unique connection to the seaside; John Hansard Gallery, Grundy Art Gallery, and Newlyn Art Gallery and the Exchange. With support from Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Fund.

A book accompanies the exhibition. 

See more here: https://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/seaside-photographed

Image: Anna Fox, Hayling Island 1986 © Anna Fox, courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London. 

A new publication looks at Berwick-on-Tweed's earliest photographers. Jim Walker's book chronicles Berwick's photographic scene from the 1840s and shows examples of work in and around Berwick, Tweedmouth and Spittal. 

See more here: https://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/jim-s-look-thro-the-lens-1-4883831

Thro' the Lens. Berwick's earliest photographers
Jim Walker
£9.99
ISBN 978-1-999-8312-8-8
Available from Grieve bookshop.

Chiswick's auction of Photographica which takes place on 16 May includes a range of cameras and photographs. Of particular interest is are several lots of previously unseen material from Herbert G Ponting.

Other lots of note are: 

• Lot 134. A portrait of ABD ALLAH BEN ABDI, MARSHAL OF THE LOGIS DES SPAHIS, 1862
• Lot 136a. J J E Mayall. UNCUT PROOF CARTES DES VISITE PORTRAITS,
• Lots 140-142.  H G Ponting. An early collection of Herbert George Ponting’s unpublished personal stereo cards (10) c.1900, with handwritten inscriptions and annotations
• Work by FM Sutcliffe, Bert Hardy, Charles Harry Hewitt (1915-1987) and others. 

The full catalogue can be downloaded here.

Women and work. Photographs from the Archives of Mary Stormont and Susan Benn is an exhibition at the Rye Art Gallery and remains on view until 12 May.  Curator Susan Benn said: “Observing women at work in a narrative context is a returning theme throughout her photographic work to date.” She wants to tell visual stories in long form photo journalistic essays, sometimes shot over a period of years by returning to the same place or through exploring unexpected common links between people from different places.'

When Susan Benn moved to Rye recently and became a Trustee of the Gallery she discovered a box of the artist Mary Stormont’s photographs in the permanent collection. Mary photographed women on the land and beaches around Rye. This discovery prompted Susan to unpack her own unpublished archive of photographs and both collections inspired her to put on this exhibition.

See more here: http://www.ryeartgallery.co.uk/

Image credits: Lower: Susan Benn at the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary and Tiger reserve, South India, 1990.

Sotheby's upcoming auction of travel and natural history on 14 May includes several items of photographic interest. 

• A copy of Dobbie’s cyanotypes of ferns, c1880.  A copy was recently exhibited in the NY exhibition on Anna Atkins. 
• A collection of Times newspaper press photos by Harry Burton of the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun
• an album of photos of Captain Scott’s Terra Nova expedition

and Beato photos of China (including photos of Crealock’s drawings) and India

The link here will take you to the photography lots. 

Birkbeck's History and Theory of Photography Research Centre has announced its summer programme which starts with Mirjam Brusius discussing William Henry Fox Talbot. The seminars are all free and open to anyone. 

Wednesday 8 May 2019, 6-7:30pm

Room 114 (Keynes Library), 46 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PD

Mirjam Brusius (German Historical Institute, London)

The Spaces of Photography. Five New Arguments on William Henry Fox Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot had to be excavated. In October 1966 digs began on the grounds of Lacock Abbey in the hope of uncovering relics of the Victorian gentleman of science, antiquarian, and inventor of the calotype. In the following decades Talbot became well known as a major protagonist in early Fine Art photography, yet his papers suggest that he was more concerned with the sciences than ‘high art’ in the strictest sense. This is echoed in the large bulk of photo archives that derive from the medium’s industrial and scientific applications or vernacular genres, in which aesthetics only appears as a single piece in a puzzle. So, who or what ‘turned’ Talbot into an artist? Taking material and archival practices as a starting point, Mirjam Brusius will give insight into the book project she is about to complete. The paper argues that not only the actual photographs and the complex practices surrounding them but also their detachments from their original archival context, and their dispersal between different institutions, museums and the art market determine the framework for the study of Talbot, and that of the history of photography itself.

Friday 14 June 2019, 6-7:30pm

Room 106, 46 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PD

Maki Fukuoka (School of Fine Art, Art History & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds)

Finding the Task of Representation in the Works of Yokoyama Matsusaburo

Yokoyama Matsusaburo (1838-1884) is noted as one of the pioneers of photography in Japan. His commercial, technical, and educational investment in photography paved ways for the second generation of photographers in the capital of Tokyo. This talk situates his pursuit of shashin aburae (a combination of photography/oil painting) and photolithography in the context of dynamic and shifting landscape of reproductive technologies in nineteenth-century Japan. Specifically, it wants to ask, how and to what extent Yokoyama's ideas for reproduction are couched in his concern for individuality.  

See more: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/research/centres/history-and-theory-of-photography/

The Scottish Society for the History of Photography and Roddy Simpson will present a talk, and walking tour of Edinburgh Old Town on Sunday, 12 May 2019. Roddy will explore the area in the context of the photographs of notable Edinburgh based photographer, Archibald Burns (1831-80), concentrating on those published in Picturesque ‘Bits’ from Old Edinburgh and his extraordinary survey images following the Improvement Act of 1867.

The study day will be begin with a talk and slide show within Riddle’s Court, breaking for lunch (provided), and a walking tour of related Burns sites in the afternoon. The day will start and end at Riddle’s Court, and there will be an opportunity for a free tour of our 16th century building following the study day for those who wish to see it.

Roddy Simpson is a photographer and photo historian and his photographs have appeared in numerous publications and his fine monochrome prints have been widely exhibited and are in private and public collections including the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow and a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Open Learning at the University of Edinburgh. His book, The Photography of Victorian Scotland, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2012 and has been described as ‘the seminal book on the history of Scottish photography’. Thresholds, a book of his fine monochrome prints was published in 2018.

See more here

Image: Archibald Burns, Cardinal Beatons’s House, Cowgate, 1868.

The Photographic Collections Network has announced the appointment of a new manager. Debbie Adele Cooper who took up the role in April 2019.

Debbie's work as a producer, project manager, curator, trainer and artist is widely known and respected in the photographic sector. She comes from Museums Sheffield, where she was fundraising manager, and previously was project manager and artist in residence at W W Winter Studio. She will continue her part-time work as a producer for FORMAT Festival, Derby.

The appointment comes as the PCN enters a new phase of activity supported by Arts Council England (ACE). This second ACE grant will allow it to deliver a significantly enhanced programme during 2019-20, focusing on strengthening the network, continuing a programme of events and knowledge sharing for anyone working with photo archives and collections, and building its advocacy and research work.

The appointment also marks the departure of Maura McKee who has co-ordinated PCN activities for the past 18 months, and Iona Griliopoulos, who has been responsible for PCN’s online content since mid-2018. Maura will continue her highly regarded collections-based learning and participation work at Interference Art. Iona continues as an online project manager and artist’s assistant.

Director of the PCN, Paul Herrmann, said: “This is a really exciting moment for the PCN - we have plans to build the organisation significantly over the next year to do what we can to tackle the urgent issues facing photo archives, and to celebrate the rich visual history reflected in myriad photographic collections across the UK. I’m looking forward to starting work with Debbie, and also want to give my huge thanks to Maura and Iona who have kept things rolling in recent months.”

See more about the PCN here: https://www.photocollections.org.uk/

A chance meeting in 1936 gave Lisa and Jimmy Sheridan the opportunity of a lifetime. Keen amateur photographers, their company Studio Lisa was engaged by the then Duke and Duchess of York to take casual photographs of their family, including the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, at their homes Royal Lodge and at 145 Piccadilly, London.

At a time of traditional formality, when it was unheard of for mere unknowns to be given such an opportunity, the hiring of Studio Lisa proved to be a revolutionary and popular move on the part of the royals as it humanised them in the eyes of their subjects. They soon struck up an unlikely friendship with Lisa and Jimmy – a friendship that would span over 30 years and yield 13 separate photographic sessions, the last of which included Queen Elizabeth’s young children.
This volume charts the story of Studio Lisa, from its humble beginnings right through to the granting of two Royal Warrants.

For the first time Studio Lisa’s cache of remarkable royal photographs is brought together, producing a marvellous collector’s item and a treasure thankfully preserved for posterity.

Photo London prides itself on being the best place to discover the future directions of photography; many of which can be found in its acclaimed Discovery section which showcases the very best in emerging talent. However as its venue Somerset House was the place that Sir John Herschel first coined the term ‘photography’ in 1838, it is determined to showcase the rich history of the medium. This year Photo London hosts The Essential Fenton a major exhibition of work by the great pioneering photographer Roger Fenton curated by Robert Hershkowitz and supported by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wilson Centre for Photography (see image, right). The show will coincide with a panel discussion on Fenton with Sophie Gordon, Hope Kingsley, Martin Barnes & Francis Hodgson. Alongside this a many of our galleries will be bringing exciting historic works. 

See more about the exhibitors, public programme and Buy Tickets

On 18-19 May, the Special Edition of The London Photograph Fair returns to The Great Hall at King's College, adjacent to Somerset House. The fair, which coincides with Photo London, is the only established fair devoted to vintage photography in the UK.

There are twenty exhibitors this year, from the UK, Continental Europe and the USA, including Photos Discovery, Christophe Lunn, Richard Meara, Daniella Dangoor and Linus Carr. Prices range from the lower hundreds to five figures, with photographs including everything from the quirky and the bizarre to masterpieces by leading photographers such as Baldus, Louis De Clercq, Gustave Le Gray, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Bill Brandt, Martin Munkasci, Erwin Blumenfeld to name a few.

The fair attracts not only experienced collectors but has over the last few years seen an upsurge in interest from a younger generation of collectors, in many cases first time buyers. The dealers, keen to encourage the interest in classic photography, have responded. In addition to displaying their individual stock of vintage images on the walls of their stands, this year, a number of the exhibitors have pooled their resources and have put together thematic collections such as Out of The Blue - The Cyanotype Collection, Death, Murder and Mayhem, Travel and Exploration, and Masters of Photography. The collections will be posted on Instagram alongside a selection of other offerings leading up to the fair.

And the fair begins before you have entered the building. The English photographer Jonathan Keys will, in the manner itinerant Victorian photographers, set up a photographic studio outside The Great Hall and make portraits on glass, using the wet Collodion process invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851.

And last but not least, a new magazine called The Classic, a free magazine about classic photography, will have its UK launch at the fair.

See more: http://www.photofair.co.uk/

The DCMS and Arts Council have published the 2017-18 Export of Objects of Cultural Interest report. Of note for the photography community is the report detailing the loss of the Norman Album by Julia Margaret Cameron which is quoted in full below, with additional information in square brackets: 

Case 10 Images from the Life (The Norman Album) by Julia Margaret Cameron

An album containing 75 photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79), taken between 1864 and 1869, selected by the photographer and presented by her to her daughter, Julia, and son-in-law, Charles Norman, in September 1869.The album measured 45.9cm by 31.4cm. It was bound in red Morocco and was embossed on the cover with the title ‘Mrs Cameron’s Photographs from the Life’. Given to Julia Norman (Cameron’s daughter) in 1869, it had remained in the
possession of the Norman family since that time.

The applicant had applied to export the album to the United States. The value shown on the export licence application was £4,098,361, which represented an estimate. The Senior Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum [Martin Barnes], acting as expert adviser, had objected to the export of the album under the first, second and third Waverley criteria on the grounds that its departure from the UK would be a misfortune because it was so closely connected with our history and national life, it was of outstanding aesthetic importance and it was of outstanding significance for the study of the history of photography and, through her selection of subjects, the broader history of 19th-century art and literature.

The expert adviser had provided a written submission stating that the album was particularly significant since it was made as a gift for Julia, Cameron’s daughter, whose gift of a camera introduced Cameron to photography. Arranged
in a single sequence from front to back it includes some of her finest and best-known portraits, including Julia Jackson, John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson and Charles Darwin.

Between 1864 and 1869 Cameron assembled a number of albums for her family, friends and close acquaintances. Cameron embraced the album format, seeing it as an expressive medium which allowed her to present herself and her work as artistic. Each album represented hundreds of hours of work and were assembled with enormous care and considerable thought as to how the images were to be viewed. It was impossible to ascertain exactly how many albums she made but 10 were known to have survived and each was different and designed to be meaningful to the individual recipient.

However, the significance of this album lied not only in its individual photographs but in the album as a whole, representing, as it did, a very personal selection of work chosen and sequenced by the artist herself and intended as a gift for her beloved daughter. Of all the albums compiled by Cameron which were known, this album was arguably
the most personal and most important and the individual prints were particularly fine examples.

Of all 19th-century photographers, Julia Margaret Cameron was probably the most widely represented in public and private collections throughout the world. It was noted that 12 prints in the album were not replicated in UK public collections. The subjects appeared to be predominately family members.

The expert adviser was asked how significant it was that these individuals were not prominent 19th-century figures. The expert adviser indicated that Julia Margaret Cameron was unconcerned with portraying social standing in the context of
her art and was even-handed in the treatment of her subjects.

The applicant did not disagree that the album met the Waverley criteria. They stated in a written submission that there was no doubt that the Norman Album was an item of significance in Julia Margaret Cameron’s body of work. The applicant noted that most of the images and all of the major images in the album were already represented in UK public collections. Furthermore, in addition to the Norman Album, there was another major Cameron presentation album in
a private UK collection (the Lindsay Album), so the UK was well supplied with her work in both individual plates and albums.

We heard this case in July 2017 when the album was shown to us. We found that it met the second and third Waverley criteria on the grounds that its departure from the UK would be a misfortune because it was of outstanding aesthetic importance and it was of outstanding significance for the study of the history of photography and, in particular, the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the most significant photographers of the 19th century.

We were, however, unable to recommend a fair matching price and recommended that the Secretary of State should obtain an independent valuation of the album. The applicant was given the option to agree to be bound by the valuer appointed by the Secretary of State once their identity was known or to appoint their own independent valuer with a
view to the two independent valuers agreeing a valuation. In the event that they were unable to agree, the Secretary of State would appoint a third person to act as an arbitrator (not as an expert) by whose decision the parties would be bound.  The applicant agreed to this procedure.

The Secretary of State agreed the Committee’s recommendation and having been given the identity of the valuer appointed by the Secretary of State the applicant agreed to be bound by their valuation which was £3.7 million and the Secretary of State recommended that as the fair matching price. Having regard to the fair matching price the
Committee agreed to recommend to the Secretary of State that the decision on the export licence should be deferred for an initial period of three months to allow an offer to purchase to be made at the fair matching price of £3.7 million. We further recommended that if, by the end of the initial deferral period, a potential purchaser had shown a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the album, the deferral should be extended by a further four months.

At the end of the initial deferral period, no offer to purchase the album had been made and we were not aware of any serious intention to raise funds. An export licence was therefore issued.

See the full Reviewing Committee report here. 

The IWM's photographic collection will now be housed at IWM Duxford in a new, state-of-the-art storage facility. As a result researchers will need to order material at least five full working days in advance of a planned visit. Moving the photographic collection to the new facility at IWM Duxford aims to guarantee its long-term preservation and ensure that it  can continue to be made available to future generations of researchers.

Lindsey Stewart and Joanna Skeels are a new specialist dealership in early photographs and related printed and manuscript material, focusing on British material from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Stewart & Skeels also represent Mike Seaborne and the Roger Mayne Archive. As well as buying and selling photographs and photographically illustrated books, it acts as agents for the sale of photographic collections, with an emphasis on placing significant historical work in public institutions. Our other services include auction commissions (viewing, advising and bidding at auction on your behalf) and valuations for insurance, probate and sale.

Before forming Stewart & Skeels, Joanna and Lindsey worked together at the London antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch Ltd, where Joanna began her experience in the book trade in 2010 after graduating from Oxford University. She soon began working with Lindsey, who had established a department there specialising in photography after more than two decades running the photograph department at Christie’s in London. During this period they collaborated with colleagues to promote photography through catalogues and a book publishing programme, and completed sales of major collections, notably the Terry Bennett collection of early Chinese photographs and the Mackinnon collection of early Scottish photography. As an independent consultant since 1986 Lindsey has also advised national and international museums, archives and universities as well as corporate and private collectors. She is an associate member of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association.

Stewart & Skeels will be exhibiting at Photo London in May.

See more here: https://www.stewartandskeels.co.uk/about-us

Image: GEORGE WASHINGTON WILSON, St Pauls, 1870s, printed 1880s, Extra-large carbon print, 16¼ x 23⅝ inches (41.3 x 60 cm) including a narrow margin, titled, initialled 'G.W.W.' and numbered '1152' in the negative

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) announces a new Curatorial Fellowship in Photography. Generously supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, the fellowship will run for the next four years. The Curatorial Fellowship follows the Foundation’s ongoing support of the V&A and its significant donation towards the museum’s recently-opened Photography Centre, for which gallery 100 was renamed ‘The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery’ after the businessman and portrait photographer and his wife.

The first fellowship of its kind in photography at the V&A, the scheme will see two fellows join the museum over consecutive two-year periods. The initiative arises from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation’s desire to give early scholars of photography the opportunity to acquire invaluable museum experience and specialist knowledge working alongside the Photography Section’s accomplished curatorial team. Fellows will gain expertise in the history of photography and contribute substantially to the museum’s knowledge of its world-renowned collection that includes over 800,000 photographs.

A focus for each fellow will be an independent research project based on the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection, which was transferred to the V&A in 2017. Exploring areas of strength such as portraiture, colour photography and photographic process, all themes of interest to Bern Schwartz and the Foundation, each fellow will spend three months in the V&A Research Institute (VARI). Using an accompanying travel fund also provided by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, the fellows will also travel nationally and internationally to share their expertise and further their study of the photographic medium.

Applications will open via the V&A website on 25 April and close on 27 May with the first fellow commencing in autumn 2019. Details can be found here. 

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said: “We are enormously grateful to The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation for their generosity in supporting our Photography Centre and mission to make photography available to the widest possible audience. The V&A is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of creative thinkers. This Curatorial Fellowship in Photography will give emerging curators the chance to deepen their own knowledge and expertise while furthering scholarship around the museum’s world-class photography collections.”

Michael Schwartz, Chairman of The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, and Anne Varick Lauder, Senior Advisor, said: “We are delighted to continue supporting the V&A’s Photography Section and its talented team of curators. By directly working with them and the objects in their care, the fellows will gain invaluable on-hands experience essential for furthering their careers in photography. Bern Schwartz was passionate about education and the mentoring experience. His career as a portrait photographer was immeasurably advanced by learning directly from the legendary photographer, Philippe Halsman.”

The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation were the first major funder to support the V&A’s new Photography Centre, which was opened by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge in October 2018. The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery, a refurbished 19th-century picture gallery, is currently host to a major display entitled Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital, which explores photography as a way of ‘collecting the world’. An extension to the Photography Centre is scheduled to open in 2022 and will expand the V&A’s photography offer further with new and exciting ways for visitors to encounter this diverse and dynamic art form.

The fields of photography theory and history have in recent years moved away from the assumption of a break between analogue and digital image to a more nuanced understanding of both past and contemporary photographic practices, images, and technologies. Increasingly photography is discussed in relation to other media, to industry and markets and to climate and environment. At the same time questions of aesthetics and interpretation are recast, understood in terms of sensual, haptic, embodied and everyday encounters with material images. This conference will examine photography as simultaneously material and immaterial addressing not only the tangible properties of photographic objects, but also the ecosystems in which they circulate. We live in and through the photographic, in its physical presence in the world, and in our thought. The conference thus also invites considerations of  the ways in which a mode of philosophical thinking can be conceived as photographic or vice versa.

We welcome abstracts from colleagues in film or cinema studies working on the physical and chemical aspects of film (celluloid and light for example) and questions of aesthetic / sensual experience; and from colleagues in media, literature, history and philosophy whose work addresses the photographic in its various manifestations and forms. Artists whose work engage with the conference themes are welcome to submit a proposal.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Ecologies of photography: atmospherics (clouds, fogging, aerialism, climate), energetics 
• Photography and the ineffable: material/immaterial, apparitions, image/imagination
• Science and technology: maintenance, glitches, wet and dry photography, chemistry, apparatus
• Visibility and illumination: enlightenment and luminescence, flash, phosphorescence
• Transience: ephemerality, obsolescence, wear and tear
• Materiality: from celluloid to coltan, gelatine and silver, tactility, gesture, embodiment and thingliness

Abstract Submission: Please send abstracts (300 words max.) with your name, title, affiliation (where appropriate) and a short bio (up to 200 words).

Please prepare for a 20 minute presentation by 5th of June 2019 to the conference organizers:

Dr. Michelle Henning — Professor of Photography and Cultural History, University of West London michelle.henning@uwl.ac.uk

and

Dr. Junko Theresa Mikuriya — Senior Lecturer in Photography, University of West London junkotheresa.mikuriya@uwl.ac.uk