The Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography will be holding its 2017 Conference on Monday 6 November at the Wellcome Genome Campus Conference Centre, Cambridge.
Details and the programme can be found here: http://www.ahfap.org.uk/conferences/2017-conference/
The Stereoscopic Society is presenting Denis Pellerin of the London Stereoscopic Company in a public talk. Denis will examine how Wheatstone tried to promote his reflecting stereoscope till the 1870s in spite of the popular success of the lenticular viewer.
There will also be 3D projection of several 3D AV and 3D VIDEO shows: Projection of international award winning presentations, including the ISU Club Folio (images from other 3D clubs around the world).
The meetings will be held at St Barbara’s Church Hall, 24 Rochester Road, Earlsdon, Coventry, CV5 6AG
Doors open at 2pm. Meetings start at 2.30pm end time 5pm.
Entrance: £3.00 including refreshments.
http://stereoscopicsociety.org.uk/WordPress/meetings/coventry-meetings/
Photography arrived in India in 1840 and ever since it has remained rooted in the distinctive aesthetics and cultural iconography of the sub-continent while also serving as a reflection of the political context of the times. The symposium will be chaired by Rahaab Allana, consultant curator of Illuminating India: Photography 1857–2017, curator of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi and Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in London
Booking is now open here: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/events/exhibition_events/illuminating-india-events/indias-place-in-photographys-world
India’s Place in Photography’s World
Science Museum
Friday 6 October, 14.00-19.00
Free, ticketed / All ages
Join visual artist Almudena Romero for an introduction to the historical processes of cyanotype printing and pinhole photography. Gather inspiration in the Gallery and learn the basics of analogue photography and these early printing processes so that you will be able to practice independently after the course. Suitable for all abilities.
On day one, beginning with a Gallery visit during which you will see different examples of early techniques, you will learn the process of cyanotype printing and create unique images on a variety of papers. On day two, you will construct your own pinhole camera, learn how to load it with photographic paper, create an image on a paper negative and make a paper positive out of the same negative.
Born in Spain in 1986, Almudena Romero is a visual artist working with early photographic processes such as cyanotypes, salt printing or wet plate collodion, along with new technologies including 3D printing. In 2015-2016, Almudena was commissioned by the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum (Tokyo), the Fundación Mapfre (Madrid) and the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) to deliver different educational projects to promote knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the wet collodion process alongside the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition at these museums. Her practice has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally in galleries and festivals including the Brighton Photo Biennial and PhotoIreland, and has been featured in TimeOut, DUST magazine, Uncertain States and Photomonitor.
See more and book here
Responding to a Landscape will explore, debate and review the evolving relationship between artists and photographers and the landscape. We will hear from a number of perspectives, from acclaimed practitioners for which landscape is a recurring subject, a social and environmental concern, a research and archive practice and an essential departure. What does landscape and our natural world look like and mean to photographers and artists today?
The symposium has been planned in conjunction with the exhibition Matthew Murray’s Saddleworth; Responding to a Landscape, premiered at mac, Birmingham. Murray is interested in depicting the landscape based on what he feels rather than what he sees. His landscape work is a personal story and odyssey. His Saddleworth is the result of a five year creative and sensitive journey that captures the beauty of the moorland landscape.
The symposium invites acclaimed and outstanding photographers, artists, writers and photography historians to talk about their work and relationship with the landscape. Those speaking alongside Murray include; Richard Billingham, Chrystel Lebas, Jem Southam, Camilla Brown, Simon Constantine, John Hillman, Craig Ashley and Mark Wright.
The practitioners will talk about how they have approached landscape and their unique relationship with it. Landscape photography has a long and significant history and today approaches have perhaps never been so broad with practitioner’s motivations and aesthetic concerns been varied.Some document, others work with more abstract concerns; Some work collaboratively, others in isolation; Some are working on environmental concerns and others more personal stories.
During the Symposium we will hear from the perspective of the photographer, curator and academic. They are motivated by landscape for many different reasons. We will hear from and celebrate those that create self-initiated projects and commissioned bodies of work and see a range of photographic practices that are at the cutting edge of photography now.
The project is supported by GRAIN Projects, Arts Council England, Gallery Vassie, mac Birmingham, Pirate Design and the University of Gloucestershire.
Prices
Early Bird Concession: £15
Early Bird Standard: £22
Early Bird available until 15th October 2017.
Concession: £20
Standard: £28
*Please note prices include tea/coffee in breaks but do not include lunch.
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/grain-responding-to-a-landscape-symposium-tickets-37285485892
Photo credit: Saddleworth ©Matthew Murray.
An exhibition examining the British Empire through photography will open at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery opened on 30 September. From 500,000 photographs and 2,000 films in the collection, 27 people were asked choose just one each and explain their choice in their own words.
The images and film have been selected from the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection (BECC), formerly held by the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum, before its move to Bristol Archives. Bristol Archives holds an extraordinary collection of photographs and films showing both public and private aspects of life in the British Empire and Commonwealth.
The 27 selectors reflect the range of the collection: they include academics with an interest in colonial history, film or photography, artists, photographers, film makers, people who worked in the colonies and their family members, people working in development projects today, and members of local communities with a link to the old Empire. Each selector, with their background, brings a different perspective to how they ‘read’ their image and the legacy of Empire.
The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum collected photographs and film from people who worked in the Empire, their families, and companies and government departments working with the colonies. Some are from well-known people, such as the writer Elspeth Huxley, others from anonymous photographers working for organisations like the Crown Agents.
Some record great historical events, but many document the everyday lives of families living and working abroad. It is a fascinating collection, giving a broad view of the Empire and the early years of independence.
Sue Giles, senior curator for world cultures said: “The 22 images and films on display cover 100 years of the British Empire and Commonwealth, from 1860 to the 1960s. The selectors are sometimes nostalgic, often critical and always reflective. They comment honestly on how they saw the Empire and the legacies of Empire. This exhibition is exciting for us because it’s the first time that material from the BEC collection has been displayed since it was transferred to Bristol City Council.”
Whilst the images on the walls are copies, many of the originals will be displayed in the gallery. There are single prints, photographs mounted in albums, negatives and transparencies. A couple have been heavily reworked, in the days before Photoshop existed, although most are unretouched.
This exhibition developed from a project to catalogue the huge number of photographs and films in the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, to make them more accessible via the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery website.
The cataloguing project was only possible thanks to a grant from the National Cataloguing Grants Programme for Archives, administered by the National Archives. This paid for two archivists to survey and start cataloguing the extensive collection.
Empire through the Lens: Pictures from the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
30 September 2017 - Autumn 2018
https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/bristol-museum-and-art-gallery/
Talbot was one of the earliest pioneers of photography in the 19th Century, and invented the technique of printing photographs onto paper. Professor Schaaf has spent the last 40 years creating a detailed database of Talbot's more than 4000 unique images, and tens of thousands of prints. The Catalogue Raisonné project aims to bring this database together with images donated from institutions and collectors around the world to create a comprehensive online catalogue accessible by researchers and members of the public alike. Working in conjunction with colleagues in Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services (BDLSS), you will support Professor Schaaf in reviewing, editing and rewriting database records into a standard format, contact public and private collections with regards to image rights and perform research tasks to improve the quality of database records. You will have familiarity and interest in the early history of photography and knowledge of 19th Century history and photographic technology as well as experience of dealing with photographic curators, managers of image rights and private owners of originals. Able to use Microsoft Office software with experience of using a database, you will also be self-motivated, possess excellent organisational and communication skills and have the ability to organise your own workload. This is a full-time post on a fixed-term contract for approximately 6 months. Please discuss secondments with your line manager in the first instance, as you must have their agreement that you can be released for a secondment before you submit an application. You will be required to upload a Supporting Statement as part of your online application. Your Supporting Statement should list each of the essential and desirable selection criteria, as listed in the job description, and explain how you meet each one. CV’s will NOT be considered as a substitute for a Supporting Statement. Only applications received online by 12.00 midday on Monday 9 October 2017 can be considered. Interviews are expected to take place during week commencing 16 October 2017. |
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| Contact Person : | Recruitment Team Leader | Vacancy ID : | 131230 |
| Contact Phone : | 01865 277133 | Closing Date : | 09-Oct-2017 |
| Contact Email : | personnel@bodleian.ox.ac.uk | ||
See more here: https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=131230
The Tate's annual report for 2015/16 reports a large growth in the photography collections. As part of the donation of photographs from the Eric and Louise Franck London Collection, an important group by black British photographers was accessioned during the year. Jane and Michael Wilson donated a body of British and international photographic works, among them important works by Taryn Simon. A purchase of a large body of work by Chris Steele-Perkins was supported by the Photography Acquisitions Committee. Following the Rauschenberg exhibition at Tate Modern, a boxed portfolio of twelve photographs by the artist was presented by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Across the Tate some 1,113 new works entered the collection with a collective value of £27.4 million.
The full report can be read here: http://www.tate.org.uk/download/file/fid/113367 and an itemised list of all the acquisitions with values can be read here: http://www.tate.org.uk/download/file/fid/113372
Kate Bush has been appointed by Tate Britain to the new post of Adjunct Curator of Photography, starting in October 2017. Kate is a curator and critic specialising in contemporary art and photography. She was most recently Head of Photography at the Science Museum Group – including the Science Museum in London and National Media Museum in Bradford which she joined in 2014 – and was previously Head of Art Galleries at the Barbican Centre in London.
She will work with Ann Gallagher (Tate’s Director of Collections for British Art), Alex Farquharson (Director of Tate Britain) and Simon Baker (Tate’s Senior Curator of Photography and International Art) alongside Tate Britain’s wider curatorial team, researching and building the collection of British photography and curating exhibitions and displays at Tate Britain.
Image: Science Museum Group / Jennie Hills, 2014
Simon Baker is Tate’s first Curator of Photography. Since his appointment in 2009 he has worked on acquisitions, displays of the permanent collection and exhibitions at both Tate Modern and Tate Britain, and in advisory roles for Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool. Major exhibitions on which he has worked include William Klein + Daido Moriyama (2012); Conflict, Time, Photography (2014); and Performing for the Camera (2016).
Simon has been invited by Stills to present a talk in Edinburgh as part of their programme of 40th anniversary events. With reference to recent projects, he will discuss strategies for exhibiting and collecting photography at Tate and the processes of identifying and selecting work for acquisition or display.
Ticketed: £4 + booking fee
See more and book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stills-40th-anniversary-lecture-simon-baker-senior-curator-international-art-photography-at-tate-tickets-36276232187
The Martin Parr Foundation, a new centre for British photography and the works of Martin Parr, will open in Bristol on 25 October 2017. The Martin Parr Foundation was established in 2014 and will open to the public in the Paintworks complex, Bristol, and comprises a studio, gallery, library and archive centre.
The aim of the Foundation is to support and promote photography from the British Isles. It will do so by preserving the archive and legacy of Martin Parr, and by holding a growing collection of works by selected British and Irish photographers as well as images taken in the British Isles by international photographers. The Foundation will also house an expanding library of British and Irish photographic books.
Martin Parr (b. 1952) is one of the most significant documentary photographers of post-war Britain. He has developed an international reputation for his innovative imagery, his oblique approach to social documentary, and his contribution to photographic culture both within the UK and abroad. Alongside his reputation as a photographer, Parr is known as an important collector, especially of photobooks. Over the past 40 years, Parr’s dedication to discovering and promoting the overlooked, and his support of both photographers and photography has contributed to the way the history of the medium is understood and defined. His collection of around 12,000 photobooks, one of the most inclusive photobook collections in the world, has been both gifted to and acquired by Tate with assistance from the Luma Foundation, The Art Fund and Tate’s supporters. Some of the proceeds from this acquisition have been invested in the Martin Parr Foundation.
The Foundation gallery space will be open to the public on a regular basis and will present work related to British photography as well as images by Martin Parr. The first exhibition from 25 October – January 2018 will be ‘Black Country Stories’ by Martin Parr, followed by ‘Town to Town’ by Niall McDiarmid and the David Hurn ’Swaps’ show in Spring 2018.
The Martin Parr Foundation will house a collection of post-war documentary photography relating to the British Isles, both prints and book maquettes, including works by Keith Arnatt, Richard Billingham, Elaine Constantine, John Davies, Paul Graham, Ken Grant, John Hinde, Peter Mitchell, Tony Ray-Jones, Paul Reas, Simon Roberts, Graham Smith, Tom Wood and Eamonn Doyle. The collection will include two original maquettes of ‘In Flagrante’ by Chris Killip, the full sets of ‘Belgravia’ by Karen Knorr and of ‘Hackney Flowers’ by Stephen Gill and the original prints from Victor Sloan’s 1989 exhibition, ‘Walls’, from the Orchard Gallery in Derry.
Martin Parr’s archive held by the Foundation will consist of works spanning Parr’s career from his student days to the present, including ephemera, correspondence, books and published editorial work.
The Martin Parr Foundation will offer the facility to book group visits and individual research sessions alongside a programme of public talks, educational events, book signings and seminars, all related to photography in a wider sense. Parr commented, ‘Post-war British documentary photograph continues to be underappreciated and I wanted to make a small contribution to rectify this. The Foundation will support and preserve the legacy of photographers who made, and continue to make, important work focused on the British Isles.’
Jenni Smith has been appointed Director of the Martin Parr Foundation. Six trustees have also been appointed and will meet twice a year. The Foundation is also working closely with the University of the West of England, and will exhibit the final show of their newly established MA Photography course.
The Martin Parr Foundation is open to the public from Wednesday–Saturday.
Martin Parr Foundation, 316 Paintworks, Arnos Vale, Bristol, BS4 3AR, UK
(+44) 0117 329 3270
Photos: Louis Little
UPDATED: There is an extensive interview with Parr by Gemma Padley in the BJP which gives more background to the Foundation and its objectives. It can be read here.
Considered one of the most important photo historians of the 20th century, Peter E. Palmquist (1936-2003) had a keen interest in the photography of the American West, California, and Humboldt County before 1950, and the history of women in photography worldwide. He published over 60 books and 340 articles and was a strong proponent of the concept of the independent researcher-writer in the field of photohistory. With co-author Thomas Kailbourn, he won the Caroline Bancroft Western History Prize for their book, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West. Professor Martha Sandweiss, Princeton University, wrote, “He (Peter) established new ways of pursuing the history of photography, and with his collections and research notes soon to be accessible at Yale, he will be speaking to and inspiring new generations of students and researchers forever.” Established by Peter’s lifetime companion, Pam Mendelsohn, this fund supports the study of under-researched women photographers internationally, past and present, and under-researched Western American photographers before 1900.
A small panel of outside consultants with professional expertise in the field of photohistory and/or grant reviewing will review the applications in order to determine the awards. Applications will be judged on the quality of the proposal, the ability of the applicant to carry out the project within the proposed budget and timeline, and the significance of the project to the field of photographic history. Each recipient of the award will agree to donate upon completion of the project a copy of the resulting work (i.e., published book, unpublished report, thesis, etc.) to the Humboldt Area Foundation to submit to the Peter Palmquist Archive at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and a report to Humboldt Area Foundation at the end of the grant period. We ask that award recipients acknowledge the financial assistance provided by the Palmquist Memorial Fund in publications or other work products supported by that fund.
RANGE OF AWARDS: $500 - $1,500
Individuals researching Western American photography before 1900 or women in photography as well as nonprofit institutions conducting research in these fields are eligible to apply.
Completed applications must be postmarked by: November 1, 2017 by 5:00 pm, and submitted to:
Humboldt Area Foundation • 363 Indianola Road, Bayside, CA 95524 Award Recipients will be notified by January 15, 2018
Humboldt Area Foundation at (707) 442-2993
Application available here in Fillable PDF format. All Humboldt Area Foundation grant opportunities are listed here.
We are looking for a Curator to take responsibility for the conceptual development, organisation and co-ordination of exhibitions and publications assigned by the Director and Chief Curator, including budgetary management and fundraising. The Curator also contributes ideas to the Gallery’s programme, liaises with other internal departments as appropriate and represents the Whitechapel Gallery at relevant networking events.
Conditions of Work
• Full time permanent position
• Hours of work: 9.30am – 5.45pm, Monday - Friday plus some occasional weekend and evening work, which will be compensated by time off in lieu
• Salary: £32,000-35,000 per annum
• The period of notice is 3 months in writing on either side
• Probation period: 6 months
For further details, and how to apply visit www.whitechapelgallery.org
Deadline for applications is midnight on Monday 9 October 2017.
This major survey exhibition focuses on artists who have shaped our understanding of the British landscape and its relationship to identity, place and time. Exploring how artists interpret urban and rural landscape through the lens of their own cultural, political or spiritual ideologies, the exhibition reveals the inherent tensions between landscape represented as a transcendental or spiritual place, and one rooted in social and political histories.
Though primarily photography, A Green and Pleasant Land includes film, painting and sculpture by over 50 artists, illustrating the various concerns and approaches to landscape pursued by artists from the 1970s to now.
Artists included in the exhibition: Keith Arnatt, Gerry Badger, Craig Barker, John Blakemore, Henry Bond and Liam Gillick, Paul Caponigro, Thomas Joshua Cooper, John Davies, Susan Derges, Mark Edwards, Anna Fox, Melanie Friend, Hamish Fulton, Fay Godwin, Andy Goldsworthy, Paul Graham, Mishka Henner, Paul Hill, Robert Judges, Angela Kelly, Chris Killip, John Kippin, Karen Knorr, Ian Macdonald, Ron McCormick, Mary McIntyre, Peter Mitchell, Raymond Moore, John Myers, Martin Parr, Mike Perry, Ingrid Pollard, Mark Power, Paul Reas, Emily Richardson, Ben Rivers, Simon Roberts, Paul Seawright, Andy Sewell, Theo Simpson, Graham Smith, Jem Southam, Jo Spence, John Stezaker, Paddy Summerfield, The Caravan Gallery, Chris Wainwright, Patrick Ward, Clare Woods and Donovan Wylie.
Towner Art Gallery
Eastbourne
29 September-21 January 2018
See more: http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/a-green-and-pleasant-land/
Image: John Davies ‘Agecroft Power Station, Salford’ 1983, © John Davies.
In recent years scholars both in Japan and Australia have become increasingly concerned with the close ties between these two emerging nation-states in the nineteenth century. Whereas much of the scholarship on Japan’s international relations of the period has focused on the Euro-American ‘treaty port’ powers, this talk asserts the significance of merchants as transcultural mediators in the Asia-Pacific region. To do so, the analysis will focus on vernacular, often marginalised forms of visual culture such as family photograph albums, postcards, private art collections, and company adverts. Specifically, this talk will examine as case studies two business partners in Meiji Japan who shared strong personal ties to the Australian colony of Victoria: Samuel Cocking and Theophilus Alexander Singleton. Through their long-term careers spanning their entire adult lives in Japan, this talk aims to highlight the direct cultural ties between nineteenth-century Japan and Australia, and in so doing, to challenge those twentieth-century historical narratives that understood the two nations’ ties as mediated through the Euro-American metropolitan centres.
Luke Gartlan is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews and serves as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed quarterly journal History of Photography.
Venue:Room: KLT
Organiser: Centres & Programmes Office & SOAS Japan Research Centre
Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk
From 500,000 photographs and 2,000 films in the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection held at Bristol Archives, 27 people were asked to choose just one. This exhibition reveals their choices and the reasons for that choice explained in their own words.
The former British Empire & Commonwealth Museum collected photographs and film from people who worked in the Empire, their families, and companies and government departments working with the colonies. Some are from well-known people, such as the writer Elspeth Huxley, others from anonymous photographers. Some record great historical events, but many document the everyday lives of families living and working abroad. It is a fascinating collection, giving a broad view of the Empire and the early years of independence.
The selectors include artists, photographers, film makers, colonial workers and their families, development workers and local communities. Each brings a different perspective to how they ‘read’ the image and the legacy of Empire.
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
30 September-31 August 2018
See more here: https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/bristol-museum-and-art-gallery/whats-on/empire-through-lens/
Shadows of War. Roger Fenton's Photographs of the Crimea, 1855 is a new publication to accompany the exhibition of the same name currently on show at The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse until 26 November 2017. It will be shown in London at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace in 2018.
The book provides a description and context for the Crimean War and Fenton's photographs of the conflict, reproducing the photographs shown in the exhibition. The Royal Collection Trust holds one of the best collections of Fenton's work including 350 of his photographs of the Crimean conflict. Appendices, reproduce useful source material including original handwritten catalogue recording the photographs from 1855, thumbnails of the Fenton Crimean images in the Royal Collections and the Agnew and Co catalogue of 1855.
The book further extends the knowledge of Fenton and his photography we have from Roger Taylor and others.
Shadows of War. Roger Fenton's Photographs of the Crimea, 1855
Sophie Gordon
Royal Collection Trust, 2017
£35, 256 pages
No Man’s Land offers rarely-seen female perspectives on the First World War, featuring images taken by women who worked as nurses, ambulance drivers, and official photographers, as well as contemporary artists directly inspired by the conflict. Commemorating the First World War Centenary, No Man’s Land features photographs by three women of the epoch, alongside three women making work a century later.
Highlights include photographs never-before-exhibited frontline images by nurses Mairi Chisholm and Florence Farmborough; photographs by Olive Edis, the UK’s first female official war photographer; and new work by contemporary photographer and former soldier Alison Baskerville. This is the premiere of the nationally-touring exhibition before it travels to Bristol Cathedral, The Turnpike in Leigh, and Bishop Auckland Town Hall.
Unconventional motorcyclist-turned-ambulance driver Mairi Chisholm (1886–1981) set up a First Aid post on the Western Front with her friend Elsie Knocker. Using snapshot cameras, they recorded their intense life under fire at Pervyse in Belgium, just yards from the trenches. The images on display in the exhibition, drawn from Chisholm’s personal photo-albums, record her vitality and humour in the midst of great suffering.
Pioneering Olive Edis (1876–1955) is thought to be the UK’s first female official war photographer, and one of the first anywhere in the world. A successful businesswoman, inventor, and high-profile portraitist, Edis photographed erveyone from Prime Ministers to Suffragettes. During the Armistice, she was commissioned by the Women’s Work Subcommittee of the Imperial War Museum to photograph the British Army’s auxiliary services in France and Flanders. Edis took her large studio camera on the road, often developing plates in makeshift darkrooms in hospital x-ray units. Her skilfully-composed images show the invaluable contributions of female engineers, telegraphists, commanders and surgeons.
On the Eastern Front, nurse and amateur photographer Florence Farmborough (1887–1978) documented her incredible experiences with the Russian Red Cross on the border of Galicia (present-day Ukraine and Poland). At a time when the British press avoided explicit images, Farmborough depicted the horrific consequences of war, including corpses lying in battlefields. Her images of Cossack soldiers, makeshift field tents, and Christmas in an old dug-out, offer rarely-seen views of the Eastern Front before Farmborough fled the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
Contemporary photographer Alison Baskerville is a former soldier with an insider’s perspective on women’s experiences in the armed forces. With Soldier , a new commission made specially for No Man’s Land , Baskerville has been directly inspired by Olive Edis to make a series of portraits of present-day women in the British Army. Working in collaboration with Ishan Sadiq, Baskerville has produced a series of digital autochromes — a contemporary version of the early twentieth-century colour technology pioneered by Olive Edis. Presented as lightboxes, the portraits have a distinctive hazy appearance, made up of thousands of tiny coloured dots that glow.
Contemporary artist Dawn Cole was inspired by the chance find of a suitcase in the attic of a family house, discovering the photographs and diary of her great-aunt Clarice Spratling, a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in Northern France. Cole uses a many-layered technique incorporating photo-etching, digital manipulation and lace-making. She ‘weaves’ words from Clarice’s diary entries into images of lace-edged handkerchiefs and collars, creating photographic prints with hidden messages that explore the gulf between public face and private feelings.
Shot at Dawn by contemporary artist Chloe Dewe Mathews focuses on the ‘secret history’ of British, French and Belgian troops who were executed for cowardice and desertion between 1914 and 1918. Her large-scale colour photographs depict the sites at which the soldiers were shot or held in the period leading up to their execution. All are seasonally accurate and were taken as close as possible to the precise time of day at which the executions occurred. Made a hundred years later, her images show places forever altered by traumatic events.
Dr. Pippa Oldfield, Head of Programme at Impressions Gallery and curator of the exhibition , says, “Most people think of war photography as images of male soldiers, made by photojournalists in the combat zone. However, the work in No Man’s Land shows many other ways to photograph war, offering different viewpoints by women who have historically been excluded. I hope visitors will be moved and surprised by what they see”.
Alison Baskerville, exhibiting photographer, says “It’s a privilege to be exhibiting alongside such inspiring and fascinating women. Despite the distance of a hundred years, their images are still so raw and powerful. As someone who has served in Afghanistan, I recognise the challenges of being a women in a war zone, and the importance of sharing that story”.
No Man’s Land
Impressions Gallery, Bradford
From 6 October to 30 December 2017
http://www.impressions-gallery.com
No Man’s Land is curated by Dr. Pippa Oldfield and is a co-production by Impressions Gallery, The Turnpike, Bristol Cathedral, and Bishop Auckland Town Hall, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
The exhibition is supported by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Peter E. Palmquist Fund for Historical Research. Historical images are kindly provided by National Library of Scotland; Imperial War Museums, and Norfolk Museums Service. Soldier by Alison Baskerville is commisioned by Impressions Gallery. Shot at Dawn by Chloe Dewe Mathews is commissioned by the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford as part of 14–18 NOW, WW1 Centenary Art Commissions. No Man’s Land is a member of the First World War Centenary Partnership led by IWM (Imperial War Museums).
The second edition of the St Andrews Photography Festival opens on 1 September. The full programme is available here.
Of particular note to photo-historians are:
The National Portrait Gallery is to stage an exhibition of photographs by four of the most celebrated figures in art photography, including previously unseen works and a notorious photomontage, it was announced today, Tuesday 22 August 2017.
Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography (1 March – 20 May 2018), will combine for the first time ever portraits by Lewis Carroll (1832–98), Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79), Oscar Rejlander (1813–75) and Lady Clementina Hawarden (1822-65).
The exhibition will be the first to examine the relationship between the four ground-breaking artists. Drawn from public and private collections internationally, it will feature some of the most breath-taking images in photographic history, including many which have not been seen in Britain since they were made.
Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography will be the first exhibition in London to feature the work of Swedish born ‘Father of Photoshop’ Oscar Rejlander since the artist’s death. it will include the finest surviving print of his famous picture Two Ways of Life of 1856-7, which used his pioneering technique combining several different negatives to create a single final image. Constructed from over 30 separate negatives, Two Ways of Life was so large it had to be printed on two sheets of paper joined together.
Seldom-seen original negatives by Lewis Carroll and Rejlander will both be shown, allowing visitors to see ‘behind the scenes’ as they made their pictures.
An album of photographs by Rejlander purchased by the National Portrait Gallery following an export bar in 2015 will also go on display together with other treasures from the Gallery’s world-famous holdings of Rejlander, Cameron and Carroll, which for conservation reasons are rarely on view. The exhibition will also include works by cult hero Clementina Hawarden, a closely associated photographer. This will be the first major showing of her work since the exhibition Lady Hawarden at the V&A in London and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1990.
Lewis Carroll’s photographs of Alice Liddell, his muse for Alice in Wonderland, are among the most beloved photographs of the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. Less well known are the photographs made of Alice years later, showing her a fully grown woman. The exhibition will bring together these works for the first time, as well as Alice Liddell as Beggar Maid on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Visitors will be able to see how each photographer approached the same subject, as when Cameron and Rejlander both photographed the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the scientist Charles Darwin, or when Carroll and Cameron both photographed the actress, Ellen Terry. The exhibition will also include the legendary studies of human emotion Rejlander made for Darwin, on loan from the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University.
Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography celebrates four key nineteenth-century figures, exploring their experimental approach to picture-making. Their radical attitudes towards photography have informed artistic practice ever since.
The four created an unlikely alliance. Rejlander was a Swedish émigré with a mysterious past; Cameron was a middle-aged expatriate from colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka); Carroll was an Oxford academic and writer of fantasy literature; and Hawarden was landed genty, the child of a Scottish naval hero and a Spanish beauty, 26 years younger. Yet, Carroll, Cameron and Hawarden all studied under Rejlander briefly, and maintained lasting associations, exchanging ideas about portraiture and narrative. Influenced by historical painting and frequently associated with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, they formed a bridge between the art of the past and the art of the future, standing as true giants in Victorian photography.
Lenders to the exhibition include The Royal Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; Munich Stadtsmuseum; Tate and V & A.
Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography will include portraits of sitters such as Charles Darwin, Alice Liddell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Thomas Carlyle, George Frederick Watts, Ellen Terry and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘The National Portrait Gallery has one of the finest holdings of Victorian photographs in the world. As well as some of the Gallery’s rarely seen treasures, such as the original negative of Lewis Carroll’s portrait of Alice Liddell and images of Alice and her siblings being displayed for the first time, this exhibition will be a rare opportunity to see the works of all four of these highly innovative and influential artists.’
Phillip Prodger, Head of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery, London, and Curator of Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography, says: ‘When people think of Victorian photography, they sometimes think of stiff, fusty portraits of women in crinoline dresses, and men in bowler hats. Victorian Giants is anything but. Here visitors can see the birth of an idea – raw, edgy, experimental — the Victorian avant-garde, not just in photography, but in art writ large. The works of Cameron, Carroll, Hawarden and Rejlander forever changed thinking about photography and its expressive power. These are pictures that inspire and delight. And this is a show that lays bare the unrivalled creative energy, and optimism, that came with the birth of new ways of seeing.’
Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography is curated by Phillip Prodger Ph.D, Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London. He is author and editor of eighteen books and catalogues, including the acclaimed Eggleston Portraits (2016). A recognised expert in Victorian photography, he is the author of the award-winning Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement (2003) and Darwin’s Camera: Art and Photography in the Theory of Evolution (2009), named by New York Times as one of the best art books of the year.
VICTORIAN GIANTS: THE BIRTH OF ART PHOTOGRAPHY
1 March -20 May 2018, at the National Portrait Gallery, London www.npg.org.uk
Tickets with donation: Full price £12 / Concessions £10.50
Tickets without donation Full price £10 / Concessions £8.50 (Free for Members and Patrons)
www.npg.org.uk/victoriangiants or 020 7321 6600 #VictorianGiants
Press View: Wednesday 28 February 2018 10.00-12.00 (with a curators’ tour at 10.30).
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated book by curator Phillip Prodger which will be available to purchase from the National Portrait Gallery shops priced £29.95 (hardback).
The exhibition will tour to Millennium Galleries, Sheffield June – Sept 2018
Images: Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll, 1858 (c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty ) by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1866 © Wilson Centre for Photography, Photographic Study (Clementina Maude) by Clementina Hawarden, early 1860s © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Two ways of Life by Oscar Rejlander, 1856-7 (c) Moderna Museet, Stockholm
