Peter Brunning has written a short biography of the London studio photographer Robert Hellis. The piece was published in the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery newsletter. The newsletter containing the article can be downloaded here: newsletter87.pdf. The same newsletter also contains an article on J H Pepper, of Pepper's ghost fame.
BPH would like to thank Peter Brunning, Bob Flanagan and FOWNC for permission to make the newsletter available.
The National Media Museum is looking for someone with a genuine passion for contemporary museum practice who can help us showcase some of our iconic objects in a way that is engaging and exciting to our visitors.
Using your knowledge of museum practice in collections, experience in research and excellent communications you will support the development of our new galleries. For the first time we will be presenting our collections together in two newdisplays telling the story of photography, film, television and sound technologies. You will support the creation of these displays working on a range of tasks from cataloguing and researching our objects, championing audience engagement and building strong relationships with our stakeholders.
This a great opportunity to become part of a curatorial team at a national museum working with an iconic collection. For the right candidate this is a chance to start your career and should not be missed!
The salary range is £18,500-£20,000pa and the deadline for applications is 9 October.
For further information see the vacancy information pack.
The Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester has announced its autumn seminar programme, themed Photography and the Greater Middle East. All seminars are free and open to everyone, Clephan Building 2.30, Tuesdays 4-6pm.
See more here: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/research-seminars-in-cultures-of-photography-autumn-term-2016/
Dominic Winter Auctions have a number of lots of relevance to British photographic history in their upcoming 6 October auction which has just gone online. Of particular note is a self-portrait in watercolour of Oscar Gustav Rejlander (lot 254, shown right), a group of early albumen and salt prints, and a 1931 portfolio from the RPS's Tyng Collection (lot 235).
The Rejlander lot can be seen here: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/sale/fine-art-and-antiques-oct16/lot-254
The full catalogue can be seen here: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/sale/fine-art-and-antiques-oct16
Estate agents Knight Frank are advertising Rock House for sale with offers in excess of £1,795,000. Rock House came to worldwide fame as the home and studio of David Octavius Hill, the artist and pioneering photographer who, in 1843
together with Robert Adamson, developed their expertitse at working the calotype process there. The house is now a family home on Edinburgh's Calton Hill.
The current owners have managed to create a 21st-century home that is sympathetic with the original period of the house. Built in the 1750s, it is reputed to be one of the oldest houses in Edinburgh’s New Town.
See more here: http://search.knightfrank.com/edc160037
A day of presentations and discussions around the theme of Ireland, Photography and the Photobook. The day will be a celebration of photography and the book form and is an opportunity to hear some important international photographers who have made photobooks in Ireland talk about their processes and achievements. It will also introduce some emerging photographers who’ve recently published their first books to wide acclaim and acknowledge the growing significance of the area in contemporary visual culture.
Speakers to include Bertien Van Manen, Krass Clement, Martin Parr, Bill Kirk and Frankie Quinn, Jose Luis Neves, Mary Hamill, Jan McCullough and others to be announced. A final schedule will be confirmed in late September. The day has been organised by Belfast School of Art in collaboration with Belfast Exposed Gallery. Belfast Exposed will be showcasing books made by those photographers presenting at the event along with recent publications made by the next generation of photographers in Ireland. The day will be of interest to photographers, artists, students, cultural historians, researchers and all those interested in the medium and of photography, publishing and its place within creative visual culture today. Booking is essential.
Teas, Coffees and a light buffet lunch will be provided.
Book tickets here.
William Henry Fox Talbot first conceived of the art of photography in 1833 and achieved results by 1834. However, it was not until Daguerre announced his process in January 1839 that Talbot was prompted to make his method public. The two approaches were radically different. Daguerre produced beautifully detailed unique images on silvered sheets of copper. Talbot’s photographs were technically inferior, but he conceived of the idea of a negative that could produce multiple prints on paper. In the end, Talbot’s more versatile approach was to define the mainstream of photography right down to the digital age.
The resources available to the historian for these two men are also radically different. Only a handful of Daguerre images and Daguerre letters survive and no research notebooks. For Talbot, there are more than 10,000 letters, hundreds of notebooks and more than 25,000 negatives and prints surviving worldwide. Around fifteen years ago Professor Larry Schaaf made full transcriptions of the 10,000 letters available online. However, to have put 25,000 images in a research structure with 1990s technology would have ‘broken the web’. Today, with advanced technology, the online Catalogue Raisonné of Talbot’s photographs is being prepared for the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Both the letters and the photographs have implications for the history of photography, conservation, and for historians in many fields.
Larry Schaaf will talk about Talbot at on behalf of Le Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation et la Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine on 26 September at 4pm at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (in the l'auditorium de la Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, 36, rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, 75005 Paris). The presentation will be given in English.
The Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum’s collection holds nearly three hundred albumen prints from the 1860s and 1870s in China and Japan. These images were collected by Andrew Carnegie in 1878 during his trip around the world. The collection includes photographs by both local and western photographers, such as Lai Afong, Felice Beato, Milton Miller, William Saunders, Shuzaburo Usui, Uchida Kuichi and Baron von Stillfried. This event brings together scholars of Chinese and Japanese art, photography and cultural geography with the aim of uncovering the rhetorical complexities of these prints, and exploring the fluidity of the lines between local/western, insider/outsider, art/photography and commercial/fine art images, as well as analysing the relationship between landscape photography and political power.
This symposium which takes place on 7 October at Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Moodie Street, Dunfermline, with presentations by:
See more and book tickets here.
Photo London returns to Somerset House in May 2017. Featuring over 90 of the world’s leading galleries Photo London has in its first two editions established itself as a key destination for everyone who is intrigued by the rich history of photography and fascinated by the future directions of the medium. In the lead up to Photo London 2017, it will offer a course on collecting photography, led by the curator, editor, lecturer and consultant Zelda Cheatle.
The course is aimed at seasoned collectors, as well as those who have begun, or are beginning to think about collecting photography. The course will explore the practical handling of photographs; it will host talks and lectures, will visit private and museum collections, as well as exploring photography at auction and in commercial galleries, in view of larger conversations on the art market, and how photography sits within the commercial art world.
The six week course will culminate in a private VIP tour of Photo London - the international gathering of the best photography galleries, exhibitions, education programmes and photobook publishers, and the leading global platform for the new artists, new work by established artists and gems from the dawn of photography.
The 6 week course will be hosted on Monday evenings, 7pm-9pm, from Monday, 27 March 2017 (except for the private event at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is hosted on a Friday and the VIP day at Photo London on Wednesday 17 May 2017).
Programme of events:
Monday 27th March 2017
Venue: The Screening Room, Somerset House
The group meets one another; we discover wish lists, likes and dislikes within photography, and explore a general outline to the history of photography and its history in London.
A chance to meet the Founders of Photo London and look through some photographs to begin the process of acquiring knowledge through identifying many print processes and types.
Monday 3rd April 2017
Venue: The Screening Room, Somerset House
A presentation given by the highly esteemed Angels Arribas, an expert in Conservation, who was educated at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
This will be a practical and useful guide to conservation, preservation and storing of photographs, archiving and handling, framing, hanging, UV light and much more.
Monday 28th April 2017
Chelsea, London
A special opportunity to visit an important private collection, normally closed to viewings. An insight into 20th century collecting, with magnificent 19th century examples from Fox Talbot up to the most recent practitioners of the 21st century.
Friday 5th May 2017
Venue: The Victoria and Albert Museum
As an exclusive to this course, a late evening in the Print Room at the V&A will look at selected works in the National Collection as we listen to a V&A curator speak about photography in this National Collection, the role of Friends of Photography and the new acquisitions from the Royal Photographic Society.
Wednesday 10th May 2017
Around the City
A gallery tour of the newest, most hidden, youngest and ones to watch - finishing in Kings Cross.
We will arrange private view invitations to the auction previews, and several galleries will host openings during the week of Photo London to which students of this course will be included. VIP events will also be extended to members of the class.
Wednesday 17th May 2017
Photo London, Somerset House
VIP day at Photo London with first tour of the galleries and exhibitions, before the Fair is open to the public. This group will be the first to see the galleries, some artists and gallery directors will speak to the group for a few minutes each on the tour.
The cost is £850.00, six week course
Numbers are limited
For any further information, or to reserve a place on the course, please email sid.motion@candlestar.co.uk
A one-day symposium accompanying Museums Sheffield’s new exhibition Street View: Photographs of Urban Life at the Graves Gallery, takes place on 24 November 2016. Featuring images primarily drawn from Sheffield’s own photographs collection, the exhibition explores the diversity of the street; as a social space, as a battleground for protest and as a source of artistic inspiration. Visitors will discover a range of works which, in many cases, have not been exhibited for over twenty years.
The symposium will contextualise the exhibition within the broader theme of street photography and the long-term development of photography in Sheffield. It also aims to emphasise the importance of UK-wide photography networks to continued development and research in the field. The symposium will offer the first chance to find out about the Photographic Collections Network. This is a new organisation, supported by Arts Council England, for anyone involved with photography archives and collections. It launches in October 2016 and there will be a presentation about its aims and plans.
Symposium speakers include Susanna Brown (Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum), Simon Roberts (UK-based contemporary photographer), Paul Herrmann (Director, RedEye: The Photography Network and representing the Photographic Collections Network), Paul Hill (UK-based photographer and Professor of Photography) and Ken Phillip (Sheffield-based photographer and former Lecturer of Photography, Sheffield Hallam University).
The symposium will be followed by a special evening viewing of the Street View exhibition 5.45pm-7.45pm with curator Catherine Troiano.
Symposium - Street View: Photography in Sheffield, the UK and Beyond
Thursday, 24 November, from 11.30am-5.30pm
Exhibition evening view:
5.45-7.45pm Millennium Gallery, Sheffield
Tickets are priced 12 / £10 concessions and are available now – please book via Eventbrite
For further information please contact Catherine Troiano: c.troiano@vam.ac.uk
Image: Langdon Clay, Kings Inn from the series Cars, New York, 1977 © Langdon Clay
The musée Nicéphore Niépce has commission a website which illustrates all known Niépce plates alongside correspondence and other archival and illustrative material. The website is available here: http://www.archivesniepce.com/
The Cumbria Crack reports that photographer Henry Iddon has received Arts Council funding to photograph contemporary adventure sports with an antique camera.
Henry’s work will be an homage to the work of George and Ashley Abraham, brothers who grew up in Keswick in the Lake District in the late 1800s. The Abraham brothers were passionate early rock-climbers and were the first to take cameras up into the hills of the Lake District to capture landscapes and action shots of their climbing.
The camera that Henry is using is on loan from the Mountain Heritage Trust, an organisation that aims to record and preserve Britain’s rich heritage in climbing, mountaineering and mountain culture, and is the very same camera that was used by the Abraham brothers.
The Underwood Instanto whole plate camera that the Abrahams, and now Henry, used, is made from solid mahogany, and is a heavy object. It uses 10”x12” glass plates, which have to be carried up the mountain alongside the camera and other equipment.
Read more here: http://www.cumbriacrack.com/2016/09/16/historic-camera-shoots-modern-day-rock-climbers/
Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood's Fine Art Sale in Exeter on 5 October features an unusual group of rare, early items relating to Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, inventor of the Diorama, a theatrical spectacle, and the daguerreotype, the earliest form of photography, made public in 1839.
Amongst the rarities is a copy of ‘Les Machabées’, (Lot 701) Estimate £400 - £600) a play for which, early in his career, Daguerre designed the sets in 1817. His name appears on the title page. Further lots include early published reports of both diorama and daguerreotype, with the daguerreotype itself represented by two of the earliest examples of photographic portraits, one French, by Victor Chevalier, and one English, from Richard Beard’s studio, undated but around 1841/2. The two final items of the twenty-five strong contingent are portraits of Daguerre himself. One of them is a late (1880s) copy of an 1848 daguerreotype of the inventor, by Charles R. Meade Lot 724) estimate £1000 - £1500.
The other, a unique piece, is a Societé Française de Photographie silver medal dated 1902 (Lot 725) estimate £800 - £1200, featuring double profile portraits of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, and of Joseph Nicephore Niépce, his collaborator in the earliest steps in the development of the medium.
Update: the catalogue can be seen here: http://www.bhandl.co.uk/sales/assets/FS/2016/10/04/FS041016-works-of-art.pdf
For further details visit http://www.bhandl.co.uk/ or telephone Rachel Littlewood on 01392 413100.
Dr Ian R Smith has compiled an essay/academic paper that he put together as part of his doctorate in the 1990s.In his words 'it leans towards facts and organisations rather than individuals but I hope you find it interesting'. Find it as a pdf at www.photolink-international.co.uk and click on the link.
Ian Christie, one of the UK's most renowned film writers and historians, will be giving the first The Bill Douglas Memorial Lecture, on 25 September. The lecture marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Bill Douglas, filmmaker and collector, who gives his name to The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, housed at the University of Exeter.
The Great 3D Scandal: how stereoscopy got written out of history
Ian Christie
Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History, Birkbeck College, University of London
Wednesday 28 September 2016 6.30-8pm Seminar Room A/B, Old Library, University of Exeter. Free.
Book at bdc@exeter.ac.uk
The photographer, curator and education Nathan Lyons died on 31 August 2016. There have been a number of obituaries published. Lyons was a curator of photography and an associate director at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York and, in 1969, founded the independent Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, which established a course of study relating to the history and practice of the photographic art form and curatorial studies specifically pertaining to the medium of photography. He started the Society for Photographic Education, becoming its first chairman. He was involved with various magazines, being assistant editor of Image, regional editor of Aperture, and founder of Afterimage.
See: http://www.vsw.org/online/nathan-lyons/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Lyons
This previously advertised job has a revised person specification and a salary that is now 'negotiable'. It is once again open to suitably qualified candidates. The new job pack can be found at the link here.
Closing date: 19 September 2016.
The London Stereoscopic Company has announced a series of UK lecture dates where Denis Pellerin, Dr Brian May and others will be giving talks on different aspects of stereoscopy. The tour commences in Manchester in September and will conclude in London in November. Further dates may be added .
Thurs 22 September, 6-8 pm
Manchester University
Jim Naughten and Denis Pellerin
Title: Animal kingdom: Stereocopic images of natural history
Sat 24 September, 2-3 pm
Harley Gallery, Welbeck, Worksop
Denis Pellerin
Title: Gardens for the Duchess
http://www.harleygallery.co.uk/event/gardens-for-the-duchess/
Mon 26 September, 10-12 am
Watts Gallery, Compton, near Guildford
Denis Pellerin
Title: Entertaining and educational: the Victorian stereoscope
Sat 1 October, 2.30-5 pm
Stereoscopic Society Meetings Held at St Barbara's Church Hall, 24 Rochester Road, Earlsdon, Coventry, CV5 6AG
Denis Pellerin
Title: Crinoline, Fashion’s Most Magnificent Disaster
Sun 16 October,
Meeting of The Photographic Collectors’ Club of Great Britain, Helicopter Museum, Weston-Super-Mare
Denis Pellerin
Title: Stereoscopy: A visual revolution of the Victorian era
Wed 19 October, 7.30-9.00 pm
King’s College, Safra Lecture Theatre
Brian May and Denis Pellerin
Title: Sir Charles Wheatstone and the craze for the stereoscope
Thur 20 October, time tbc
Apps World, London Excel Centre
Brian May
Q&A about Virtual Reality
27 to 29 October
Stereo & Immersive Media, Photography and Sound Research 2016, Lisbon, Portugal
Denis Pellerin
Two talks, one about the former 3-D conference (2015) and the other one (20 min) about the quest for 3-D and motion combined
8 Novemberc
British Library
Denis Pellerin (and Brian May if available)
Title: Victorian Entertainments and Crinolines
Talk followed by a book signing of Brian May and Denis Pellerin’s book Crinoline, Fashion’s Most Fashionable Disaster. .
BPH is saddened to report that Michael Schaaf, the photographer and teacher of collodion and other historic process, was found in his camper van in Lacock on 16 July. He had not been in contact with his family for several days and was discovered by a National Trust employee. Schaaf had conducted a five day intensive workshop at Lacock from 6-10 July.
Schaaf, 52, conducted regular process workshops at Lacock and elsewhere for the Fox Talbot Museum, the Royal Photographic Society and others. He was held in high regard for his own photography and for the quality of his teaching. He was a member and contributor to BPH.
BPH offers its condolences to his wife and family. An inquest is to be held at a later date.
Michael's website remains active at: http://mics-foto.de/
See: http://www.yourvalleynews.co.uk/frontpage-news/tourist-found-hanged-in-beauty-spot/
The first-ever comprehensive exhibition to celebrate exclusively the life and work of pioneering British photographer Olive Edis (1876-1955) opens at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday October 8, 2016 and closes Sunday January 22, 2017.
Although relatively unknown, Olive Edis was one of the most important photographers of the first half of the twentieth century and the first-ever accredited female war photographer. The breadth of her subjects from British royalty and aristocracy to the craggy faces of the fisherman of north Norfolk, together with her highly atmospheric photographs of the battlefields of France and Flanders taken during her time as an official World War One war photographer, raise her to international status.
The exhibition Fishermen & Kings: The Photography of Olive Edis is part of the on-going Olive Edis project (see notes to editors), which aims to share with the world and boost awareness of Edis’ inspirational life and work. Curated specially for Norwich Castle, the show will not be travelling, although a smaller exhibition featuring different images will form part of the permanent display at the Cromer Museum in the future.
Curator Alistair Murphy, said: “Olive Edis was a remarkable woman. She was well-educated, forward thinking, a visionary, an astute business entrepreneur and most importantly a talented photographer with a natural affinity for her subjects – however grand or humble each was afforded respect and dignity. Like the many influential and inspirational women that she photographed, Edis was herself a “new woman”. Edis’ photographic legacy is a ‘national treasure’ and we are delighted to present, for the first time, this highly impressive display of her work, to be appreciated by a larger audience.”
The exhibition features more than 190 rare photographs taken by Edis between the years of 1900 and 1955. The work is presented thematically starting with an introduction to Olive Edis and then focusing on her unique photographic technique and technical expertise. Another section examines her skill in portraiture, which offers a rare glimpse into both high society of the day and the more simple life of East Anglian fisherman. Influential women in the early twentieth century, is another key element. As an entrepreneur and ground-breaker Edis herself was a “new woman”. Not only did she exemplify the emancipation of women and their changing role in society in her own life, she also recorded it. In addition Edis’ remarkable war work provides another important theme.
One of the earliest examples of her work is a portrait of her cousin Caroline ‘Carrie’, taken in 1900. Poignantly, it was apparently Carrie who gave Edis her first camera. The original photograph was donated by Edis to the National Portrait Gallery collection in 1948 and has a hand-written inscription on the back - "My very first attempt at a portrait which turned my fate in 1900”.
Another early photograph shows Edis’s twin sisters, Emmeline and Katherine. It was Katherine who initially shared her older sister’s passion for photography and the two of them set up a photographic studio in Sheringham in 1905, although Katherine’s photographic career ended when she married a few years later.
As to why Sheringham was the choice of location is unknown. It has been suggested that Edis and her sisters spent holidays in North Norfolk as children. Edis’ great uncle John had also retired to Sheringham, which may also explain the choice. The first studio on Church Street in Sheringham, was designed by their uncle, the architect Col. Sir Robert Edis, with a glass roof to allow plenty of natural light. Olive later moved to the “New Studio” on South Street.
Edis’ reputation as a photographer grew rapidly and within a few years she already had an impressive list of sitters and commissions. An early self-portrait taken in around 1912 shows Edis as an elegant, rather demure, thoughtful young Edwardian lady gazing directly into the camera lens. She became a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1913 and the following year was elected a fellow. With studios in Sheringham, Norfolk and later Farnham in Surrey and Ladbroke Grove London, she was something of a photographic entrepreneur quick to recognise the importance and potential of this new technology.
Over the course of her 50-year career, Edis photographed a huge cross section of society. Her signature style, which used natural light and shadow, resulted in striking portraits. Notable are her sensitive, natural photographs of Edward VIII as Prince of Wales and a young Prince Albert (later George VI). It is not known where the photographs would have been taken, possibly in Edis’ London studio. Edis also photographed several other members of the Royal Family including HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, as the young 15-year old Prince Philip of Greece, in addition to his uncle Lord Mountbatten, later 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (the latter is not included in the exhibition).
As a forward-thinking, progressive, independent woman, it is no surprise that she also photographed several members of the suffragette movement including Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, as well as Britain’s first woman doctor and women’s rights campaigner, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.
Alongside the portraits of the well-to-do in society are a vast number of wonderfully compelling portraits of local Norfolk fisherman, the salt seemingly etched into the lines of their craggy, characterful faces. The fishermen remained a favourite subject throughout her career.
Edis had the ability to put all her subjects at ease. She put her success down to “being in sympathy” with her sitters and as a result was able to capture a true and informal likeness.
In 1918, Edis was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to photograph women’s war work in Europe. She was the first British woman to be commissioned as an official war photographer and only the 5th official British photographer to visit Europe to cover WW1.
Despite her trip being delayed due to the precarious military situation, and some opposition to sending a woman to photograph a war zone, in March 1919 she embarked on a month long journey around France and Belgium with Lady Norman, Chair of the Women’s Work Committee. Edis kept a journal of her travels through war-torn Europe, and this combined with her many photographs, taken using a large glass-plate camera, provide graphic, documentary evidence of the lives of women in the British Women’s Services who worked on the front lines. Atmospheric photographs also capture the devastation that followed the Great War. Many of these photographs now form part of the Imperial War Museum’s collection.
Edis was able to turn her lens to any form of photography, as well as her portraiture and historic war photography, she is credited with having taken some of the earliest colour photographs ever taken of Canada as part of a commission to advertise the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1920. Very few examples of these photographs survive today and none are included in the exhibition. Another important commission was to take interior shots of No 10 Downing Street in 1917.
The photographs reveal the technical development of Edis’ work. Initially working with platinum prints, she was also one of the first photographers to experiment with autochrome photography and even patented her own design of autochrome viewers, termed diascopes. In addition Edis was one of the first professionals to use a “kinematograph camera” – she started making films in the 1920s, including filming the wedding of Mr Henry Deterding of Holt, and a film of the Netherlands entitled “Life on the Waterways”, sadly both now lost.
Edis’ passion for photography was undiminished and throughout her career, she maintained her photographic bases in Sheringham and London, splitting her time between the two and driving to and from London in her Austin 7. Despite advances in photography she continued to use her large glass plate camera right up until the 1950s, although she did later own folding cameras which used film.
The last photograph of Edis was taken in 1953/4 by Cyril Nunn, her close friend and collaborator, on her own glass plate camera. Olive Edis died in London in 1955.
It was to Cyril Nunn that Edis left her estate of photographs, prints, glass plate negatives and autochromes. This was in turn offered to the Cromer Museum in 2008 and was purchased with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, North Norfolk District Council and Friends of Cromer Museum. This material, including around 1800 plate glass negatives, provided the impetus for the Olive Edis project. Cromer Museum now has the largest holding of Olive Edis negatives in the world and is a focus for further research and the promotion of knowledge and interest in her life and work.
Fishermen & Kings: The Photography of Olive Edis (1876-1955)
Saturday October 8, 2016 to Sunday January 22, 2017
The exhibition is accompamied by an illustrated catalogue.
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery
Castle Hill, Norwich, NR1 3JU
Tel. +44 (0)1603 495897 www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk
