The Museum of Modern Art has launched Seeing Through Photographs, its first massive open online course (MOOC) for a general audience, available on Coursera. Using works from MoMA’s expansive collection as a point of departure, the course encourages participants to look critically at photographs through the diverse ideas, approaches, and technologies that inform their making. Seeing Through Photographs can be found at coursera.org/learn/photography.

Led by Sarah Meister, Curator, Department of Photography, the course introduces learners to first hand perspectives and ideas from artists and scholars about what a photograph is and the many ways in which photography has been used throughout history and into the present day: as a means of personal artistic expression; a tool for science and exploration; a method for documenting people, places, and events; a way of telling stories and recording histories; and a mode of communication and critique in our increasingly visual culture.

The themes for the 6 sessions are: Introduction to Seeing Through Photographs, One Subject, Many Perspectives, Documentary Photography, Pictures of People, Constructing Narratives and Challenging Histories, and Ocean of Images: Photography and Contemporary Culture. Each session has a quiz, and the course has a final project at the end.

The course is free and can be started at any time and completed at the student's own speed. 

With the introduction of the Autochrome process in 1907 colour photography became a possibility for a broad range of photographers.  Its availability created a stir that involved all areas of photography and provoked a heated debate about the fundamental laws and aims of the medium. Especially the Autochrome’s suitability for artistic photography was under attack. Still, some pictorial photographers embraced the newly achieved possibility of colour registration and explored its potential, creating a distinct aesthetic that employed the medium’s characteristics within the framework of pictorialism. This paper discusses examples of pictorial Autochrome photography in the context of the debates on art and colour photography of the time.

All are welcome! However, places are limited, so if you would like to attend please contact our Events Manager, Ella Fleming on events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

This is a free event and lunch is provided.

Caroline Fuchs is a Curatorial Fellow at the Bavarian State Paintings Collections in Munich (Germany) and a lecturer at the department of Art History at University of Vienna (Austria). Recently, she completed her PhD with a dissertation on Colour Values – Autochrome Photography in Britain. She is currently preparing this thesis for publication and has been awarded a postdoctoral Fellowship by the Paul Mellon Centre for this aim. Fuchs is a member of the European Society for the History of Photography’s executive committee. Her latest publication focuses on Gerhard Richter and the Principle of Detail, in: Gerhard Richter. Detail: Paintings from the Böckmann Collection, Exhibition Catalogue Nuremberg (2014).

The British scientist and inventor William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) pioneered the art of ‘photogenic drawing’ in the 1830s – the method of capturing images using light-sensitive paper and a camera. His experiments with this new medium, ranging from the delicate capture of natural specimens to atmospheric architectural studies, lay the foundations for photography as we know it today. Living and working in the village of Lacock in Wiltshire, Talbot also produced simple, sensitive portraits of his family and friends.

Published to accompany a Media Space exhibition opening at the Science Museum in London on 14 April 2016, this stunning catalogue examines how Talbot’s invention of photography evolved to establish its artistic, scientific and industrial possibilities. Also explored are the relationships within the network of photographers who gravitated towards Talbot’s process, each of whom took photography into different territories.

Featuring 100 high-quality reproductions of Talbot’s work, Dawn of the Photograph is a testament to his magical and industrial visions, as well as his ambitions for photography as a means of mass production.

ISBN: 978 1 78551 053 3
PAGES: 176
PRICE: £27.95, $45
PUBLICATION: 2 June 2016

Dr Russell Roberts is Reader in Photography at the University of South Wales.

Greg Hobson is Curator of Photographs at the National Media Museum in Bradford

Applications are invited for an AHRC-funded PhD at the University of Brighton: “Horace Nicholls: artist-photographer at war”. This is offered under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership programme. The partner institutions are the University of Brighton and IWM. The studentship will be supervised by Professor Darren Newbury and Professor Francis Hodgson at the University of Brighton, and Hilary Roberts of IWM London. This full-time studentship, which is funded for three years at standard AHRC rates, will begin on 1 October 2016.

Horace W. Nicholls was one of Britain’s best known photographers of the early twentieth century. As one of the world’s first true photojournalists, his work shaped that of succeeding generations. Nicholls reported the 2nd Anglo-Boer War in South Africa. He established legal copyright in photographs in a landmark court case in 1901. He documented the impact of total war on the British people, and, as Britain’s first official photographer on the Home Front, had unique access, particularly to women war workers. After the war, he became the new Imperial War Museum’s Head of Studio (Chief Photographer) where he worked to secure and develop the IWM’s photographic collections and documented the evolution of commemorative activities. Today, many of Nicholls’ photographs are familiar but little is known about the man who took them. There has been no significant research, publication or exhibition of his work for forty years. 2017 will be the 150th anniversary of the birth of Horace W. Nicholls and the centenary of his appointment as the first Ministry of Information Home Front official photographer in the First World War. It is also the centenary of IWM’s request to Government that he create a photographic essay of women’s contribution to the war effort. 

Horace Nicholls’ archive, comprising photographs, sketches, documents and printed materials, is now dispersed and little known – a factor which has contributed to his disappearance from public view. The archive is preserved as part of the Royal Photographic Society collection (pre-1914), by the IWM (for the period 1914-36), and by the Horace Nicholls estate. This project will examine these three collections in the context of the First World War centenary; properly evaluate the achievements of Horace Nicholls; the influences that drove him; and the significance of his legacy in terms of:

1. The evolution of photography as an international mass medium, a form of international propaganda and commemorative medium.
2. The development of professional photojournalism.
3. Photography’s capacity to act simultaneously as a medium of art and information and the consequences of this tension for contemporary understanding of the meaning of modern conflict.
4. Public understanding of the impact of war on civilians in the early twentieth century.
5. IWM’s early activities as a collector/commissioner of photography.

See more and apply here: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/doctoral-centre-arts/studentships/horace-nicholls-artist-photographer-at-war

Image: Horace W. Nicolls, British soldiers signalling with flags, First World War, 1914-1918. Image: The Royal Photographic Society Collection / National Media Museum. 

The History and Theory of Photography Research Centre has announced its next series of seminars. They are free and open to all, at 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD, unless otherwise specified

Wednesday 17 February 2016, 6-7:30 pm

Room B04

Linda Mulcahy (London School of Economics)

Docile Suffragettes? Resistance to Police Photography

​Seminal accounts of the history of photography commonly draw attention to the mugshot as the archetypal documentary visual record in which prisoners are rendered docile.  This paper attempts a revisionist account of the mugshot by looking for evidence of resistance and agency. In doing so it draws on a little discussed campaign in which suffragettes regularly resisted having their photographs taken by prison authorities and discusses the implications of this for the way we view these photographs.

Monday 22 February 2016, 5pm

Closing date to apply for the SOAS & BBK Bloomsbury Studentship

‘The John Thomson (1837-1921) Photo Archive: Framing China and South East Asia’ http://www.bloomsbury.ac.uk/studentships/studentships-2016/-the-john-thomson-1837-1921-photo-archive-framing-china-and-south-east-asia-soas-bbk

Wednesday 9 March 2016 - 6-7:30

*Clore Building, Room B01, Torrington Square (opposite main building), WC1E 7HX

Jennifer Tucker (Wesleyan University & Birkbeck Institute for Humanities Visiting Fellow)

Picturing Modernization: Vision, Modernity and the Technological Image in Humphrey Jenning's Pandaemonium

Thursday 9 June 2016, 6-7:30 pm

Room 112

Luke Gartlan (University of St. Andrews, Editor of History of Photography journal)

Before ‘White Australia’: The Singleton Family Photo Albums and Early Australian-Japanese Relations

Monday 27 June 2016, 6-7:30 pm

Room 112

Tim Satterthwaite

Spiritualising the machine: the modernist photography of UHU magazine

Saturday 2 July 2016 times and location TBC

Workshop

Law and Photography

In collaboration with London School of Economics

Patrizia Di Bello (Dr),
Senior Lecturer, History and Theory of Photography
Birkbeck, University of London,
www.bbk.ac.uk/art-history

www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/photography

The seemingly magical process of capturing an image on a light-sensitive surface entranced the Victorian age. This new science and artform, which became known as photography, was created by pioneers from the 1830s onwards. By the late 1850s numerous photographic studios had been established in the county.

This symposium is the first time that a public day event has been devoted to exploring photography in Devon. Its crossover between Science and Art exactly fits the aims of the Devonshire Association, and the programme will reflect this. The morning will include exciting new work on pioneers of photography in Devon, and on the remarkable topographical work in the county of one of the finest national photographers of the mid-19th century, and of his contemporaries. There will also be a challenge to identify Devon scenes photographed in the 1860s as studies for nationally renowned artists. James Davies will give a presentation on the official recording of buildings within the county.

The afternoon will start with a look at the revelatory landscape and social record of Chris Chapman and the late James Ravilious from the 1970s onwards. The day will come full circle with presentations from three contemporary internationally respected artistphotographers inspired by Devon – Garry Fabian Miller, Susan Derges and Jem Southam – whose camera-less techniques or equipment echo that of the very earliest practitioners. Much of the rich visual material and information will be presented for the first time, and the important role of photography in Devon will be more than amply demonstrated.

SCIENCE MEETS ART ASPECTS OF 175 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN DEVON
Saturday 9 April 2016. 9.30am (Registration) – 4.30pm Petroc College, Mid Devon Campus, Bolham Road, Tiverton EX16 6SH

The programme and a booking form is available here: http://www.devonassoc.org.uk/whats-on/20160409-Science-meets-art.pdf 

The recent Cameron conference held at the Bodleian Library held on 20 January is the subject of an informative blog posting here which neatly and concisely summarises the papers presented: https://madeleineemeraldthiele.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/julia-margaret-cameron-symposium/ 

Could you work confidently with historical artefacts, catalogues and collections in a museum or gallery setting? We are looking for a motivated individual who has relevant experience to join our Corporate & Collections Information team as a Collections Information Officer. 

The National Media Museum cares for more than 3.5 million significant items, including the collections of National Photography, National Cinematography, National Television and National New Media.

You will be responsible for collections registration tasks to ensure that statutory responsibilities are maintained and delivered, regarding loan or disposal of objects held in the reserve collections. You’ll be based at the National Media Museum and will be working on collection loans out renewals, historic loans and object loans in renewals, as well as object acquisitions and disposals, GIS applications, collections rationalisation, and data cleaning for collections documentation.
Under direction, you will be able to take responsibility for delivering collections registration and collections documentation work, creating records to a good standard in the object database (MIMSY XG). You will work as part of the team to ensure that objects are fully documented and the Museum Group policies are adhered to. You will assist with drafting loan agreements and transfer of title paperwork, and managing the transportation of objects between the museum and borrowers, lenders or new owners. In addition, you will work with other departments within the museum, including those in the Curatorial, Corporate & Collections Information and Conservation & Collections Care teams.

We are looking for somebody who can effectively communicate and negotiate with current lenders and borrowers, balancing tact and diplomacy whilst adhering to our processes. Your attention to detail and ability to juggle a complex workload under time pressure will be second to none. Experience of working with the collections database Mimsy XG will be a distinct advantage. IT fluency is essential. 

You will be self-motivated and able to work effectively within a team, and you will be comfortable communicating with a range of people including colleagues at all levels and external stakeholders. You will be willing and able to take on a wide variety of tasks. Previous experience of collections registration or collections documentation, a working knowledge of the Government Indemnity Scheme and experience in the transportation of objects is essential. 

Salary: £16,500 - £17,500.00

Deadline: 14 February 2016

See more and apply here: https://vacancies.nmsi.ac.uk/VacancyDetails.aspx?FromSearch=True&MenuID=6Dqy3cKIDOg=&VacancyID=1245

Following the announcement that part of the National Photography Collection is to be transferred to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Impressions Gallery confirms that the Impressions Gallery Archive will be staying in Bradford. 

The archive, of over 3,000 artworks and objects, is a significant repository that demonstrates the cultural impact of photography and the vital role that Impressions Gallery has played in raising the profile of the medium in the UK. The Impressions Gallery Archive will continue to be conserved in Bradford alongside other prestigious collections of international significance including the Kodak Collection and the Daily Herald Archive.

Whilst Impressions Gallery is disappointed that the National Photography Collection will be divided between Bradford and London, the Gallery recognises that in the current funding climate, difficult decisions have had to be made to ensure the National Media Museum’s future.

Impressions Gallery Director Anne McNeill said: ‘It has always been important to us that our archive remains as a key resource for photography research in the North of England. The decision to move part of the National Photography Collection to the V&A is just another example of national resources being taken from the regions and going to the capital. We will be sad to lose our valued colleagues and friends in any restructure, and will continue to support the Museum in Bradford’.

Roger Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum, is lecturing in the United States and can be seen in a livestream of his lecture on 4 February 2016 at 12.00AM GMT.

AAHD alumnus Roger Watson, BFA 1982, is a curator at Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Museum, in Lacock, England, Britain's birthplace of photography. Watson's recent book is Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry, co-authored by Helen Rappaport. The Fox Talbot Museum celebrates the life and work of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77). Fox Talbot created the first photographic negative in 1835, taken of a small window at his home, Lacock Abbey.

See here for more information: http://livestream.com/msualumni/RogerWatson

An historic agreement between the Science Museum Group (SMG) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is set to create the world’s foremost collection on the art of photography according to a press release published by the V&A Museum.

• World’s leading collection on the art of photography to be created at the V&A
• RPS Collection to move to V&A London
• National Media Museum to focus on STEM subjects
• No future national museum of photography

The museums have announced that more than 400,000 objects from SMG’s three-million-strong photography collection, held at the National Media Museum, will be transferred to the V&A. These photographs, cameras, books and manuscript material will join the V&A’s existing collection of 500,000 photographs to create an International Photography Resource Centre. The new Centre will provide the public with a world-class facility to access this consolidated collection, which will become the single largest collection on the art of photography in the world.

V&A Director, Martin Roth, said: “The V&A and Science Museum Group have shared origins and uniting our complementary collections will create a peerless historical and artistic photography resource. Our ambitious plans for enhancing digital access, collaborative research, touring exhibitions and creating an International Photography Resource Centre will mean that future generations of visitors and researchers will benefit from these examples of the most important artistic developments in artistic photographic history.”

Dr Michael Pritchard, Director-General of the RPS, said: “The RPS has worked closely with the National Media Museum since 2003 to ensure that the world-class RPS Collection of photographs, technology, books and documents from 1827 to 2016 has grown and developed. I am pleased that we can further enhance the RPS Collection’s stature alongside the V&A’s own art photography collection and make it more widely available to the public and scholars and ensuring it remains a prime resource for future generations.  The RPS is extremely fortunate to benefit from the support and expertise of one of the world’s most revered cultural institutions.”

A commitment has been given that the RPS Collection will be retained as a distinct entity and there will be negotiations over the coming weeks to ensure that the the current partnership agreement with the National Media Museum is carried over to the V&A. While the move will prove beneficial in opening up access to the RPS Collection the Society is concerned that the absence of a single institution with the curatorial expertise to collect and interpret all aspects of photography beyond its art will lead to a selective and narrow appreciation of photography that existed before the formation of the National Media Museum in 1983 when the V&A and Science Museum worked independently.

There will be challenges for the V&A which houses the national collection of art photography to deal with photographic technology and science that forms a key part of the RPS Collection. The Society will be keen to see the V&A expand its remit to take responsibility for the National Photography Collection. There will be further announcements over the coming weeks regarding the transfer, timings and impact on the other collections held at the National Media Museum and senior curatorial staff have entered a period of consultation regarding their jobs. 

Once transferred, the collection will be stored, digitised and made accessible for study. In the short term, the permanent gallery space dedicated to photographs at the V&A will be doubled. A second phase will see the opening of an International Photography Resource Centre to provide unprecedented opportunities for access, collaborative research and education with this unrivalled collection. As part of the agreement, the V&A will work closely with SMG to give access to the transferred collections for future scholarship and exhibitions.

The National Media Museum in Bradford – one of the four museums that make up SMG – is refocusing its photography collections to align with its own strategic emphasis on the science, technology and culture of light and sound. The National Media Museum will retain the collections which support an understanding of the development of photographic processes (such as the Kodak Museum collection), the ongoing cultural impact of photography (such as the Daily Herald archive) as well as photographic archives that have specific relevance to Bradford (such as the Impressions Gallery archive). A new £1.5 million interactive light and sound gallery is due to open in March 2017.

See more here: http://www.rps.org/news/2016/january/rps-collection-to-move-to-vanda-london

There is more background relevant to Bradford here: http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/business/14244537.National_Media_Museum_to_lose_part_of_its_art_of_photography_collection/

Sir Kenneth Corfield, the designer of the Corfield Periflex series and, later, the WA77 and Architect cameras, died on 11 January, aged 91 years. With Brian Gould he ensured that the Gandolfi company survived. He enjoyed a successful career in business as chairman and chief executive of STC. He was a life member of the Royal Photographic Society. Amateur Photographer carries a short report here: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/sir-kenneth-corfield-founder-of-last-successful-british-camera-range-dies-aged-91-68993:

Michael Pritchard writes...I first met Sir Ken in the 1980s when would attend the camera auctions at Christie's. Despite his role as a leader of industry he was always an engineer at heart as epitomised by his Corfield camera - the last commercially successful British camera range. Sir Ken was always friendly and helpful and willing to answer questions on his cameras. He remained fascinated by camera technology long after the final Corfield camera was sold and combined his technical background with that of an historian to great effect. For many of us his great legacy will be the Periflex camera.

Please comment with your own memories of Sir Ken. 

Image, top right: © reserved; collection National Portrait Gallery, London.

The science Museum has announced the latest in its series of Research Seminars. They are open to students, museum professionals and academics with an interest in the history of science, technology, engineering, medicine and maths; museums, their audiences and collections. Of particular note, on 15 March, Ella Ravilious will discuss Photography at the South Kensington Museum/V&A. 

The South Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum) made, used and collected photographs from its earliest beginnings in the 1850s through to the present. This activity had many purposes and the photographic prints were viewed and used in myriad ways. The photographs of art objects and artefacts made by the Photographic Studio and the photographs collected by the National Art Library, the Circulation Department and the Photographs Collection together constitute a formidable resource. The shared photographic history between the Science Museum and the V&A is rich and include connections which are still coming to light today.

All seminars take place between 1-2pm in the Dana Study, Dana Research Centre and Library, 165 Queen’s Gate. Bring a packed lunch. 

In a blog posting the New York Public Library announced that out-of-copyright materials in NYPL Digital Collections would be available as high-resolution downloads and, in its words 'No permission required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!' 

The release of more than 180,000 digitized items represents both a simplification and an enhancement of digital access to a trove of unique and rare materials: a removal of administration fees and processes from public domain content, and also improvements to interfaces — popular and technical — to the digital assets themselves. Online users of the NYPL Digital Collections website will find more prominent download links and filters highlighting restriction-free content; while more technically inclined users will also benefit from updates to the Digital Collections API enabling bulk use and analysis, as well as data exports and utilities posted to NYPL's GitHub account. These changes are intended to facilitate sharing, research and reuse by scholars, artists, educators, technologists, publishers, and Internet users of all kinds. All subsequently digitized public domain collections will be made available in the same way, joining a growing repository of open materials.

To encourage novel uses of the NYPL's digital resources, it is also accepting applications for a new Remix Residency program. Administered by the Library's digitization and innovation team, NYPL Labs, the residency is intended for artists, information designers, software developers, data scientists, journalists, digital researchers, and others to make transformative and creative uses of digital collections and data,and the public domain assets in particular. Two projects will be selected, receiving financial and consultative support from Library curators and technologists.

To provide further inspiration for reuse, the NYPL Labs team has also released several demonstration projects delving into specific collections, as well as a visual browsing tool allowing users to explore the public domain collections at scale. These projects, which suggest just a few of the myriad investigations made possible by fully opening these collections, include:

• a "mansion builder" game, exploring floor plans of grand turn-of-the-century New York apartments; 
• a then-and-now comparison of New York's Fifth Avenue, juxtaposing 1911 wide angle photographs with Google Street View; and
• a "trip planner" using locations extracted from mid-20th century motor guides that listed hotels, restaurants, bars, and other destinations where Black travelers would be welcome.

The public domain release spans the breadth and depth of NYPL's holdings, from the Library's rich New York City collection, historic maps, botanical illustrations, unique manuscripts, photographs, ancient religious texts, and more. Materials include:

• Berenice Abbott's iconic documentation of 1930s New York for the Federal Art Project
• Farm Security Administration photographs by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and others
• Manuscripts of American literary masters like Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Papers and correspondence of founding American political figures like Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison
• Sheet music for popular American songs at the turn of the 20th century
• WPA-era lithographs, etchings, and pastels by African American artists
• Lewis Hine's photographs of Ellis Island immigrants and social conditions in early 20th century America
• Anna Atkins' cyanotypes of British algae, the first recorded photographic work by a woman (1843)
• Handscrolls of the Tale of Genji, created in 1554
• Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts from Western Europe
• Over 20,000 maps and atlases documenting New York City, North America, and the world
• More than 40,000 stereoscopic views documenting all regions of the United States 

Visit nypl.org/publicdomain for information about the materials related to the public domain update and links to all of the projects demonstrating creative reuse of public domain materials. 

Person Specification

Qualifications

• A Postgraduate degree in art history/history of photography or related field, with a specialisation in photography and/or new media, or an equivalent combination of qualification and experience.

• Ph.D. in art history / history or equivalent expertise of art is desirable.

• At least three year’s relevant work experience within a museum or gallery environment working on displays or exhibitions.

• An understanding and engagement with interpretation practices and a willingness to work directly with staff across the Gallery to generate and deliver changes to interpretation.

• Experience of and enthusiasm for giving gallery talks and presentations to the public and among peers and writing text for a general public audience.

• Experience of managing junior staff.

• The ability to speak with authority about lens-based media, as well as trends and key figures in the history of photography as they pertain to NPG collections from the 19^th century to the present.

• A strong interest and excellent knowledge of British art, history and portraiture in the given period.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, the ability to copy edit text to a high standard of accuracy, write up research and edit existing texts producing clear and engaging copy for a public audience.

• A commitment to undertake academic research in a relevant field and evidence of research outputs.

• An interest in and knowledge of a variety of different types of museum interpretation and commentary including in gallery texts, web microsites, blogs, digital in gallery texts, social media etc.

• Training or interest in new media (film, video, electronic media).

• Well-developed interpersonal skills, the ability to support the Head of Photographs and work on their own initiative, co-ordinating and liaising with other curatorial staff, and staff across the Gallery.

• Exemplary research skills using published and primary art historical sources and familiarity with online research databases on history, biography and art.

• Excellent organisational, research and planning skills, coupled with the ability to work calmly under pressure, meet tight deadlines and retain excellent attention to detail.

• Good computer literacy with databases, a variety of IT packages (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.) and the ability to generate image spreadsheets from collections databases.

• A good eye for design and an understanding of the issues in designing displays and hanging works of art.

Other

• A demonstrable interest and commitment to the work of the National Portrait Gallery and an awareness of the demands and responsibilities of a National Museum collection.

• A genuine and demonstrable interest in the practice of interpretation and audience development within museums.

• Ability to research and develop the biography of the sitters and artists providing insight into photographic compositions and their history and significance.

• Willingness to stay up to date with contemporary developments in photography and new media and desire to explore future trends.

• The post may require occasional evening and weekend work as agreed.

Period of Appointment

This is a permanent post.

Hours

Your contracted hours of work will be 40 hours (5 days) per week, from Monday to Friday, including a lunch break of one hour a day.

Salary

The salary for this post will be £27,849 per annum.

Annual Leave

Your annual leave allowance is 25 days per annum, rising to 29 days at the start of the annual leave year following completion of five years’ service, and up to 33 days after 10 years service.

Place of Work

Most of the work is based in the Gallery at St Martin’s Place, but all staff are required to work at other locations if necessary.

Equality

The Gallery believes in the employment and advancement of people solely on their ability to do the job required.  When recruiting people, we will therefore disregard their gender, marital status, race, age, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, religion and sexual orientation.  There will be no unfair discrimination on the basis of disability.  If you would like to submit your application in a different format we are happy to allow this.  Please contact us (telephone: 020 7306 0055 email: personnel@npg.org.uk) so that we may discuss suitable alternatives.

Pension

Pension benefits are provided under the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS).

Probation and Trial Period

All appointments are subject to satisfactory employment and character references, security clearance and eligibility to work in the UK. There is a probationary period of 1 year for all permanent posts. The probationary period for this post is 12 months.

Data Protection Act

Information provided by you as part of your application will be used in the recruitment process.  Any data about you will be held securely with access restricted to those involved in dealing with your application in the recruitment process.  Once this process is completed the data relating to unsuccessful applicants will be stored for a maximum of 6 months and then destroyed.  If you are the successful candidate, your application form will be retained and form the basis of your personnel record.  Information provided by you on the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form will be used to monitor the National Portrait Gallery’s equal opportunities policy and practices.  By signing and submitting your completed application form you are giving your consent to your data being stored and processed (if you submit your application by e-mail and the application form is un-signed we will assume that consent by you is given) for the purpose of the recruitment process, equal opportunities monitoring and your personnel record if you are the successful candidate.

Season Tickets

Interest free loans are available for the purchase of a season ticket for travel to work.

Please return your completed application form to:

Personnel at: personnel@npg.org.uk

Or by post

Caroline Speed
Head of Personnel
National Portrait Gallery
2 St Martin’s Place
London
WC2H 0HE

By 9am on Wednesday 20 January 2016.

We are expecting to hold interviews on Friday 29 January, 2016. Please indicate on your form if you are unavailable on this date. Please indicate on the form if you will not be available on any particular days during this week.  

If you are delivering your application by hand, please take it to the reception desk at 39-45 Orange Street.

To ensure the best possible use of our limited resources we are unable to respond to every application.  If you have not had a response to your application by 12 February, 2016, please assume that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.

We would like to thank you for your time and effort in returning your application.

Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood of Exeter is offering a selection of photographs from Herbert Ponting, Noel Chanan, Lewis Hine and Cecil Beaton on 19 January 2016. The lots can be viewed on its website www.bhandl.co.uk  in the Picture Section of the January Two Day Fine Art Sale [FS29] or through the link http://www.bhandl.co.uk/sales/assets/FS/2016/01/19/FS190116-pictures.pdf

Image: Herbert George Ponting [1870-1935], Giant Bamboos of Peradeniya, Ceylon, carbon print.

Society “Liber pro arte” in collaboration with Polish Association of Photography Historians and a yearly journal Dagerotyp is organizing an international conference Discovering “Peripheries”: Photographic Histories in Central and Eastern Europe which aims to explore the wealth of photographic practices in the region now commonly referred to as the former Communist bloc. As, generally speaking, photography in this part of the world has been understudied, the conference intends to promote discussion on its cultural, social and political characteristics in contexts such as national and state ideology, art, museums, education, business, everyday life and journalism.The event will be held from 31 May-1 June 2016 in Warsaw, Poland.

The organisers welcome applications from all disciplines and career stages for 20 minutes papers. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent by 15 February 2016 to conference2016@liberproarte.eu 

For further information regarding the call for papers: http://liberproarte.eu/?page_id=422

De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre has announced its Spring term seminars. They are held on Tuesdays from 4-6pm, Hugh Aston Building, and are free and open to all.

‘Type-cast?’: Rethinking Studio Photography in the Hill Stations of British India
January 19    (Hugh Aston 2.08)
Professor Clare Harris (University of Oxford)

It is well known that from the 1860s onwards, individuals from all over the Indian subcontinent were photographed and classified according to ethnic, religious, and caste criteria, and thereby reduced to ‘type’ within the colonial anthropological project. This paper examines a parallel but neglected phenomenon of the late nineteenth century: the production of ‘type’ photography in commercial studios in the Himalayas and its reception in the ‘visual economy’ of the British Empire. By paying close attention to the activities and outputs of photographic studios and considering them as sites of transcultural encounter rather than of strict segregation between coloniser and colonised, I seek to reverse the process of ‘type’-casting that was inflicted on the local actors who performed within them.

Personal wartime photography in Egypt, 1898—1918 
February 16  ( Hugh Aston 2.08)
Paul Fox (University of York)   

Historians of the First World War have recently turned their attention to ‘personal photography’: the taking of photographs with privately owned portable cameras, and the disposal of the resulting prints in personal photograph albums or collections. The paper will contest the notion that this wartime phenomenon was without precedent by comparing First World War practice in Egypt with the way early portable cameras had been employed by British officers participating in the 1898 campaign to defeat a jihadist uprising in Sudan.

The paper will examine how privately owned portable cameras were used in the Sudan, and trace the public afterlife of photographs returned to Britain. It will then turn to the personal photography of members of the Royal Flying Corps based in Egypt during the First World War. It will explore the impact of the proliferation of camera use to include soldiers of all ranks, not least the potential to present life on active service from new social perspectives.

Travelling Memories: the Boissonnas photo-albums Salonique et ses basiliques (1913) and Smyrne (1919) 
March 15  (Hugh Aston 4.15)
Dr Colette Wilson  (University of Westminster)  

Two photograph albums by the Swiss photographer Frédéric Boissonnas and his son Edmond-Edouard, Salonique et ses basiliques (1913) and Smyrne (1919), capture Salonica (Thessalonika) and Smyrna (Izmir) at crucial turning points in their histories before a chain of events ignited Greek and Turkish nationalism leading to their near destruction. While maintaining an awareness of the ‘locatedness of memory’ within a national context (Radstone), the albums, with their clear focus on Greek-Christian national identity and heritage, arguably function as carefully designed propaganda tools, the aim of which was to create a memory that would travel transculturally (Erll) around the world gaining support for Greece which hoped to unite all the Ottoman lands with Greek populations into a single Greek state, whose capital would be Constantinople. Greece’s ‘Great Idea’ may have died in the flames of Smyrna, but it lives on in the Boissonnas albums and their online presence.

Contact in case of queries: Professor Elizabeth Edwards eeddwards@dmu.ac.uk/ Dr Kelley Wilder kwilder@dmu.ac.uk

The Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group presents the Society's Hurter and Driffield Memorial lecture which this year will be given by Dr Sam Weller FRSA who will be talking about: Kodak Moments: A look through the rear view mirror. Sam was formerly  Director of the Kodak European Research Laboratories in Cambridge.

The lecture takes place in London on 26 January 2016 from 5.30pm.

See more here: http://rps.org/events/2016/january/26/hurter--driffield-memorial-lecture