November 2020 Blog Posts (42)

Preservation of modern photographic works of art in museum collections. The Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (SBMK), sixteen museums, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Cultural Heritage Agency of The Netherlands (RCE) will join forces in a large-scale collaborative project titled ‘Project Collection Knowledge 2.0 /…

In October 2020 the Dutch Foundation for the Preservation of Contemporary Art (SBMK), the University of Amsterdam (UvA), sixteen museums, and the Cultural Heritage Agency of The Netherlands (RCE) joined forces in a three-year collaborative project titled ‘Project Collection Knowledge 2.0 - Photography’.

As a…

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

Sarah Parsons, 'Women in Fur: Empire, Power, and Play in a Victorian Photography Album'. The craze for carte-de-visite portraits in the early 1860s established photography as…

The Australian Centre for Photography once hosted Australia’s elite cohort of photographers. It can no longer afford to remain open. ‘ACP was part of the cultural fabric of Sydney and it welcomed everyone in’.

The official statement reads: The Australian Centre for…

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

See:…

E. A. Hornel: From Camera to Canvas, a collaboration between the National Trust for Scotland and the City Art Centre, is the first major retrospective of Hornel's art for over 35 years. Featuring photographs and paintings from Broughton House in Kirkcudbright, this exhibition shows how photography was crucial to the development of Hornel's artistic…

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

Five unique Kinora reels - a form of early moving picture - have been digitised by the National Library of Scotland and made available online. The work started in 2009 and the reels show the fishing fleet and industry in the Scottish town of Wick in north-east Scotland from the early 1900s. Although the Kinora is best known for the published reels and viewers…

We are pleased to announce that we have released a limited edition series of artist prints this winter for you to purchase! The print sale runs from today until Wednesday 9 December 2020 at 9pm GMT.

Drawing together a selection of photographers who have been an integral part of our programme in 2020 - Photoworks’ 25th anniversary year - the editions…

Earlier this year we heard the sad news that the some of the collection of the great Irish collector of early photography, Sean Sexton, had been stolen. Some of the collection has been turning up, but a lot of it is still untraced. Here are photos of some of the main items which are missing.

I also have a Word document with 20 pages listing the stolen…

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

No record of the album…

My collection of Grubb Patent Aplanatic Lenses made in Dublin between the 1850s and the 1870s all have micro-engraving with a number at the very edge of the glass lens element to match the engraved or stamped number on the brass barrel of the lens. The purpose behind this is to indicate authenticity and avoid fakes.The writing (for that is what it is) is…

The largest glass plate negatives produced in the nineteenth-century appear to have been made in Sydney, Australia, in 1875. They were made by the professional photographer Charles Bayliss with the help of a wealthy amateur photographer Bernhard Otto Holtermann, who also funded the project.

Only four of the colossal glass negatives produced by Bayliss…

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

The first, brings together a group…

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

Dickens was regularly photographed by Mayall and he wrote about his experiences in his publication…

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

JAMES HEDDERLY (1814-1885)

a collection of seven photographs of Chelsea before the building of the  Embankment in 1871-3; Old Battersea Bridge (as depicted by Whistler); Chelsea Old…

On behalf of Mattie Boom and Hans Rooseboom, Curators of Photography, we would like to bring to your attention our current research opportunities within the…

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

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

As in previous years, the event will consist of a series of five-minute presentations followed by questions and discussion.…

I have recently launched a website about my grandmother, the photographer, Laelia Goehr. Laelia came from Berlin to the UK in 1932 having already been a refugee from Kiev to Berlin in 1921 at the age of 13.

She studied with Bill Brandt in the 1940s and had a successful career. She was published in Picture Post, Lilliput and the Jewish…