We invite international submissions for essays and notes to be included in this forthcoming book to be published by MuseumsEtc in July 2024 in conjunction with a major Edith Tudor-Hart retrospective exhibition in Salzburg.
Both communist and jewish, Austrian photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (née Suschitzky) fled to Britain in 1933. By the time of her death in 1973, her photography had almost disappeared
from view before being featured in the magazine Camerawork in 1980 and more recently in the exhibition and book Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny. Her work is known for its focus on class relations, the “combative” socialist perspective which informed it, and its clarity of vision and composition. As her oeuvre is increasingly researched, reconstructed and reassessed, it has become a source of inspiration for those interested in exploring a realist tradition in photography.
Edith Tudor-Hart in Britain will be the first book to focus in depth on her British work. Drawing on her archive at Fotohof, Salzburg, and other collections throughout Europe, it will feature some 100 largely unpublished images, and will break new ground in examining the physicality of those historic prints which have survived, and in creating historically-informed prints from the surviving negatives.
SUBMISSIONS
Proposals are invited for (longer) Essays and (briefer) Notes from museum, gallery and heritage professionals, academics, photographers and researchers. We aim to prioritise the socialist perspective in Tudor-Hart’s work and to avoid viewing it from a nostalgic perspective. The book will focus entirely on her work as a photographer and not on her undercover work, although intelligence records may be of interest in so far as they illuminate her photographic work.
Essays
Aspects of interest include - but are not limited to - the following:
• Changes in the work over time
• Child education
• Class relations
• Disability
• People at their work
• Photographic work in books, periodicals and advertising
• Political perspectives
• Portraits and self-portraits
• Resistance and action
• Street photography
• The built environment
• The émigré perspective
• The representation of women
• Writings on photography
Notes
The book will feature a number of brief (probably illustrated) “in-focus” contributions. More informal in form where appropriate, these may examine detailed aspects of her work, or individual images. Aspects of interest might include - but are not limited to - the following:
• Captions and titles
• Composition
• Cropping
• Lighting
• Printing - historic and modern
• The analysis of individual images
• The analysis of one or more negatives
All authors will have access to the wide range of images being used in the book, for illustration purposes.
Editor
Shirley Read is a curator, writer and tutor in photography who, while an Editor at Camerawork, published the first-ever overview of Edith Tudor-Hart’s work. She has interviewed for the British Library’s Oral History of British Photography archive for 30 years and is the author of Photographers and Research (Routledge) and Exhibiting Photography (Focal Press). She holds a degree in History from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London, and an MA in Photography: History and Culture from the University of the Arts, London.
Submitting your proposal
You can propose either an Essay or a Note. Proposals for ESSAYS should be a maximum of 500 words in length. Proposals for NOTES should be a maximum of 200 words. Both should be accompanied by a biography of 100-300 words. All submissions should be in Microsoft Word format.
ESSAYS will be 2000-3000 words in length; NOTES will be 400-600 words. The inclusion of images is encouraged. Please prepare your proposal with these parameters in mind. The work should not have been published elsewhere. All contributions must be submitted in English - translation services will not be provided. Authors will receive a copy of the final publication and a 10% discount on further copies.
The deadline for proposals is 18 December 2023. Please email your proposal to ETHproposals@museumsetc.com. Any queries in advance of submission should be sent to
ETHqueries@museumsetc.com.
Key dates
PROPOSALS DUE: 18 December 2023
CONTRIBUTORS NOTIFIED: 21 December 2023
COMPLETED PAPERS DUE: 29 February 2024
Download the call ETH CFP.pdf
Comments
Might I just remind you of her work which appeared in various magazines. I am currently compiling a history and bibliography of Lilliput Magazine and in its early days the then editor Steffan Lorant used quite a few of ETH pictures. You might also refer to the book The Lawn Road Flats which was published a few years ago. If you know of all this already, then my apologies.