Blogs

Article on the female figure photographer, Eva Grant. She was born in Istanbul, grew up in Greece, and became a student nurse in London. To supplement her meagre income, she did a bit of swimwear modelling, only to find out she had a real passion for being on the other side of the camera. She was active during the 1950s and early sixties. She published her own magazine called Line and Form that ran for around 40 issues.  https://pamela-green.com/all-about-eva-grant/

Image © Eva Grant

Stephen Bulger Gallery is pleased to be exhibiting a selection of vintage carbon prints by Minna Keene (b. 5 April 1861, Arolsen, Germany; d. November 1943, Oakville, Canada) at Paris Photo in booth A5.

Minna Keene, née Bergman, lived in Great Britain, South Africa, and Canada. She emigrated to the United Kingdom in approximately 1880 to become a Governess in Scarborough. While in Scarborough, she met Caleb Keene (b. 1862) a “decorator's apprentice”, who she married in Chelsea, London, in 1887. Caleb Keene was a noted painter and brother of the landscape painter cum “photographic artist” Elmer Ezra Keene (1853–1929). Minna decided to experiment with photography while recovering from a toothache, and eventually became a member of the London Salon of Photography, a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (1908), and a nominee for membership in the Linked Ring (1909), although the society disbanded before it could conduct a vote to admit her.

Minna’s first photographic work was of plant life, for which she made exposures during different stages of growth. Later, she made a successful series of ornithological photographs that were illustrated in English textbooks which remained in use over several decades. Her first mention in photographic literature occurred in the late 1890s while living in Bristol, UK, by submitting to exhibitions and earning recognition in the art journal the Studio.

In 1903 Minna emigrated to Cape Town, South Africa, where her husband opened a showroom. During this period she made studies of Boer life in South Africa while operating an active photography studio and raising two children. She exhibited her photographs of Boer life at the Lyceum Club, London, in April 1907, which was favourably reviewed by the British Journal of Photography and Amateur Photographer. In 1909 this work was included in the “Pictorial Photographs by Colonial Workers” exhibition at the Amateur Photographer’s Little Gallery in London. In 1910 Minna exhibited in the Fifty-fifth Annual Exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and in each year until 1929. In 1911 her photograph of her daughter Violet, entitled Pomegranates, was awarded Picture of the Year at the London Photographic Salon.

In 1913 the Keene family moved to Canada, first settling in Montréal, Québec, with Minna practising as a professional photographic portraitist. She was commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to photograph the Rockies in 1914 and spent several months in Western Canada. In 1919 the family moved to Toronto, Ontario, and opened a studio, and in 1921 moved to Oakville, Ontario.

In 1926, Minna was featured in a Maclean’s magazine article that mentions the highlights of her career and enthuses about her being a “home lover!”. In the 1930s she continued to exhibit internationally and was assisted in the studio by her daughter Violet, who eventually succeeded her and became a photographer in demand at the Eaton’s photography studio in Toronto.

Ian Smith (life dates unknown) photographed for the American magazine LIFE in 1945/6 and was listed on the masthead as a staff photographer. Numbers of his images of British politicians of the period, of movie stars, directors and producers, and his reportage of life in England in the aftermath of WW2, are held by Getty Images.

I have started a Wikipedia article on him. However there is scant information about his life. Does any other member have information on this quite significant British / Scottish photographer? I would be most grateful for any leads.

It was a flying visit to Sydney to see the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The trip was so very worthwhile, for I had never seen JMC's large contact photographs "in the flesh" before, let alone over 100 vintage prints from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. They did not disappoint. This exhibition is one of the photographic highlights of the year.

When you think about it, here is one the world's top ten photographers of all time - a woman, taking photographs within the first twenty five years of the birth of commercial photography, using rudimentary technology and chemicals - whose photographs are still up there with the greatest ever taken. Still recognisable as her own and no one else's after all these years. That is a staggering achievement - and tells you something about the talent, tenacity and perspicacity of the women... that she possessed and illuminated such a penetrating discernment - a clarity of vision and intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight into the human condition...

The road to spirituality is the road less travelled. It is full of uncertainty and confusion, but only through exploring this enigma can we begin to approach some type of inner reality. Julia Margaret Cameron, in her experiments, in her dogged perseverance, was on a spiritual journey of self discovery. In Philip Roth's Exit Ghost, he suggests Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs as the ideal music for a scene his character has written:

"Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks and, at the age of eighty-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve."

These words are an appropriate epithet for the effect of the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron in this year 2015, the 200th anniversary of her birth.

Dr Marcus Bunyan for Art Blart

Word count: 1,336

Read the full text here: http://wp.me/pn2J2-7lg

Julia Margaret Cameron
Sappho
1865
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Given by Alan S. Cole, 19 April 1913
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In late 1865 Julia Margaret Cameron began using a larger camera, which held a 15 x 12-inch glass negative. Early the next year she wrote to Henry Cole with great enthusiasm – but little modesty – about the new turn she had taken in her work. Cameron initiated a series of large-scale, close-up heads. These fulfilled her photographic vision, a rejection of ‘mere conventional topographic photography – map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form’ in favour of a less precise but more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture.

This striking version of Sappho is in keeping with Cameron’s growing confidence as an artist. Mary Hillier’s classical features stand out clearly in profile while her dark hair merges with the background. The decorative blouse balances the simplicity of the upper half of the picture. Cameron was clearly pleased with the image since she printed multiple copies, despite having cracked the negative.

In our contemporary image-saturated, comprehensively mediated way of life it is difficult for us to understand how "sensational" photography would have been in the Victorian era. Imagine never having seen a photograph of a landscape, city or person before. To then be suddenly presented with a image written in light, fixed before the eye of the beholder, would have been a profoundly magical experience for the viewer. Here was a new, progressive reality imaged for all to see. The society of the spectacle as photograph had arrived.

Here was the expansion of scopophilic society, our desire to derive pleasure from looking. That fetishistic desire can never be completely fulfilled, so we have to keep looking again and again, constantly reinforcing the ocular gratification of images. Photographs became shrines to memory. They also became shrines to the memory of desire itself.

Dr Marcus Bunyan for Art Blart

See the full posting here: http://wp.me/pn2J2-7oK

Photography - A Victorian Sensation shows at the National Museum of Scotland until 22 November. 

Ross and Thomson of Edinburgh
Unknown little girl sitting on a striped cushion holding a framed portrait of a man, possibly her dead father
1847-60
Ninth-plate daguerreotype
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

I'm exploring the somewhat little-known historical connections between photography and philanthropy, and I'd very much like to hear any insights or suggestions others may have. In the broadest sense of the term "philanthropy" these connections began with Daguerre, who received a 6,000 Franc annual stipend for life from the French government in recognition of his contribution (he also convinced the government to give 4,000 Francs annually to Niépce's estate). Since then various governments, private donors and foundations have made gifts and grants to many photographers, but I've been unable to find more than the briefest of mentions of these seemingly important connections. Recent history is somewhat easier to document, but I would greatly appreciate hearing about any 19th or early 20th century acts of philanthropic generosity toward specific photographers.

I am investigating the unidentified photographer of the accompanying rare stereoview of Selina Gray (with two children), the Arlington House slave with whom Mrs. Robert E. Lee entrusted the keys and care of the Custis-Lee Mansion before evacuating Arlington Plantation in May 1861. The photo was purchased recently by Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, from an ebay seller in the UK. Given the photographer of other Civil War-era stereoviews of Washington City sold by the ebay seller from the same lot of vintage photos were by G.D. Wakely, George D. Wakely may well be the unidentified photographer. However, little is known about Wakely other than he was originally British and largely spent his career as a pioneer photographer in the US, including in Washington, DC, during 1865-1870. I presume the recently sold stereoviews were previously owned by a UK collector. But, a UK relative possibly received the images before or after Wakely's death (Wakely had no known natural descendants, only step-children from his US marriage to British actress, Matilda Brown). I am also interested in uncovering leads to any surviving photo notes or inventory Wakely might have left to archives in either the UK or US.

On Friday  On 12th April Lacy, Scott and Knight will be offering a collection of works by, and property belonging to, the celebrated society and theatre photographer Angus McBean. The vast majority of this sale has been consigned by David Ball, Angus McBean's partner and studio assistant of many years until his death in 1990.   It must be with a heavy heart that he bids goodbye to this stunning collection of an artistic genius' lifetime work in which he met and photographed most of the leading theatrical lights and film stars of the mid 20^th century.   It is impossible not to be awed by the beauty and sheer creative brilliance when looking through these images and we are privileged to have been instructed to conduct this sale.

Amongst the selection is a visitor book from McBeans’ studio with over 1000 signatures of his star clientele from the 1940s onwards. The autographs range from silver screen goddesses such as Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor, to very early Beatles signatures (before they developed a signature style), revered actors John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier (who states that McBeans’ ‘rice puddings are excellent’), comedy singing duo Flanders & Swann, queen of crime literature Agatha Christie, ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ Cliff Richard, several members of the Redgrave acting dynasty, surreal comedy genius Spike Milligan (who has dated his entry 1883), Prima Ballerina Assoluta Margot Fonteyn, legendary opera diva Maria Callas and many more.This lot will carry an estimate of £5000-10,000

There are also many individual gelatin silver prints, many signed and annotated, as well as albums of and loose photographs, studio props etc 

Angus McBean Biography
Angus McBean was born in Newport, South Wales, in 1904. As a child he was a devotee of the cinema, spending hours watching the early silent films and experimenting with photography. At the age of 15 he sold a gold watch left to him by his grandfather in order to buy his first camera, a Kodak Autograph, and started taking pictures of local landscapes and architecture. McBean also had a great interest in the theatre, make-up, costumes and making masks. After a brief attempt at a career in banking he moved to London after the death of his father and began work as a restorer of antiques at Liberty’s department store, while continuing his “hobbies” of mask-making and photography.

In 1932 he left Liberty and grew his distinctive beard to symbolize the fact that he would never be a wage-slave again. He worked as a maker of theatrical props, including a commission of medieval scenery for John Gielgud's 1933 production of Richard of Bordeaux. His photographs and theatrical masks were also exhibited at a teashop in West London where they were noticed by prominent society photographer Hugh Cecil. Cecil offered McBean a job as an assistant at his Edinburgh studio where he stayed for 18 months before opening his own studio in London to specialize in theatrical photography.

In 1936 Ivor Novello asked McBean to make masks and take pictures for his play "The Happy Hypocrite." Novello was so impressed with McBeans’ photographs that he commissioned him to take a set of production photographs, including of the young actress Vivien Leigh. The results, taken on stage with McBeans’ idiosyncratic lighting, were chosen to replace the set already made by the long-established but uninspired Stage Photo Company. McBean now had both a new career and a photographic leading lady: he was to photograph Vivien Leigh on stage and in the studio for almost every performance she gave until her death in 1967.

Over the course of the next 25 years McBean photographed all the British theatre stars including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, and Laurence Olivier. He soon became famous for his star portraits in well-known magazines of the time including Tatler, Picture Post and the Sketch. In the 1930s McBean embraced surrealism; with his flamboyance, love of theatre and the ability to create fantastic studio props he was similar to contemporary American photographer Man Ray. By the late 1940s McBean was the official photographer for a number of major British theatres including Stratford, the Royal Opera House, Sadler Well’s and the Old Vic.

As McBeans’ health deteriorated and with the decline of the popular photo magazine he closed his studios. In the early 60’s he began taking pictures for EMI and shot various record covers for Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Shirley Bassey and the Beatles album Please, Please Me. McBeans’ later works also included portrait photographs of individuals such as Agatha Christie, Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward. By the mid 60’s he had semi retired to a house in Suffolk that he was restoring, but he had already built up an enormous and important body of work. His last few pictures were taken in 1988 and include Vivian Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier. He died on the night of his 86th birthday in 1990.

McBeans’ works are now eagerly sought by collectors and are displayed in major collections around the world.
His fame has been somewhat overshadowed by that of Cecil Beaton (thanks to his work for Vogue and the Royal Family) and David Bailey, despite being arguably more artistically and technically gifted.

The sale will take place on Friday 12th April at 1pm in our Bury St Edmunds auction rooms. 

Live bidding available at the-saleroom

Catalogue now available here

Printable PDF here