The Reece Winstone Archive is searching for 400 lantern slides taken by Kuner of Bristol, which formed the basis of lectures he gave throughout the west, on historic and natural subjects, as far away as Cornwall, the Rivers Wye, Somerset Chew etc.- he was a keen cyclist and one-time secretary of Bristol Photographic Society.
The slides were of sufficient interest to become the Kuner Memorial slides and were added to the BPS permanent collection after his death in 1923. We now know they were not lost when the BPS rooms were destroyed in the blitz and were brought to Reece 'to sort' by William J Foster ARPS, acting either for himself, the BPS, WCPF or PAGB, in 1954. Reece may have been gifted 28 duplicate slides, including hand-coloured ones for his own collection, although they were not added to his accession list in common with other gifts of slides from colleagues. He preserved Kuner's printed labels of lectures stuck on broken slide box lids, whilst renewing the slide boxes. These slides have now been digitised.
Foster was well known to Reece and had attended one of his 1931 rambles to Wells organised for the BPS (left) All efforts to locate the glass slides have drawn a blank in local, club, national and archived collections, leaving only private collections unchecked. Foster lived latterly at 63 Ashley Hill, Bristol and had run a successful builders merchants of the same name, originally sited adjacent the Bristol River Frome which had been the subject of a source-to-mouth ramble by Kuner, repeated in reverse 50 years later by Reece for BPS. Foster died in 1966, aged 86 and a letter of 1980 from his great-grandson in the Archive written from Bedford says he gave away many photographs following his wife's death in the 1960s.
Holders of any Kuner's glass slides (usually not bearing his name, but spotted with title on top edge in black caps. - see photo of lecture labels) would be most welcome to partake in this digitising project. We may be able to identify Kuner slides by handwritten titles, if you are uncertain - please contact us at reecewinstonearchive@gmail.com.
Our search for 308 lantern slides by Reece covering the history of photographic clubs in the South-west found a successful conclusion in the WCPF's collection last year, held under the heading 'Fed(eration) Faces', and have now been digitised.
Grateful thanks to all involved in the search.
Images:
Top right: Kuner with moustache, on left, in the field.
Centre: Foster in light suit.
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