The London Photograph Fair / London, 18-19 May 2019

[Michael Pritchard]

On 18-19 May, the Special Edition of The London Photograph Fair returns to The Great Hall at King's College, adjacent to Somerset House. The fair, which coincides with Photo London, is the only established fair devoted to vintage photography in the UK.

There are twenty exhibitors this year, from the UK, Continental Europe and the USA, including Photos Discovery, Christophe Lunn, Richard Meara, Daniella Dangoor and Linus Carr. Prices range from the lower hundreds to five figures, with photographs including everything from the quirky and the bizarre to masterpieces by leading photographers such as Baldus, Louis De Clercq, Gustave Le Gray, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Bill Brandt, Martin Munkasci, Erwin Blumenfeld to name a few.

The fair attracts not only experienced collectors but has over the last few years seen an upsurge in interest from a younger generation of collectors, in many cases first time buyers. The dealers, keen to encourage the interest in classic photography, have responded. In addition to displaying their individual stock of vintage images on the walls of their stands, this year, a number of the exhibitors have pooled their resources and have put together thematic collections such as Out of The Blue - The Cyanotype Collection, Death, Murder and Mayhem, Travel and Exploration, and Masters of Photography. The collections will be posted on Instagram alongside a selection of other offerings leading up to the fair.

And the fair begins before you have entered the building. The English photographer Jonathan Keys will, in the manner itinerant Victorian photographers, set up a photographic studio outside The Great Hall and make portraits on glass, using the wet Collodion process invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851.

And last but not least, a new magazine called The Classic, a free magazine about classic photography, will have its UK launch at the fair.

See more: http://www.photofair.co.uk/