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The School of Art History at the University of St Andrews is offering 6 fully-funded PhD Scholarships of £15,000 in the areas of Museum & Gallery Studies, Art History and History of Photography to begin in September 2013. The Scholarships will cover the cost of fees (at the UK/EU home rate) and provide a tax-free bursary to successful candidates.

The School is one of the most highly rated departments in Britain for research and teaching, and with 17 faculty members, it is also one of the largest. Staff research interests include Late Medieval art in Britain and Northern Europe, Italian art and architecture of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, French art of the 19th and 20th centuries, art, architecture & design in Britain from the 18th to the 20th century, modern art in Eastern Europe, Sculpture from the 13th to 21st centuries, and the History of Photography.

The highly regarded Museum & Gallery Studies programme at St Andrews attracts students from across the world. The four members of staff offer full and part-time postgraduate tuition in museology and aspects of current museum practice. They also run courses in Abu Dhabi for Zayed University.  Staff interests include collections management, museum governance and management, ethics, visitor studies, learning and access, interpretation, and the history of collecting.

The School is keen to build on its research strengths and to develop an already vigorous postgraduate community by offering studentships to outstanding candidates whose research interests in Art History, History of Photography or Museum & Gallery Studies broadly coincide with those of members of the academic staff. Applicants should have an excellent first degree or Masters in a relevant subject area. Further information on the School of Art History may be found at http://www-ah.st-andrews.ac.uk/

Informal enquiries should be addressed to Professor Brendan Cassidy (Head of School) atbfc1@st-andrews.ac.uk or Dr Natalie Adamson (Director of Postgraduate Studies) at na14@st-andrews.ac.uk.

The closing date for applications will be 1 April 2013.
Interviews will be held between 29 April-3 May 2013.

Applications should include:

• Application Form: (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/admissions/pg/apply/forms/)
• CV/Resume
• Personal Statement or Letter of Intent
• 1000-word Research Proposal plus bibliography
• Sample of your Academic Writing (e.g. an undergraduate or Masters degree essay)
• University Transcripts
• Two Academic References
• English Language Qualification - IELTS/TOEFL Certificate where applicable

Do you have any stereoviews that date from 1914? These are required for a 3D documentary film about the period and we are searching for stereoviews from 1914, either dated by protocols, archives or by scene/people/events on the photography. We are interested in all all scenes and/or subjects as long as they are stereo-photography from 1914.

We are interested in access to scans/photos of materials or access to them at their current location in order to do scans/photos ourselves. Any other form of guidance, interests, links or other clues that may lead to to locating stereo-photography dated as being shot in 1914 are most welcome.

The working title for the documentary is “1914” and relates to the Genesis of Modern Man’s Mind, being an adaptation of parts of Robert Musil’s “Man Without Qualities” with stereograms from 1914 and present day 3D film sequences.

Contact: Pelle Folmer

Telephone: +45 4085 6052

E-mail: pelle@coordinates.dk

Postal Adress: Magic Hour Films

Att. Pelle Folmer

Baldersgade 6
2200 Copenhagen N.
Denmark

Between Art and Information: Collecting Photographs is a one-day meeting organised by the Museums and Galleries History Group and the Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University. It takes place on Saturday, 2 March 2013 and is open to students and the wider public. 

Attendees can register at: www.mghg.org/collectingphotographs/

Provisional Programme

9.45-10.15. Registration

10.15-12.45 Session 1  Photographs and Museum Practices

Simon Fleury (Victoria and Albert Museum), A Fitting Response? Positive Negative: An interdisciplinary and site-specific photography research project

Danielle Wilkens (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), No Flash Allowed

Mark Steadman (University of Leeds), Title tbc

Eleni Papavasileiou (SS Great Britain Trust), Private to public: the David MacGregor photographic collection

Anne Hodge (National Gallery of Ireland), The ‘p’ numbers: Photography in the National Gallery of Ireland – neglected and misunderstood

12.45-1.30 Lunch

1.30-3 Session 2: Photographs, Museums and Science

Christopher Morton (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford) Collecting portraiture, exhibiting race: Augustus Lane Fox’s photographs at the South Kensington Museum, 1879.

Sophie Defrance (Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge), Nineteenth century scientists' perception of scientific objects and aesthetics in Charles Darwin's correspondence

Caroline Cornish (Royal Holloway), Collecting Photographs, Constructing Disciplines: The Rationality and Rhetoric of Photography at the Museum of Economic Botany

3-3.30 Tea

3.30-5 Session 3: Photographs and Histories in the Museum

Gareth Syvret (DMU), Photography in Jersey under German Occupation: the 1940 ‘Order Concerning Open-air Photography’ and photography at the Société Jersiaise Museum

Athol McCredie (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa), From Them to Us: Changing Meanings of Photographs of Maori at Te Papa

Caroline Edge (Bolton Museum/University), Looking for Bolton in the Worktown Archive

Damarice Amao (Paris Sorbonne), Collect and preserve negatives: the Eli Lotar collection at the Centre Georges Pompidou

5.15pm Finish

The 2013 Scottish Society for the History of Photography Annan Lecture will be given Dr Mike Ware FRSC. It is titled: Cyanotype: a Blueprint for Visual Vandalism? Ware is a chemist who has undertaken extensive and ground-breaking research into various aspect of photography and early processes. His website is here. 

The lecture takes place on Thursday 14 February at 6pm in the Jeffrey Library, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Admission is free.  Further information at www.sshop.org.uk/?p=639

This year’s Annan Lecture is presented in collaboration with b l u e p r i n t  2 0 1 3

Grain: West Midlands Photography Hub and Network, Project Co-ordinator (Admin).  The Library of Birmingham, supported by Arts Council England and working in collaboration with local, national and international partners is creating a hub and network for photography and photographers. This new project, called Grain, will include research and development projects and a range of ambitious high quality opportunities all aimed to strengthen and sustain photography in the region.

The Library of Birmingham holds one of theU K's national collections of photography, comprising some 3.5 million items.

Grain is looking for a freelance and highly organised administrator with an interest in photography and a warm and welcoming manner to join its team.  This new unique opportunity to work with the Library of Birmingham comes at an exciting time of transition and expansion.  The successful candidate must be able to multitask, and possess excellent administrative skills.

For a full job description contact: nicola.shipley@tesco.net

Click here for more information. 

Contract and Fee

You will be required to enter into a contract with the Library of Birmingham for this post.

You will be paid on a freelance basis on receipt of invoices.

You will be required to work from a home office as well as from the project office at the Central Library / Library of Birmingham.

Fee:  £150 per day x 95 days over a 2 year period, including all expenses.

Application procedure

Please enquire for a full job description.  Applications should include:

-       A full cv listing relevant knowledge, skills and experience

-       A 2 page (A4) proposal outlining your interest in this position

-       Names and contact details of 2 referees.

To be received no later than mid-day, 8th February  2013.

Interviews will take place on 14th February 2013. 

The Bodleian Libraries have been awarded  £1.2 million by the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) towards the acquisition of the Personal Archive of William Henry Fox Talbot. The only significant Talbot collection remaining in private hands, this important archive is being sold for £2.2 million and the Bodleian Libraries have until the end of February to raise the remaining funds.

Gifts can be made at the following link: http://www.giving.ox.ac.uk/libraries/fox_talbot_archive.html

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) was one of the greatest polymaths of the Victorian age, and is most famous today for being the British ‘founder of photography’.  The archive contains great potential for fuller understanding of the breadth of Talbot’s scholarly activities, and of the influences exerted by the women in his family, in particular their educative roles, their shared interests in botany, languages, art, travel and history that are so central to Talbot’s work, and their roles as practitioners, supporters, and collectors of the new art.

The collection includes artefacts such as glassware and artworks that Talbot photographed for the ground-breaking publication The Pencil of Nature, the first book illustrated with photographs. There is a strong connection to Oxford, as the archive includes some of the first pictures of the city.

Alongside items related to his pioneering work in photography, the archive also sheds valuable light on his family life, his role managing his estate at Lacock, his life as a Member of Parliament, and his range of intellectual interests from science to ancient languages. 

Carole Souter, Chief Executive of NHMF, said:  ‘Considered by many as the’ father of photography’, the impact of William Henry Fox Talbot’s pioneering work is felt daily by all of us whether we are snapping our holidays with a camera or capturing outings on our mobile phones.  This collection offers fascinating new insights into Fox Talbot’s family life, particularly the wonderful contribution made by the women of his family; this is why the Trustees of the National Heritage Memorial Fund felt it was so important that the archive should be secured for future generations to explore.’

Richard Ovenden, Deputy to Bodley’s Librarian said: ‘The archive is an essential resource for scholars on the history of photography, the history of science, and a range of other disciplines. The Bodleian is anxious to ensure that the collection is made available to scholars and to the general public to allow the legacy of this extraordinary innovator and pioneer in photography to continue to inspire new generations of researchers, innovators and photographers. ’

Hiroshi Sugimoto, one of the world’s greatest living photographers, said: ‘The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford is seeking to acquire the archive of William Henry Fox Talbot in order to ensure that scholars, artists, photographers and the general public can have access to the mass of papers, sketchbooks, photographs and artefacts that it contains to promote our understanding and appreciation of this great innovator, stimulate new art and other forms of creativity and broaden our understanding of the founder of a field of communication that has changed our world. I would like to add my support to their campaign to secure the Archive of William Henry Fox Talbot.’

The Fox Talbot archive includes:

• original manuscripts by Talbot
• family diaries
• family drawing and watercolour albums and sketchbooks, including images made  by Talbot’s mother, his wife,  and by his sister
• correspondence
• early photographic images made by Talbot
• an image made by Talbot’s wife, c.1839, which may be the earliest image made by a woman
• several hundred photographs received by Talbot - by other photographers from Britain and across the continent, contemporaries of Fox Talbot who shared their images and attempts at early photography
• portraits of Talbot and his family
• materials and artefacts related to the Lacock estate including estate plans, bills etc
• books from Talbot’s personal library
• musical scores from Talbot and his immediate family
• scientific instruments from Talbot’s own collection
• botanical specimen albums made by Talbot and members of his immediate family.

The significance of the collection for various academic fields is reflected by the variety of well-known names who have lent their support to the Bodleian’s fundraising efforts to acquire the Fox Talbot archive: including two of the world’s greatest photographers Martin Parr and Hiroshi Sugimoto; scientists: Sir Paul Nurse, President of The Royal Society; Sir Michael Berry, FRS, Melville Wills Professor of Physics, (Emeritus), University of Bristol; historians: Colin Ford, CBE, Founding Head, National Media Museum; Prof Martin Kemp, FBA former Prof of Art History, University of Oxford; and Michael Pritchard, Director-General of the Royal Photographic Society.

The Bodleian Libraries have until the end of February to raise the remaining funds.  A series of public events is planned to support access to the Archive, including a major exhibition in 2017. Highlights from the Archive will also feature in the opening exhibition for the Weston Library, and in a number of smaller displays.

Image: 

Credit: Fox Talbot Archive, courtesy of Hans P. Kraus Jr. 

Gordon Moore, who has just died was the last of a long line of Liverpool camera makers. He was born in 1928 and his early early education was undertaken at Mersey Park School in Tranmere, a short walk from his home. After leaving school Gordon enrolled at The Institute in Whetstone Lane, Birkenhead, where he studied mechanical Engineering.

Leaving Whetstone Lane Institute he was called up for National Service spending two years in the RAF (Gordon’s father Herbert had been an original Royal Flying Corp member from 1915-1918).  At the end of his National Service Gordon took a job at Dave Lloyd’s Garage in Willaston, South Wirral where he drove the garage Austin van around what were then single track roads at  a steady 65 miles per hour. 

Gordon eventually decided he would like a change of scene and opted to work in the family photographic establishment, Moore and Co rather than their profitable cycle shop. The firm was based at 101-103 Dale Street Liverpool and so began a mercurial career with cameras. Gordon loved the older pieces of equipment because he could tinker with them and get them sorted and working again. He often gave me tips which I use today when I get a problem. Moore and Co during Gordon's tenure was regularly sought out by Liverpool University with their elderly equipment. The company often developed and printed photographs required in Court Cases, convenient as the Law Courts were and still are next door in Dale Street. They took the exposed films in and immediately transhipped them to Kodak Laboratories in Bold Street half a mile away who would process and print for return twice a day.

His other love was cycling. Gordon was never without a camera trying to be a cycling Cartier Bresson taking monochrome candids at every opportunity. These he developed and printed himself often being seen with a bulging wallet of photographs he was a seriously keen amateur photographer. Gordon met his wife though cycling as she was a keen member of Birkenhead Ladies Cycling Club and romance blossomed. They were married on 28 August 1954.

Gordon retained a love of cycling and regularly raced around Cheshire and North Wales as a member The Birkenhead North End Cycling Club an association he retained up to his death. One of Gordon’s great friends Dave Allen a professional rider who principally raced in Ghent Belgium still owns a “Clifton” racing cycle of Moore & Co. origin. It was a common sight to see Gordon and his best pal Les McGinley marshalling regularly at races for many years after he stopped competing.

His passing  ended the association of Liverpool with camera makers of the golden period, during which time many weird and wonderful cameras were produced, but none more interesting of varied than Moore & Co's eponymous Aptus.

Those of us fortunate to have known Gordon will fondly remember a gentle happy family man who was always a pleasure to meet with a screwdriver in one hand and a camera in the other.

John Coathup

The Daguerreian Portrait in America / Le portrait daguerreian en Amerique is an exhibition that will open will open in the home of Louis J M Daguerre in Bry-sur-Marne, France (near Paris) in September of 2013. It will be the first public exhibition of photographs ever held in the mansion once occupied by the inventor of photography.

More than 60 images will be included in the display, including daguerreotypes by such early American masters as Jeremiah Gurney and the Boston partners Southworth & Hawes. Among the portraits exhibited for the first time will be a daguerreotype taken in the world’s first studio of photography, the only such documented portrait currently known. Important identified images include daguerreotypes of Helen De Kroyft, “The Blind Authoress of New York” and of Benn Pitman, Chief Court Reporter at the trial of Abraham Lincoln’s assassins. Many of the most striking portraits, however, are character studies of unknown Americans -- depicted as they wished to be remembered, whether posing with a favourite pet or showing off the tools of their trade.

The exhibition in Daguerre’s mansion continues at the Musée Gatien-Bonnet in the nearby city of Lagny-sur-Marne. Here, more American photographic portraits, from the daguerreotype period through the year 1900, are featured.

Sometimes the portraits emphasize ethnic or racial identities, including dramatic portrayals of Native Americans and African Americans. Others depict the subjects at work: a windmill salesman closing a deal, a farmer selling his grain, and armed soldiers from the American Civil War. There are drinkers and temperance advocates, prisoners and sheriffs, chimney sweeps and newsboys—as well as several ghosts captured by the camera.

The exhibition is one of several projects related to Louis Daguerre sponsored by the City of Bry-sur-Marne and its Mayor, Jean-Pierre Spilbauer. Other events at Bry in the Fall of 2013 include the unveiling of Daguerre’s last surviving Diorama painting after a multi-year restoration; a workshop on 19th century processes of photography; and the 25th Annual Meeting of The Daguerreian Society.

The exhibition is co-curated by Prof. François Brunet of the University of Paris – Diderot, an internationally-recognized scholar specializing in 19th Century American photography, and by Wm. B. Becker, founder of the online American Museum of Photography  (www.photographymuseum.com). The exhibit at the Maison Daguerre is under the direction of Margaret Calvarin, and the exhibit at Musée Gatien-Bonnet is under the direction of Celine Cotty.

A book is in preparation. The exhibition is available to travel beginning in 2014. 

The Courtauld is holding a research seminar in history of photography which is open to all. On Wednesday, 27 February – Sarah Kember (Professor of New Technologies of Communication, Goldsmiths, University of London) will talk about Ubiquitous Photography: from Everywhere to ‘Everyware’. 5.30pm, Research Forum South Room. Further information here: http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/TheCourtauldInstituteofArtHistoryofPhotographyseminar_SarahKember.shtml

BPH carried a report on the Gernheim exhibition currently on view at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Mannheim (see: here). The museum has kindly supplied an image showing the installation of Niépce View from the window at Le Gras, c.1826-7. 

I am researching a photographer by the name of Sam Weller. He lived in London areas of Catford and Pinner up until late 1960s. He founded The Bromoil Circle of Great Britain,of which I am secretary. Apart from some prints in our archive collection,I know very little about him. Any information re contacts,images etc would be much appreciated.

Photography is not just a technology for documenting life: like most technologies, it is itself a powerful agent of social change. The presence of the photographer turns us all into performers: almost all aspects of life – from high politics to consumption, from violence to sex – change for and through the gaze of the camera. The habit of being photographed has become so ingrained that we are barely conscious of it, and yet, we constantly play to the camera. And even where it is temporarily absent, our behaviour is no longer naive; we see it through the prism of photographs of similar scenes, which we re-enact, appropriate or try to subvert. What is more, the role of photographer and photographed are no longer separate.  From the early decades of the 20^th century, the ranks of professional photographers were swollen by a growing army of amateurs, ranging from the dedicated and technically-versed practitioner to the more casual family snapshotter, typically equipped with small, portable and affordable cameras.  The mass production of photographic images that resulted not only provides a window onto aspects of the human experience on which written sources provide no or only very mediated evidence.  It was itself a social and political practice that transformed and transforms the social worlds we inhabit.

Around 1920, László Moholy-Nagy predicted that “the illiterates of the future will be the people who know nothing of photography, rather than those who are ignorant of the art of writing.” In 1992, W J T Mitchell noted the same deficit, and called for a “pictorial turn” in the humanities and social sciences. Another twenty years later, the study of photography is still often characterized by work in the art-historical tradition focused on the work of key individual photographers.   At the same time historians often draw on photographs to illustrate their work, yet rarely explore the transformative impact that the images they reproduce have exercised.   Meanwhile, however, a growing body of work is emerging (for instance within ethnography) that illuminates photography as social and political practice, examines diverse types of amateur photography and sheds light on popular engagement with different genres of photography.  Our conference seeks to bring together scholars from a range of disciplines to contribute to this emerging debate about photography as something we study not just for its aesthetic properties, but as a social practice, and as an archive of knowledge and power.

To this end, we are now inviting paper proposals for an interdisciplinary conference to be held on 27-29 June 2013 at the University of Nottingham, UK. Papers will be pre-circulated, and presenters will be invited to introduce their main hypotheses, and talk us through 5-10 key images at the event itself, which will be framed by a keynote and a roundtable. Our aim is to explore photographs not just as documents or reflections of a historical reality around them, but as active interventions in that reality. We are interested in papers that address photographers as actors in particular contexts as well as those that focus on interactions between photographers and their subjects, the performance of those who act in front of and for the camera and the relationship of photographers and those photographed in co-producing the resulting images.

We particularly invite submissions that explore the relationship and the changing and blurring of boundaries between professional and amateur photographers, and between private and public/published photography.   How did amateur photographers respond to the published images that surrounded them? Did they imitate, modify, subvert, or indeed ignore existing conventions regarding ‘good photography’ or (under particular circumstances/regimes) an officially sanctioned gaze? And to what extent did professional photographers respond to or seek to influence the practices of amateur photography?   Papers may also wish to explore how we place the amateur snapshot (or, as some historians have called it, the story of ‘mass participation in photography’) into photographic history.  Finally, we would like to invite submissions about the practices concerning the popular viewing, use and circulation of professional and amateur photographs, as well as the paratexts surrounding them, ranging from photo albums and illustrated diaries to captions or articles.

Paper proposals of c. 500 - 750 words should be submitted by email to maiken.umbach@nottingham.ac.uk and Elizabeth.harvey@nottingham.ac.uk by 31 January 2013. Speakers will be invited to submit a paper for pre-circulation of c. 3,500 words plus up to 10 images, to which they will speak at the conference in 15-minute slots, followed by ample discussion time. There will be no conference fee for speakers, and we shall provide lunches and refreshments. Speakers will, however, have to cover their own travel expenses and the cost of subsidised university accommodation. After the  conference, selected speakers will be invited to contribute to a special issue we have been commissioned to edit for the journal Central European History. 

Call for Papers

“Professional Photography and Amateur Snapshots: Reconstructing Histories of Influence, Dialogue and Subversion”

27-29 June 2013

The Birth of Photography: Highlights of the Helmut Gernsheim Collection, is a special exhibition at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim’s Forum Internationale Photographie (FIP), and showcases two centuries of the history of photography. In homage to the ground-breaking photographer Helmut Gernsheim (1913-1995), the exhibition on the occasion of his 100th birthday reunites both parts of his one-of-a-kind collection of photographs for the first time in half a century. One of the most exceptional highlights of the history of photography will be on display – the “first photograph in the world”, a landscape photograph taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826.

With a total of 250 objects, the exhibition which opened on 9 September 2012 and extended to 24 February 2013 takes an unprecedented look at 19th and 20th century photography and its different stages. Visitors can follow the development of photography from the first daguerreotypes to the Victorian era up through masterpieces by contemporary photographers, which shape our collective visual memory. This exhibition is a collaborative undertaking between the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, which houses the historical part of the Gernsheim collection.

Thanks to their collaboration, the 'first photograph' will be exclusively on display on European soil again for the first time since 1963: The first outdoor photograph in the world, the heliograph “View from the Window at Le Gras” by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. After being displayed in an exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham in 1898, the work was thought lost for over five decades. Helmut Gernsheim spent years investigating the picture’s trail until he finally tracked it down in 1952 in a steamer trunk stored in London. This sensational discovery enabled Gernsheim to date the birth of photography thirteen years earlier than 1839, accepted at that time as the year of photography’s invention.

The exhibition will present other significant works from the historical portion of the Gernsheim collection, including some of the earliest daguerreotypes such as Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre’s picture of “Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité, Paris” made around 1838. Visitors can look forward to a journey through the currents of 19th century photography: from artistically oriented pictorialism to early war reporting up through nascent travel photography.

In addition to pictures from photography’s infancy, the show will present numerous icons of contemporary photography, arranged thematically: Works of nude, architectural, travel, urban, landscape and portrait photography will be on display, as will experimental and journalistic pictures by world-famous photographers. This one-time reunion of works from Gernsheim’s historical and contemporary collections in one comprehensive show will provide visitors to the exhibition fascinating insights into the nearly two hundred year history of photography.

The exhibition “The Birth of Photography: Highlights of the Helmut Gernsheim Collection” is being organized by the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin. A richly illustrated catalog will be published by Kehrer.

See: www.rem-mannheim.de

The exhibition is accompanied by a German/English catalogue by REM curator Dr Claude Sui. 

Either/And has been devised as a framework within which to debate and share perspectives, using issues and questions posed by the National Media Museum and its partners as the catalyst for discussion and exchange relating to media. A series of commissioned essays, interviews, images and films will be published on the site to serve as the catalyst for online public discussion.

New content has been added over recent months with more due shortly. 

See: http://eitherand.org/