A new online resource reproduces the surviving record books in the Dallmeyer archive held at Brent Archives, covering the period 1863-1902. Although the pages are not searchable the photographs of the pages are relatively simple to search. If you are fortunate you will be able to locate a lens serial number, identify what it was made as, who made it, when it was sold and who bought it.
See: http://www.thedallmeyerarchive.com/Records/Identification.html
The Nicholas Brothers & A. T. W. Penn: photographers of South India 1855–1885 examines the successful studios established by John and James Perratt Nicholas and Albert Penn in Madras and Ootacamund. The text is illustrated with over 100 plates and 150 figures, the majority of which are published here for the first time. The book further reproduces a catalogue of Nicholas & Co.’s photographs from 1881, which will serve as an invaluable tool for researchers and collectors.
In the 1850s and 60s, Madras was an important centre for the rapidly developing art of photography. Dr Alexander Hunter founded the Madras School of Arts in 1850 and the Madras Photographic Society in 1857, where John Nicholas served on the committee. Pioneering photographers Linnaeus Tripe, John Parting, Edmund David Lyon, Willoughby Wallace Hooper and Samuel Bourne all contributed to the rapid advance of photography in the region. James Perratt Nicholas and A. T. W. Penn continued their work to the end of the nineteenth century.
This publication marks the end of a 12-year research project for the author, who scrupulously documents three decades of work by James Perratt Nicholas and A. T. W. Penn. It begins with the early years of the Nicholas studios in Madras and Ootacamund, explains how the business achieved success in the 1870s and 1880s and concludes with the introduction of the Kodak, the rise of the amateur photographer, and the inevitable decline in the studios’ profitability that followed.
The Nicholas Brothers & A. T. W. Penn: photographers of South India 1855–1885 is being published by Quaritch in Summer 2014. If you would like to be contacted when it is available for purchase at the special prepublication price, please contact: Alice Ford-Smith: a.ford-smith@quaritch.com
The inspiration for this book was a remarkable purchase made by the authors at a small country auction in 2006 for £75,000 (See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514218/Mystery-photographs-part-of-Ruskin-collection.html). Ken and Jenny Jacobson found that one lightly regarded lot contained a lost collection of daguerreotypes that had once belonged to John Ruskin, the great 19th-century art critic, writer and social reformer. This discovery included scenes of Italy (mostly Venice), France and Switzerland, and has at a stroke much more than doubled the number of known Ruskin daguerreotypes.
Despite his sometimes vehemently negative sentiments regarding the camera, Ruskin’s involvement in photography is now shown to have been much more extensive than previously imagined. He assiduously collected, commissioned and produced daguerreotypes and paper photographs; he pioneered the use of the collotype and platinotype processes for book illustration. Many of the recovered daguerreotypes reveal surprising compositions and have enabled insights into how Ruskin’s use of the daguerreotype influenced the style of his watercolours.
The text includes a fully illustrated catalogue raisonné of 325 known daguerreotypes. The overwhelming majority of the newly discovered plates are published here for the fi rst time. There are an additional 275 illustrations in the text and an essay describing the technical procedures used in a remarkably successful conservation programme.
Ken and Jenny Jacobson met whilst working in the Biophysics Department at King’s College, University of London. Both were drawn to the field of nineteenth-century photographs and redirected their academic curiosity towards the history of photography. After 44 years immersed in the subject, they now find themselves increasingly involved with archives and libraries. Ken’s previous publications, in which Jenny took an active role as editor and advisor, include: Étude d’Après Nature: 19th Century Photographs in Relation to Art; ‘The Lovely Sea-View… Which All London is Wondering at’: A Study of the Marine Photographs Published by Gustave Le Gray, 1856-1858; Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839–1925.
Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes is being published by Quaritch in Summer 2014.
If you would like to be contacted when it is available for purchase at the special prepublication price, please contact: Alice Ford-Smith: a.ford-smith@quaritch.com
The Photography gallery at London's V&A is showing a special exhibition looking at the history of fashion photography which complements the V&A's major exhibition The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945-2014.
Selling Dreams: One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography charts the evolution of fashion photography over the last 100 years through the work of leading practitioners, whose images go far beyond the simple recording of fabrics and surface detail. The photographs on display include both iconic and rarely exhibited works from the V&A collection by masters such as Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and David
Bailey, alongside contemporary images by Steven Klein, Corinne Day, Rankin, Miles Aldridge and Tim Walker.
28 March 2014 - 4 May 2014, 10.00-17.30
In this lecture the artist/photographer Michael Schaaf will lead you through the wet-collodion process. He’ll discuss the history of collodion photography and its properties and practically demonstrate how it’s done; from the cleaning of the plates, coating with collodion, sensitising, capturing a picture, developing and then finally the varnishing of the plate with historic varnishes made of gum sandarac and lavender oil.
There will be time for discussion and to have a look at some of Michael's plates and prints. A must for everyone interested in historic photographic processes.
Times/Date: 10.30 – 12 Noon /1 0th May 2014
Address :The Royal Photographic Society, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath BA2 3AH
Non members £10/ Members and Students £7
Booking; http://www.rps.org/events/2014/may/10/wet-collodion-talk
In celebration of an important acquisition, the Museum of London is displaying a selection of Christina Broom's photography, highlighting Broom's images of the military in London and kick-starting a programme of events marking the centenary of World War One. The original albums were offered at Sotheby's in 2009 where they failed to sell.
A pioneering press photographer who documented life in the capital between 1903 and 1939, the small display anticipates a large-scale retrospective in autumn 2015.
See more at: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/london-wall/whats-on/exhibitions-displays/christina-broom/
Cooke Optics, formerly Taylor, Taylor & Hobson and then Rank Taylor-Hobson and Rank Optics has a history back to the 1880s. It is still based in Leicester where it continues to make outstanding lenses for still photography and cinematographic use.
This video shows the process of manufacture and assembly.
Cooke Optics Factory Tour with Titles from Cooke Optics on Vimeo.
