Are you as passionate about photography, film and the moving image as you are about books? The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation which was created by Andor Kraszna-Krausz, the founder of Focal Press in 1995, is looking for an Administrator

Duties

• Administer the Foundation itself, organising and administering up to 5 Trustee meetings and away days per annum and keeping content for the website and other communications channels up-to-date
• Project manage and administer the annual Book Awards and Book Awards ceremony, liaising with publishers, photographers, writers and artists, venues, partners and press, as well as with the advice of the Trustees inviting specialist judges in the chosen fields
• Potentially, and subject to agreement by the Trustees, develop additional culturally-engaging activities in the fields of photography, film and the moving image

Please see further details regarding the Job Description and duties below.

The Person

The ideal candidate will be an accomplished arts administrator with a minimum of 3 years’ professional experience and ideally with experience of the administration of an arts-based prize. It is desirable that you also have knowledge and / or experience of the medium of photography or the moving image although an enthusiastic commitment to develop specialism in these field will be welcomed by applicants with other relevant experience.

We actively encourage applications from the groups listed below who are currently under-represented within our sector. These are people from Black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups, people who identify as LGBTQ, as well as deaf, partially sighted and Disabled people.

Time commitment and fee

This work usually requires the equivalent of about 50 days per annum, spread unevenly thought the year. The ability to work flexibly is a requirement. Because of the phasing of the awards, the time input is currently heavily focussed on the period November to May each year. Remuneration is paid on a day-by-day basis at £200 per day.

Application

Please send an email via the button below addressed to The Board of Trustees, Kraszna-Krausz Foundation.

Please include your CV with a concise covering letter of no more than one page outlining your interest, experience and suitability for the position by Monday 15 October 2018 at 11.59pm.

See more here.

This symposium adds to the growing body of feminist scholarship that is deconstructing the male-dominated history of commercial and industrial artistic production. The programme will bring together current interdisciplinary perspectives on women’s experiences of work and the gendered dynamics of commerce in the creative industries in Britain between 1750 and 1950.

We invite critical and creative papers as well as those that present case-studies or deliver in more collaborative formats.

Contributions may focus on, but are not limited to, women at work or women’s involvement in the development of technologies i.e printmaking, photography, film and computing, women’s work in textiles (including dressmaking and millinery), design, architecture, advertising, bookmaking and publishing, the performing arts, music, TV and radio.

We are particularly interested in papers that consider the following topics:

• Spaces of women’s work: the workshop, the studio, the office, the factory, and work carried out from home (i.e. sweated trades) 
• Overlaps in women’s professional and domestic roles
• Collaboration, networks and unions of women workers and professionals
• Women’s management of finances and the economic factors of their work
• Women’s experiences of discrimination in the workplace in this period
• Anonymity or invisibility of women’s work and theft of their intellectual property
• Demands of emotional labour in the creative industries
• Distinctions and slippages between professional and amateur ‘work’
• Historiographies of women’s work in the creative industries
• Portrayals of professional women in literature and the visual arts
• How the campaign for suffrage intersected with, or affected, women’s work in the creative industries.

We invite abstracts of 250 words for 20-minute papers. Please submit abstracts and a short biographical note to Erika Lederman, Hannah Lyons and George Mind at womenworkcommerce@gmail.com by 6pm on Friday 30 November 2018.

‘Women, Work and Commerce in the Creative Industries, Britain 1750 – 1950’ is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and organised by Collaborative Doctoral Partnership students Erika Lederman (De Montfort University/V&A) Hannah Lyons (Birkbeck, University of London/ V&A) and George Mind (University of Westminster/National Portrait Gallery).

UPDATE: Conference registration is now available here. 

Women, Work and Commerce in the Creative Industries, Britain 1750 - 1950

Saturday 9 February 2019, 9.30am – 5.30pm

Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London

Keynote Speakers: Dr Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi and Dr Patricia Zakreski

Call for papers

At the National Science and Media Museum, striving to develop our digital collections as a leader in the interpretation and impact of sound and light technologies on human life, we are currently in the midst of a 5-million pound 'Masterplan' project which will ignite a new sense of curiosity for our diverse audiences, seeing new gallery spaces and our exhibition range transformed.

In order to lead the ongoing delivery of our broad range of exhibitions and events, we are looking for a creative, innovative and strategic leader to join us at the Musuem, in Bradford, in a newly created role of Head of Exhibitions and Interpretation, on a permanent basis.

In this role, you will lead a dedicated and driven team of colleagues across exhibitions, content development and interpretation, ensuring our collections and knowledge are shared through story-led, innovative, visitor-focussed design. 

As part of the Museum Senior Management Team, you will interpret information, support the design of narrative and deliver unique gallery content throughout the museum and beyond, collaborating with colleagues to bring our curatorial voice to life and ensure authenticity of the stories we tell.  

Joining us, you will have excellent leadership skills and experience of managing and developing a team, budgets and creating genuine opportunities through creative collaboration. You will bring unparalleled experience of using interpretive methodology and audience focussed data to deliver creative projects for museum exhibitions, galleries or interactive public spaces. You will also be a strong communicator and skilled influencer, able to work positively and proactively with internal and external stakeholders.

You will be offered excellent benefits, including 27 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays, flexibility with work (including the ability to work from home and agile start/finish times), a contributory pension scheme, BUPA medical and dental care, an interest free loan offer and numerous staff discounts whilst developing your career in a world class museum group.

Click here to view the Vacancy Information Pack which provides you with details of the role and supporting statement questions.

See more here.

On display from 28th Sept till 25th Oct at The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall will be 23 examples of SD Jouhar’s Fine Art Photography, all taken between approx. 1940 and 1960.

SD Jouhar was a strong advocate of Photography as a “Fine Art”, and there was considerable resistance to this idea amongst the “establishment” at the RPS during the 1950’s.  In 1961, SD Jouhar  and other like-minded photographers founded the Photographic Fine Art Association . Their definition of Fine Art was......

“Creating images that evoke emotion by a photographic process in which one's mind and imagination are freely but competently exercised. From a technical point of view, therefore, personally controlled, disciplined interpretation and technical execution, showing fine perception and skill in the making shall be necessary requirements of such work in colour or monochrome.”

The Photographic Fine Art Association held an exhibition at The Royal Festival Hall in November 1961. In his opening speech at the exhibition SD Jouhar said : 

“People must be conditioned to recognizing photography as Fine Art. That is what I am trying to establish"

"Nowhere, to my knowledge, has there ever been an exhibition showing photography as a Fine Art in this country"

You can judge for yourself whether the images on display fit your idea of “Fine Art Photography” if you get an opportunity to visit the exhibition.

In conjunction with the St Andrews Photographic Festival and to celebrate 170 years since Brewster developed his stereoscope, Peter Blair will launch his new book "Scotland in 3D - a Victorian Virtual Reality Tour" ISBN 9781527225527 at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on Thurs 4th October at 7pm.

Peter will introduce us to stereoscopy and take us on a tour of Scotland using antique 3D images from his collection. 3D glasses will be provided.

The event is free but places are limited so booking is essential:

https://byretheatre.com/events/stereo-photography-festival-scotland-in-3d/

This autumn, the remarkable photographs of suffragette Norah Smyth will be returning to the East End after one hundred years. East End Suffragettes: the photographs of Norah Smyth opens at Four Corners Gallery on 2nd November.  Smyth's photographs, never exhibited in the UK, reveal the little-known story of the radical, ‘breakaway’ East London suffragettes. 

Smyth was a central member of Sylvia Pankhurst’s East London Federation of Suffragettes, which broke from the main suffragette movement and fought for working women’s rights throughout the First World War.  Faced by the increasing war poverty in East London, they set up cost price restaurants, babies’ milk clinics, nurseries and a cooperative toy factory, run largely by and for local women.  Alongside the vote they called for profound social changes: equal pay, a living wage and better housing. 

A talented artist and organiser, Smyth used her photographic skills to provide images for the East London Federation of Suffragette’s newspaper, The Woman’s Dreadnought, promotional flyers, postcards and catalogues, focusing in particular on local women and children living in poverty. These images provide an intimate record of Sylvia Pankhurst and the ELFS’ activities during 1914-18, an extraordinary moment in women’s social history.  

East End Suffragettes: the photographs of Norah Smyth will include over 100 original photographs, generously loaned by the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, alongside other unseen archival material.  A programme of accompanying talks and walks will explore the history and local area where Sylvia Pankhurst and Norah Smyth lived and worked. The exhibition and talks are all free of charge.

The exhibition is part of The Women's Hall project, celebrating the little-known history of the East London Federation of Suffragettes 1914-18, and the centenary of British women first winning the right to vote. 

East End Suffragettes: the photographs of Norah Smyth
2 November - 9 February 2019

See more here: http://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/East-End-Suffragettes

Image: Cost price restaurant at The Women's Hall. Photograph: Norah Smyth

Photography has always been a powerful tool of communication and has developed into an instrument of our everyday experience: Through photographs we are able to communicate quickly and easily with each other. As a medium of social interaction, photographic images are used as a handy alternative to language, supplementing or even replacing it. They transport us to sites and individuals, connecting the distant and the temporally remote. This far-reaching development is increasingly driven by the digitization of our everyday culture. Photography is both part of this process, and its most visible expression.

Photo-historical research can contribute important observations to this diagnosis of our own time. From the moment photographic images became a matter of public interest, they served as objects of circulation and social connection. Already by the middle of the 19th century photography had opened global routes of image-based economies, providing and distributing our interpretations of visible worlds. As commodities or gifts, they are traded and exchanged, distributed and collected. The proliferation of photographically based information and the trading of photographic objects constitute important aspects of social interaction in the early stages of globalization.

These observations are our point of departure for the course titled “Circulating Photographs: Materials, Practices, Institutions”. Our aim is to develop a focused, multi-disciplinary analysis of the photographic image as an object of circulation, especially over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries (up to 1950). In the context of photo-historical research it is common practice to ask about processes of production or reception. In contrast, by putting circulation modalities at the center of our interest, we would like to accentuate the importance of such interactions for the production of photographic meaning. Acts of transmission constitute an important framework for the semantics of photographic imagery. Thus, we are interested in the realm of photographs as a foundation and tool for social interaction and in the practices that lead to our current understanding of image exchange. The vernacular image and its everyday practices are as important as highly professional appropriations within the domain of the arts and sciences. We are particularly interested in strategies of networking that have been enabled, shaped, modified or rejected by photography.

Looking for historical conditions that enabled photographs to circulate requires a closer investigation of premises related to such interactions:

1. The material foundations of photography, i.e., its historically shifting concreteness in terms of production processes and technologies.
2. The ensemble of practices, i.e., the methods and channels that have been developed, cultivated and refined for the circulation of photographs.
3. The diversity of institutions that have been created or adapted to this purpose.

Examining the variety of connections between these aspects will provide a new understanding of photo-historical developments that lean on the idea of exchange within the domain of visual media. We are especially interested in practices and strategies that have been developed in photography’s pre-digital era and we ask whether, and how, they can be regarded as a foundation for current media practices of transmission and exchange. Such an interest stimulates a variety of questions:

–   What types of circulation can and should we distinguish?

–   How does the materiality of photographic images affect and shape their circulation? And how does the circulation of photographs have an impact on their materiality?

–   What differences are there in professional and private practices among the networks of circulation?

–   What kinds of channels have been developed and used for the circulation of photographs?

–   In what ways do modes of circulation differ – modes such as sending, exchanging, transferring, sharing, dissemination, dispersion, etc.? How do we perceive and evaluate these historical practices today, and vice versa, how does our current practice shed light on the meaning of past exchanges of photographs?

–   How can we conceptualize the difference between circulating photographs as original prints on the one hand, and circulating reproductions of them on the other?

–   How does the photographic picture become a social entity in the process of its circulation?

–   How is meaning produced and altered through processes of circulation?

–   How can we describe the ongoing media change of photography from the point of view of circulation?

–   What conclusions can be drawn by examining specific time periods regarding the processes of circulation?

–   What kind of media practices of transmission from previous periods of media history are still in use today?

The course is aimed at advanced M.A. students, Ph.D. candidates and recent post-docs in art history and related disciplines with a strong photo-historical component. The course will be held in English. During the course, all participants will present their current research project, which should exhibit a close connection to the course subject matter. The course is supplemented by visits to photographic archives in Rome.

The Bibliotheca Hertziana will offer lodging and reimburse half of the incurred travelling expenses. In addition, participants will receive a daily allowance.

Please send the following application materials as a single PDF-document to Fototeca@biblhertz.it (subject “Studienkurs”) by October 22 2018:

–   Abstract of proposed subject/case study

–   Brief CV

–   Brief summary of your master’s thesis, dissertation or postdoctoral project

–   Names and contact details of two references

For further information please contact: Fototeca@biblhertz.it

The course is organized and led by Tatjana Bartsch (Bibl. Hertziana, Rome), Maria Antonella Pelizzari (Hunter College, CUNY, New York), Johannes Röll (Bibl. Hertziana) and Steffen Siegel (Folkwang Universität der Künste, Essen).

See more here: http://www.biblhertz.it/en/news/call-for-papers/

Circulating Photographs: Materials, Practices, Institutions

A photo-historical course organized by the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max Planck Institute for Art History), Rome, and the Folkwang Universität der Künste, Essen

Rome, Bibliotheca Hertziana, March 18–22, 2019

Deadline: October 22, 2018

Cambridge University Press has just published Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image by Dr Elena Cooper. The book is the first in-depth study of the history of copyright protecting the visual arts, especially photography.

Exploring legal developments during an important period in the making of the modern law, the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, in relation to four themes – the protection of copyright ‘authors’ (painters, photographers and engravers), art collectors, sitters and the public interest. It uncovers a number of long-forgotten narratives of copyright history, including views of copyright that differ from how we think about copyright today. As well as considering the distinct nature of the contribution of copyright to the history of the cultural domain accounted for by scholars of art history and the sociology of art, Art and Modern Copyright examines the value to lawyers and policy-makers today of copyright history as a destabilising influence. In taking us to ways of thinking that differ from our own, history can sharpen the critical lens through which we view copyright debates today.

The book will be launched at an event at the Victorian Picture Galleryat Royal Holloway, University of London, at 6.15pm on Wednesday 5 December 2018, where Dr Cooper will draw on the rich collection of nineteenth century paintings in the Gallery to illustrate the central themes of her research.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Dr Cooper: elena.cooper@glasgow.ac.uk . Members are warmly invited to the launch and are entitled to a 20% discount on the purchase of a copy of the book (available for a limited time only). 

If you are interested in attending contact Dr Cooper: elena.cooper@glasgow.ac.uk .

A full review will be published shortly.

Starting from the analysis of the article ‘The Camera on Wheels’, which was published in the magazine Amateur Photographer in December 1885, Sara Dominici explores the relation between photography and cycling in late Victorian Britain. It looks, in particular, at how the confluence of new ways of moving and seeing influenced photographic practices. As contemporary accounts reveal, despite the significant difficulties of carrying fragile cameras on unstable machines, combining cycling and photography was incredibly popular: amongst the reasons was the possibility to reach a wider choice of locations, and thus subjects to photograph, and to do so in a way felt as entirely under one’s control.

The talk examines the profound influence that this had on how photographers thought of camera practices, leading to the desire for a camera apparatus that could benefit from the freedom and independence associated with their newly embraced mobility, as suggested in the title itself ‘The Camera on Wheels’.

‘The Camera on Wheels’: the Emergence of New Mobile Practices of Vision in Late Victorian Britain
08 Nov 2018, 17:30 to 08 Nov 2018, 19:30
IHR Peter Marshall Room, N204, Second Floor, IHR, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Lund Humphries presents the latest volume in its series of Handbooks in International Art Business, an essential guide to the development of photography as an art form and how to navigate this growing market. Photography and the Art Market charts the transition of photographs created for aesthetic ends from a hobbyist pastime to a core component of the international fine art scene.

This essential handbook explores the structural elements that supported this shift (including dedicated galleries, museum and private collections, festivals, fairs and academic scholarship), most of which have come into being within the last 50 years, and appraises the state of the market for photography today.

The first part of this essential handbook provides an art-business analysis of the market for art photography and explains how to navigate it; the second is an art historical account of the evolution of art photography. In tracing the emergence of a robust art-world sub-system for art photography, sustaining both significant art-world presence and strong trade, the book shows the solid foundations on which today’s international market is built, examines how that market is evolving,
and points to future developments.

This pioneering handbook is a must-read for scholars, students, curators, dealers, photographers, private collectors and institutional buyers, and other arts professionals. 

Photography and the Art Market
Juliet Hacking
ISBN 978-1-84822-148-2
256 pages
£30.

This autumn, London's Photographers' Gallery will be running a series of events focused on the particulars of collecting photography and understanding its position in the wider art market today. Offering top tips and guidance from a range of industry experts, we will provide insider’s advice on how the photography market works and how to begin a collection.

Image: Churchgate Station, Bombay, India, 1995, from Migrations © Sebastiao Salgado/Amazonas, Courtesy of NB Pictures

Marie-Angélique Languille et Céline Daher have announced that the videos of the conference French paper negatives: production, characterization, preservation which took place from 7-8 December 2017 have been uploaded here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd9EOqTTdlIr0EMJPfh4oH5slFO8eQKC6

This was an important conference with a range of speakers, delivering papers in English and French on a range of subjects dealing with French paper negatives. 

Newly discovered albums from the National Science and Media Museum collection form part of a new exhibition at the Science Museum The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution. Investigating the role of science in the lives and deaths of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, this exhibition takes visitors behind the scenes of one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century. 

Set against a turbulent backdrop of social upheaval and war between 1900 and 1918, The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution will explore the significant influence of medicine on the private lives of the imperial family during this period and the advances in medicine and forensic science over 70 years later that transformed the investigation into their sudden disappearance.

Rare artefacts, including the family’s personal diaries, private possessions and jewellery found at the scene of their murder, and two Imperial Fabergé Easter Eggs presented by the Tsar to his wife just a year before the fall of the imperial house, will help bring the personal lives of autocrat Nicholas II and his family to life.

For the first time, photograph albums created by an English tutor to the Tsar’s nephews, and now part of the Science Museum Group collection, will be on public display, providing a fascinating glimpse into the daily lives of the Romanov family.  The albums were found by chance by curator Natalia Sidlina, when she unearthed them when searching for Russia-related material held at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford for the 2015 Cosmonauts exhibition. Among the items brought up by the museum’s curators was a crate containing 22 albums, the Romanov albums.

From the treatment of their only son and heir Alexei’s life-threatening haemophilia B, a rare blood condition and infamous ‘royal disease’ passed down from Queen Victoria, to the Tsarina’s fertility and the Red Cross medical training of the Tsar’s daughters, this exhibition will explore the imperial family’s contrasting reliance on both the latest medical discoveries of the time as well as traditional and spiritual healers. The family’s determination to keep Alexei’s illness a secret compelled them to take controversial measures that ultimately contributed to the fall of the 300-year-old dynasty. 

Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum, said:

“This exhibition marks 100 years since the end of the Romanov dynasty and explores one of the most dramatic periods in Russian history, all through the unique lens of science. Our curatorial team have brought together an exceptional, rare and poignant collection to tell this remarkable story. I want to thank all our lenders in the UK, Russia and America for making this exhibition possible.” 

The investigation into the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas II, his family and entourage following the revolutions of 1917, started in July 1918 and the case remains open today. One hundred years later, this exhibition will take visitors behind the scenes to uncover the science behind the investigation into one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century.  

Visitors will be able to examine evidence from the scene of the execution – from the dentures of the imperial physician, a single diamond earring belonging to the Tsarina, to a chandelier from the house where the family were executed – and delve into the remarkable modern forensic investigation which set out to piece together the events of that night. 

This investigation was one of the first occasions that forensic DNA analysis was used to solve a historic case, involving the best British experts under the direction of Dr Peter Gill from the Forensic Science Service.  Blood samples from relatives and advances in DNA profiling and 3D reconstruction helped to positively identify the remains of the imperial family and enabled the investigation to reach convincing conclusions. 

The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution
21 September 2018 – 24 March 2019
Free, ticketed
sciencemuseum.org.uk/thelasttsar
@ScienceMuseum 
#thelasttsar

For further information and to book free tickets visit the Science Museum website.

Image: top: The tsar and his family at Gatchina Palace, outside St Petersburg, around 1915. Photograph: The Science Museum Group Collection; Bottom: Radiograph of Emperor Nicholas II. Harvard Medical Library in the Francis A Countway Library of Medicine. 

Dominic Winter’s latest catalogue for their Vintage & Modern Photography auction is now online. The auction takes place on Thursday 4th November and comprises 300 lots, following on from the first 100-lot session of Postcards, Documents, Autographs & Ephemera which start the sale.

The Photography session begins with 19th-century photography and includes excellent examples of large salt prints and albumen prints by, among others, Francis Bedford, Bisson Freres, Francis Frith and Linnaeus Tripe. Good examples are to be found for less familiar names including Charles Brittan, G.B. Gething, Henry J. Malby, William Pumphrey and Marquis de Rostaing.

Besides the individual 19th-century photographs and folders and albums there are daguerreotypes and plentiful lots of stereoviews, cartes de visite, magic lantern slides and glass plate negatives. A large Dutch archive of 19th and 20th-century photography has been broken down into 50 lots, themed by country and subject.

From the 20th century, there are photographs by Cecil Beaton, Robert Doisneau, Olive Edis, Yousuf Karsh and Herbert Ponting, and press prints of many leading names taken from the archive of Colin Osman at Creative Camera.

Among the most intriguing lots are a photograph attributed to Lady Hawarden, featuring two of her daughters, a group of glass plate negatives of a Japanese community in British Columbia, 1920s, showing body piercing, and two photographs from the Cottingley Fairies series, the infamous hoax that fooled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others. There are two good series of large and medium film negatives, one set of Tristan da Cunha from 1939, the other of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in 1919.

The catalogue front cover photograph will be unknown to everyone. It is just one of the thousands of photographs from the archive of Godfrey Dickson Tanner (1876-1964). Divided into 16 lots and mostly neatly presented in albums, the photographs predominantly feature India, plus China, Japan and the Far East, as well as Sussex. Little is known about the life and photographic career of Tanner. He appears to have come from Lewes, Sussex, and was based for a long period at Regent House, Simla, India, possibly working as a stationer. (Perhaps he worked for Thacker, Spink & Co.?). He seems to have been a Captain in the Royal Engineers in World War One, then marrying Rose Bowman in 1919. In later years he lived in Nairobi, Kenya, where he worked as a municipal servant. Tanner travelled widely and had a good eye for photographing indigenous people and scenes, printing meticulously with the gelatin silver bromide process, sometimes sepia-toned. The majority of photographs appear to have been taken in the early decades of the century, and while the albums are well presented, there are no dates and there is no discernible ordering of prints in many of the albums. Tanner’s work may have been published in Amateur Photographer and similar publications but it is startling to realise that his name as a photographer is completely unknown, though that may be because the photographs offered here represent his complete archive. If anyone knows more please do let us know for us to share.

Printed catalogues available from the auction offices (£15 post inclusive). Public viewing daily from 2nd October, 9am-6pm and morning of sale from 9am; other times strictly by appointment.

For further information and enquiries please contact Chris Albury chris@dominicwinter.co.uk / 01285 860006

Dominic Winter Auctioneers, Mallard House, Broadway Lane, South Cerney, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 5UQ

www.dominicwinter.co.uk

The death of Bill Buchanan deprives the history of photography of one of the key figures in the rise of interest in the subject over the last sixty years.

William Menzies Buchanan was born in Trinidad in 1932. He studied at Glasgow School of Art and then taught in Glasgow schools for five years before joining the Scottish Arts Council in 1961. It was while he was there as Exhibitions Officer, and later, Art Director, that, with Katherine Michaelson of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, he organised the 1970 revelatory exhibition of the calotypes of Hill and Adamson. For it, he managed to persuade the Free Church of Scotland to lend Hill’s mammoth ‘Disruption’ painting, something no one had achieved before.

In 1977 he returned to the Glasgow School of Art, first as head of Fine Art and latterly as Deputy Head, retiring in 1992. It was during that period that his interest in photography, in addition to other art forms, manifested itself with considerable effect. As well as contributing to numerous magazines and other publications, including The Golden Age of British Photography, The Photographic Collector, The History of Photography, British Photography in the Nineteenth Century, Photography 1900, Studies in Photography, and many more, he was Chairman of Stills Gallery from 1987 to 1992.

In March 1983, there was a conference in Glasgow called ‘Scottish Contributions to Photography’. Nowadays, that might not attract a huge amount of attention, but this one was a ground-breaking international symposium and in its three days it reached well beyond Scotland, as the list of the participants demonstrate. In addition to the list of locally based speakers – Thomas Joshua Cooper, Sara Stevenson, Murray Johnston, Alison Morrison-Low, Ray McKenzie, Robert Smart and David Bruce – there was what amounted to a roster of the most important photo-historians of the time – Mike Weaver, Larry Schaaf, Stanley Triggs, William Stapp, Margaret Harker, John Hannavy, and Roger Taylor.

There was one other speaker: Bill Buchanan, on his favourite subject, the ‘most versatile and artistic’ James Craig Annan, but Bill’s contribution was much more than that; in fact the whole event was largely his devising and its legacy is still with us. In his room in the now devastated Glasgow School of Art was born the idea that became the Scottish Society for the History of Photography whose publication, ‘Studies in Photography’, remains a leader in its field.

Bill Buchanan’s influence, and his highly significant role in encouraging the development of interest in the history of photography, at both academic and popular levels, deserve to be recognised. That would probably embarrass an essentially modest, private, sort of man, but it would be entirely justified.

Images:

Top: Mike Graham, Bill Buchanan
Lower: Sean Hudson, L to R: David Bruce, Roger Taylor, Sara Stevenson, Will Stapp, Margaret Harker, Mike Weaver, Larry Schaaf, Ialeen Gibson Cowan, John Hannavy, Alison Morrison-Low, Bill Buchanan, Ray Mckenzie.

Photography is under the spotlight as the V&A Museum prepares for the 12 October opening of its new Photography Centre which unites - and shows to the public - the V&A and RPS collections. The Photography Spotlight celebrates the Centre, home to the national collection of the art of photography and shows a dynamic series of talks, workshops and special events, including an international two-day conference.

Find our more here: https://www.vam.ac.uk/season/2018/photography-spotlight

I am trying to identify the photographer responsible for a group of pictures in an album dating to the 1860s. They are Exterior and interior views of Russborough House in Ireland. They are likely to have been made by Blake and Edgar of 32 Midland Rd. Bedford as a series of the same images exists in a much smaller format which bears their stamp. They may only be reduced copies made by B&E and the large 10X12 inch prints and album are not identified in any way.

Does anyone know whether the B&E negatives have been preserved?

Any information would be most helpful.

Tate Modern has announced the appointment of Dr Yasufumi Nakamori as its new Senior Curator, International Art (Photography). Nakamori will lead on the development of Tate’s collection of photography and on the programme of photography exhibitions and displays. He will take up the post in October 2018. He replaces Simon Baker who has moved to  the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. (See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/tate-modern-s-simon-baker-leaves-for-paris).

For the past two years, Nakamori headed the department of photography and new media at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, developing new displays of photography and time-based media within the context of a global encyclopaedic art museum, including staging exhibitions with Leslie Hewitt, The Propeller Group, Omer Fast, Naoya Hatakeyama and most recently Amar Kanwar. He was also responsible for numerous key acquisitions which transformed and diversified the museum’s photography collection.

He previously served as curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 2008 to 2016, creating ground-breaking exhibitions such as Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro (a recipient of the 2011 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums), and For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968-1979. As a noted scholar of Japanese art and architecture, Nakamori has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and has taught graduate seminars at Hunter College and Rice University. He is a 2016 fellow of the Getty Leadership Institute, holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin, an MA in Contemporary Art from Hunter College, the City University of New York, and a PhD in the History of Art and Visual Studies from Cornell University.

Nakamori’s appointment continues Tate’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting photography. This reflects the pivotal role photography has played in the story of modern art as well as its ever-greater importance in visual culture today. The number of photographs in Tate’s collection has increased five-fold over the past decade and there have been a host of acclaimed photography exhibitions staged across the four Tate galleries, including Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art currently open at Tate Modern.

Image: Yasufumi Nakamori. Photograph by Dan Dennehy, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Gray Levett is researching London's camera shops for a future feature in Nikon Owner magazine and is looking for photographs of the exterior of the Fox Talbot shop which stood at 179 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1.

If you can help please post the image here and get in touch with Gray on 020 7828 4925 or email: gray@graysofwestminster.co.uk

John Vickers was a theatre photographer of note from the 1930s onwards. A comprehensive archive of documents following Vickers’ career throughout the 1940s and 1950s compliments the London Old Vic collection which is also held at the University of Bristol. Included in the collection are glass plate negatives, prints, framed items,correspondence and ephemera.

John Vickers began his career by working as assistant to photographer Angus McBean in the 1930s, himself a famous name in the world of theatrical photography. From 1939 until the time of his death, he ran his own studio. After the war Vickers made a name for himself and became well known as a theatre photographer. He worked for many London theatres including, most famously the Old Vic. 

He photographed over 1,000 productions and his portraits of actors (such as Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier), writers and musicians gained him a high reputation.

Throughout his photography the influence of Angus McBean can easily be seen, especially in some of his early, more surrealist work.

The legacy of John Vickers can be seen to continue with the photography of Mario Testino, who was his assistant in the 1970s until his death.

What the collection holds

In photographic terms the archive comprises c. 8,000 prints, 20,000 glass plate negatives, 20,000 roll film negatives, and 1,800 colour slides. In addition there are 25 boxes of manuscript material, including articles, teaching manuals, monographs, correspondence (business and personal), journals, card indexes, business papers, covering the whole working life of Vickers. There is also a library of photographic and theatre related material.

The online catalogue for this collection can be viewed here: JV - The John Vickers Archive.