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Widely regarded as a master of darkroom photography, John Blakemore is celebrated for the richness and textures that he created within his prints. Using a technical harmony of the 5×4 film medium, the Zone System and an incredible mastery of the darkroom printing process, he shaped a signature tonal richness and opulence within his photography worthy of the title.

Using nature as his muse, John captured landscapes inspired by texture and space that can be appreciated by audiences regardless of their knowledge of the skill behind the printing.In 2024, Derby Museums accessioned 12 photographic prints of John’s into the collection of the city he had called home for over 50 years, bringing together prints from a range of projects including his iconic tulips and his Derbyshire and Wales landscapes. This new collection brings together a life’s dedication to technical skill, analogue practice and celebrating the natural world around us.

The evening will feature speeches and recollections from friends, colleagues and students in the world of photography, and the opportunity to view Earthly Delights – the last exhibition agreed by John during his lifetime – which is exhibited on the third floor of the Museum of Making as part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival. A bar will be open throughout the evening, with last orders called at 8.45pm.

Speakers for the evening:

James Hyman is the Founding Director of the Centre for British Photography and, with his wife Claire, owner of the Hyman Collection, which includes an extensive collection and archive of John’s work. In 2023 he curated the exhibition John Blakemore. Seduced by Light and interviewed John for the film of the same name.

Paul Hill was a lecturer with John on the trend-setting Creative Photography diploma course based in Nottingham and Derby in the 1970s. They often exhibited together over the years. He started the first photography workshop in the UK where John was a popular teacher over 20 years.

Daniel Wheeler is a photographer and educator based in the Midlands. He is the founder of the darkroom facility The Photo Parlour, now known as Make It Easy, and ran workshops on darkroom printing and bookmaking with John between 2014 and 2021.

Alina Kisina is a Ukrainian-British artist photographer in search of universal, timeless human qualities that reach beyond location, gender and social background. A friend of John’s for twenty years, she was informally mentored by him.

Jermaine Francis is a lens-based artist, who explores narratives relating to aesthetics, Power, class, race, and the social-political architecture of their manifestations. John taught him on the photographic course at Derby.

John Blakemore: A Celebration
Museum of Making
Derby, 16 April 2025

https://derbymuseums.org/event/the-museum-of-making-at-night-john-blakemore-a-celebration

Image: Paul Hill 

We are looking for an experienced Project Manager to oversee the digitization of an historic photography collection with a dedicated cross-departmental project team. The Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection is the largest and most important collection of photography at the V&A. It contains many items of global significance, including some of the earliest photographs, artworks by well-known photographers, invaluable documents of history and evidence of some 200 years of technical and scientific advances. The collection numbers an estimated 310,000 photographs, negatives, pieces of photographic technology, books, journals and archive items. Some 90% of the collection remains to be digitized. The Project Manager will refine and implement a digitization workflow of cataloguing, conservation and imaging with colleagues to unlock the collections' transformative potential.

The main purpose of the role is to plan, budget, monitor, report on and drive forward the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Digitization Project. The Project Manager sits within the Photography Section of the Art, Architecture, Photography and Design Department (AAPD). The project is an important part of the V&A’s wider cataloguing, digitization and collections care and access programme. The role includes managing a cross-departmental Project Team, consisting of photographs cataloguers and volunteers and liaising with managers in other departments to coordinate the work of a conservator, archives cataloguer and digital imaging assistants.

Project Manager
5 year FTC
Details here: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3792893?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

In this exclusive talk Cally Blackman looks at fashion as it was represented through the autochrome. It is based on her new book The Colour of Clothes: Fashion and Dress in Autochromes 1907-1930 (Thames and Hudson, March, 2025) which celebrates the unique beauty of the autochrome in 370 images that reflect the broad sweep of its usage. Couturiers embraced the way the process showcased their exquisite designs to luminous perfection—among them Fortuny, Poiret, Doucet, Vionnet, Lucile, Chanel, and Lanvin. Beyond the sphere of fashion, there are also examples from the Salon du Goût Français, France’s 'virtual' autochrome exhibition of luxury items, and Albert Kahn’s Archives de la Planète, a bold attempt to record the world’s cultures in autochrome

Cally Blackman studied Fashion Design at Central Saint Martin’s from 1972 to 1975 and returned to teach on BA Fashion History & Theory course in 2001. She is a fashion historian, lecturer, and author. Her research into autochromes is both original and extensive, with a large number of images she has sourced that have either never or very rarely been published since they were first made more than one hundred years ago. She has written several books including 100 Years of Fashion Illustration (2007), 100 Years of Menswear (2009), 100 Years of Fashion (2012) and co-author of A Portrait of Fashion (2015).

Fashion and Dress in Autochromes 
Cally Blackman
1 April 2025 at 1800 (BST)
Free. Register here:  https://tinyurl.com/mvpywvd4 

Image: Robert B Bird, Autochrome, c.1917. RPS, Bristol. 

Tate has announced its 2026 exhibition highlights. Of particular notes is Light and Magic which explores how pictorialism, the first international art photography movement, developed across the world from the 1880s to the 1960s. The exhibition was previously scheduled to open in December 2025.  Bringing together over 50 artists from Seoul to Sydney, New York to Cape Town and Brazil to Singapore, this truly international exhibition takes a fresh and inclusive look at the history of art photography.

Featuring never-before seen works from around the world alongside pieces from Tate’s Collection, Light and Magic highlights the vast and varied artistic possibilities of photography as a medium.

Light and MagicThe Birth of Art Photography
8 October 2026 – 14 February 2027
London, Tate Modern, Bankside
Ticket price to be confirmed
See: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/light-and-magic

The Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities has announced that the 8th Denis Cosgrove Lecture will be given on Monday 12 May at 5:30pm. This year's lecture will be on Camera geologica: photography and the art of resource extraction. It is presented by Dr Siobhan Angus, assistant professor of media studies at  Carleton University, Ottawa.The lecture will take place at Queens Building Lecture Theatre, Royal Holloway, followed by a reception. The lecture will be in person only. Siobhan Angus's book of the same title was amongst the most significant published in 2024.

The lecture focuses on Jonas NT Becker’s 'Better or Equal Use' series, which documents former coal mining sites in Appalachia redeveloped under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA). Becker prints his photographs using coal collected from the sites he documents, forging a connection between the mined material, the history it represents, and the photographs themselves. Becker's labour-intensive prints offer an entry point for exploring the relationship between aesthetics and extraction, with particular attention to the afterlives of mining. Accordingly, I explore the geological history of photography by analyzing the materiality of Becker’s carbon prints, with a focus on coal and gelatin.

Siobhan Angus works at the intersections of art history, media studies, and the environmental humanities. Her current research explores the visual culture of resource extraction with a focus on materiality, labor, and environmental justice. Angus is an assistant professor of media studies at Carleton University. She is the author of Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography (Duke University Press 2024). awarded the 2024 Photography Network Book Prize, and her research has also been published in Environmental Humanities, liquid blackness, and October.

Camera geologica: photography and the art of resource extraction
Siobhan Angus, Carleton University 
12 May 2025
Royal Holloway College, Egham, 
Free. To book click the link here

Image: Carleton Watkins, Malakoff Diggins, Nevada County, California. 1871. Albumen print. The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley

Legendary Scottish photographer and travel writer John Thomson (1837-1921) set off for Asia in 1862 and over the next ten years undertook numerous journeys photographing countries in Asia, including Siam, Cambodia and coastal China. The photographs from these journeys form one of the most extensive records of any region taken in the 19th century. The range, depth and aesthetic quality of John Thomson’s photographic vision mark him out as one of the most important travel photographers.

Thomson captured the individuality and humanity of the diverse people of Asia, whether royalty, monks or an oarsman. This exhibition highlights Thomson’s portraits of King Mongkut Rama IV (1804-1868) who signed the Bowring Treaty in 1855, and his royal entourage. Also featured are Thomson’s stunning landscapes, scenes of the Chao Phraya River, temples, dancers and musicians.

Siam Through the Lens of John Thomson. An exhibition to celebrate 170 years of Thailand-UK diplomatic relations
25 April – 20 May 2025
Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AW
For further information about John Thomson exhibitions - www.JohnThomsonExhibition.org

Geoff Barker has posted a blog on the British Antarctic (Southern Cross) Expedition, 1898-1900. The 1898-1900 British Antarctic Expedition was the first to spend winter on the Antarctic continent and record the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole. They also reached further south than any human had previously. The expedition was led by Carsten Borchgrevink who had become interested in Antarctic exploration while living in Australia. The State Library of New South Wales, Australia, holds a rare album of photographs compiled by one of the expeditions members, William Colbeck, which was used to illustrate this article.

Read the full blog here: https://geoffbarker.wordpress.com/2025/03/23/first-winter-expedition-on-the-antarctic-continent-1898-1900/

Image: Camp Antarctica, British Antarctic (Southern Cross) Expedition, 1899, William Colbeck photographs and clippings, State Library of New South Wales, PXA 2123

In celebration of International Women’s Day, 8 March 2026, and building on the success of our 2025 conference-a-thon, we invite scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts to submit abstracts for participation in a free, online, global, 24-hour symposium dedicated to celebrating the contributions of women to the medium of photography from photography’s announcement in 1839 to now. This unique event aims to highlight the diverse and impactful work of women and female-identifying photographers, and those working with photography, across all cultures and time zones.

We seek 15-minute papers or proposed 30-minute panel discussions (with 3-4 participants listed who consent to participating) that explore a broad range of topics related to women’s contributions to photography. These may include but are not limited to:

• Influential and underappreciated women photographers or historians.
• The role of women in shaping the photographic medium or its exhibition.
• Cross-cultural perspectives on women’s contributions to photography.
• Challenges and achievements of women photographers in various global contexts.

Our goal is to foster a rich, international dialogue that underscores the significant yet often overlooked achievements of women in the field. Presentations will be scheduled to accommodate various time zones, ensuring a truly global exchange of ideas. Presenters of papers should be prepared to make and upload a video of their talks by 22 February 2026, and assistance with the recording process will be provided by the conference organizers.

To participate:

Please submit a 300-word (maximum) abstract outlining your proposed paper or 3-4-person panel proposal HERE https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeybp1Z7Ewb3dk9sTrB... by 1 August 2025. Only abstracts submitted here will be considered for inclusion.

Selected papers will be notified by 1 October 2025, and detailed guidelines for presentations will be provided.

We encourage contributions from diverse perspectives and regions to create a comprehensive and inclusive representation of women in photography.

Join us in celebrating the vibrant and transformative work of women photographers worldwide!

Convenors: Kris Belden-Adams, PhD, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Mississippi and Dr Rose Teanby, Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, UK

 Key dates

Call for papers - closes 1 August 2025
Notification of acceptance - 1 October 2025
Due date for recording of presentation - 22 February 2026
Conference-a-thon - 8 March 2026

Website: www.womenofphoto.com

To see the 2025 Conference-a-Thon: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2025/

West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS) has recently been passed the photographic archive of the Ernest Ethelbert Slater (1850-1928). The large collection of lantern slides and negatives was transferred to WYAS by the Aireborough Historical Society. The collection had been stored in a dry well for many years before being passed to the Historical Society. Work has started on conserving the slides - some of which have suffered from damp and poor storage - and digitising them. The majority are still in their original wood slide boxes. 

Ernest Slater was a an amateur photographer in Yeadon, West Yorkshire, and a member of Yeadon Photographic Society which closed in 1905. Slater gave a number of lectures about photography including his own tour across Canada in the early 1900s. He very active in recording activities in the town and had an informal approach his photography often capturing people in relaxed activities and unawares that they were being photographed. Slater also documented his travels and the collection includes slides from Egypt, Canada, asd well as closer to home in Leeds, York and Cheshire. Slater was manager of Manor Mill in Yeadon and some of his slides include views of mill and its interior, streets scenes in Yeadon and posed shopkeepers outside their stores. The majority date from the 1880s-1910s. 

There is a display of images and some of the slides boxes from the collection at the WYAS premises in Morley. 

WYAS would welcome any information about Slater and his life and photography. Contact: WY Leeds Archives Leeds@wyjs.org.uk

Details of the opening hours to see the display are here: https://www.wyjs.org.uk/archive-service/contact-us-and-opening-times/leeds-archive-services-opening-times-and-information/

See: https://aireboroughhistoricalsociety.org.uk/yeadon/people-yeadon/slater-ernest-ethelbert-photographer-family-friends-photographs-c1870s-onwards-09/ and https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/23476841.photographer-ernest-e-slater-captures-evocative-images-times-past/

Images: right: Ernest Ethelbert Slater, c1900; left: a selection of images from the WYAS display. All are modern reproductions from original lantern slides. 

Chiswick Auctions has a number of interesting lots relevant to British photographic history in its next sale at the end of the month. These range from Alfred Buckham, Bertram Park through to Bob Carlos Clarke. Of particular interest is a letter from 1911 (lot 6) from Thereza [Charlotte Story-]Maskelyne to Lady [Caroline Julia] Dillwyn Llewelyn describing the daguerreotype in the 1840s and expressing an interest in the early history of photography as well as remarking on Charles Talbot, the collections at Lacock Abbey and The Pencil of Nature; lot 355 is a set of photographs of the Creative Camera/Coo Press offices in Doughty Street along with a portrait of Colin Osman. 

Elsewhere in the 473 lot sale is a selection of cameras, optical views, lantern slides, nineteenth and twentieth century photographs and albums, and photographic books including lot 120 The Book of Bread (1903).  

Photographica
Chiswick Auctions
31st Mar, 2025, starting at 1100
See the full catalogue here.  

Image:  Alfred Buckham (1879-1956), In the North Sea, c.1920, lot 116.

BBC Radio 4 Extra carried a series of programme related to photography on Saturday. They will be available for the next twenty-eight days. Catch up with: 

• The Photographer at Sixteen by George Szirtes George Szirtes reads his memoir
• Conversation Extra Sontag on Photography, a conversation between Susan Sontag and Philip French (1978) 
• Diane Arbus: Intimate Portraits (2023) 

Photograph albums of Victorian Britain have often been interpreted in terms of the social and familial networks of their compilers, but they also imply certain geographies – local and transnational, imagined and travelled – that are not always brought to the same level of critical attention. This keynote lecture delivered by Luke Gartlan examines an impressive album compiled by Cecilia Mary Jocelyn, née Elliot, which is currently on permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Luke Gartlan is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of A Career of Japan: Baron Raimund von Stillfried and Early Yokohama Photography (2016); and has co-edited two volumes: with Ali Behdad, Photography’s Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation (2013); and with Roberta Wue, Portraiture and Early Studio Photography in China and Japan (2017).

A second keynote At the Center of the Periphery: East Berlin and the Face Value of Photo Books from Steffen Siegel is also being delivered as part of the same event. 

Navigating the Victorian Photograph Album: Itineraries, Histories, Erasures
Keynote Lecture as part of the photo-historical seminar “Centers and Peripheries: Photography’s Geography Lessons"
Dr Luke Gartlan
18 March 2025 at 1830 (CET) | 1730 (UTC/GMT)
Rome and streamed online, free 
See: https://www.biblhertz.it/events/41034/2206 

At the Center of the Periphery: East Berlin and the Face Value of Photo Books
Keynote Lecture as part of the photo-historical seminar “Centers and Peripheries: Photography’s Geography Lessons"
Professor Steffen Siegel
20 March 2025 at 1830 (CET) | 1730 (UTC/GMT)
Rome and streamed online, free 
See: https://www.biblhertz.it/events/41035/2206

New research about photographer, author and journalist Percy R. Salmon FRPS has been published to mark the anniversary of his birth (12th March 1872).

It reveals his role in the arrival and adoption of the Autochrome colour process in Britain in the summer of 1907.

View Pressphotoman blogpost

Salmon is best-known as editor of the weekly Photographic News (1901-1905) and author of more than 20 books that helped popularise photography in the early decades of the 20th century.

Royal Photographic Society film about Percy R. Salmon

Photo credit: Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959) by HD Halksworth Wheeler FRPS (1878-1937).  

Popular Visual Shows 1800-1914  is a forthcoming book that tells the story of the growth of picturegoing as a popular habit between 1800 and 1914. Encouraged by urbanisation and changes in transportation, education, and leisure patterns, the regular and widespread provision of exhibitions and shows became a defining characteristic of cultural life. Painted panoramas and dioramas awed with enormous tableaux; the stereoscope immersed viewers in a 3D world; the many varieties of peepshow promised a marvellously garish experience of patriotic battles, gruesome murders, and far-off places. If that was not enough, the ever-versatile magic lantern projected hundreds of thousands of slides of every imaginable subject, from travelogues and temperance tales to illustrated hymns and adaptations of popular fiction. Then, after 1896, audiences experienced the cinematograph, and were able to enjoy film at the many fixed venue cinemas that emerged from around 1908.

Moving and projected images were displayed not only in town halls, theatres, and other large exhibition spaces, but also in workhouses, schools, churches, empty shops, and fairgrounds. Picturegoing, in all its variety, became a national pastime, integrating itself more and more pervasively into the structures of everyday life as the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries progressed. Drawing on a wealth of new evidence, this book details the shows that were on offer, where and what they were, the networks and infrastructure they existed within, and, above all, how their audiences experienced them.

Popular Visual Shows 1800–1914. Picturegoing from Peep Shows to Film
Joe Kember and John Plunkett, with Rosalind Leveridge
Oxford University Press, published 22 May 2025
£113, 496 pages, hardcovers, eBook also available
ISBN: 9780192849861
Details here

Shifting Perspectives will explore how photography has shaped and recorded the urban architectural heritage of Scotland. By examining Scottish photography from the 1840s to the present day, architectural styles, photographic records, and the influence of new technologies, the conference will provide a comprehensive look at how cities and towns have been represented and perceived through the lens. Academics, students, architects, photographers, and cultural historians will gather to discuss how photography influences not only the perception of Scotland’s built environment but also the way our modern towns and cities are planned and designed.

The programme will be available from late March 2025, but you can book now to avoid disappointment as we expect this event to be very busy.

Shifting Perspectives: Scotland's Urban Architecture Through the Lens
20 May 2025
The Engine Shed, Forthside Way Stirling FK8 1QZ
Bookings can be made at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shifting-perspectives-scotlands-urban-architecture-through-the-lens-tickets-1268472006919?aff=oddtdtcreator

Supported by Historic Environment Scotland, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and Scottish Council on Archives

There is still time to submit papers for the conference. The deadline is 24 March.
Details are available at https://studiesinphotography.com/blogs/news/studies-in-photography-conference-call-for-papers

The LSE has launch its new digital library. Containing 500,000 pages of digital content freely available to search, browse and download, it is a significant step in furthering access to the LSE's  collections to anyone who wants to use them. The site includes digitised and born-digital items from LSE Library’s flagship collections such as The Women's Library, the Hall-Carpenter Archives and the Charles Booth Archive. It includes a mix of copyright free and protected materials.  The new platform provides access to the full range of nationally significant collections available on the previous digital Library, as well as exciting new resources and a suite of enhanced user features. 

Of particualr interest to photographic historians is a digitised version of Street Life in London, photographs documenting women's suffrage and up to the Greenham Women Everywhere project of 2019-2021.  Amongst the prints papers I came across by chance are the Census of Production Reports 1907-1993 which include thos relating to photographic manufacturing, 

A new video guide has been made to help users and ensure that search and discovery of Digital Library content is now easier than ever. 

 https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk 

For more information contact: Henry Rowsell, Digital Library Manager, LSE Library, e: h.r.rowsell@lse.ac.uk 

Image: World Graphic Press Limited, Christine Pankhurst, Trafalgar Square, London, 1908. From The Women's Library collection. 

The body of photographic works created by Terry Hulf over the past 50 years tell epic stories of the area of Romney Marsh and its surroundings. He has had little need to travel further afield but rather the landscapes he records change over time. Indeed, he has made these views of the Marsh a focus of his life’s work, a project which he considers will never be finished.

It is important to consider that what continues to interest Hulf in the history of Romney Marsh are more often the effects and impact of human involvement has on the landscape, although people are rarely featured. Almost always what we see in his photographs is what humans have left behind, offering only a trace of presence. It is the same for the viewer looking harder at these images, like the man with the camera, we are just on the edge of being present ourselves.

Terry mainly uses the same standard lens with 35mm and larger format cameras pivotal length and film. In his practice he prefers early cold wintery mornings for his subject matter, there is hardly ever any cropping, so the composition is fixed, at the exact moment he chooses to release his shutter. The camera usually on a tripod remains at eye level, as a result the position of the horizon rarely changes.

The images captured reflect upon his own way of looking, a developed skill or maybe even a gift for avoiding the picturesque but recording instead extraordinary and beautiful ‘unblinkered’ landscapes as memory. Terry might not always remember the exact year the image was recorded but each image is in his memory, set in time and he clearly recalls every picture taken over the years. The hold your breath moment then the shutter is released, it’s like a negative has then been permanently scorched to his retina.

To say that Terry is particularly in touch with Marsh surroundings would be something of an understatement. As he moves quietly around the landscapes early in the morning, selecting his images in a relentless quest for creativity, a perfect picture carefully captured, then sometime later sharing this view, maybe as a beautiful silver gelatin print. Terry maintains, it is because he has so closely worked this land over the years that he feels so much a part of it. When he was younger, he was a Chestnut Paling maker, working beneath tarpaulin shelters, erected in the woods which covered the scratch where the chestnut was cleaved. During the months when the tree sap was rising, they would go fruit picking instead, all part of a natural symbiotic relationship with the land that they loved and worked.

Rye Art Gallery
This will be the first major photographic exhibition staged at the gallery, it also coincides with our first exhibition held sixty years ago, celebrating the opening of this historic building and museum of art in 1965. With fine art for sale, a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, and our own unique permanent collection, Rye Art Gallery continues to grow and develop.

Interestingly, the founder of the gallery the painter Mary Stormont (1871- 1962) who bequeathed her art collection and the buildings following her death in 1962, was also a keen photographer, documenting Sussex and Kent landscapes and recording local activities such as fishing, hop picking and harvest time particularly, from 1900 to the 1920’s. These photographs form part of our permanent collection archive in Rye along with personal photographs by the artist Edward Burra (1905 – 1976) and his close friend the society photographer Barbara Ker-Seymer (1905-1993).

Terry Hulf has over 70 framed works especially produced as monochrome prints for this show. They are available for sale and celebrate 50 years of photographing the Marsh landscapes, alongside this is a separate collection of 25 unique artists portraits also taken by Terry, the pictures tell an intriguing story of artists, a fantastic creative colony of people working here on the Sussex/Kent borders.

Commenting on the exhibition curator Dr Julian Day commented: "Terry is a dedicated and passionate artist which will be beautifully revealed in this his first major retrospective with a collection of so many of his photographic works on display for the first time. Like many other creative individuals, he is a person difficult to pin down, with so many talents he could be described as a true polymath, since he also paints in oils, is a musician and an accomplished fiddle player who has written many tunes connected to the landscapes that he photographs. For anyone who has seen his tango, you will know that Terry really means business!  Above all though, I believe it’s the photography in which he has found his true calling and purpose in life. We are delighted that Rye Art Gallery has been chosen to host this exceptional exhibition."

To accompany the show a book called Notes from a Landscape is available as well as a separate full catalogue of works exhibited. Rye Art Gallery is honoured to accept as a gift from Terry Hulf, his complete photographic archive, which will add significantly to our existing permanent collection held in Rye.

Terry Hulf at Rye Art Gallery: A Retrospective:
Notes from a Landscape with Terry Hulf
 Rye Art Gallery
Saturday 10 May - Sunday 29 June 2025.
Further details:           ryeartgallery@gmail.com

 Image: Grove Lane 2024

The University of Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries have announced the endowment of the post of Bodley’s Librarian and Director of University Libraries, thanks to the generous philanthropic support of the Helen Hamlyn Trust. The trust has been a strong supporter of the Bodleian Libraries over many years, and this £4 million gift towards the post has also resulted in the release of £2 million in matched funding from the University. The endowment means that Bodley’s Librarian, the most senior position at the Bodleian Libraries, will from now on be known as Bodley’s Librarian and the Helen Hamlyn Director of the University Libraries. The funding will ensure the permanence of the role, and support the sustainability of the Bodleian into the future.

Richard Ovenden has held the role of Bodley’s Librarian since 2014. The libraries’ endowment – essential for the sustainability of the organisation – has tripled during Ovenden’s time at the head of the Bodleian. During his tenure Ovenden has championed photography, and led on adding photographers' archives to the Library's special collection, and he was behind the appointment of the Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography. Amongst the Libraries' most significant acquisitions was securing the personal archive of William Henry Fox Talbot, which has heralded a period of major collecting in the field of photography. He has also suppported photography within the institution by encouraging exhibitons, conferences, events, and the award of an Honorary Fellowship to photographer Gary Fabian Miller (see left). 

More widely, under his leadership, the libraries have made transformational improvements to their buildings, especially the renovation of the Weston Library which was completed in 2015 – celebrating its tenth anniversary this year – the KB Chen China Centre Library, and the refurbished Radcliffe Science Library. Major acquisitions under his leadership include the only surviving copy of a ‘lost’ poem by the poet Shelley, the papers of John le Carré, the archive of the NGO Oxfam, and the Kohn Bach Manuscript. 

See: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/helen-hamlyn-trust-endowment

There's a really fascinating podcast interview with Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen on The Urbanaut just released on YouTube. Well worth having a look at.
https://youtu.be/uCAbzQcIqjo?si=N5DMY8JKC_WkDK9S