Until now, the Netherlands lacked a meeting point for Vintage Photography.
Inspired by the famous Frido Troost (1960-2013), whose Institute of Concrete Matter, offered a space where collectors, curators and photographers could meet and have extraordinary encounters and dialogues on photography, two curators and three collectors joined forces and initiated Dialogue.
Fotomuseum Winterthur and the FilmColors research teams of Prof. Dr. Barbara Flueckiger are proud to present the exhibition Color Mania – The Material of Color in Photography and Film, curated by Nadine Wietlisbach, Director of Fotomuseum Winterthur and Dr. Eva Hielscher, Film Scholar and Guest Curator.
The show exhibits film strips, large-format images and original prints, by which the development and history of color as a material in photography and film are illustrated. The exhibition examines the web of connections and processes of exchange between the media of photography and film, shedding light on the material dimensions of photo and film colors and focusing attention on their fascinating abundance.
Yet Color Mania does not just include exhibits related to historical color film and photography. The historical processes enter into a dialogue with works of art by contemporary artists, which demonstrate how these color processes are utilised today and how the material nature of color, as viewed through the prism of technology and cultural theory, is reflected on in current photography and the broader artistic landscape. In this regard, the works by Dunja Evers, Raphael Hefti, Barbara Kasten and Alexandra Navratil amplify certain aspects explored in the exhibition by means of historical documents and objects. The historical realm is connected here to an experimental and reflective approach drawing on a contemporary perspective.
The exhibition has been developed in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Barbara Flueckiger’s research projects ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors. Bridging the Gap between Technology and Aesthetics and SNSF Film Colors. Technologies, Cultures, Institutions at the University of Zurich, with support from the Swiss National Science Foundation as an Agora project for science communication.
The film coloring workshop by Prof. Dr. Ulrich Ruedel, HTW Berlin, will be one of the highlights of the related activities. Book your slot soon, the workshop will certainly be sold out quickly.
In addition there is a smartphone app with background information and color visualizations from the VIAN software. The app has been developed by Josua Fröhlich, in collaboration with the Visualization and MultiMedia Lab of Prof. Dr. Renato Pajarola, and Gaudenz Halter, all at the Department of Informatics, University of Zurich.
Events:
Short film program Color Moods at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Thursday to Sunday, Nov. 07 to 10, 2019
Special guided tour with Barbara Flueckiger, professor for film studies (University of Zurich), and book launch Color Mania, Saturday, Nov 9, 2019, 2 pm
Link to the exhibition at Fotomuseum Winterhur and the various activities:
Download Flyer: PDF English |
PDF DeutschLocation and Hours:
Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zurich)
Switzerland
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–6pm,
Wednesday 11am–8pm
Winterthur is located in the Greater Zurich Area, close to Zurich Airport, easily reached by public transport.
The interplay between scientific studies and the photographic medium is the theme for this year's St Andrew's Photography Festival. The programme includes a symposium, exhibitions and public events all taking science and photography which draw on the rich collections of the University of St Andrews. A number are of particular interest to those interested in photographic history, including:
Download the full programme here (PDF).
Investigate the fascinating history and theories of photography in this weekend-long course hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and delivered by Professor Mark Rawlinson.
In 1859, Charles Baudelaire famously described photography as “art’s mortal enemy” and argued its proper function was to be the “very humble servant” of the sciences and arts. For Baudelaire, photography’s ability to reproduce nature exactly was its genius but also its fatal flaw. Unlike art, for Baudelaire, photographic representation could not elevate its subject – the sitter of a portrait or the view of a landscape – because it simply mirrored them and made a copy and photography should be to art what the printing press was to literature: a tool.
Such criticisms require us to ask some important questions about photography: what is it? why does it exist? what is it for? And, of course, is photography art? It also asks us to consider the relationship between photography and the arts more widely. For example, how has non-photographic art and architecture influenced photography, and vice-versa?
Photography’s aspiration to be considered equal to painting is obvious in images from the 19th and early 20th centuries which echo and mimic painterly compositions and artistic styles. The emergence of painterly abstraction was paralleled in photography, but rather than simply copy painting, photography explored new visual territory, and on its own terms becoming avant-garde. The 20th century witnessed the birth of self-conscious modes of photography: straight, staged, abstract, collaged, and camera-less photographic techniques were reinvented. So too were the processes of making, printing, and exhibiting photography. Even the truth claims of documentary photography – the genre best aligned to ‘copying’ reality – continue to be reasserted and challenged.
To better understand these questions and relationships, this course explores photographic histories in relation to art history’s own complicated relationship with the medium. Sessions will consider a variety of historical moments where art and photography collide, points in time where art, photography and criticism were irrevocably altered.
From the 19th Century Eadweard Muybridge’s work in photographic studies of motion to the contemporary David Hockney's artworks, the course traces and illuminates the productive relationship between photographic practices and art.
London: Royal Academy
8-9 November, 2019
£420
See more and book here.
Kresen Kernow holds hundreds of thousands of historic images of Cornwall and of people and events connected to Cornwall. Some of these images are glass negatives, others are engravings, prints and postcards. Some are glued into albums, others are loose in wallets and envelopes.
Many of the pictures have came through individual family collections. We also have the collection of press photographer George Ellis which contains over 100,000 glass negatives. Ellis came to Bodmin from London at the outbreak of World War II and stayed, photographing north and east Cornwall and its people throughout the war and into the 1970s.
The Historic Environment Record also contains thousands of images of the historic buildings and features which dot the Cornish landscape. These include images of bridges, windows, bunkers and crosses, as well as an extensive collection of aerial photographs.
Digitising our image collection is an on-going project, mostly carried out by volunteers. We have prioritised digitising glass negatives to make them more accessible. You can browse digitised images here.
Image: Photograph,Cooks Kitchen Mine, 1893.
This one-day symposium at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter invites conversations on photography and photographic collections in the South West and wider UK in relation to aspects of place. Photographs relate to place in various ways including their documenting capacity and the direct inscription of the world on their surface. Therefore, photographs directly inform our imagination of a place. How do collections like this develop? In turn, a specific place can also inspire the work of photographers and photographic artists: the symposium includes a focus on Dartmoor, in particular.
Speakers include Liz Wells (curator, writer and Professor in Photographic Culture at Plymouth University), Garry Fabian Miller (Dartmoor-based photographic artist), Bronwen Colquhoun (Senior Curator of Photography, National Museum Wales), Jo Bradford (Dartmoor-based photographic artist and founder of Green Island Studios), Emma Down (Hidden Histories Project Archivist, Beaford Archive), Catherine Troiano (Curator, National Photography Collections, National Trust), Brendan Barry (Exeter-based photographer, lecturer and educator, founder & director of Positive Light Projects) and Mark Haworth-Booth (former Senior Curator of Photography at the V&A).
The symposium will coincide with a small photography display at RAMM on ‘Rivers, Trees and Landmarks’.
Collecting regions - Photography and a sense of place
Wednesday, 18 September 2019
1000 - 1700
Further information here: https://exeterramm.admit-one.eu/?p=tickets&perfCode=3498&ev=4189
I would welcome any information about this company, set up around 1890 in Athens by Mr Shirley Clifford Atchley. Its photographs of architectural and archaeological sites were commercially available via the firm of Beck and Barth, who had a shop in Syntagma Square and a link to the booksellers Eleftheroudakis (founded 1898).
Email: Chris Stray c.a.stray@swan.ac.uk
In a new blog post 'from the vaults' Rachel Nordstrom, Photographic Collections Manager, at St Andrews University's special collections discusses the restoration of two daguerreotypes in the collections using the new technique of electro-cleaning which was first described in 2016. Two daguerreotypes subjected to the technique: one showing a man with a scientific instrument, now identified as a ‘spark generator’; the second, was a group of four men (J D Forbes, Rev. William Brown, Hugh Lyon Playfair and Dr George Buist), by Antoine Claudet.
The before and after photographs show the effectiveness of the technique. The work was undertaken by Dr Mike Robinson.
You will be able to see the results during the St Andrews Photography Festival as the theme for this year is Science & Photography. Check the festival website events line up for further details, specifically on the ‘Science Treasure from Special Collections’ visit on 22 October at Martyrs Kirk.
Read the full blog here: https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/electrifying-daguerreotypes/
Dr Mike Robinson is taking his highly acclaimed daguerreotype workshop to St Andrews, the birthplace of Scottish photography. Co-hosted by the University of St Andrews, the three-day daguerreotype workshop is the first time a mercury-based daguerreotype workshop has been held in the country.
The course is limited to six participants and each participant will have two finished and housed daguerreotypes to take with them at the end of the workshop.
The course fee is $1250 and all equipment and materials are provided. Early booking is advised.
Delivered in partnership with the Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock.
The V&A’s acquisition of the Royal Photographic Society collection from the Science Museum in 2017 has raised major questions about the place, role and nature of photography in museums, the shape of ‘collections’, the role and status of ‘non-collections’ of photographs, the practices and styles of history of photography, and the assumptions of museology.
The conference explores the dynamics of such themes across analogue and digital media, and considers the sprawling practices and deposits of photography in museums and galleries. It will focus on the mass of photographs in museum holdings that fall outside formal ‘collections of photographs’, and explore the epistemic force and hierarchies of value to which photographs contribute as they remake, reproduce and solidify institutional values. What is ‘collected’ and what is not? What are the shifting boundaries between ‘collections’ and ‘non-collections’? How do ‘collections’ emerge and how are category shifts realised? How are photographs put to work within museums? How do photographs form and cohere institutions and their practices? How are museum meanings made through photography? Finally, what are the interdisciplinary implications of these debates across, for instance, museum studies, history, art history, history of science and anthropology?
With distinguished international speakers, including Dr Geoff Belknap (NSMM), Dr Costanza Caraffa (Kunsthistorisches Institute, Florence) and Dr David Odo (Harvard University Collections) the conference gathers curators, conservators, academics and other specialists to consider the saturating role of photographs in museums, changing practices, and broader implications.
The conference is organised by the V&A Research Institute (VARI) and generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The Institutional Life of Photographs
Victoria and Albert Museum, Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre
December 6-7, 2019
To book see: https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/Vvq9oLvj/the-institutional-lives-of-photographs-dec-2019
David Johnson was a Blackburn based amateur, later professional, photographer who was active in the 1850s and 1860s. Whilst examples of his later studio work survive as carte de visites, I’m interested in establishing whether more examples of his earlier topographical studies have survived the intervening years.
Some of his photographs were exhibited at the 1855 exhibition in Amsterdam. I know from reports in the local press that he obtained an “honorable mention”, but not which prints were exhibited; does anyone know if a catalogue exists?
Eight of his photographs were exhibited at the Photographic Society’s exhibition in London in 1856. Five came from a trip to North Wales, three were taken closer to home.
Some of these Welsh views were also exhibited that May in Manchester. A report of the Manchester Exhibition appeared in the Journal of the Photographic Society, which said that “Some of Johnson’s are first rate specimens, Aberglaslyn Pass and the American Barque, Conway Bay, are perhaps the best; the latter stands really alone as a coast scene.” A salted paper print of his photograph of that ship, the Jane Tudor, survives in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
These Welsh scenes also attracted the attention of Thomas Sutton and we know from advertisements in his Photographic Notes that in 1856 one of Johnson’s photographs was included in issues 2 and 4 of Sutton’s short-lived publication “The Amateur’s Photographic Album”. Again, I would be interested to know if, and where, copies of that publication exist and can be consulted.
I hope that other members of BPH may be able to enlighten me. Many thanks.
Bodleian Library Publishing is publishing a new book Now and Then tying in with an exhibition of the same name. Daniel Meadows is a pioneer of contemporary British documentary practice. His photographs and audio recordings made over forty-five years, capture the life of England's ‘great ordinary’. Challenging the status quo by working collaboratively, he has fashioned from his many encounters a nation’s story both magical and familiar.
His new book covers the full range of his ground-breaking projects, drawing on his archives now held at the Bodleian Library. Fiercely independent, Meadows devised many of his creative processes. He ran a free portrait studio in Manchester’s Moss Side in 1972, and then travelled 10,000 miles making a national portrait from his converted double-decker bus called the Free Photographic Omnibus, a project he revisited a quarter of a century later.
Alongside the portraits of people, Daniel Meadows also portrays the landscape of England, then and now, and the work people did, many now long-forgotten trades such as the engineer for a steam driven cotton mill and the steeplejack.
At the turn of the millennium Meadows adopted new ‘kitchen table’ technologies to make digital stories: ‘multimedia sonnets from the people’, he called them. He sometimes returned to those he had photographed, listening to how things were and how they had changed. Through their unique voices he finds a moving and insightful commentary on life in Britain and how much it has changed since he began his life’s work.
Daniel Meadows’ photographs have been exhibited widely with solo shows at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London (1975), Camerawork Galley (1978), the Photographers’ Gallery (1987) and a touring retrospective from the National Science and Media Museum (2011). Group shows include Tate Britain (2007) and Hayward Gallery Touring (2008).
The exhibition Daniel Meadows: Now & Then celebrates the work of one of Britain’s foremost photographers who worked from the 1970s onward, authentically capturing British life. The exhibition comprises 17 pairs of portraits which depict the same people 25 years apart (1970s – late 1990s), taken as part of Meadows' Free Photographic Omnibus project in the 1970s for which Meadows originally toured the UK in a double-decker bus capturing the lives of ordinary people. The display also features 16 short films about his subjects as well as giant news clippings showing how Meadows reached out via local media to find his subjects. The exhibition marks the recent and important gift of Daniel Meadows’ photographic archive to the Bodleian Libraries. Daniel Meadows: Now & Then, Weston Library, 4 October – 24 November 2019. For more information visit www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whatson
NOW AND THEN: England 1970 - 2015
Daniel Meadows
Publication: 4 October 2019, £25.00
Exhibition: 4 October–24 November 2019 at the Bodleian Libraries.
BPH member Rob Crow is seeking assistance to help identify the members of this group of eight photographers. Seated nearest the camera is Walter Benington (1872-1936) the Pictorialist photographer and leading member of the Linked Ring in its later years. He was a member of the Ring’s “Hanging Committee” from 1907. Margaret Harker (1979: 109) has a photograph of the 1909 Committee so this one may possibly be from earlier.
The print is from a collection of family and miscellaneous portraits from a collection of Benington’s work now in Australia.
Any suggestions warmly welcomed. Please comment below.
A new exhibition and book will mark the important contribution that Tony Ray-Jones (1941–1972) and his legacy, have made to British documentary photography.
The exhibition and book will focus on photographs taken between 1966–1969 as Ray-Jones, driven by curiosity, travelled across the country to document English social customs and what he saw as a disappearing way of life. This small but distinctive body of photographs was part of an evolutionary shift in British photography, placing artistic vision above commercial success. In this short period of time, Ray-Jones managed to establish an individual personal style. He constructed complex images against a uniquely English backdrop, where the spaces between the components of the image were as important as the main subject matter itself.
Ray-Jones’ skills were gleaned from a generation of street photographers he encountered whilst living in New York in the mid-1960s. These photographers included Garry Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz and others associated with the circle of legendary Harpers Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch. Their pictures defined the era as they used the street as a framework. Ray-Jones applied this new way of seeing to his native England and photographed his observations as they had never been seen before.
In 2012, Martin Parr alongside curator Greg Hobson, revisited Ray-Jones' contact sheets from this period and found previously unseen images. These new discoveries will be exhibited and published alongside iconic early images, including vintage prints from the Martin Parr Foundation collection.
RRB Photobooks / Martin Parr Foundation
Publication: 16th October 2019
Hardcover, Red Cloth
30 x 25 cm, 128 pages
Essay by Liz Jobey
Introduction by Martin Parr
Pre-order together with the forthcoming Martin Parr - Early Works for £85
The exhibition opens at the Martin Parr Foundation in October.
See more here.
Registration for the Charles Piazzi Smyth Bicentenary Symposium at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and associated events, is open until 30 August. Smyth (1819-1900), the second Astronomer Royal for Scotland who established Edinburgh's One O'Clock Gun, was a pioneer in meteorology, metrology, photography, mountaintop observation and Egyptology. The symposium will explore his life, work and contested legacy.
There will be two full days of talks by historians of science, Egyptology and photography, astronomers and curators on 3-4 September, including a plenary lecture by Professor Simon Schaffer. On Monday 2 September there is a tour, visits and a screening of the 2016 film “A Residence Above the Clouds”, and on the Tuesday evening a public lecture by Denis Pellerin (London Stereoscopic Company), where the audience will have stereo viewing glasses to enjoy the projected images.
See https://www.piazzismyth.org/piazzi-smyth-symposium/ for an overview and a link to registration for individual events or the full programme. See https://www.piazzismyth.org/symposium-details/ for details of the academic programme and abstracts.
The free History of Astronomy walking tour and visit to the archives of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh can be booked here: https://www.piazzismyth.org/symposium-extras/.
I received recently a purchase from an online auction site. It is in fair condition but has a very non-standard construction. See my photographs. Part of it seemed to be set up almost as Brewster style viewer with opaque screen and pop up mirror.
Any assistance with country of manufacture, date range for manufacturer, and manufacturer much appreciated
thanks
2D3EE1AA-4936-41DD-9983-DD773423EC04.jpegFC7F5A50-EB1D-4528-880C-C7485B2B92F5.jpeg
Thousands of photographs, prints and letters that reveal the private passions and public interests of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert have been published online to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.
The Royal Collection Trust has digitised 17,500 documents for a new website, the majority publicly available for the first time. The website will bring together 10,000 photographs collected and commissioned by Prince Albert; the Raphael Collection, the Prince's study collection of more than 5,000 prints and photographs after the works of Raphael; and official and private papers relating to Prince Albert. They are presented in groups that frequently reflect Albert’s vision for the development and organisation of his collections and papers.
Of particular interest is the photographs collection. Prince Albert played an integral role in the advancement of photography. During a stay in Brighton in 1842, Albert attended the photographic studio of William Constable. The resulting portrait is the earliest surviving photograph of a British royal family member. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were joint patrons of the (later Royal) Photographic Society shortly after its foundation in 1853.
During his lifetime, Prince Albert cultivated a collection of some 10,000 photographs by pioneering nineteenth-century photographers such as Frances Sally Day, Roger Fenton, Oscar Gustav Rejlander, Charles Thurston Thomspon and George Washington Wilson. Together these photographs reflect Prince Albert’s unwavering belief in photography as an art form, and his advocacy of its value as a historical record and a means to share knowledge.
and news report: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/23/prince-albert-passions-digitised-website-photos-200th-anniversary
Image: WILLIAM EDWARD KILBURN (1818-91)
Prince Albert (1819-1861) 1848
Hand-coloured daguerreotype | 8.6 x 6.3 cm (image) (image) | RCIN 2932487
James Furnival sheds some light on the significance of the Jewellery Quarter and the developments of the photographic industry as we know it. Birmingham and the Jewelllery Quarter played a very important role in the development of something that we all take for granted now. Through the evening, James will tell us about the key involvements of the JQ and the wider area of Birmingham and its contribution to the way we use and enjoy photography, at the touch of a button.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
1800-2030, at
J. W. Evans Silver Factory, 54-57 Albion Street, Birmingham, B1 3EA
Admission free.
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/history-of-the-photographic-industry-in-the-jq-tickets-66764774237
Gary Stone will be talking about the photographer James A Brimble, author of London’s Epping Forest and owner of Brimble’s bookshop/newsagent in Chingford from the 1940s-70s. Brimble was a member of the Royal Photographic Society from 1941 and Associate from 1942. The talk takes place at Chingford Historical Society, on 19 September, in Chingford, London, from 1930.
See: http://chingfordhistory.org.uk/16226.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*
The Trustees are seeking to appoint a new Chief Executive to lead the Royal Photographic Society (RPS). This prestigious Society, established in 1853, exists to educate members of the public by increasing their knowledge, understanding and appreciation of photography and in doing so to promote the highest standards of accomplishment in this art form.
This is an exciting opportunity to join the RPS and to help take the organisation forward to the next stage of its strategic development. Together with a supportive Board and an ambitious staff team, you will help the Society to become an ever more efficient and impactful organisation for its beneficiaries.
We are seeking an inspirational senior leader who will share the vision and principles of the Society. You will provide robust leadership to the RPS and support its ambitions for growth, development, collaboration and innovation.
You will have demonstrable senior management experience and a clear track record of driving organisations forward from existing positions of strength. Significant experience of transformational leadership and change management from within the visual arts, photography or charitable sectors would be advantageous.
Details here: https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6955654/chief-executive/
