Blogs

Might anyone know about gigantic wet plate negatives 5 by 8 feet held in Fort St Cyr, France possibly of the new Paris Opera of 1875  or   a  4 by 6.5 feet set in  Berlin?

Gael

The College of Psychic Studies invites you to come and experience a unique and exciting encounter with the spirit world in the form of an exhibition spanning 150 years of mediumistic art, spirit photographs and artefacts from the College archives.

Six floors of the CPS Victorian townhouse in South Kensington will showcase over 300 spirit photographs, writing slates, spirit trumpets, planchettes and crystal balls. Expect to see the President's office used by former College President Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, still in use today and the rooms where psychic detective Harry Price built his laboratory.

Breathe in the atmosphere as you enjoy an unparalleled collection of mediumistic art. Highlights include the recently discovered drawings by Alice Pery (1833-1906), the visionary paintings by Ethel Le Rossignol (1873-1970) and an opportunity to see new acquisitions by contemporary artists invited by the College to exhibit works for sale during the exhibition.

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the summer show at the Courtauld Gallery featuring the extraordinary spirit drawings of Georgiana Houghton (1814-84). Georgiana was a founder member of the College and an album of her watercolours from our archives has been loaned to the Courtauld Gallery and forms an important part of their show.

The world of spirit awaits your arrival.

Encounters with the Spirit World
14-20th August 2016, from 12 noon-5pm
16 Queensberry Place, South Kensington, London, SW7 2EB

Free Admission

The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow featured an English Pattern wooden cine camera believed to have been owned by Cherry Kearton. Expert Hilary Kay identified the camera as being made by the Williamson Kinematograph Co Ltd but this was based on the star trade mark that was on the lower film magazine. The upper magazine was different to the lower one. The camera had large hinges that I would not associate with a Williamson product. I wonder if any member of this forum can offer an expert opinion.

The show was available on the BBC I Player at the time of this posting.Antiques Roadshow starts at 15m 30s.

BPH also reported on a Kearton camera purchased by the National Media Museum. See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/national-media-museum-acquires-wildlife-pioneers-movie-camera

Quaritch will be exhibiting a number of important examples British photography in Room C6 at PhotoLondon which runs from 19-22 May 2016 at London's Somerset House. This year Quaritch's exhibition will highlight the richness of the contribution of early Scottish photographers through the work of D. O. Hill & Robert Adamson, Thomas and James Craig Annan and James Anderson. Its selection by Hill & Adamson focuses on one of their favourite sitters – the art historian, Elisabeth Rigby, later Lady Eastlake, who published one of the first essays on the relationship between art and photography.

Quaritch is also showing a unique early daguerreotype view of London, photographs by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Julia Margaret Cameron, and George Davison among others.  British photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries include Bill Brandt, Roger Mayne, Tony Ray-Jones, Martin Parr and Mike Seaborne.

Find out more about PhotoLondon here: http://photolondon.org/

Quaritch can be found here: http://www.quaritch.com/departments/photography/

Images: 

Top: THOMAS ANNAN (1829–87), Close, No. 65 High Street, Glasgow, 1868–1871, printed circa 1876-77. Carbon print, 10⅞ x 8¾ (27.5 x 22 cm.), numbered ‘13’ with printed title on the mount. 

Left:  C. L. DODGSON i.e. LEWIS CARROLL (1832–1898). Alice and Ivo Bligh, Lambeth Palace, 7th July 1864. Albumen print from a wet collodion negative, trimmed to oval approximately 7⅞ x 6 inches (20 x 15.1 cm.), mounted on card, titled ‘Alice and Ivo Bligh’ on mount with border and bow in ink, annotated ‘6th earl of Darnley’s children’ in pencil. 

Greetings…In late 2013 I posted on BPH that I was researching the 1867 portrait photograph of Montauk (USA) Indian Stephen Talkhouse Pharoah that is in the 1869 Shindler Catalogue at the Smithsonian. The British connection was that it was William Henry Blackmore who funded Shindler to do the copying and that I thought perhaps the original prints or glass plates may somehow wound up in England at his Salisbury museum. It seems that they didn’t.

However, three original prints were found in the U.S., the photographer and studio location identified, and a possible scenario how the photograph got to Washington, DC from Sag Harbor, NY to be copied. All the research notes “Looking for Mr.Talkhouse” can be downloaded for free until June 1,2016 at www.tookerphotocollection.com on the DOWNLOAD page.

This is an intriguing American story that begins in 1803 with President Thomas Jefferson, British scientist James Smithson (Smithsonian),William Henry Blackmore, Smithsonian Superintendent Joseph Henry, Samuel Morse, Judge Henry P. Hedges and others. The reader will be fascinated by the intermingling of relationships, personalities, and happenstances that shaped the early years of photography in America.

I would like to thank and acknowledge three BPH members for their assistance in the research. Paula Fleming Richardson(Native American Photography at the Smithsonian,The Shindler Catalogue) who generously provided insights from her research on the Shindler Catalogue and guiding commentary as the research progressed. Anthony Hamber for his book Collecting the American West, The Rise and Fall of William Blackmore and, author and collector Neil McDonald who identified the original print which was in an unmarked folder at the New York Public Library.

Many appreciations.

Kevin J. McCann

As histories of photography are increasingly taking into account photographic practices beyond the Western canon, it remains unclear which methodological tools scholars should take on that journey.

Categories and concepts such as colonial photography (including ‘the colonial gaze’) and cultural difference are under critique because they have proven inapplicable in many cases. As a result, the lines between insider/outsider and local/colonizer in imperial and other contexts are increasingly blurred. Established concepts such as authorship are also in flux as power relations of photographic commission and patronage prove to be complex in some less-explored places.

Furthermore, previously canonical models in photo theory seem incompatible with hitherto unknown locally-specific sources that enter the story, for example in the myriad ways photography was perceived in relation to reality. Finally, critical awareness of the self-perpetuating dynamics of archives from former colonial legacies that scholars are using complicates the story further. Just as problematic is the uncontrollable digital realm in which photographs are perceived and circulated globally.

This study day will allow anthropologists, (art) historians, and artists to present and debate case studies from across the globe that will serve as platforms for exploring possible avenues for future research. The regions and countries that will be considered by speakers and invited discussants include the Middle East, Central America, Japan, Egypt, India, China and Uganda, although other places and traditions will also be brought into the conversation.

Image: Photographs being hand-coloured in T. Enami’s studio in Yokohama, c. 1895-97.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 8 PAPERS: ITINERARIES FOR A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY BEYOND THE WESTERN CANON

Study Day sponsored by The Photography Seminar
(Centre for Visual Studies, Dept. of History of Art, and Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

Hosted by the Bodleian Libraries’ Centre for the Study of the Book, Weston Library, Visiting Scholars Centre (2nd floor), Broad Street, Oxford

PROGRAMME

Chair (morning sessions): Mirjam Brusius (Dept. of History of Art/Bodleian Libraries)

11am-12pm: COLONIAL ARCHIVES: SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE AND SYSTEMS OF CONTROL

Christina Riggs (University of East Anglia)
This is how we’ve always done it: Photography, Archaeology, and the Colonial Archive

Duncan Shields (De Montfort University)
Colonialism and Photography as Archaeological Conservator in Central America

12pm-1pm: THE EFFECTIVE IMAGE: THE SUBJECT AND THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Lucie Ryzova (Birmingham University)
Camera Time: Reflections of Photography and Cultural Difference in Egyptian Studio Photography

Emilia Terracciano (Ruskin School of Art, Oxford)
(A)civil contract? Famine photography in Colonial India (1890-1943)

1pm-2pm: LUNCH BREAK

Chair (afternoon sessions): Geraldine Johnson (Dept. of History of Art)

2pm-3pm: MARKETS: TECHNOLOGIES AND THE POLITICS OF DISSEMINATION

Luke Gartlan (St Andrews University)
Negating Desire: Circumscriptions of Yokohama Photography

Richard Vokes (University of Adelaide)
Administrative Photography, Futurism, and the Politics of Affect in Late-Colonial Uganda

3pm-4pm: ELUSIVE IMAGES: LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE GLOBAL NETWORK

Oraib Toukan (Ruskin School of Art, Oxford)
When is the Present Concerned? Depicting and Disseminating the ‘Cruel Image’ in the Middle East

Ros Holmes (Christ Church, Oxford)
Is that Leg Loaded? Ai Weiwei, Instagram and the Politics of Networked Images in China

4pm-5pm: COMMENTARY AND FINAL ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION (tea/coffee provided)

Commentary: Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University)

Discussants: Craig Clunas, Anthony Gardner, Hanneke Grootenboer, Chris Morton, Richard Ovenden, Anita Paz, David Zeitlyn

Space for audience members is limited. Registration details will be published in early April on:

http://www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/events.html Contact for other enquries: mirjam.brusius@history.ox.ac.uk

On the occasion of Professor Elizabeth Edwards’ retirement, the 2016 PHRC Annual International Conference will address themes from her complex and wide ranging scholarship on the cultural work of current and historical social photographic practices. Thus, Photography: Between Anthropology and History aims to showcase scholarship driven by engagements with research methodologies that informed the material and ethnographic turns in the study of photographic history, and opened up a variety of innovative critical spaces for the re/consideration of photography and its history. Papers will consider questions related to:

• Photography in historical studies
• Photography and geography
• Photographic collections
• Photographic ethnographies
• Photography and material culture
• Historiography of the social history of photography
• Photographic practice and social as well as technical change

The provisional conference programme is now available here. 

A year ago, in Spring 2015, we launched www.britishphotography.org to showcase our private collection of British photographs and to use the collection as an educational resource. Since then we have acquired several hundred additional photographs by, among others, Ian Berry, John Blakemore, Jane Bown, Bill Brandt, Mat Collishaw, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Fay Godwin, Bert Hardy, Paul Hill, Susan Hiller, Colin Jones, Dafydd Jones, Chris Killip, Neil Libbert, Daniel Meadows, Paul Nash, Edwin Smith, Jo Spence and Homer Sykes.

We have also continued the process of making the collection available on line by adding a significant number of new works to the website.

Where possible we continue to acquire substantial bodies of work and we are delighted to have recently made one of our most significant acquisitions: the entire Daniel Meadows touring exhibition, Daniel Meadows. Early Photographic Works, consisting of over one hundred and thirty works, including framed photographs, screen projections and digital films. This acquisition follows other substantial purchases that include an important group of conceptual self-portraits by Susan Hiller; the entire Anna Fox touring exhibition, Cockroach Diaries and Other Stories; over four hundred photographs and contact prints by Jo Spence and Terry Dennett; and fifty vintage prints of Dafydd Jones's era defining photographs of high-society in the 1980s.

We also commissioned a major new series of photographs by Andrew Bruce and Anna Fox entitled Spitting, a response to the original Spitting Image puppets of Margaret Thatcher and her government ministers that are in our collection.

Sadly, in the year since we launched the website the climate for photography in Britain has worsened: Birmingham Library has closed the inspiring photography department run by Pete James and his colleagues; The National Media Museum in Bradford has announced the end of its commitment to photography; the fate of the Media Space at the Science Museum is uncertain; and Tate Britain remains without a curator of British Photography.

However, we continue to do what we can: acquiring photographs, commisioning work, giving lectures, participating in panel discussions, building the website, and loaning pictures to exhibitions worldwide. We are also in discussions to tour the collection internationally and look forward to announcing other new initiatives in the coming months.

In addition to www.britishphotography.org we can also be followed on twitter and Instagram.

Claire and James Hyman

An extremely rare and important album of photographs by the celebrated early Victorian photographer, Oscar Gustav Rejlander, most of which have never been exhibited before, has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, it was announced today, Monday, 9 May 2016. BPH reported on the original auction sale and export ban here.

The album was acquired in November 2015 following receipt of a grant from the Art Fund after a temporary Export Bar was placed on it in March 2015. This prevented the album from leaving the UK after it was sold to an overseas buyer last year.

The scarcity and remarkable condition of the album, which was sold by a Yorkshire auction house after lying undiscovered in a family collection for more than 140 years, make it one of the most significant 19th century British photographic objects to have come to light in recent decades.

Rejlander is best known for his pionering work combining multiple negatives in the darkroom to create new, articifial compostions. He was also a portraitist of extraordinary skill who influenced famous photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron and Lewis Carroll and who also collaborated with Charles Darwin and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The National Portrait Gallery album is one of a small set of private albums Rejlander put together to showcase his portrait work.

Previously unseen photographs include several self-portraits, comprising one of Rejlander himself, taken in the 1850s, as well as a previously unknown portrait of Rejlander and his wife Mary Bull (a frequent collaborator and model for her husband).

Rejlander photographed numerous illustrious sitters during his career, several of which feature in the album. They include the poet and dramatist Sir Henry Taylor and the Hon. Lionel Tennyson, grandson of the Poet Laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson. The album also features a small number of well-known genre photographs, including ‘Trying to Catch a Fly’, ‘The Infant Photography Gives Painting a New Brush’ and ‘Head of St John the Baptist in a Charger’.

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London says: “We are delighted to welcome this album into the Gallery’s Collection, not least because it will provide access to important examples of portraiture from the history of photography. We also hope it will enable visitors to engage with Victorian photography in a new way and make comparisons with later developments.”

Dr Phillip Prodger, Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London, says: “The Rejlander album becomes one of the jewels in the crown of our already impressive collection of 19th century photographs. It transforms the way we think about one of Britain’s great artists. And it contains some of the most beautiful and expressive portraits of the Victorian era.”

Stephen Deuchar, Art Fund director, says, “This is an excellent addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s 19th-century collections and displays and we’re delighted to have helped make the acquisition happen.”

The Rejlander album will be on display in the Gallery in October 2016.

Background

Oscar Gustav Rejlander is believed to have been born in Sweden and studied art in Rome, working there as both a photographer and as a portrait painter and copyist of old master paintings. He established a photographic studio in Wolverhampton around 1846, moving to London in 1862 where he would work for the rest of his career.

The precise dates at which Rejlander began to exhibit his photographs is unclear, however it was no later than 1855, since he won a bronze medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition that same year. From that time until his death in 1875, his work was regularly exhibited and reviewed in the photographic and periodical press, earning him a reputation as one of Britain’s leading photographers. The range of his work includes portraits, landscapes, nude and anatomical studies and genre subjects.

The National Portrait Gallery holds 15 photographs by Rejlander. Nearly all are small carte-de-viste-albumen prints.

Funding package for the album - total cost £74,651.This is made up of: 

• £26,862 grant from the Art Fund
• £35,153 from the Gallery’s own resources (Grant in Aid)
• £12,600 from individual Gallery supporters

Ben Uri is delighted to announce its first exhibition to bring together three major twentieth century photographers - Wolfgang Suschitzky, Dorothy Bohm and Neil Libbert - presenting their artistic responses to three great world cities across three crucial decades.

Today, London, Paris and New York are so familiar that it is hard for a modern viewer to imagine them afresh without the visual expectations fostered by art, film and advertising in the digital age. Yet when each of these photographers arrived at their respective destinations, they found cities that were strange and new to them and responded by photographing them without prejudice or expectation.

The photographs reveal that all three cities were not only places of social division and political tension, but also of beauty and magic. The exhibition includes many works never previously exhibited in the UK, and each series presents an opportunity to view an aspect of the work of a renowned photographer in real depth.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. This will include interviews with each of the artists by Prof Michael Berkowitz (Professor of Jewish Studies, University College, London); Zelda Cheatle (photography lecturer, curator and writer) and Dr Jessica Feather (Allen Fellow, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art).

London, Paris, New York, 1930s-60s:
Photographs by Wolfgang Suschitzky, Dorothy Bohm and Neil Libbert
20 May–27 August 2016

Ben Uri Gallery & Museum | 020 7604 3991 | www.benuri.org
Ben Uri, 108A Boundary Road, off Abbey Rd, London NW8 0RH

Image: © Wolfgang Suschitzky, Charing Cross Road, London, 1936

The Scottish Society for the History of Photography has been active since 1983 and has organised the annual Annan Lecture series since 2006. Its next lecture takes place on 26 May in Glasgow and will be given by Dr Roberta McGrath who will consider the importance of other histories - and theories - and what it means to look at a photograph. 

Dr. McGrath is a leading authority on feminist visual representation and the way in which images are viewed and consumed. She attended Glasgow School of Art, and received her PhD from the University of Middlesex. She subsequently taught photographic theory and criticism in the University of Westminster and Edinburgh Napier University.

Join SSHoP today to gain free entry to this event!  Ticket price for non-members: £5 

Tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-wide-margins-of-photographic-history-annan-lecture-roberta-mcgrath-tickets-25018931297?aff=es2

Dr Mike Ware is to be awarded the prestigious 2016 Allied Professionals Special Recognition Award at the annual meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Art and Historic Works (AIC) in Montreal, Canada. 

Ware has been a dedicated and prolific contributor to the science and practice of photography for over 30 years. Educated at Oxford University as a chemist, his academic career was followed by one that revolutionized the collective scientific knowledge of historic photographic processes. He has demonstrated his commitment to the conservation of photographic heritage with more than 60 publications in both the popular and academic literature, including four books. His work has transformed the treatment, storage, and exhibition practices for early silver and cyanotype prints, allowing conservators to set best practices for the preservation of these materials based on scientific principles.

His recent research into of the technical history and chemistry of platinum and palladium prints, soon to be published by the Photographic Materials Group of American Institute for Conservation of Art and Historic Works, provides a scientific foundation for the printing and preservation of this important class of photographs. Mike’s contributions are numerous: he engages in research, teaching, photography, lecturing, and publishing that bring his invaluable contributions to a global audience. But the two qualities that stand out are his incredible generosity of spirit and his impeccable standards of practice. Always accessible and enthusiastic, his love of photography and photographs is contagious.

This award expresses the AIC's deep and sustained gratitude for Mike’s many contributions.

Mike Ware's website can be found here.

The AIC can be found here.

Professor Steve Edwards will be taking up a new post from 1 September as Professor of History & Theory of Photography at Birkbeck, University of London. The job was noted on BPH in December here. Edwards is currently Professor of Art History-Materialism at the Open University.

His OU profile and publications list can be seen here and his recent publications include:  'Beard Patentee: Daguerrotype Property and Authorship', Oxford Art Journal, 36(3) (pp. 369-394); The Making of English Photography, Allegories (Pennsylvania University Press, 2006); Photography: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006); and his book Daguerreotypes: Patents/Portraits/Persons is forthcoming. 

Edwards is the keynote speaker at the PHRC conference Photography: Between Anthropology and History (Leicester, 20-21 June 2016).

Image: Open University

Driven to make a difference & looking for opportunities to lead? At the National Media Museum, we are looking for a creative and driven Partnerships and Learning Projects Manager, to take the lead in developing significant new external partnerships, enabling us to reach new and underserved audiences and collaborate with a wide range of relevant community organisations. This role is at the heart of the Learning Department and the Museum’s vision to engage with local audiences through STEM projects, events and programmes.

You will be involved in the whole lifecycle of projects, from initial conception and engagement with partners /community groups, to managing the delivery of learning experiences reaching new audiences.

You will have experience of successfully engaging with a range of partners, community organisations, sponsors and external funders and have demonstrated your ability to motivate, inspire and lead others in a creative learning environment. You will be used to communicating effectively at all levels and building strong partnerships with key stakeholders.

Fixed term Contract for 3 Years

Closing Date: 22nd May 2016

Interview Date: 6th and 8th June 2016

See more here and apply

With particular focus on photographers of the First World War, such as Olive Edis and Christina Broom, this panel discussion will consider women as photographers and subjects in portrait photography, and the effects of social and technological changes on this photographic medium over the last 100 years. Speakers include photographer Alison Baskerville and curator Brigitte Lardinois.

This debate explores the themes of the Women Create Change photography exhibition.

Oxford Playhouse, 18 June 2016

See: http://www.artsfestivaloxford.org/whats-on/debates-and-discussions/photographic-portraiture

The William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonne project requires a Research Project Assistant to assist the project director, Professor Larry J Schaaf, in bringing together the collection of this revolutionary inventor and photographer’s work.

Talbot was one of the earliest pioneers of photography in the 19th Century, and invented the technique of printing photographs onto paper. Professor Schaaf has spent the last 40 years creating a detailed database of Talbot’s more than 4000 unique images, and tens of thousands of prints. The Catalogue Raisonne project aims to bring this database together with images donated from institutions and collectors around the world to create a comprehensive online catalogue accessible by researchers and members of the public alike.

Working in conjunction with colleagues in Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services (BDLSS), you will support Professor Schaaf in reviewing, editing and rewriting database records into a standard format, contact public and private collections with regards to image rights and perform research tasks to improve the quality of database records. You will also be the contact point for the project office in the UK, stand in for Professor Schaaf in project meetings or communications, set up and maintain physical file structures and monitor the progress of the project keeping Professor Schaaf updated.

You will have familiarity and interest in the early history of photography, knowledge of 19th Century history and photographic technology as well as experience of dealing with photographic curators, managers of image rights and private owners of originals. Able to use Microsoft Office software with experience of using a database, you will also be self-motivated, possess excellent organisational and communication skills and have the ability to organise own workload.

This is a full-time post on a fixed-term contract for 12 months.

This post is part of a pilot scheme testing a new Supporting Evidence form in place of the more usual ‘supporting statement’. Please ensure that you carefully read the How to Apply section provided in the Job Description, which you can download below along with the required Supporting Evidence form. CVs will not form part of the selection process.

Only applications received online before 12.00 midday on Wednesday 11 May 2016 can be considered. Interviews are expected to take place on Monday 23 May 2016.

Full details here

A compelling, visually striking 3-D exploration of one of fashion’s most disastrous yet most celebrated garments, the Crinoline, featuring contributions from Vivienne Westwood and Zandra Rhodes – has been published to coincide with the V&A’s highly anticipated exhibition, Undressed: 350 Years of Underwear.

Crinoline: Fashion’s Most Magnificent Disaster, by Brian May & Denis Pellerin, is published in hardback (with a slipcase and 3-D front cover, accompanied by Brian May’s patent 3-D viewer, the Owl) at £50, and available to buy from all good bookstores and online at: www.londonstereo.com.

“A very special and wonderful book with enlightened research unveiling fascinating facts such as crinolines being considered an extremely dangerous form of clothing at one time. Great examples of 3-D pictures totally in keeping with its historical importance, complete with 3-D viewer.” Dame Zandra Rhodes

“Crinolines and Stereoscopic photographs were twin sensations of the mid 19th century. We, the authors of this book, decided it was fitting that they should be reunited in the 21st century, and their intimate association recognised at last. This book explores the history of crinoline ‘in depth’. It’s also an attempt to fathom the unique appeal of this dangerous fashion, which, surprisingly, is alive and well in the present day, and its place in popular culture.” Brian May & Denis Pellerin

The voluminous crinoline underskirt was immensely popular between the years of 1856 to 1867, but was by its very nature severely impractical: a strong gust of wind would blow the dress up exposing the woman’s legs and undergarments; worse still, the crinolines were cumbersome, caused accidents and proved to be a serious fire hazard. As the shapes of crinoline garments grew more and more extreme, artists were inspired to capture the absurdities and misfortunes of the wearers through stereo photos, as well as in cartoons and drawings. Just as Crinoline came into fashion, the stereoscope – the equivalent of TV and Film for the Victorians – became a huge craze. Stereo photographers capitalized on the ridiculous spectacle of the women in crinolines, giving impoverished Victorian husbands some consolation in laughter. Although the hoops and inflatable frames disappeared, this wonderful humorous imagery produced during the Crinoline decade has lasted intact over the centuries – and is rediscovered in this book.

The London Stereoscopic company, reborn in the 21st Century, explores 'fashion’s most magnificent disaster' in the form of a delightful, lavish coffee table book, containing high quality reproductions of the original stereo images from the period. Brian May and Denis Pellerin have spent decades collecting and digitally restoring the stereo cards that are published here. Viewing the result through the supplied OWL stereoscope, readers will thrill to the magical three-dimensional realism of these scenes, just as the Victorians did.

Crinoline – the book – begins with the emergence of the steel petticoat and the initial onset of the 'Crinoline Age', and then takes the reader on a fascinating visual journey, including a wealth of colourful 3-D imagery, to the historical moment when women began to protest against the 'cage' and it was eventually phased out. However, contemporary designers such as the late Alexander McQueen, Zandra Rhodes and Vivienne Westwood have reintroduced the crinoline to the catwalk, bringing the dramatic garment of the 19th century all the way into the 21st century with a modern twist.

Dame Vivienne Westwood says: "The crinoline idea had been with me for quite some time before I developed it into a collection. I wanted to save experimenting with the crinoline for a rainy day, so to speak…. The first time I ever saw a crinoline was in the ballet Petruschka and I was immediately drawn to it. The mini crinoline encourages you to walk with a certain swing and it swiggles, which I also like.”

The Photographers’ Gallery, in partnership with global technology company Ricoh, presents a major UK retrospective of acclaimed British photographer, Terence Donovan (1936-1996). 

Terence Donovan was one of the foremost photographers of his generation, with a career spanning almost 40 years. He came to prominence in London as part of a post-war renaissance in the creative industries, representing a new force in fashion and, later, advertising and portrait photography. He operated at the heart of London’s swinging sixties, both as participant in and observer of the world he so brilliantly and incisively captured with his camera. Gifted with an unerring eye for the iconic as well as the transformative, Donovan was a master of his craft, a technical genius who pushed the limits of what was possible with a camera.

Presented over two floors, Speed of Light reflects the breadth of Donovan’s career and the originality of his work across different genres and mediums. Incorporating a compelling mix of vintage material and previously unpublished works, the exhibition will also include the ground-breaking films and videos he produced for musicians such as Robert Palmer and Malcolm McLaren. Guest curator Robin Muir with the assistance of Alex Anthony of the Terence Donovan Archive, have conceived an immersive installation that offers insight into the little-seen processes behind Donovan’s work.  This will include ephemera comprising early magazine spreads from Man About Town (later Town), contact sheets, cameras used by Donovan, studio notes and previously unseen sketches and diaries.

Speed of Light was an expression Donovan used frequently and democratically, for those who knew and worked with him the words became indelibly linked to the man himself.  It was a phrase deployed to energise and provoke; a figure of speech suggestive of transformation and progression. As a title for the exhibition, Speed of Light encompasses the myriad and dynamic facets of the man, the work, and the pace of the changes he oversaw and instigated.

Born in East London, Donovan was part of a working class influx into the previously rarefied worlds of fashion, media and the arts, Donovan’s iconoclastic and sometimes irreverent photography established a new visual language rooted in the world he knew best – the streets of London’s East End. Taking his models to bomb-ravaged wastegrounds or balancing them off industrial building sites, his gritty and noir-ish style resembled reportage rather than fashion photography. Donovan’s passion for photography remained undiminished throughout his long career, remarking to a young Jean Shrimpton in 1963: Photography fascinates me. Instant fascination every time. When the fascination leaves me, I’ll give it up.

Javier Diez-Aguirre, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Ricoh Europe, said: 
Ricoh is extremely proud to be working in partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery to celebrate the ground-breaking work of Terence Donovan through this major retrospective. As a global technology leader with a rich history in innovation, we pride ourselves on our use of imaginative thinking to drive positive change for the world we live and work in. Our involvement in this exhibition reflects a core belief in harnessing creativity and forms an integral part of our Ricoh imagine. change. Challenge programme, in which we challenge our employees and others to tap into their imaginative potential to inspire and drive change.
 
As part of the exhibition experience, Ricoh have enabled a dedicated space for audiences to explore some of the techniques and styles employed by Donovan and use them as a springboard for creating their own images.  The Ricoh imagine. change. studio offers visitors access to the latest Ricoh imaging equipment and will present a series of activities to encourage experimentation with fashion and portraiture and provide platforms for sharing and comment.

Image: Terence Donovan Terence Stamp, British Vogue, July 1967. Photographed on the set of John Schlesinger’s Far From the Madding Crowd. © The CondéNast Publications Ltd Courtesy of the Terence Donovan Archive