It was a flying visit to Sydney to see the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The trip was so very worthwhile, for I had never seen JMC's large contact photographs "in the flesh" before, let alone over 100 vintage prints from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. They did not disappoint. This exhibition is one of the photographic highlights of the year.

When you think about it, here is one the world's top ten photographers of all time - a woman, taking photographs within the first twenty five years of the birth of commercial photography, using rudimentary technology and chemicals - whose photographs are still up there with the greatest ever taken. Still recognisable as her own and no one else's after all these years. That is a staggering achievement - and tells you something about the talent, tenacity and perspicacity of the women... that she possessed and illuminated such a penetrating discernment - a clarity of vision and intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight into the human condition...

The road to spirituality is the road less travelled. It is full of uncertainty and confusion, but only through exploring this enigma can we begin to approach some type of inner reality. Julia Margaret Cameron, in her experiments, in her dogged perseverance, was on a spiritual journey of self discovery. In Philip Roth's Exit Ghost, he suggests Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs as the ideal music for a scene his character has written:

"Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks and, at the age of eighty-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve."

These words are an appropriate epithet for the effect of the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron in this year 2015, the 200th anniversary of her birth.

Dr Marcus Bunyan for Art Blart

Word count: 1,336

Read the full text here: http://wp.me/pn2J2-7lg

Julia Margaret Cameron
Sappho
1865
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Given by Alan S. Cole, 19 April 1913
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In late 1865 Julia Margaret Cameron began using a larger camera, which held a 15 x 12-inch glass negative. Early the next year she wrote to Henry Cole with great enthusiasm – but little modesty – about the new turn she had taken in her work. Cameron initiated a series of large-scale, close-up heads. These fulfilled her photographic vision, a rejection of ‘mere conventional topographic photography – map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form’ in favour of a less precise but more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture.

This striking version of Sappho is in keeping with Cameron’s growing confidence as an artist. Mary Hillier’s classical features stand out clearly in profile while her dark hair merges with the background. The decorative blouse balances the simplicity of the upper half of the picture. Cameron was clearly pleased with the image since she printed multiple copies, despite having cracked the negative.

In our contemporary image-saturated, comprehensively mediated way of life it is difficult for us to understand how "sensational" photography would have been in the Victorian era. Imagine never having seen a photograph of a landscape, city or person before. To then be suddenly presented with a image written in light, fixed before the eye of the beholder, would have been a profoundly magical experience for the viewer. Here was a new, progressive reality imaged for all to see. The society of the spectacle as photograph had arrived.

Here was the expansion of scopophilic society, our desire to derive pleasure from looking. That fetishistic desire can never be completely fulfilled, so we have to keep looking again and again, constantly reinforcing the ocular gratification of images. Photographs became shrines to memory. They also became shrines to the memory of desire itself.

Dr Marcus Bunyan for Art Blart

See the full posting here: http://wp.me/pn2J2-7oK

Photography - A Victorian Sensation shows at the National Museum of Scotland until 22 November. 

Ross and Thomson of Edinburgh
Unknown little girl sitting on a striped cushion holding a framed portrait of a man, possibly her dead father
1847-60
Ninth-plate daguerreotype
© Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland

Learn the photographic art of bromoil printing from negative to finished print, and leave with a finished bromoil, plus transfer demonstration. Arranged by The Bromoil Circle of Great Briatin. Places are limited to 15. 

The cost is £50 including tea and coffee.

See more at: http://www.rps.org/events/2016/march/05/bromoil-and-bromoil-transfer-workshop

Nuno Pinheiro writes...Thank you for the warm reception on the idea of creating a Network for European History of Photography. I believe this is a project which will help us all.

I hope in the future to have better web housing and better designed site, however the most important is to have a place to share information, to get connected to each other, to have discussions, to present our work, to search for connections. Now we have such a place: A blog, a Facebook page and an e-mail. Their usefulness will be on what we put on there. On the news, on the exhibitions, conferences, call for papers, links, resources, photographs we can place on these media.

Now it is the time for you to have the word. Feel free to post all the information related to European History of Photography in our blog (it will need administrators approval) or in our facebook page (no approval needed, but administration will remove posts unrelated to History of Photography).

This is a place to present texts, individuals, groups and organizations, conferences, talks, books and journals, call for papers or for help, museums, exhibitions, discussions, resources … so, feel free to do it.

Our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1475358842794976/?fref=ts

Our e-mail address: histphoten@gmail.com

our blog: https://histphoten.wordpress.com/

Only a week till the London Photograph Fair which is next Sunday, 8 November, at the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury. There will be a lot of exhibitors selling vintage photographs and albums. I will be displaying about 35 of my Grandfather S.D.Jouhar's original black and white prints dating from approx. 1940 to 1960.  You can see some examples at http://www.sdjouhar.com

Details of the Fair can be found at http://www.photofair.co.uk

Please come and say Hello if you attend the fair !!

Sotheby's next auction of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History, will take place in London on 17 November 2015. Viewing will be 12, 13, 15 and 16 November or other times by appointment. The auction includes photographs of Spain, Polar Exploration, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Burma, China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Penang, and Thailand.

Click HERE for e-catalogue

The image shown here is from Korea. 

To mark the centenary of the 1916 Rising, The Photographers' Gallery, London, presents The Easter Rising 1916, an exhibition drawn from Sean Sexton's photographic collection and curated by Luke Dodd.

This exhibition investigates the significant role played by photography in informing the national consciousness that led to Irish independence, using the 1916 rebellion as a central focal point. It features approximately eighty rarely seen photographs and ephemera including souvenir postcards, albums, stereoscopic views, press and military photographs.

The exhibition encompasses a broad range of photographic documents of key events during the transformative years between 1840s–1930s. These include portraits of executed leaders, scrapbooks, collages and images of rebellion sites collected as memorabilia. Issues of authenticity and manipulation are explored in images of evictions and military drills - possibly staged for the camera. The contribution of women as active participants in the Rising is also addressed as well as that of women who practiced photography early in its development.

These photographic documents were utilised both by those fighting for and against autonomy from Westminster. For Nationalists eviction images in particular provided tangible evidence of British oppression while pictures of Ireland’s precolonial archaeological monuments and contemporary rural life bolstered nationalist sentiments.

Conversely British authorities and the Unionists in Northern Ireland circulated images of the Ulster Volunteer Force and loyal Irish recruits fighting on the front lines of WWI. These images were used to quash rumours of German support for Irish independence and to pave the way for the potential introduction of conscription.

Due to the complicated, costly and cumbersome nature of photography, when the rebellion finally broke out on 24 April 1916, the action itself was largely undocumented. Most of the surviving images were taken in the immediate aftermath and nearly all concentrate on the hostilities in and around the General Post Office on O’Connell St (then Sackville St). These stark scenes depict a bombed-out shell of Dublin, routinely referred to pre-rebellion as ‘the second capital of the Empire’.

Following six days of fierce clashes in which hundreds were killed and injured, the largely outnumbered rebel militias surrendered. Martial law was imposed across Ireland and leaders of the uprising were summarily executed. Before long their portraits, alongside photos of the site of execution in the prison yard at Kilmainham Jail, became widely available and informed a fresh groundswell support for the Republican movement.

Subsequently, and in the brief lead up to the Civil War, photography played an extraordinarily powerful role in establishing archetypes such as the hunger-striker, rebel, martyr, traitor, and spy while also elaborating on the Nationalists’ narratives which informed the new Irish Free State.

The Easter Rising 1916: Sean Sexton Collection

22 January-3 April 2016
The Photographers' Gallery, London

thephotographersgallery.org.uk

Sean Sexton Collection

Sean Sexton immigrated to London from County Clare in 1963. Since then, he has amassed approximately 20,000 early Irish photographs, the most significant collection of such material outside the National Library of Ireland. There have been numerous exhibitions and publications based on the collection including Ireland: ‘Ireland: Photographs 1840- 1930’ (1994) and ‘The Irish: A Photohistory 1840-1940 (2002).

Birkbeck's History and Theory of Photography Research Centre has announced a series of new events and seminars which are open to all. They are free and take place at 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD.

Collecting Our Past: Photographs, History and the Free Public Library 1890-1914

Thursday 19 November 6-7:30
Room B04 (Basement Lecture Theater)
Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University)

From the late C19th until the digital revolution collecting photographs of local historical interest was a major function of local collections in English free public libraries. This paper considers the confluence between the emergence of these local studies libraries, amateur photographic survey, and the adoption of open access public libraries in the UK. It argues that it is no coincidence that these three strands are interconnected because all are concerned with the expansion and democratisation of both the production and consumption of local historical knowledge. Such movements have a long history, back to the amateur antiquarians of the 17th and 18th centuries, but they were transformed through the commitment to mass education, as an increasingly large section of the population had to produced as citizens within a democratic society. Access to a sense of the historical past was part of this. I shall explore the role of photographs in the development of the concept of 'local history' for all in public libraries and how the intellectual and material practices of the library ‘performed’ this sense of history for all through the collecting of photographs.

(Some) Women Photographers 1839-1919

Friday 27 November 6-7:30
Room 112
Thomas Galifot (Musèe d’Orsay)

Dates in 2016:

Julia Margaret Cameron: New Discoveries

Tuesday 26 January 6-8
Marta Weiss (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Responding: Colin Ford (Former head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford)

Docile Suffragettes? Resistance to Police Photography

Wednesday 17 February 6-7:30
Linda Mulcahy (London School of Economics)

Picturing Modernization: Vision, Modernity and the Technological Image in Humphrey Jenning's Pandaemonium

Wednesday 9 March 6-7:30
Jennifer Tucker (Wesleyan University & Birkbeck Institute for Humanities Visiting Fellow)

Law and Photography

Saturday 2 July 2016
Workshop
In collaboration with London School of Economics

For more information contact: 

Dr Patrizia Di Bello
Senior Lecturer, History and Theory of Photography, Birkbeck, University of London,
E: p.dibello@bbk.ac.uk 
www.bbk.ac.uk/art-history
www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/photography

On the Camera Obscura. The obsession with capturing images is an exhibition curated by Montserrat de Pablo. It exhibition shows the work process followed in a research project carried out by Montserrat de Pablo at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin over the course of 2013-2015.

The idea sprang from her doctoral thesis La cámara oscura como prehistoria de la fotografía (The camera obscura as a prehistory of photography), defended at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) in 2014 and completed during her time at the MPIWG. This is a monograph thesis on the camera obscura, which provides a broad overview of its evolution by means of a timeline and a database of illustrations related to the camera obscura.

Working with the MPIWG’s camera obscura, the artist was able to verify the experimental and artistic dimension of the camera obscura in a practical way and to study its functions and different uses throughout history; from the old questions about how an image is formed through a small aperture (pinhole) and why the image appears round even though the aperture is irregular, to various innovations such as the use of lenses, diaphragms, mirrors, etc., and onto the early days of photography when optics and chemistry were combined and the image produced by the camera obscura was captured in a direct and mechanical way, allowing nature to replicate itself with all its lights and shadows, just as the forefathers of photography had dreamed.

When the light reflected off an object placed inside a dark space passes through a pinhole, an exact image of the object is projected upside down on the opposite wall. The scientist, artist and philosopher observe the image formed inside the camera obscura and try to hold onto it, to make it their own. Throughout history, the camera obscura has been used as a model for explaining human vision, as a scientific research tool, as a means of faithful representation, as a means of amusement and popular entertainment and as a philosophical metaphor. A technical precedent of visual culture, it evolved alongside the changing ways of seeing, representing and understanding the world.

The documentary section, which is on display in the library, features the timeline in an enlarged format and a selection of images from the database, in the form of a visual map that summarises the history of the camera obscura and shows the important milestones attained within each historical period, allowing the observer to see how they are interrelated. A selection of old books on the history of the camera obscura, which belong to the MPIWG library, are on display in the Rare Books section.

The purpose of this exhibition is to illustrate the whole work in progress, the practical as well as the documentary aspects. Drawings and photographs produced with the MPIWG’s camera obscura; internal and external perspectives, different variations of the same theme and a series of portraits of members of staff at the MPIWG, produced with the camera obscura in the form of a group portrait.

On the Camera Obscura. The obsession with capturing images
02 November 2015 - 31 December 2015
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin +49 30 226670
www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Download an information sheet here. 

Montserrat de Pablo. Ph.D. Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cuenca, University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). Artist in Residence at the Max Planck Institute for the Hi story of Science
www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/content/Artists-Residence

Who is afraid of Women Photographers? 1839-1945 Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie 14 October 2015-24 January 2016. The first of its type in France it pulls together histories of photography that, re-evaluated the contribution women made to the medium's development. It displays the singular and progressive relationship between women and photography, in historical and sociocultural contexts.

The first part of the exhibition, curated by Thomas Galifot, covers 1839-1919 and is housed in Musée de l’Orangerie. This substantial exhibition is cleverly organised and exquisitely hung bringing together known and unknown masterpieces by the female practitioners in the Anglo-Saxon sphere. Starting with Constance Talbot, and Anna Atkins, and including the photojournalism of Frances Benjamin Johnston and the artistry of those like Julia Margaret Cameron and Gertrude Käsebier. The work of the 75 women included in this location shows how liberated, adventurous and creative they were unconstrained by conventional traditions including to films from 1896 and 1906. The works range from amateur’s personal albums and studio practitioners to pioneers who influenced art, commerce and international politics. Finally, the exhibition ends with pioneers in documentary photography and photojournalism who questioned social and ethnic minorities, education, work, women suffrage, in the representation of the events on the very front of the First World War.

The exhibition assembles French and internationally sourced images many of which are familiar, however, a considerable number are works are not and their presence adds considerably to the range of women photographers. Each area of the exhibition is introduced impartially to allow viewers to draw their conclusions to their contents and this is complemented by insightful essays in the weighty catalogue by Museum staff, Abigail Solomon Godeau, Patrizia di Bello and Sandrine Chene, which will hopefully be published in English.

The second part of the exhibition 1918-1945 is curated by Marie Robert and is situated across the river in the Musée d’Orsay, opens with a collection of bold, colourful portraits by Madam Yevonde setting a very different attitude reflecting the emergence of the ‘new woman’ in the aftermath of World War 1. The hang is full of variances that create an edgier tone, veering away from traditionally assigned genres of portraiture, botany and cherished scenes its focus is on those subverting and transgressing artistic and social codes with work from Imogen Cunningham, Aenne Biermann and Helen Levitt. This section is followed by perspectives on relationships between the sexes, their identities and gendered bodies, illustrated by photographers such as Claude Cahun, Elisabeth Hase, and Ilse Bing. Finally, the evolving modernist photographic practices are illustrated by Germaine Krull, Margaret Bourke-White, Tina Modotti, Barbara Morgan, Gerda Taro, Dorothea Lange, Lola Alvarez-Bravo, etc., who became embedded in the emerging broadcast markets of reporting and journalism, illustrating, fashion and advertising in the first half of the 20th century. The moving images from World War 2 are a testament to their unfettered access as photographers to previously inaccessible locations and events. Once again each category is complemented by essays from specialists in the catalogue.

Although this is an exhibition of two very distinct parts in location, style and atmosphere, their differences add to the illustration of the evolution of photography’s applications socially, technologically and aesthetically. They are both stunning in their way and well worth several hours of consideration each. Open until January 2016 I can highly recommend the experience there is so much to appreciate and discover.

Centenary describes two landmark exhibitions supported by The RPS Historical Group, which commemorate the lives and times of two 19th century photographic pioneers. In 1915, the Royal Photographic Society’s Council initiated a surviving three-part tribute to honour the memory of Ferdinand Hurter and Charles Vero Driffield, and which consists of a memorial volume, occasional lectures and an archive.

Drawing on his accumulation of photographs, illustrations and documents, Dr R M Callender FRPS, has produced displays for Widnes Public Library during November and December 2015, and a six-week exhibition for Gallery Two at Castle Park Arts Centre, Frodsham, which opens on 12 January 2016. The Centre will host an Open Evening on 15 January and the exhibition closes on Sunday 21 February.

Ron Callender is happy to answer questions and enquiries via his email at: finlaggan@hotmail.com. As part of Centenary, he has also revised his booklet, Mr Driffield and Dr Hurter, which is despatched for £4 by first class postage. Castle Park Arts Centre has a website which is regularly updated at: www.castleparkarts.co.uk

The Eye of the Shah: Qajar Court Photography and the Persian Past presents some 200 photographic prints, a number of vintage photographic albums, and memorabilia that utilized formal portraiture of the shah, the exhibition shows how photographers—many of them engaged by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848-1896), the longest reigning Shah of the Qajar Dynasty (1785-1925)— ultimately created a portrait of the country's ancient and recent past . Most of the photographs in the exhibition have never been publicly displayed.

The Eye of the Shahn includes unprecedented photographs of life in the royal court in Tehran, such as images of the last shahs of the Qajar Dynasty, their wives and children, and court entertainers. These are complemented by photographs of iconic ancient monuments and sites, such as Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam, capturing Iran’s expansive and rich historical past. The photographers also depicted the Iran of their day through images of the military, the railway, and the postal system, while the daily lives of Iranian people was revealed through photographs showing shopkeepers, street vendors, and field workers. Additionally, The Eye of the Shah features pieces by two modern-day Iranian photographers, Bahman Jalali (1944-2010) and Shadi Ghadirian (b. 1974), who evoke and sometimes incorporate images of photography from the Qajar Dynasty, illustrating the continuing and powerful influence that Iranian photography of 19^th and early 20^th century photography has in the country’s contemporary art world.

This exhibition was organized by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and made possible by the generous support of the Selz Foundation, the David Berg Foundation, Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, and the Leon Levy Foundation. Special loans provided by the Kimia Foundation and the Collection of Azita Bina and Elmar W. Seibel.

Further details: http://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/shah

October 22, 2015-January 17, 2016, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th St., New York, NY 10028. Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 11am-6pm, Friday 11am-8pm, Closed Monday and Tuesday

Public Events

Each will have a reception to follow and RSVP is required. RSVP 212.992.7800 or isaw.nyu.edu/rsvp

Thursday, October 29, 2015
Nasseredin Shah and his 84 Wives
Beate Petersen, Film Director and Producer
Film Screening, 6 pm
In 1842 the 11 year-­old heir to the Persian throne received a camera from Queen Victoria of England. The young heir fell in love with the magical contraption. In the following decades he documented his life, revealing to the public eye, what it was never supposed to see. “Nasseredin Shah and his 84 Wives” is based on the photos taken by the Shah himself, as well as by his court. With the addition of animated sequences, it tells the story of the rivalry and intrigues within the harem, the murders, the corruption, the political power struggle, the murders, and of Persia’s troubled relation to Europe. The documentary focuses on an aspect that is all too often overlooked: that is, the influential role played by women in the origins of modern Iran.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015
The Discursive Spaces of Qajar Photography
Mirjam Brusius, University of Oxford
Public Lecture, 6 pm
When the mid-­19th Century European travellers documented Persia’s heritage with a photographic camera, many compiled albums that came to have ubiquitous aesthetic and political functions. Consequently, in the 20th century, some of the albums ended up in different discursive spaces: some can be found in state archives as diplomatic gifts compiled by the Shah, some became indispensable tools for archaeologists, others were admired by Islamic art curators in museums for their lacquerwork bindings. This lecture explores some of the fascinating biographies of these albums, including the impact they still have today.

Thursday, December 3, 2015
Qajar Photography and Contemporary Iranian Art
Layla S. Diba, Independent Scholar and Art Advisor
Public Lecture, 6 pm

Thursday, December 17, 2015
Ancient Persianisms: Persepolitan Motifs in 19rh Century Qajar Persia
Judith A. Lerner, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
Public Lecture, 6 pm
Pre-­Islamic imagery—specifically that of the Achaemenid (c. 550-­330 BCE) and Sasanian (224-­651 CE) dynasties—had remained strong in the art of Islamic Iran (post-­651 CE); the major pictorial themes of razm u bazm (fighting and feasting), along with hunting and enthronement, continued through successive Islamic dynasties in painting, metalwork, ceramics and textiles, all artistic media that were prominent in pre-­Islamic Iran. But one medium of the pre-­Islamic period had all but disappeared: monumental relief sculpture carved into living rock. This ancient artistic medium had been dormant for more than a millennium when it was revived under the second Qajar ruler, Fath ‘Ali Shah (r. 1797-­1834). During his reign all but one of the eight known Qajar rock reliefs were carved; after his reign—except for one relief executed in 1878 by his great-­grandson, Naser al-­Din Shah (r. 1848-­1896)—monumental sculptured reliefs were no longer made. Instead, relief carving on a much smaller scale was used for embellishing the stone foundations of Qajar buildings. The stylistic and iconographic contrasts between these two modes of sculptural expression is striking: the earlier Qajar reliefs draw upon those of the Sasanians, the last Persian dynasty before the Muslim conquest, and feature enthronement and hunting scenes, while the later ones quote those of the earlier Achaemenids, specifically images from their capital city, Persepolis. What brought about this change? In this talk I offer some reasons for this shift from Sasanian to Achaemenid imagery and propose that it stemmed, in great part, from the desire in Iran to forge a modern national identity that drew upon Iran’s imperial pre-­Islamic past. Select photographic examples of these reliefs and monuments which provided the inspiration for the Qajar pieces, and which form part of ISAW’s exhibition, Eye of the Shah: Royal Court Photography and the Persian Past, will be discussed in the context of “Persianisms.”

Published by Spanish National Library as a catalogue for the exhibition Mirar la Arquitectura – Fotografia Monumental en el Siglo XIX  included in the 2015 Photo España (3 July-4 October 2015) , this book edited by researchers, Delfin Rodriguez Ruiz, Helena Perez Gallardo, and with texts by the two former and Helene Bocard,  Inmaculada Aguilar Civera, Carlos Sambricio, Juan Bordes and Michelline Nielsen. The title points towards a focus on architecture photography in 19th Century Spain, however this is not seen in a limited way as related topics, travel photography and engineering are also approached in this book, as well as photography outside Spain, in a comparative mode and as a subject by itself.

Architecture and engineering are obviously difficult to tell apart, particularly in 19th Century context, but text and images go to before photography’s invention. The do also go beyond Spain, as there is a marked intention to contextualize photography made in Spain in the wider panorama of 19th Century photography.

Photography was of major importance in the knowledge of Spanish architecture landmarks, as Spain became a part of the Grand Tour, as it was an approachable orientalism. Southern Spain Muslim monuments became part of Europe s best known buildings. Architecture photography was not only about historical buildings but also on modern cities; we can see not only the Muslim or Mudejar architecture, but also more modern buildings of the expanding Madrid, or of the building railways.

Photography hesitated between 19th Century’s vision of progress and the need to show the past in a systematic way. It is also possible to see three kinds of architecture photography: the record, meant to be objective and accurate; the illustration, pretending to depict a satisfactory record with some aesthetical pleasure and the photograph, which does pretend to be a record, but attempts to create an artwork.

The exhibition is centred on Biblioteca Nacional de España collections, with contributions from other collections, and it is of greater interest for those studying Spanish photography, architecture or art, however it is not confined to Spain, with good examples and with a comparative view for other countries. There are also texts on Italian and French architecture photography, and on Norwegian Sammy people. It is important not only to those interested in History of Photography, but also to those who care about history of photography or architecture.

Mirar la Arquitectura, Fotografía Monumental en el Siglo XIX,

Delfin Rodriguez Ruiz, Helena Perez Gallardo, eds.

Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid 2015,

232 pp, 169 ilustrations, paperback,

ISBN 978-84-92462-42-I

Link in Spanish National Library

Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery is opening a new exhibition P.H. Emerson: Presented by the Author on 20 November 20, 2015  at 6 pm. The following day there will be a symposium P.H. Emerson: photographer and author on from 10 am to 4 pm, organised in partnership with the V&A and supported by the Art Fund.

For more details see the links. Places to the symposium are limited to 30 people and booking via Eventbrite is highly recommended. For those travelling from London East Midlands Trains is offering a discount with the code: NCM1516. 

Peter Henry Emerson (Cuba 1856 – UK 1936) was one of the most pioneering photographers – and opinionated writers – of the late 19th century. His interests were eclectic, and included medicine, sports, genealogy, anthropology, and ornithology. Between 1881 and 1895 he devoted his life to photography and writing about rural life in East Anglia, particularly the Norfolk Broads.

Defined by one critic as “The Courbet of England”, Emerson argued for naturalism in photography and developed influential photographic techniques, such as ‘selective focus’. Inspired by early theories of perception, he wanted to preserve the way the human eye sees nature – not as sharply as a photographic lens. His fervent and public opposition to other, more ‘artificial’, Victorian photographers, such as Henry Peach Robinson, has become a classic episode in the history of photography. Unexpectedly, in 1890 Emerson recanted his view that photography was an art, although he continued to publish incredible pictorial books, accompanying his images with his writing until 1895.

With works drawn from the V&A and the Castle’s own collections, and presented in our new temporary exhibition gallery, this exhibition explores the artist’s modes of presenting his photographs to the public. Published as exquisite portfolios of photogravures, or as beautiful bound pictorial books, or as stand-alone large scale prints, the objects on display will reveal Emerson’s fascinating editorial vision and intriguing writings. Furthermore, the inclusion of archival documents from the V&A will shed light on the ways in which Emerson carefully controlled the circulation of his work.

The exhibition is curated by Federica Chiocchetti as part of Nottingham Castle’s partnership with the V&A via their Curatorial Fellowship Programme, supported by the Art Fund.

The one-day symposium explores Emerson’s fascinating life, his photographic vision and writings. Speakers include: Martin Barnes (Senior Curator of Photographs, V&A, London), Dr Hope Kingsley (Curator of the Wilson Centre for Photography, London), Prof David Matless (Cultural Geography, University of Nottingham), Edith Marie Pasquier (Artist and Researcher, Royal College of Art, London) and Stephen Hyde (Nottinghamshire-born great-grandson of P.H. Emerson).

Booking and pre-payment essential on Eventbrite.

D. Amélia e a Fotografia. The last 20 years (1890/1910) of Portuguese Monarchy were the subject for a wide number of photographers, ranging from the best known professionals to several members of the Royal Family. 
This exhibition collects 130 of those images from the collections of "Museu-Biblioteca da Casa de Bragança" and "Palácio Nacional da Ajuda" and will be present until 20th January.

Thames & Hudson has published Lives of the Great Photographers, an original new title profiling thirty-eight celebrated photographers, which traces the evolution of their art in relation to their biography. Intelligently written and researched to the highest standards, this biographical compendium is the work of the photographic historian, Juliet Hacking.

Lives of the Great Photographers gives detailed insights into the lives and careers of the greatest photographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and acts as a fresh and accessible introduction to the history of photography itself. Engaging, authoritative and thought-provoking, Lives profiles such masters of the medium as Diane Arbus, Claude Cahun, Lewis Carroll, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray and Robert Mapplethorpe. By evoking their lives and backgrounds, Hacking sheds new light on the experiences and motivations that shaped their art. Each of the lives is illustrated with a portrait or self-portrait of the artist and one or more of their exemplary works. Spanning the full gamut of photographic practice from documentary to fashion, portraiture to fine art, this volume is a timely reminder of the pleasures of biography in relation to visual culture.

The biographies form a holistic study that not only traces the contributions of each artist to the medium but also adroitly guides the reader through the major innovations, movements and developments in the history of photography. Bound in a single compact and portable volume, Lives of the Great Photographers is a perfect introduction to the story of photography itself.

Juliet Hacking is Programme Director of the MA in Photography (Contemporary and Historical) at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. She is the general editor of Photography: The Whole Story, also published by Thames & Hudson.

Lives of the Great Photographers
Juliet Hacking
Price: £28.00
304pp, 120 illustrations, Hardback
ISBN 978 0 500 544440

www.thamesandhudson.com

The future of the historical archives of Agfa-Gevaert, Mortsel, Belgium, has been secured with their deposition with Antwerp's Fotomuseum (FoMu). The collection includes photos, posters, films and other memorabilia, back to founder Lieven Gevaert, an industrialist who was also important for the history of Flanders. The archive had been kept in Varenthof, a castle next to the former factory since 1985. The transfer will take place in several phases and FoMu will develop a program of preservation and access for the collection.

The different sub-collections, which have their origin in, among others, the personal archives of Lieven Gevaert, Frans Van Cauwelaert and other company employees, as well as in the company archives and those of business clubs.

The collection is one of the largest such archives in Belgium. "Agfa -Gevaert is to this day an understanding and a company that for many people in the region and throughout our province forever remain associated with photography and film rolls," said deputy Luke Lemmens (N -VA) . "The role played by Lieven Gevaert is also going much further than the creation of an international company. As the founder of , inter alia, the Flemish Economic Association , he has played a role unmatched by the Flemish Movement and the cultural, economic and intellectual emancipation of Flanders."

The province of Antwerp will fund the €160,000 transfer in collaboration with the Center for Technical, Scientific and Industrial Heritage (ETWIE) and the Archives and Research Center for Flemish movement and nationalism (ADVN). The province wants to protect the collection and add it to the Flemish masterpieces list.

See: http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/regio/antwerpen/1.2455736

Photohistorian Denis Pellerin will share his passion for the ingenious art of stereography in a public talk at the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh. Stereoscopy was a nineteenth century craze with millions of inexpensive stereographs circulating worldwide. The event promises to be engaging and informative, with 3D glasses provided! The talk supports the museum's exhibition: Photography: A Victorian Sensation. 

Edinburgh, National Museums of Scotland
21 October 2015 at 1830
Call 0300 123 6789 or book online

See more here: http://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland/whats-on/stereography-a-talk-in-3d/

Rochester, N.Y., October 6, 2015 —The George Eastman Museum has today announced its new name and launched a new website at eastman.org. Formerly George Eastman House, the institution encompasses one of the world’s foremost museums of photography and cinema and the historic Rochester estate of entrepreneur and philanthropist George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography. The museum’s robust exhibition schedule features contemporary and historic photography, film screenings, and collaborative projects with cultural and educational institutions. As a research and teaching institution, the Eastman Museum has an active publishing program and makes critical contributions in the fields of film preservation and photographic conservation.

“The three-part mission of the George Eastman Museum remains leadership in the fields of photography and cinema; preservation and development of our collections, including the historic mansion and gardens; and service to our communities, in Rochester and beyond,” said Bruce Barnes, the Ron and Donna Fielding Director. “Our new name better conveys our institution’s core identity as a dynamic museum with world-class collections in the fields of photography and cinema.”

Each year, the George Eastman Museum presents at least ten new gallery exhibitions—including three exhibitions of contemporary artworks in its Project Gallery—and screens more than 300 films at its Dryden Theatre, including the Nitrate Picture Show, an annual festival of film preservation. The museum’s current main exhibition is an Alvin Langdon Coburn retrospective, with most objects drawn from its own collection. Major photography exhibitions next year will include Taryn Simon: Birds of the West Indies and Photography and America’s National Parks. The Eastman Museum also actively organizes traveling exhibitions, including Glorious Technicolor: From George Eastman House and Beyond, a film series that was presented earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival, Austrian Film Museum, and Museum of Modern Art.

Founded in 1947, the institution is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives. Its holdings comprise more than 450,000 photographs, including the estates of Lewis Wickes Hine, Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and Nickolas Muray; 28,000 motion picture films, millions of film stills, tens of thousands of film posters, and extensive archival holdings, including the Technicolor archive; the world’s preeminent collection of photographic and cinematographic technology, recently named a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; one of the leading libraries of books related to photography and cinema; and extensive holdings of documents and other objects related to George Eastman.

“The George Eastman Museum is actively building our collections, with a particular emphasis on photographic and moving image works by contemporary artists from many cultures to complement our great strength in works from the past,” Dr. Barnes continued. “At the same time, we are committed to the preservation and interpretation of George Eastman’s estate, a National Historic Landmark, and are currently making a substantial investment in restoration projects for its original structures.”

The Eastman Museum is a longtime leader in photographic conservation and film preservation. From the late 1980s through 2009, its advanced study programs in photographic conservation, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, trained dozens of conservators, who transformed their field. In 2013, the Eastman Museum restored the long-lost film Too Much Johnson, directed by Orson Welles in 1938. Last year, the museum commenced operation of a film digitization laboratory donated by Eastman Kodak Company.

As a research institution, the George Eastman Museum has an active publishing program, including The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915–1935, released earlier this year, and two photography books—Photography and America’s National Parks and In the Garden—to be published next year in collaboration with Aperture Foundation. As a teaching institution, the Eastman Museum, in partnership with the University of Rochester, offers graduate degree programs in film preservation and in photographic preservation and collection management; graduates from these programs are now contributing to their fields at institutions around the world. The museum also offers renowned workshops on photographic processes, attracting participants from across the globe.

A member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, an accredited member of the American Alliance of Museums, and a member of the International Federation of Film Archives, the George Eastman Museum is supported with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the County of Monroe, and with private contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations.

A century of military photographic images goes on show at Shrewsbuy Museum & Art Gallery from Monday 19 October 2015 until 10 January 2016 in a new exhibition by the Defence School of Photography.As well as marking the centenary of photography by members of the Armed Forces, the exhibition also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the School’s move to RAF Cosford in Shropshire in 1965.

The exhibition will showcase the very best work of photographers from the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force with striking images from conflicts beginning with World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan, to peacetime training at the School and nearby locations. A timeline display highlights the many achievements of the School and its students over the last century, including winning two Academy Awards for films in World War II.

As well as an impressive selection of images, the exhibition will include a photographic pod which would have been carried underneath an aircraft during a reconnaissance mission and an original RAF helmet and Mae West vest discovered hidden in a house in Denmark after a bomber crew escaped from a crash.

A special Shropshire connection is a selection of light-meters from the company formed by prolific Oswestry-born inventor Edward Weston, who emigrated to the USA and eventually held 334 patents for his many creations.

Jon Jarvis, Head of the Defence School of Photography, said: “We have created a centenary exhibition at the School, which has been much enjoyed by those who have seen it. Now we can take a selection of photos and artefacts on tour for a wider audience to enjoy at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery. The balcony there gives us an ideal opportunity to display some of our students’ work and to celebrate a hundred years of photography by the Armed Forces.”

Tina Woodward, Shropshire Council’s Deputy Cabinet member for museums said: “This is a wonderful opportunity for Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery to host a top quality exhibition of images by the three services looking back over 100 years. I am very grateful to the staff at the Defence School of Photography for their generosity and hard work. I am sure the exhibition will be very popular.”

The exhibition opens at 10am on Monday 19 October 2015 and closes at 4.30pm on 10 January. It is open daily at first, and will be on closed Mondays from 2 November 2015.

Admission to all the galleries and exhibitions at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery costs:- Adult £4, senior £3.50, student £3.60, child (5-17) £2, family of 2 adults and 3 children £10.

Website – www.shrewsburymuseum.org.uk

Tel: 01743 258885 Email: shrewsburymuseum@shropshire.gov.uk