Blogs

Next month the V&A will present a display of over 50 recently acquired photographs that explore the experiences of black people in Britain in the latter half of the 20th century, enhanced by excerpts from oral histories gathered by Black Cultural Archives.

Over the last seven years the V&A has been working with Black Cultural Archives to acquire photographs either by black photographers or which document the lives of black people in Britain, a previously under-represented area in the V&A’s photographs collection. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the Museum has been able to collect 118 works by 17 artists ranging from Yinka Shonibare’s large-scale series Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998), to studies of elaborate headties worn by Nigerian women, by J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, to black and white street photography of 1970s London by Al Vandenberg.

Staying Power will showcase a variety of photographic responses to black British experience. On display will be intimate portrayals of British-Caribbean life in London in the 1960s-70s by Neil Kenlock, Armet Francis, Dennis Morris and Charlie Phillips. Music, style and fashion are documented in Raphael Albert’s depictions of the black beauty pageants he organised from the 1960s to the 1980s to help celebrate the growing black community in Britain and Norman ‘Normski’ Anderson’s colourful depictions of vibrant youth culture of the 1980s and 90s.

The display also features more conceptual explorations of race and identity. Yinka Shonibare’s series, Diary of a Victorian Dandy, depicts the artist playing the role of a dandy. The work demonstrates Shonibare’s identification with the dandy as an outsider or foreigner who uses his flamboyance, wit and style to penetrate the highest levels of society, which would otherwise be closed to him. Maxine Walker also draws attention to racial stereotypes by photographing herself in a variety of guises. In her Untitled series (1995) she presents herself with different skin tones and hairstyles as though they were instantaneous transformations made in a photo booth.

To complement the photographs, Black Cultural Archives have collected oral histories from a range of subjects including the photographers themselves, their relatives, and the people depicted in the images. To coincide with the display at the V&A, Black Cultural Archives will also present an exhibition drawn from the V&A’s Staying Power collection (15 January-30 June 2015) at their heritage centre in Brixton.

Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s
16 February – 24 May 2015

vam.ac.uk/page/s/staying-power/

#InspiringPower

Image: High Street Kensington, 1976, © Al Vandenberg

The Manfred & Hanna Heiting Fund enables the Rijksmuseum to annually award two postgraduate fellowships that stimulate photo-historical research by prospective curators from the Netherlands or abroad. The research is based on the National Photo Collection held by the Rijksmuseum’s Print Room. It will form the basis for an essay on classical photography pertaining to original works from the Rijksmuseum’s rich holdings of photographic works and, where possible, to objects in other collections.    

The Rijksmuseum Research Fellowship Programme

As part of the Rijksmuseum Research Fellowship Programme, the Manfred & Hanna Heiting Fellowship provides support for pre-doctoral, doctoral and post-doctoral candidates. It is set out to train a new generation of museum professionals: inquisitive object-based specialists who will further develop understanding of Netherlandish art and history for the future.

The Rijksmuseum will provide office space in which the fellows can work, in order to stimulate an exchange of knowledge, ideas and experience. Access will be provided to all necessary information in the museum, as well as to the library and the resources of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague and the University of Amsterdam.

Application and procedure

The closing date for all applications is 15 March 2015, at 6:00 p.m. (Amsterdam time/CET). Selection will take place in April 2015 by an international committee. Applicants will be notified by 1 May 2015. The fellowship will start in September 2015.

See more here: https://news.rijksmuseum.nl/2/4/158/1/8Zu9eP-rYJDD6km6qREiF4dZPLgdzMsfyMLQs5SrdY13KfNbVRfOWsoNJ0vdq-fF

Michael Portillo in his BBC Great Railway Journeys programme on Monday, 26 January, takes a look at John Dillwyn Llewelyn, a founder member of the Photographic Society in 1853, and an early Calotypist, with RPS Director-General Michael Pritchard. The two Michaels discuss JDL's work as a photographer and take a look at some of the beautiful albums of his work held by Swansea Museum. You will also be able to see a demonstration of the wet-collodion process by Tony Richards 

See more about the programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0517pyg If you miss the transmission it will be available on the BBC iPlayer for up to a month. 

We are pleased to announce a new research seminar on all aspects of photography, co-hosted by the History of Art Department and the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian’s recent acquisition of papers by William Henry Fox Talbot is simply the latest addition to Oxford’s rich and varied collections of photographic material. Like the researchers who work on photography at Oxford, these materials can be found in many different—and at times unexpected—departments, institutions and intellectual contexts.

The aim of the seminar is to bring together scholars from across Oxford and beyond to consider some of these ‘local’ collections, as well as to explore photography more generally from a wide variety of historical, material and theoretical perspectives. To this end, the seminar will begin this term with two site visits to Oxford collections in order to initiate what will hopefully become an ongoing conversation amongst scholars, curators and archivists about the place of photography, both literally and metaphorically. The seminar will continue next term with a combination of further site visits and work-in-progress research papers in order to encourage dialogue and debate. 

SESSION I
Feb 3rd (Tuesday, Week 3): The Talbot Archive at the Bodleian Library
Larry Schaaf and Mirjam Brusius in conversation with Geraldine Johnson
 
Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford (please leave your belongings in the lockers)
• RSVP by Jan 28 to book a place: programme begins at 1pm, Horton Room (1st Floor) (*please note that no more places are available for the lunch at 12.30*)

SESSION II
March 3rd (Tuesday, Week 7): Photography at the Institute of Archaeology
Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider in conversation with Mirjam Brusius

(*please note that all places for March 3rd are now taken*)                                                                          

 
To RSVP and for further information, contact: Mirjam.Brusius@history.ox.ac.uk

More information can also be found on our Oxford History of Art Blog. This seminar as well as future sessions will also be announced on our website.

The poster can be downloaded here: Photography%20Seminar-Oxford-Hilary%202015.pdf

If you are in Oxford on Feb 3rd, Mirjam Brusius will give a paper on Middle Eastern Photography at the Oxford Art History Research Seminar on the same day at 5 pm.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s finest museums, seeks an Assistant/Associate Curator who will be a full-time member of the curatorial team of the Department of Photographs, whose principal focus will be nineteenth-century French and English photography and the active building of the department’s Joyce F. Menschel Photography Library.  He/she will be responsible for performing all curatorial duties, including: researching, studying, and publishing works in the collection under his/her curatorial responsibility; recommending acquisitions to complement the existing collection and the department’s library; proposing future exhibitions, installations, and publications; and maintaining positive and fruitful relations with colleagues in the museum and academic worlds, with Museum trustees and other supporters, and with dealers, booksellers, and auctioneers.  The ideal candidate will be a well-published scholar familiar with the entire literature of photography, passionately interested in connoisseurship and in improving the collection through gift and purchase, and deeply committed to the Museum’s mission and public outreach.  To perform these duties the Assistant/Associate Curator brings to bear his/her working knowledge while striving to develop increasingly comprehensive understanding of the objects in the collection and in its library.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES And DUTIES

Application Deadline: February 13, 2015, 6:00pm

The Assistant/Associate Curator Photographs is a full-time position and includes full benefits. Salary will be commensurate with experience.

Please Send Cover Letter, Resume And Salary History To

Careers@MetMuseum.org

with “Asst/Assoc Curator Photographs” in the subject line.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art provides equal opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, mental or physical disability, pregnancy, alienage or citizenship status, marital status or domestic partner status, genetic information, genetic predisposition or carrier status, gender identity, HIV status, military status and any other category protected by law in all employment decisions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, compensation, training and apprenticeship, promotion, upgrading, demotion, downgrading, transfer, lay-off and termination, and all other terms and conditions of employment.

Job Requirements

Experience And Skills

Knowledge And Education

• Ph.D. in the History of Art with a specialization in Photography preferred.
• Fluency in a second language.

See: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/40156040?trk=jserp_job_details_text

A collaboration between London College of Communication, LCC Green Week 2015, the UAL Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) and the Museum of British Folklore, Figures of Folk explores ongoing traditions through a series of large format photographs by Graham Goldwater, of objects associated with British folklore, alongside letterpress posters created by LCC students, inspired by ancient phrases and words.

In 2009, Simon Costin, the Director of the Museum of British Folklore, put out a call to the nation’s Morris sides to replicate their team kit in miniature, as handmade dolls. . The response has been overwhelming, with nearly three hundred sides participating in the creation of a physical archive.

Together with the Morris dolls, The Museum of British Folklore owns a collection of jig dolls – articulated wooden figures, which were used by street performers to create a rhythmic beat and movement, mimicking traditional folk dance. Both collections have been photographed by Graham Goldwater, exploring the ways in which the photographic image both documents museum objects and extends their meaning and reach. Both object and photograph become an artefact of dancing and celebration which has taken place in Britain for nearly five hundred years.Folk_Figures_web_version.jpg

Victorian Cartes de Visite

A householder in this island of Colonsay (where I live) asked me to look through the library of his deceased parents and I came across an interesting photographic album.  With his permission I have made simple digital copies and I am attempting to identify the subjects.  I have already met with some success, and I was especially pleased when I identified one person by using the image-search facility in Google.

This led me to the blindingly-obvious thought that every such Carte de Visite will have duplicates, probably at least half-a-dozen or a dozen copies will have been made and distributed in every case.  After all, if one booked a photographic studio, put on one’s best clothes, turned up for the appointment, went back a week later to collect the result etc., it was all a bit of a hassle so one would make it worthwhile and get a good few copies.  Some of these copies will have survived, and in some cases the owners will have identified them.  Common sense suggests that anybody with a labelled photograph would be keen to make contact with anybody else who had a copy, identified or not, since both parties might have other images or documents to share.

There must be millions of unidentified Cartes de Visite worldwide, and it should be possible to establish a comparison centre on the Internet.  As we know, this already exists for paintings and buildings – the user simply submits a digital image of a scene and the system offers the closest matches, sometimes with great success.

I wonder if an respected institution such as British Photographic would think it worthwhile to try to advance such a scheme?  It might be a bit daunting to actually undertake, but perhaps an approach to Google might be enough to get the idea adopted? 

P.S. As an example of just one such album, the images to which I refer are at http://www.colonsay.info/text/Kindred1%20McNeill%20images.htm

The exhibition will be on show at the Titanic Centre, Belfast from now until the 31st March. Admission is free. Anyone visiting Northern Ireland should take the opportunity to see it. Crowds at Farmleigh were so large that the doors had to be closed on occasions.

Could anyone throw some light on this photo/print published by W A Mansell & Co? Not sure whether this is a photo or reproduction of a painting? In parts of the image it has raised areas as though it is has been touched up with paint?

I think I can make out a date to the bottom right of 1860? Also to the back there is a sticker to the back of the frame with No. 230 and some illegible handwriting that I cannot make out whatsoever, as well as the W A Mansell & Co label.

Any help or knowledge of this lovely piece of work and who was the photographer or artist would be very much appreciated.W A Mansell & Co Publisher

BPH noted the forthcoming publication The Victorian Photographs of Dr. Thomas Keith and John Forbes White by John Hannavy. The book is now being printed as the photograph shows. The book is strictly limited to 500 copies and it should be ordered direct from John Hannavy. 

The Victorian Photographs of Dr. Thomas Keith and John Forbes White will be published in April in a strictly limited edition by John Hannavy Publishing price £20.00. The 144 page hardback book is illustrated throughout in full colour to capture the beauty of Keith and White's original salt prints.

To order contact John Hannavy Publishing, 8 High Street, Great Cheverell, Wiltshire, SN10 5TH. www.johnhannavy.co.uk or e:john@johnhannavy.co.uk.

Gawain Weaver Art Conservation has two process identification charts available for free download. The charts cover photomechanical processes and nineteenth century photography. Click the link to take a look and download. http://gawainweaver.com/processID

Historians, curators and photographic practitioners have begun to re-examine older forms of photography, yet many cultural studies of nineteenth-century photography have been overly reliant upon twentieth-century theoretical constructions. This multidisciplinary conference will move away from these models, exploring issues such as early photographic 'authorship' traditional technological narratives and the ideologies of photographic realism.

http://www.rethinkingphotography.com/call-for-papers/

Deadline approaching (12th Jan):

Rethinking Early Photography, University of Lincoln, UK, 16th and 17th June 2015.

Keynote Speakers: 

Professor Kate Flint (University of Southern California) 

Professor Lindsay Smith (The Sussex Centre for the Visual, University of Sussex) 

Dr. Kelley Wilder (Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University) 

Professor Larry Schaaf (Director of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

Photographer and teacher Paul Hill MBE has launched a petition to protect the Library of Birmingham's internationally important historic and contemporary photography collections and archives. They are in danger of being closed and mothballed and the photography collections team will be made redundant. 

The petition states: Birmingham City Council is proposing swingeing cuts at the recently opened Library of Birmingham reducing the whole library hours to 40 hours per week and staffing by just over 50 percent by April 2015.

When I, and other depositors, who include such renowned British photographic figures as Daniel Meadows, Martin Parr, John Blakemore, Brian Griffin, Vanley Burke, John Myers, Nick Hedges, and Val Williams, agreed to the library acquiring our archives or collections we were assured that they would be accessible to the public as well as specialist researchers.

As the proposal currently stands there will be no Photography Collections Team. Indeed there may not be anyone left with any specialist knowledge of these nationally and internationally significant collections in the near future. There will be no conservation department to undertake the vital work of preserving these fragile treasures, there will be little if any cataloguing undertaken, and the exhibition programme will disappear entirely.

The emphasis in the new structure is on maintaining “counter transactions” to the exclusion of other activities.  

To read more about what is being proposed: http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/regional-affairs/photographers-petition-halt-library-birmingham-8357877 and BPH's previous report here: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-library-of-birmingham-and-its-photography-collections-severel

To sign click here: http://alturl.com/d6exw

The V&A Photographs Department has issued its latest newsletter giving details of recent and forthcoming exhibitions and activities. A copy is available to download here V%26A%20Newsletter%202014.pdf. To receive it directly email Bronwen Colquhoun in the department.

Of particulate note are the forthcoming Linnaeus Tripe and Cameron exhibitions in 2015 and the permanent gallery re-hang which is titled A History of Photography: Series and Sequences and opens on 6 February which looks at series in photography. 

Image: Edgar Scamell, street hawker selling baked potatoes in London, 1892.

The V&A is holding a major exhibition to explore the contribution of Julia Margaret Cameron's contributions to the art of photography. Cameron (1815-1879) was one of the most important photographers of the nineteenth century. Criticised in her lifetime for her unconventional technical approach, she is now celebrated as a pioneering portraitist. 2015 will mark the bicentenary of Cameron’s birth and 150 years since her first museum exhibition – the only one in her lifetime – held at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1865. Drawing on the V&A’s significant holdings, which include photographs acquired directly from Cameron and letters she wrote to Henry Cole, the museum’s founding director, this exhibition will explore Cameron’s innovative contributions to the art of photography.

The exhibition will tour internationally before and after its presentation at the V&A November 2015-February 2016 to the following venues:

• Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, 18 November 2014 – 1 February 2015
• Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, 14 March – 14 June 2015
• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 August – 25 October 2015
• Fundacion Mapfre, Madrid, 8 March – 8 May 2016
• Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, 29 June - 25 September 2016

The accompanying catalogue will be published by MACK in association with V&A Publishing.

Project Lead:

Marta Weiss, Curator

Project Assistant:

Erika Lederman, Factory Project Cataloguer

Paul Goodman, Head of Collections Projects, at the National Media Museum , Bradford, left the museum on 23 December 2014, following a restructuring of staff posts. Goodman had been responsible for leading on specific major collections-related activities.These had included managing the museum's three recent large acquisitions: the Impressions Gallery collection, the Ray Harryhausen archive and the Lewis Morley archive,. In addition he had been responsible for a digitisation programme of the Royal Photographic Society Collection which is held at the museum. He also oversaw the museum's collaborative conservation project with the Getty Conservation Institute.

Paul Goodman had been at the museum since 1990 when he joined as Registrar and he had held a series of jobs during his career there including managing the museum as part of a three-person team following the departure of the previous Head, Colin Philpott. 

• 1983 - 1990: Assistant Curator, Transport, Science Museum
• 1990 - 2003: Registrar, National Media Museum
• 2003 - 2007: Acting Head of Collections, National Media Museum
• 2007 - 2012: Head of Collections (& Knowledge), National Media Museum
• 2013 - 2014: Head of Collections, Projects, National Media Museum

During his career at the museum Goodman managed a number of significant acquisitions including The Royal Photographic Society Collection in 2002 and the BBC Collection in 2012. In addition to his work at the museum he is founder Trustee of the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield and he is serves on the board of the Chambre-Hardman Photography Collection in Liverpool.

He received a the Royal Photographic Society's Colin Ford Award in 2003. 

At the time of writing he was unavailable for comment. 

Image: © Michael Pritchard. Paul Goodman, April 2014.

In case you missed it there's a fascinating article as part of the Guardian's Science The H Word series by Mirjam Brusius. She explores new archive evidence that tells a different story about the history of photographs and questions the idea of invention and 'firsts' in photography.

Well worth a read. 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2014/dec/22/the-many-inventions-of-photography-mirjam-brusius

The renowned Observer newspaper photographer Jane Bown has died, aged 89. Bown began working for the Observer newspaper in 1949 and she was working almost up until she died. Her style was direct and she relied largely on natural light and her Olympus OM1 camera and, of course, her technical knowledge and personality to produce her outstanding portraits. 

She gave her entire archive to the Guardian/Observer newspaper. 

See more here: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/dec/21/jane-bown-a-life-in-photography-in-pictures

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/dec/21/jane-bown

Image: Jane Bown, self-portrait.

Two weeks ago BPH reported on the cuts being proposed by Birmingham City Council and their likely impact on the photography collections in the Library of Birmingham. It now seems that the impact on the photography collections which are of national and international importance and include historical collections and more recent photographers' archives are far greater than originally envisaged. In the words of Francis Hodgson '‘They’ are threatening to close down the whole of the photographic service at the Library of Birmingham, in the name of ‘cuts’.

Unfortunately this is not simply hyperbole - there is a very real threat to the photography collections and their availability to the public, students and scholars - as there is to the wider public services at the Library of Birmingham.

A briefing paper seen by BPH outlines the threat and is reproduced below. What the paper does not highlight is the threat to the staff in the photography collection led by Pete James. Any archive or collection relies on staff to make material available both physically and intellectually and there is uncertainty as whether any of the current staff will survive the cuts. Furthermore, the photography collection has been successful in recent years in securing for the nation the archives of a number of important photographers and organisations. The availability of these for study and exhibition will, inevitably, be affected. As Paul Hill has noted in a separate comment for some their acquisition has been made through public funds which have conditions attached around accessibility and been have they be taken on under false pretences? 

BPH would urge readers to sign the petition below and feedback to the council on the importance of the Library and the photography collections. There are will be other moves to highlight the impact on the photography collections which will be reported here.   

What future for the Photography Collections at the Library of Birmingham?

In 2015-16 the overall library budget will be cut by £1.5 million.  By 2018 it is predicted that the budget will have been reduced by 4 million in total. 

This will be a cut of 40%.

In 2015-16 the council is proposing to achieve £1.5 million savings by:

• Cutting the Library’s hours from 70 to 40 a week.
• Reducing Library staff by over 50%.
• Offering only a basic level of service

There will be worse to come with bigger cuts in following years.

What does this mean for you?

• What will this do to the Library’s reputation as a centre of excellence for contemporary and historical photography?
• What will be the impact on photography students, curators and researchers who maybe be prevented from accessing the photo collections and related resources?
• Many of the important photo collections are on loan to the Library.  Will depositors seek to withdraw them?
• Will the designated status of the Birmingham’s Special Collections be affected?
• Will be current collections be safe without staff to look after them?
• Will the Archives still be able to add new collections?
• Will you able to get access to collections that are already here without cataloguing and conservation work?

What can I do?

• Sign the online petition

https://www.change.org/p/birmingham-city-council-reverse-the-cuts-to-the-library-of-birmingham

• Contact the council by completing the online survey:

https://www.birminghambeheard.org.uk/budget/2015

• Email budget.views@birmingham.gov.uk or write to Budget Views, Room 221, Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham B1 1BB
• Contact your local MP and local councillor.
• Please share this information with as many people as possible an encourage them to write in support of the collections.

The Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester, has announced its seminar programme for Spring 2015. They are open to everyone, without charge, and take place on Tuesdays from 4–6pm   in the Hugh Aston Building. 

January 13  2015  (Hugh Aston 2.08)

Mirjam Brusius (University of Oxford)

Talbot’s Tools

William Henry Fox Talbot invented the calotype, yet he also had a wide interest in optics, mathematics, botany, archaeology, and classical studies. His manuscripts, now in the archives of the British Library and the Bodleian Library, reveal the connections and contrasts between his photographic innovations and his scholarly pursuits. Drawing on Talbot’s letters, research notebooks, botanical specimens, objects, and photographic prints, new research in these archives will broaden our understanding of Talbot as a Victorian intellectual and a man of science. Since the range of media and tools of his archive are almost as broad as his interests, the archive will also invite us to re-think the place of photography in Talbot studies. This paper will propose some possible avenues.

February 10  2015 (Hugh Aston 1.47)

Emily Hayes (University of Exeter/Royal Geographical Society)

Geographical projections: lantern slides, science and popular geography at the Royal Geographical Society 1886 – 1904

The period 1886-1904 was particularly significant in the professionalization and popularization of geography. This paper discusses the spatial, social and visual modalities of the lantern slide medium across the multiple lecture spaces, and before the changing audiences, of the London Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at this time. It explores the function of lantern slides as instruments of exposition and entertainment within the contexts of the RGS scientific afternoon lectures and popular evening meeting lectures. 

March 10 2015 (Hugh Aston 2.08)

Lenka Fehrenbach (University of Basel)

Being progressive. : Industrial photography in 19th century Russia

In the Russian Empire the development of photography took place during the same period in which industrialization started to take off. Contemporaries used the modern visual medium to depict the new buildings of factories, which changed the face of Russian cities. Entrepreneurs also started to appreciate the benefits of the new pictures, and used them inside their factories and to promote their businesses to a broader audience. The seminar will trace the interactions between these two fields.

Any queries, please contact the conveners: Damian Hughes and Duncan Shields, Photographic History Research Centre (damian.hughes@dmu.ac.uk). See also PHRC website or PHRC blog http://photographichistory.wordpress.com