The Royal Photographic Society has published a practical guide to photographing old photographic plates and lantern slides. It is aimed at amateurs and carries the important caveat that if the emulsion is fragile then a professional conservator should be consulted.
Take a look here.
The Royal Society for Asian Affairs (RSAA), a registered charity with Royal Charter, with a mission 'to promote greater knowledge and understanding of Central Asia and countries from the Middle East to Japan' and the specific objective 'to conserve all of the Society’s valuable archives, photographic and written' is offering thirteen lots of rare books and early and important photographs at a Sotheby's auction later this month. The lots are expected to realise around £250,000. A number of academics, curators and librarians have mounted a campaign to protest against the sale.
Amongst the photographs being sold are important albums by J C Watson showing China c.1867-1870; John Thomson's Antiquities of Cambodia, c1867; J C White photographs of Sikhim and Tibet and others.The lots can be seen here.
The sale appears to be the result of the RSAA's spending exceeding income since at least 2009, although it does have investments of nearly £300,000. The RSAA's accounts and Charity Commission filings can be viewed here.
This is not the first time that the RSAA has tried to sell part of its historic archive. In 2014 a unique map annotated by T E Lawrence was offered at a Sotheby's auction with an estimate of £70,000-100,000. It was withdrawn soon after news of the sale broke. Read more here.
There have been a number of sales from UK museum and gallery collections as local authorities have attempted to preserve services in the face of government funding cuts. This recently prompted an unprecedented joint statement by ten of the UK's leading funding, membership and museum bodies on unethical sales of public collections. The signatories which include Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund will refuse to work with, or provide grants or funding, to museums whose governing bodies choose to sell items from their collections in contravention of long-standing de-accessioning protocols.
At the time of writing the RSAA was unavailable for comment and it has been asked for a statement on the forthcoming sale. This will be published here when it is provided.
Image: From lot 257. Watson, Major J.C., Dr John Dudgeon, John Thomson, (and others?). ALBUM OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF PEKING (BEIJING), NINGPO (NINGBO), AND ENVIRONS. [CHINA, LATE 1860S]. Estimate £40,000 — 60,000
Original post: 8 April 2015 / UPDATED: 18 April
The RSAA issued a statement on 15 April acknowledging 'the deep and understandable concerns' of members and non-members. It added that the sale was essential to ensure the long-term future of the Society and that 'no further sales are envisaged'.
UPDATE 2: 4 May
The sale realised £136,250 (including buyer's premium) and it is likely that the RSAA will net less than £100,000, much less than the exoected £250,000 plus originally expected.
Despite huge popularity across the social strata in the United States of America, Victorian tintype photography never attained the same level of acceptance in Great Britain and as a result it has been annexed to the periphery of photographic history. The photographic establishment's adherence to the inflexible structure of the British class system created a hierarchy of respectability within photography and the tintype's negative reputation was nurtured in contemporary journals and publications, including the British Journal of Photography.
This stigma continued into the 20th Century as Helmut Gernsheim and Alison Gernsheim's 1955 tome The History of Photography still derided tintypes as “these hideous, cheap-looking pictures”, decades after they had become synonymous with lower class itinerant or seasonal portrait photographers or as spur-of-the-moment seaside novelties. Fast forward to the 21st Century and tintype photography is now enjoying a renaissance amongst the alternative photographic process community and contemporary tintypes are again being created across the globe.
This exhibition of original 19th Century photographs will reveal the tintype as an invaluable document of working class people and their photographers, and help to reposition tintypes as a significant and worthy subject within photographic history.
Victorian Britain and the Tintype Photograph. An exhibition of Victorian tintypes curated by Sheila Masson
English Speaking Union Scotland Gallery, 23 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 8HQ
Saturday 27th June - 19th July 2015
Contact: britishtintypes@gmail.com
www.britishtintypes.com
www.facebook.com/britishtintypes
Twitter: @britishtintypes
De Montfort University is pleased to announce the availability of one Taylor Bursary for its MA in Photographic History. The Bursary offers £5,000 toward the defrayal of tuition and other costs related to the MA, and is open to all students UK, EU and International.
To apply for the Taylor Bursary, please submit your cv and a proposal outlining your MA thesis topic, in English, to the Programme Leader by 15 May 2015. This proposal should be around, but no longer than 4,000 words. For questions about the MA programme or the Taylor Bursary Fellowship please contact Programme Leader, Dr Kelley Wilder at kwilder@dmu.ac.uk
The Taylor Bursary will be awarded to the applicant who will contribute significantly to the field of photographic history.
The MA in Photographic History is the first course of its kind in the UK, taking as it does the social and material history of photography at its centre. It lays the foundations for understanding the scope of photographic history and provides the tools to carry out the independent research in this larger context, working in particular from primary source material. You will work with public and private collections throughout Britain, handling photographic material, learning analogue photographic processes, writing history from objects in collections, comparing historical photographic movements, and debating the canon of photographic history. You also learn about digital preservation and access issues through practical design projects involving website and database design. Research Methods are a core component, providing students with essential handling, writing, digitising and presentation skills needed for MA and Research level work, as well as jobs in the field.
For further details on the course and application process, please see the course description here.
Edinburgh's Stills' presents a two-person exhibition showcasing historically important work by Anna Atkins (1799-1871) and Margaret Watkins (1884-1969), who made pioneering photographic work in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively. All works in this exhibition will be on loan from collections in Scotland.
Fascinated by science and art, Anna Atkins became one of the earliest pioneers of photography. In 1843, she started to produce British Algae; Cyanotype Impressions, the first book ever to be illustrated with photographs. The cyanotype process allowed her to experiment with a new method of accurately depicting botanical specimens in a book.
The modernist photographer Margaret Watkins had a successful career in New York and was active in the Clarence White school of photography before circumstances led to her relocation to Glasgow in the late 1920s. Her work became largely forgotten until, after her death, hundreds of photographs were discovered by her friend and neighbour.
ANNA ATKINS: Cyanotypes
MARGARET WATKINS: Advertising photography
Saturday 25 April - Sunday 12 July 2015
Open daily | 11am - 6pm | FREE
Read more here
Images: (left) Anna Atkins Ptilota Sericea, (circa 1843) cyanotype © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection; (right) Margaret Watkins, 'Hand Cigarette Holder' ('Myers Gloves'), (1924). Courtesy of the Margaret Watkins' Archive c/o Joe Mulholland, Glasgow
Debbie Ireland will talk about Isabella Bird and how she - the nineteenth century’s most renowned woman travel writer - became a photographer. The talk takes place at The Royal Photographic Society in Bath on 5 May 2015 and coincides with the publication of Debbie's new book of the same tile. A student of John Thomson, Bird (who was also a RPS member) recorded her three very different journeys in Chinai including her exploration of the Yangtze Valley and beyond.
At the talk here will be an opportunity to purchase and have signed copies of Debbie's newly published book. Isabella Bird A Photographic Journal of Travels Through China 1894-1896 (£25, Ammonite Press, April 2015) covers three journeys, beginning in the small port of Chefoo in 1894, where she arrived without money or luggage having been expelled from Korea. The photographic journal ends in 1896 with Isabella’s exploration of the Yangtze River and beyond.
This lavish pictorial record, produced in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), features 200 unique photographs taken by Isabella during her final Chinese expedition. The photographs and original observations, commented on by travel expert Deborah Ireland, transport readers to nineteenth century China and the insightful social observations of a passionate, courageous and unstoppable woman.
Deborah Ireland has spent seventeen years working in photography, having held the positions of Assistant Curator of The Royal Photographic Society’s Collection, head of the AA World Travel picture library and a judge for Travel Photographer of the Year since its inception in 2003. Deborah’s interest in the history of travel photography led her to research and write for The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), leading to the publication of Isabella Bird.
- See more at: http://www.rps.org/events/2015/may/05/isabella-bird---photographic-travels-through-china-189496
HELP!! I'm hoping that someone could give me more info on Richard Beard's studio addresses, dates in particular. I'm also looking for info on Beard & Foard's Photographic Institutions. I have not had much success online! Any help would be greatly appreciated!
DSGulledge
This two-day symposium will feature presentations by experts from England, France, and across the United States. Topics will include the art form’s early patronage by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the reasons why collectors of American Modernism also collected photographs, photography’s changing fortunes on the art market, and its legitimization as a collectable category in the fine arts. The symposium will conclude with an interview of a major collector of photography today.
The speakers include, from the UK, Dr Sophie Gordon, Philippe Garner and Marta Weiss.
Center for the History of Collecting Symposium, Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, New York
Friday and Saturday, 8-9 May, 2015, cost $50
The full programme can be seen here.
Hello, I am researching this photo of Rossetti by Carroll. Sorry for my bad quality pics. I believe it's an albumen print, on very thin paper, 5-3/8 x 4 inches. I know the original was taken in 1863, however, the back has a faint pencil inscription: 1873 Life photo. There is an identical print with the oval framing in Morton N. Cohen's Reflections in a Looking Glass- from the Ransom Center.
Would anyone know if Carroll's photos were reprinted in the 1870s? Or could this be a more recent print?
Any information would be appreciated.
Best, David
New website launched: Ken Keen & Light from the Darkness is a comprehensive cover of the book “Christian Art and Places of Worship”. A collection of pictorial, handcrafted images to illustrate the subject. The website gives a comprehensive description of Ken’s routine and method for making photographs of church interiors using a large format camera and historical or ‘alternative’ printing methods.
By virtue of being handcrafted, each original picture has its own intrinsic beauty, and that makes the image unique. There is a special aesthetic when photographs are made using a Historical Process. The composition and the appearance of these images resonate with a spiritual and romantic undertone. The alternative processes give this collection of images a timeless feel. This allows the viewer to experience the photographer’s presence, proof that the artist is an integral part of the work.
“Perception is, I believe, the key to unlocking the darker world, a world as it appears to many with Visual Impairment. Living as I do, in such a world that appears but dimly lit, living in a state of permanent twilight, gives me a great and beautiful feeling of peace.”
Ken lost most of his sight after surgery to remove a nasal tumor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society RPS and a Fellow of the Disabled Photographers Society. In recent years, Ken was Chairman of the RPS Archaeology and Heritage Group, even though he was by that time, registered as blind.
You can visit the website here: kenkeenandlightfromthedarkness.com
To kick off the 'Rethinking Early Photography' conference, the University of Lincoln is hosting a free public lecture by distinguished photo-historian Larry J. Schaaf. Professor Schaaf will be talking about the controversy that was sparked in 2008 over his identification of the now-infamous 'Quillan Leaf' as possibly originating with Thomas Wedgwood.
In 2008, a simple photograph of a leaf was due to be sold at the famous New York auctioneers Sotheby’s. One newspaper suggested that the image could be worth millions. The leaf made headlines around the world when Professor Larry Schaaf’s speculations as to its age threatened to rewrite photographic history. A media firestorm ensued and the leaf was removed from sale. Come and hear Professor Schaaf publicly discuss his conclusions about the leaf for the first time.
The paper will discuss the implications of the row for photographic historiography. It will also draw on subsequent research into 'The Leaf'. Discussing the dating and authorship of the image, Professor Schaaf states: 'the answer lies within my original bookends...Beyond that, however, I feel that there needs to be an examination of just what is history, how do we approach constructing or re-constructing it, and how do we accommodate evolving information and perspectives without destroying the historical record in the process?'
This lecture will be the first time that Professor Schaaf has publicly aired his conclusions about 'The Leaf'. The lecture is free. All are welcome.
Details of the 'Rethinking Early Photography' conference (16th-17th June) can be found here. There is no need to come to the conference to attend the public lecture, though you are of course very welcome to register and take part in this event as well. Queries can be directed to rethinkingphotography@gmail.com
Free public Lecture by Larry J. Schaaf, 4pm 15th June 2015
'The Damned Leaf: musings on history, hysteria & historiography'
Co-op Lecture Theatre (MB0312), Minerva Building, Brayford Pool, University of Lincoln (UK), 4pm 15th June 2015.
You can read more about the leaf photograph and the Sotheby's auction here and news of the withdrawal from auction here
PARC launches its second Moose on the Loose Biennale of Research. Highlights this year include Martin Parr and Nicholas Barker talking about making films, Paul Lowe's remarkable panoramic photographs from the Siege of Sarajevo, Sara Davidmann on the new film about her family archive 'To be Destroyed', British Council films from the 1940s, Anna Fox Work Stations files from the Camerawork archive, Women and photography in the 1970s, Shadows conference on alternative photography techniques and much more.
It's all free and everyone's welcome.
Full programme and booking at www.mooseontheloose.net.
The National Gallery of Art’s web feature for the exhibition Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860 aims to preserve the exhibition as an online resource for the artist and includes additional material on the photographic practices of Tripe and his contemporaries.
The exhibition opens at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 24 June and runs until 11 October.
See the website at the following URL: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/features/captain-linnaeus-tripe-photographer-of-india-and-burma.html
Peepshows were introduced in the mid-eighteenth century by Martin Engelbrecht in Augsburg. They called for a long wooden cabinet designed for purpose incorporating a viewing lens and sometimes a mirror. In the 1820s peepshows made entirely of paper appeared on the scene more or less at the same moment in Vienna, London and Paris. The clumsy cabinet was no longer called for. The new peepshow was equipped with paper bellows so it could be expanded or contracted in a trice. Paper peepshows were light; they were comparatively cheap. They fitted neatly into the pocket. Viewing a Paper Peepshow is an intimate, individual experience that, in the age of television and hand-held computers, gives a real sense of personal discovery. The viewer engages by peeping through a tiny hole and thereby discovers inside layers of images, like a pocket-sized stage set.
The format lent itself to a wide variety of subjects: to coronations and to state visits and funerals, to pleasure gardens, to trips up rivers and to the ceremonial openings of new railways, to distant views of cities and to tourist landmarks, to military engagements in exotic places, and to the July Revolution and the fall of the Bourbons in France in 1830. The Crystal Palace, erected in Hyde Park 1851 for the Great Exhibition, inspired the production of very large numbers of peepshows, mostly made overseas and imported. Peepshows made possible visits to sites existing in the imagination, to plunge down Alice's rabbit hole, for example, and to wander through the Garden of Eden in Paradise.
The main center of peepshow manufacture in the nineteenth century was toy-making Nuremburg. Briefly in the 1950s it was Britain. Nowadays it is the United States. Paper peepshows are no longer intended essentially for children but for bibliophiles and art-appreciating adults.
This stunning book charts the history of these charming collectables. The illustrated catalogue section includes the following data where known: country of origin, publisher, date, method of printing (eg chromolithograph), shape and dimensions, and number of scenes. As well as a full description of each piece, the author gives fascinating historical and cultural context for these items - ranging from depictions of the July Revolution (Paris, 1830), or the opening of the Thames Tunnel to the nursery tale of 'Puss in Boots'.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has received about 350 of these fragile toys from the British collectors Jacqueline and Jonathan Gestetner, who own Marlborough Rare Books in London.
ISBN: 9781851498000
Publisher: Antique Collectors' Club
Territory: USA & Canada
Size: 9.25 in x 11.75 in
Pages: 272
Illustrations: 511 color
Hardcover
See more here
Dominic Winter's spring Photography auction comprises 225 lots and is strongest on 19th-century material with good albums and collections featuring Asia, India, Africa and Europe. Highlight of the sale is an album of 79 Hugh Owen photographs (lot 370, slideshow link available on request). The albumen prints were made in the 1870s from the original paper negatives of the early 1850s. This ‘Canon Cole album’ has not been at auction before having been fortuitously given to Bristol photographic historian Reece Winstone in 1962 since when it has remained in his family’s hands. A number of the photographs are reproduced in Winstone’s Bristol’s Earliest Photographs (1970) but many of these ‘art’ photographs are unknown as salt prints, making this a unique and important treasure trove carrying an estimate of £20,000-30,000.
Other photographers represented in the auction include James Anderson, Antonio Beato, Thomas Biggs, Bisson Freres, Bonfils, Samuel Bourne, Jane Bown, Larry Burrows, Skeen/Scowen/Apothecaries & Co., Alvin Langdon Coburn, James Craig Annan, Howard Coster, Edward S. Curtis, Frantisek Drtikol, Olive Edis, Roger Fenton, Francis Frith, Frank Mason Good, Pietro Guidi, John W.G. Gutch, Lai Fong, William Baker, William Henry Jackson, Yousuf Karsh, Rudolf Koppitz, John Dillwyn Llewelyn, Maull & Polyblank, Farnham Maxwell-Lyte, Angus McBean, Felix Nadar, Carlo Naya, Talcott Harmon Pankhurst, James Robertson, Shepherd & Robertson, Benjamin Stone, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, William Henry Fox Talbot, Charles Thurston Thompson, John Thomson, Pierre Verger and film director Paul Morrissey.
Dominic Winter Auctioneers
Photography 1850-2000
Friday 17 April : 1.30pm
Online catalogue: http://www.dominicwinter.co.uk
Viewing times:
Thursday 16 April 9am - 7pm
Friday 17 April from 9am
Earlier times by appointment only
Session 1: Charles Clifford: 83 photographic views of Spain from between 1853 and 1863. These views are studio experiments made by Charles Clifford, creator of the first photographic archive in Spain. The photographs on sale are mostly inedited either as far as format, framing and the use of title cards are concerned or because they have been unknown until now. This important photographic production cannot be found in any of the major international collections in which the artist’s work is included. The photographs are related to the catalogue found in A Photographic Scramble through Spain, A. Marion & Co., London, (1861).
Session 2: Photographs and Photographic books: 230 lots from the beginnings of photography to the present day. The photographs and photographic books are by important nineteenth century artists such as: Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Charles Marville, Auguste Salzmann, Félix Teynard, Alphonse Delaunay, Charles Clifford and J.Laurent, as well as artists who actively participated in twentieth century artistic debates during the inter-war period such as: Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Rodchenko, Joaquim Gomis, Piet Zwart, Man Ray, Brassaï, Raoul Hausmann and Emili Vilá. There are also documentary photographers such as: Dorothea Lange, George Rodger, Francesc Català-Roca, Werner Bischof, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Joan Colom, Colita and abstract photography by Annelisse Hager, Gyorgy Kepes, Myron Kozman and Mario Giacomelli. There is also an important group of photographs taken in Latin America by Hugo Brehme, Leo Matiz, Hermanos Mayo, Walter Reuter, Kurt Severin, Fritz Henle, or by contemporary artists such as: Joseph Beuys, Buby Durini, Pere Noguera, Francesc Torres, Ralph Gibson, Pierre Gonnord, I J. H. Engström, Eduardo Cortils, Juan Pablo Ballester, Bela Adler and Daniel Steegmann.
Viewing:
7, 8, 9 &10 April 2015
13 & 14 April 2015
9.30 to 14.00 and 16.00 to 19.00
Auction Date:
15 April 2015
Balclis, Rosselló, 227, 08008 Barcelona, Spain.
Tel: (34) 93 217 56 07
Fax: (34) 93 217 10 92
Email: info@balclis.com
Download catalogues:
Charles Clifford
http://juannaranjo.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/clifford-web1.pdf
Fotografías y Fotolibros
http://juannaranjo.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/general-web-1.pdf
The Photographs collection consists of more than 250,000 original photographic images of which at least 130,000 are original negatives. They date from the 1840s to the present day. The department is also responsible for the upkeep of records pertaining to the Photographs Collection as well as records relating to photographic portraiture.
We have an opportunity for a paid intern to work on the addition of past photographic display records (including press releases, review excerpts and hand lists to the Gallery’s website). This frequently visited web page on the photographs section of the website has become a valuable archival resource detailing important exhibitions and displays dating back to the 1970s.
The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to shadow work of the photographs department and assist with shared tasks such as integrating archival records, retrieving original works and re-housing elements of the collection.
This opportunity will suit someone who has an interest in photographic portraiture and British history and can demonstrate accuracy and attention to detail and is able to work as part of a small team. It will provide the successful candidate with an invaluable insight into how a national photographs collection has been managed, interpreted and exhibited over time.
Read more and apply here: http://www.npg.org.uk/about/jobs/curatorial-internship-photographs.php
Leicester's De Montfort University Photographic History Research Centre's (PHRC) Annual International Conference will address the complex and wide ranging question of ‘photography in print.’ The conference aims to explore the functions, affects and dynamics of photographs on the printed page. Many of the engagements with photographs, both influential and banal, are through print, whether in newspapers, books, magazines or advertising. Photography in Print will consider what are the practices of production and consumption? What are the affects of design and materiality? And how does the photograph in print present a new dynamic of photography’s own temporal and spatial qualities? In addition, photography can be said to be ‘made’ through the printed page and ‘print communities’. Therefore, the conference will also explore what is the significance of photography’s own robust journal culture in the reproduction of photographic values? How has photographic history been delivered through the printed page? What are the specific discourses of photography in the print culture of disciplines as diverse as history and art history, science and technology? In this sense, Photography in Print continues the theme of previous PHRC conferences, which have explored photographic business practices and flows of photographic knowledge.
Keynote Lectures:
22 June 2015 – Professor Jennifer Green Lewis (George Washington University Washington DC USA)
23 June 2015 – Professor Thierry Gervais, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
See the provisional programme and register here
Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History
London
30 April 2015
Viewing 25-29 April
(early viewing by appointment)
Online catalogue:
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/travel-atlases-maps-natural-history-l15401.html
Photographic highlights include:
Sir William Everett’s album of 43 silver prints and 14 watercolours of Eastern Turkey [1879-1887]
£5,000-7,000
Lot 210
Edward Chapman’s personal annotated set of 89 albumen prints of Yarkand and Kashgar (1873-74)
£10,000-15,000
Lot 215
Dr Charles Hose. Album of 169 platinum prints of Sarawak [c.1884-1900]
£30,000-40,000
Lot 224
John Thomson. The Antiquities of Cambodia, 1867, First edition, with 16 albumen prints
(illustrated above)
£20,000-30,000
Lot 225
John Claude White. Sikhim, and Sikhim & Tibet frontier. Two albums of 60 carbon prints [c.1903]
£10,000-20,000
Lots 226-234
SINGAPORE. A private collection of 19th century photographs of Singapore and region
Lot 240
St Julian Hugh Edwards. Album of 63 albumen prints of Amoy (Xiamen) and vicinity [China, 1860s]
£40,000-60,000
Lot 256
Major J.C. Watson. Presentation album of 100 albumen prints of Ningpo (Ningbo). [China, c.1870]
£40,000-60,000
Lot 257
Major J.C. Watson, Dr John Dudgeon, John Thomson. Album of 99 albumen prints of Peking (Beijing), Ningpo (Ningbo) and environs. [China, late 1860s]
£40,000-60,000
Other Photographs:
EUROPE & GENERAL TRAVEL
Lots 68-70, and 86
POLAR
Lot 77
NEAR & MIDDLE EAST
Lots 146, 148, 156, 157, 160, 163, 173, 179, 184-188, 190, 193,
ASIA
Lots 205-210, 212-220, 222, 224-234, 239-243, 245-247, 250, 256-258
Icon Photographic Materials Group is pleased to announce that we will be co-hosting a one day event with Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales on the theme of digitisation and display to coincide with their exhibition, Historic Photography Uncovered and the recent launch of their online database of images from their historic photography collections.
Speakers at the event will be talking on a range of subjects such as support for digitisation projects, considerations relating to the display and loan of photographs, and mounting methods for water sensitive materials. There will also be behind-the-scenes tours and a guided tour of the exhibition. Please see the ICON PhMG webpage for more details ( http://tinyurl.com/IconPhMGCardiff).
Date: 16th April 2015
Time: 11.00 to 15.30 (registration/coffee at 10.30)
Location: Cardiff, National Museum Cardiff
Cost: £20 Icon members; £30 non-members; £7.50 Icon member concessions (includes lunch)
Booking: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sharing-photographs-digitisation-and-...
