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Magnum Photos collection, which contains nearly 200,000 press prints of images taken by world-renowned Magnum photographers, has been donated to the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The gift was made by Michael and Susan Dell, Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman and John and Amy Phelan.

The donation of the Magnum Photos collection is expected to be the single-largest gift to the Ransom Center ever. The collection, more than 1,300 boxes of photographic materials, has been integrated into the university's curriculum, accessed by students and scholars and promoted through a variety of lectures, seminars and fellowships. You can read the official press release here.

The Museum of Fine Art, Houston's world-renowned photography department will have a new curator by the end of the year. Malcolm Daniel is the long-standing and highly-respected curator of photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and will move to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston where he will replace Anne Tucker who is retiring. Daniel is an expert in nineteenth-century photography and has been at the Met for 23 years

Tucker, named America's best curator by Time Magazine in 2001, will not retire until June 2015, but she will cede her leadership duties to Daniel on 9 December. The two will work together for six months. Daniel, 56, commented: "One of the things that makes the job so appealing to me is that Anne has already built this amazing collection and community," he said.

Tucker, the museum's founding curator of photography, expanded the collection from 141 works in 1976 to about 29,000 works by 4,000 artists today. She's also staged more than forty exhibitions over the years, including landmark shows such as 1989's Czech Modernism: 1900–1945, 2003's The History of Japanese Photography and the currently touring  War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath.

See: http://www.chron.com/entertainment/arts-theater/article/Museum-of-Fine-Arts-Houston-announces-new-4827932.

Image: Anne Tucker and Malcolm Daniel / Cody Duty-MFA

Two new publications on Stefan Lorant are published on 1 October in hardback editions. Paperback editions will follow early in 2014. 

• Stefan Lorant: Never a Dull Moment  /  Michael Hallett
  The biography, Stefan Lorant: Godfather of Photojournalism (Scarecrow Press, 2006. Hardback, 240pp. ISBN 0-8108-5682-4) was always seen as the first of three books. It is only now, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the publication of Picture Post that Never a Dull Moment and A Hungarian in England will reach a public.
• Stefan Lorant: A Hungarian in England  /  Michael Hallett
  A Hungarian in England is the story of Stefan Lorant's life in England from 1934 to 1940, where he created and edited Weekly Illustrated, Lilliput and Picture Post. This unique working collaboration between Lorant and the author was originally expected to provide as a small 64-page publication. That never happened in Lorant's lifetime. Only now, this 2013 edition reinstates original and unpublished material, adding a postscript on the aftermath and implications of Lorant’s time in England that was played out between 1940 and 1982.

Stefan Lorant’s life spanned the twentieth century and he is the acknowledged ‘godfather of photojournalism’. He was concerned with language, both verbal and visual, and was one of the greatest storytellers of his time, having worked as filmmaker, journalist, a literary and picture editor, and recently as an author and biographer.

He edited the Münchner Illustrierte Presse in Germany, Pesti Napló magazine in Hungary, and created and edited Weekly Illustrated, Lilliput and Picture Post in England, publishing work of the early photojournalists.  He was acquainted with political figures of the century including Hitler, Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy, and knew Marlene Deitrich, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe amongst others.

Anybody who met Stefan Lorant, even just in passing, could not remain ambivalent. Lorant was a chameleon, maverick and an inspiration. He reflected: ‘I wanted to have a life where I left a tiny little scratch on the world.’ Through the legacy of his work we have all been touched by this combative, contradictory, complex and charismatic man.  

My edited diaries, made between 1991 and 1999 are the record of our seven-year conversation. There was never a dull moment...

Stefan Lorant: Never a Dull Moment is published in October 2013 by Henwick Hill Press and will be available as a 'library edition'. (Henwick Hill Press, 2013. Hardback, 346pp. ISBN 978-0-9561570-2-7). 

Stefan Lorant: A Hungarian in England will be published in October 2013 by Henwick Hill Press and available as a 'library edition'. (Henwick Hill Press, 2013. Hardback, pp166.)

Library editions are only available directly from the author who may be contacted at mike@michaelhallett.com. Prices on request. See: www.mikehallett.com 

This event consists of a symposium, workshop, and tours, 21-24 October 2014, in Washington, DC. Organised by the National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian Institution this event will look at the technical and aesthetic history of these two processes, the chemistry and connoisseurship. More information and details of the programme will be published later.

UPDATE: The programme has now been published. http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=1703

See: http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=499

The Getty Conservation Institute has started to release an important new resource for photographic historians and conservators. The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes is intended for practicing photograph conservators, curators, art historians, archivists, library professionals, and anyone responsible for the care of photograph collections. Its purpose is to aid in the formulation of analytical questions related to a particular photograph and to assist scientists unfamiliar with analysis of photographs when interpreting analytical data. The Atlas contains interpretation guides with identification of overlaps of spectral peaks and warnings of potential misidentification or misinterpretation of analytical results.

The introduction is available here to download: http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/atlas_intro.pdf

Read more here: http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/atlas.html

There is an article about the project an d an interview with Dusan Stulik here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/new-getty-atlas-to-preserve-data-on-nondigital-photography/?smid=tw-share&_r=1 which quotes Grant Romer: “In essence this can start to rewrite the history of photography. It’s already provoked a sort of crisis in the understanding of what we think we know about some photographs.”

Following yesterday's Media Space press call there has been plenty of coverage of the space at London's Science Museum.  Chris Derwent of the Art Fund Review provides a historical survey of the demand for a photography space; the BBC, and Sean O'Hagan in the Guardian cover the Tony Ray-Jones/Martin Parr show, while Wallpaper reports on Universal Everything's digital installation.

There's little wider analysis of the likely impact of the new exhibition space and what the possible repercussions might be for the National Media Museum but the Ray-Jones/Parr show and the space generally gets a thumbs up.  

Media Space opens to the public today (Saturday).

At a special gathering 1000 guests attended the long-awaited opening of Media Space, previously the NMeM's London presence, at London's Science Museum. The new space is a joint venture between the Science Museum and National Media Museum. At the opening ceremony Michael G Wilson OBE alluded to the tortuous history that had culminated in last night's opening. He described the gallery development, first mooted 25 years ago and which had seen off six museum directors and the making of four Bond films as difficult. Wilson was presented with a Science Museum Fellowship in recognition of his determination in ensuring the project was realised. The current Science Museum Director Ian Blatchford deserves praise for committing to the project.  

The opening exhibition Only in England: Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr was stunning with Ray-Jones' work, particularly, retaining a sense of humour and incisiveness over the forty years since it was first made. Parr was showing rarely seen work from the mid-1970s that was clearly influenced by Ray-Jones.  The show moves to Bradford in March 2014.  

The gallery space is large, simple and plain. As such it offers the potential to become a must-go-to place when exhibitions, based on the National Media Museum's unrivalled collections, are shown. Ray-Jones and Parr are just the start future. Future shows dealing with science and colour will be more challenging and will do more to demonstrate the breadth of Bradford's holdings. The adjacent cafe area has the potential to become as popular as that of the Photographers' Gallery as a place for those working in, or just interested in, photography to meet. The fact that Media Space has a (modest) admission charge may temper that somewhat.

In the Virgin Media Studio space Universal Everything & You, a new specially-commissioned digital installation of two artworks by art and design collective Universal Everything, was stunning. 

See: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/media_space.aspx

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/exhibitions/only_in_england.aspx

The National Media Museum in Bradford is in final stages of acquiring tens of thousands of photographs and personal papers from the acclaimed British photographer Lewis Morley. Morley died at the age of 88, at his home in Sydney, Australia, recently and members of his family are carrying out his wish that his images and papers be made available to the public, rather than sold on the open market.

Paul Goodman, head of collections, projects, at the museum said: “It was with great sadness that the National Media Museum learned of Lewis Morley’s death last week.

“However, we are privileged to announce that we are concluding plans to consolidate his extensive archive in Bradford by the end of this year.

“The Lewis Morley Archive is currently split between Palm Springs in the USA and Sydney, Australia, and comprises a comprehensive selection of prints, including some of his best-known work, accompanied by his complete accumulation of negatives and extensive personal ephemera and correspondence.

“This major addition of work to the National Photography Collection by a significant photographer underlines our continuing commitment, wherever possible, to acquire complete or extensive archives of key practitioners, rather than selecting individual or small groups of work.

“Achieving this ambition allows us to preserve and celebrate the legacy of these individuals, presenting as full a picture as possible of their work and what was involved in producing them, whilst evidencing their modus operandi.”

Among the collection are photographs and papers pertaining of the notorious Profumo scandal, involving Christine Keeler, of 1963.

Mr Morley famously photographed Christine Keeler, naked and astride a chair, at the height of the scandal. Mr Morley also photographed the rising stars of the 1960s, such as models: Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, satirists Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett, comedian Barry Humphries, actors Michael Caine, John Hurt, Tom Courtenay, Peter O’Toole and Charlotte Rampling, and playwright Joe Orton.

See: http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/localbrad/10664165.Top_photographer___s_archive_set_for_Bradford_s_National_Media_Museum/?ref=nt and http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/photo-news/540022/photographer-lewis-morley-s-vast-archive-heads-to-uk

UPDATED

The Guardian carried a full obituary by Terence Pepper of the NPG here: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/12/lewis-morley

Details of the archive's move to Bradford is here: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/07/lewis-morley-donates-archive-photographs

The first retrospective exhibition in the United States, and the only scholarly catalogue on the renowned 19th-century French photographer Charles Marville (1813–1879), will present recent groundbreaking discoveries informing his art and biography, including the versatility of his photographic talents and his true identity, background, and family life. The exhibition will feature some 100 photographs covering the arc of Marville's career, from his city scenes and landscape and architectural studies of Europe in the early 1850s to his compelling photographs of Paris and its environs in the late 1870s.

Details of this exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington from 29th Sept 2013 to 5th Jan 2014 can be found here.

“One is hearing now, in this country at least, that in the near future we may look for a great revival of stereo photography, and if the rumor is well founded and turns out to be fulfilled prophecy, we may expect once more to find the stereoscope ‘on every drawing-room table,’ as of yore.” Thus wrote the photographic journalist Andrew Pringle in 1892, thirty years after the first, golden age of the stereoscope had passed.

In the event, Pringle’s prediction would only be partially fulfilled, stereo photography never quite regaining the height of fashionability it once enjoyed in the drawing rooms of the middle classes and aristocracy. But revived it was, most significantly in the scientific rather than the domestic sphere.

Among several innovative applications of stereo photography in medicine and anatomy in the period one in particular stands out due to the reflexive nature of its subject matter: Arthur Thomson’s The Anatomy of the Human Eye (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1912). Also referred to as “Thomson’s Stereoscopic Atlas of the Eye”, the work consisted of sixty-seven “enlarged stereoscopic photographs” of human eyeballs in various states of dissection, together with a handbook of detailed descriptions and diagrammatic keys to the images.

Read more

Stereograms and the Standardization of Anatomical Observation:
Arthur Thomson’s The Anatomy of the Human Eye, 1912

The week before Media Space is due to open to the public Design Week reports that Ben Kelly Design has created the new Media Space gallery, with an identity by Graphic Thought Facility.

According to Ben Kelly Design, it aims to provide a ‘a democratic space that encourages information sharing, and it provides an evolving forum that responds to and reflects our ever-changing media age’.

Ben Kelly Design’s interiors feature materials including reclaimed pitch pine cladding, glazed bricks and leather, with coloured timber blocks laid in patterns ‘that play with scale and define zones’ used on flooring. ‘The design exploits the potential overlap and relationship between activities’, says Ben Kelly Design.

‘[Our] approach retains and exploits the qualities of the building, while creating a stimulating visual landscape capable of accommodating and adapting to a changing programme of events’.

The gallery space, which will showcase the National Photography Collection through a series of exhibitions, is housed in a rectangular form, and is subdivided into three rooms to increase flexibility. 

Divisions between the rooms are partly glazed to ‘retain the heroic volume of the overall space’, says Ben Kelly Design.

The first exhibition in the space will be the Universal Everything and You show, a large audio-visual artwork created collaboratively through a smart phone app by art and design collective Universal Everything.

Read more at:: http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/ben-kelly-design-creates-media-space-gallery-for-the-science-museum/3037181.article

Check out this series of videos below by digital filmmaker and photographerRich Ferguson, created for the Edinburgh Libraries in the capital of Scotland. It’s a brief tour through the collection of early Victorian photography held by the libraries.

Explore the story of the 19th century Derry photographer, James Glass.  The exhibition includes some of his portrait images and his iconic images of Gweedore County Donegal, in the ‘Glass Album’.

Glass is often remembered for a unique series of photographs of the Gweedore and Cloughaneely areas, taken in the late nineteenth century.These photographs which have not been on display since they were first taken, are connected to the famous 1889 “Land War” trial of Fr McFadden and some of his parishioners following the killing of District Inspector Martin in Gweedore, Co. Donegal.

It is believed that James Glass was commissioned by the defence to take a series photographs depicting tenant life in Gweedore. These photographs subsequently became known as the Glass Album. This was the first use of photographs as evidence in an Irish court. There are two known copies of the Album – one in the collections of the National Museums of Northern Ireland, the other, belonging to a private collection, which on display for the first time in this exhibition,

The exhibition will be launched on Thursday at the Tower Museum at 7pm and will be open to the public until October 26. Admission is free. Further details can be found here and here and here too.

The first museum of its kind in Malaysia, as well as in South East Asia, recently opened its doors to the public. Local photography fans can now take a journey through the evolution of the camera from the 19th century to its present day at the Camera Museum located in a two-storey pre-war shophouse in George Town.

The museum is the brainchild of seven young people -- Tony Ch'ng, 34; Najieb Ariff Nazir Ariff, 34; Christopher Cheah, 30; Venus Khor, 28; Lance Ooi, 27; Paul Lee, 27 and Adrian Soh, 26 -- who are professional photographers and lovers of the art of photography. Only a month old, it has already hosted programmes for the Obscura Festival during the recent George Town Festival 2013.

The collection of over 300 cameras include include the century-old Brownie, Kodak's first commercial camera; a 150-year-old American-made folding camera; the Rolleiflex, and the Graflex Speed Graphic, the most famous press camera; a tiny World War II Soviet Union spy camera, the 1938 Argus camera; an antique Daguerreotype camera and the French-made Le Minimus stereoscope, the 3D picture viewer of yesteryears.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Photo: Camera Museum founders (copyright: New Straits Times)

New archive discovered in a second cousin's attic.   Can you help with date and year of new images

Image 1 is believed to be of Frank Walton's two young daughters in late 1860's (Louisa and Emily Walton) and taken as tintype by Frank before he had a studio, so at fairgrounds probably in Lincolnshire or Warwickshire. Need expert opinion on the year the image was likely taken in terms of materials used, frame used and victorian dress of the children.

IMAG2110.jpg

Image 2 is believed to Frank Walton's father, John Walton who was a Gingerbread Baker from Islington and Hackney who died in May 1860. Is the image from before 1860 in terms of dress and picture and frame styling ? It is not known if Frank would have taken this image.

IMAG2109.jpg

Image 3 - is a nice imageof a young dark haired lady - touched up with ink maybe ?  It cannot be Frank's mother who died in 1840 in Islington aged 35 in childbirth when he was 6. It could be his step mother Ann Walton or it coul be a picture of his young first wife who he married in Boston in 1858, Mary Ann Shaw.

IMAG2112.jpg

Image 4 , the final image - is of an older man in a very early photograph. My family believe that this could be

Frank's father's father, also John Walton and a Baker, but who may have outlived his son. In 1850, he is likely to have been 80. Can you help with the year of the image ?

IMAG2043.jpg

The next London Photograph Fair takes place this Sunday, 8th of September in the Holiday Inn Bloomsbury.  Around 40 dealers are taking part; including first time participants Dinah May (www.dinahmay.com) and Café Royal Books (www.caferoyalbooks.com). Doors open to the public at 10 am, with admission priced at £3. As always a free voucher for free entry after 2pm can be obtained by emailing us on info@photofair.co.uk.

We have set provisional dates for some of next years events:

March  9th

May 25th

September 14th

November tba (Sunday before Paris Photo).

Image: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, albumen print 8" x 5": £700

(Dinah May)

The Royal Anthropological Institute is pleased to announce that a conference ‘Anthropology and Photography’ will take place at the British Museum, Clore Centre, in conjunction with the museum’s Anthropology Library and Research Centre between 29-31 May 2014. The aim of the Conference is to stimulate an international discussion on the place, role and future of photography.  Panel proposals are therefore welcome from any branch of anthropology.

More information is here: http://www.therai.org.uk/conferences/anthropology-and-photography/

Call for Panels and Papers

We welcome contributions from researchers and practitioners working in museums, academia, media, the arts and anyone who is engaged with historical or contemporary production and use of images.

Panels can draw upon (but are not limited to) the following themes:

• The use of photography across anthropological disciplines
• The changing place of photography in museums and exhibitions
• Photography and globalisation
• Photography, film and fine art
• Revisiting and re-contextualising archival images
• Photography and public engagement
• Ethics, copyright, access and distribution of images
• Technological innovation and its impact
• Regional photography practices
• Visual method and photo theory

The call for panels opens on 1 August 2013 and closes on 31 October 2013

The call for papers opens on 27 November 2013 and closes on 8 January 2014

CONFERENCE FEE:

Non-Fellow: £170
RAI Member: £150
RAI Fellow: £90
Concessions: £70
RAI Student Fellow: £50

 Victoria Hall, Settle, North Yorkshire, is hosting Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell, a lecture by Brian May and fellow authors. The 3D presentation and lecture celebrates the publication of the London Stereoscopic Company's Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell by Dr Brian May CBE, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming.

The authors - led by Queen guitarist, astronomer and photo-historian Brian May - will present a Gothic Victorian underworld of temptation, seduction, retribution and devilish fun brought alive in colour and 3D. Learn about the origins and hidden meanings of these rare 1860s French photographs which depict an imaginary underworld populated by devils, satyrs and skeletons.

Put on your 3D glasses and prepare to be surprised!

The evening will also provide an opportunity to buy copies of the book (published in hardback by The London Stereoscopic Company, October 2013, £40) and to have them signed by the authors.

More information: http://www.settlevictoriahall.org.uk/prog/2013/nov_brianmay.html

The Royal Photographic Society is hosting the first showing of the 3D presentation in London on 1 November. See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lecture-diableries-stereoscopic-adventures-in-hell

ARK PRESS is a publishing platform and website which seeks to save and promote vernacular photographs relating to all areas of British social history. We will be having a mini-pop-up show of images from the ARK at Bristol's Parlour Showrooms this Friday and Saturday. Come down anytime between 10am and 8pm or join us on Friday night from 5pm for a drinks and social reception at 31/31a College Green Bristol BS1 5TB

“I love saving things that are ephemeral, because if they don’t get saved they will be lost. I like the fact that these snapshots were important to someone at some point in time, and then became un-important. Found objects are often trash.  Perhaps I feel that there’s something archeologically satisfying in the process of finding something that was lost or buried in a heap of paper ephemera at a flea market, and to then present it as something that deserves to be saved, looked at, and learnt from.”

Interview with Frank Maresca, ‘Now Is Then: Snapshots From The Maresca Collection’, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008, p.165

www.arkpress.co.uk

www.parlourshowrooms.co.uk