Blogs

John Ruskin: Photographer and Draughtsman is the first museum exhibition to explore how the new medium of photography played a pivotal role in the evolution of this leading Victorian’s influential thinking. Bringing together daguerreotypes (unique copper photographic plates) –rarely on public display – with related drawings and watercolours, the exhibition shows how Ruskin used photography to build his understanding of landscape and architecture from which developed an entire philosophy of life that resonated throughout Victorian Britain and beyond.

John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) is generally considered to be one of the greatest of Victorian cultural figures, the most influential writer on art in the English language and an admired draughtsman and watercolourist. It was as a high-minded tourist that Ruskin became a passionate advocate of photography – “a noble invention” as he called it. First commissioning professionals to make images for him, and then later learning to create them himself, Ruskin assembled a substantial archive of daguerrotypes in the 1840s and 1850s.

The exhibition at Watts Gallery shows the photographs alongside the beautiful watercolours which were based upon them, together with some of the book illustrations which formed a further link in the chains of imagery which Ruskin developed using his daguerreotypes as a basis. Visitors are able to see the process whereby Ruskin’s philosophy of ‘truth to nature’ was both rooted in the traditions of Fine Art but also took full advantage of the latest visual technologies.

This exhibition showcases many of the important works held in the Ruskin Library collection at Lancaster University.

4 February – 1 June 2014
Watts Gallery
See: http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/gallery-exhibition/04-02-2014/john-ruskin

PHRC and University of Manchester are co-hosting a one-day workshop on Photography and Latin American Archaeology, to be held on June 10th 2014 at the Royal Anthropological Institute, London. Supported by the Society for Latin American Studies, speakers include Jennifer Baird, Luciana Martins, Louise Purbrick, James Scorer, Maria Chiara D’Argenio, Bea Caballero and PHRC’s Duncan Shields. Topics range from the photography and discovery of ruins, aesthetics of the material past and modern ‘ruins’.

See more and book here: http://photographichistory.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/visualising-latin-american-antiquities/

Sotheby's London is to offer a stuning album of photographs by John Beasley Greene. Estimated at £100,000-150,000 the album contains views of Egypt and Algeria dating from 1852-1856.

John Beasley Greene's work has been called ‘proto-modernist’ and looking back it is evident today that his views of Egypt and Algeria are some of the most radical in early photography. A student of Gustave Le Gray and the son of a Boston banker Greene was one of the rare American artists to have adopted the paper negative process with great mastery. His oeuvre includes views of Paris and the Fontainebleau forest – two forest scenes are included in this album – but the majority of his output depicts the land and documents the monuments and their inscriptions in Egypt, Algeria and Nubia realised during his expeditions as an archaeologist in 1853, 1854-1855 and 1855-1856. 

The auction also includes Camille Silvy's Studies on Light: Fog, London, 1859 (shown here) (estimate £20,000-30,000); Bisson, Negre, Fenton, Clifford, Le Seqc, Le Gray, and Atget as well as C20th and C21st century photographers. 

Sotheby’s will open the sale with a section of works donated by leading contemporary photographers such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Susan Derges and Guido Mocafico in support of the Bodleian Library’s campaign to acquire the Personal Archive of William Henry Fox Talbot.

The catalogue is available online by clicking here.

This new and important publication from Héritage Architectural, Paris, presents a catalogue of French overseas photographers together with foreigners who worked within the French Empire of were members of the Association Française de photographie between 1839-and 1920.

The photographers are classified by continent, subcontinent, country and town and cover 69 countries. The book by François Boisjoly and Jean-Christophe Badot is 312 pages, has 760 illustrations and 1097 entries. ISBN 2-915096-15-5  EAN 9 782 915 096 156.

It costs €80 plus shipping (UK - €17.85 for one copy). Payment by bank transfer to: BNP Paribas, 48 rue des Archives, 75004 Paris, France. IBAN: FR76 3000 4007 7300 0100 2761 849 / BIC BNPAFRPPPBY. See the PDF attachment here or more shipping options. 

For more information contact: Jean-Christophe Badot e: badotjch@gmail.com / t: 0032 476 99 65 40. 

August Sander died in 1964 and at this event on Saturday, 17 May 2014, fifty years on, speakers will discuss his life and his work from various perspectives.This two-day event celebrating the work of two fascinating practitioners is jointly organised by the East Midlands Region and the Historical Group of The Royal Photographic Society. It includes Sander's grandson, photographer Gerd Sander, who will speak and open the event. Other speakers include Hugo Worthy, New Walk Museum, Leicester; Professor Elizabeth Edwards, De Montfort University Leicester, and Dr Katja Hock, Nottingham Trent University.

On Sunday 18 May 2014, Anthony Penrose will offer some reflections on his life as the son of Lee Miller. He will also make a presentation on aspects of the life and work of Man Ray.

This is a special event with outstanding internationally known speakers.

Cost: for the two days which includes refreshments and lunch - £75 / £60 (RPS members); £45 single day (including light refreshments and buffet lunch)

See more: http://www.rps.org/events/2014/may/17/seeing-observing-thinking

Sotheby's auction of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History in London on 29 April 2014 includes a number of lots of photographs. These include: sixty early photographs of Morocco (£45,000-50,000) and a newly-discovered very large 13-part panorama of Shanghai by Henry Cammidge, together with 25 photographs by Cammidge (£50,000-70,000).

Photographs:

NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST

149. Egypt. An Album of 127 photographs by various photographers [1880s-1890s]

150. Sinclair, J.A. Gallipoli campaign, 62 platininum prints [c.1915]
153. Holy Land. Forty Stereo photographs, 1880s-1890s

155. Holy Land. 198 stereo photographs, early 1900s

160. Robertson, James. Crimea, Constantinople and Athens. [1853-56], 47 salted paper and lightly albumenised prints

161. Saudi Arabia Railroad, [1951-53], 57 silver prints

AMERICAS

176. Houseworth, T. and others. 100 stereoviews, [c.1865-1880]

AFRICA

179. Annan, Thomas (after). Portrait of David Livingstone, oil on board, possibly painted over a photograph

180. Morocco—Cavilla, A., George Washington Wilson, Leon and Levy, and others. A good collection of 60 early photographs of Morocco.

CHINA

181. Boxer Rebellion. Forbes-Sempill manuscript journal including 2 photographs

182. Jehol. 62 glass lantern slides

183. China, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Album of carte-de-visites

184. Beijing. 97 photographs (late 19^th early 20^th century)

186. China and Hong Kong. 100 lantern slides, c.1920s

187. China and Hong Kong. Album of 46 photographs

188. Floyd. 3 photographs of Canton

190. Floyd. Panorama of Hong Kong

191. Floyd. China, Hong Kong and Macao, 4 albumen prints

192. Beijing. Album of 80 silver prints, early 1900s

193. Floyd. Panorama of Macao, c.1868

194. Shanghai and Canton, album of 47 silver prints, c.1903

195. Tientsin (Tianjin). 36 photographs, c.1889-1901

196. Shanghai. Henry C. Cammidge. A 13-part panorama of Shanghai, c.1873 and 25 albumen prints

197. Citters, A.J. van. 61 photographs of Beijing, c.1903-08

198. Afong. 22 albumen prints of the Hong Kong typhoon, September 1874

211. Thomson, John. Illustrations of China and its People, 1873-74, 4 volumes, a fine copy.

INDIA

212. A collection of 64 stereo photographs, c.1880s-early 1900s

ANTARCTIC

217. Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1955-58. Three albums containing 204 photographs

218. Ponting, H. Terra Nova in McMurdo Sound, 7 January 1911, large green toned carbon print, framed and glazed

219. Ponting, H. Terra Nova at the ice foot, Cape Evans, 16 January 1911, large green toned carbon print, framed and glazed

The link to the e-catalogue is here:

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2014/travel-atlases-maps-natural-history-l14401.html#&i=0&fm=Photographs

Can you help us identify where these photos are from? These are round pictures - scanned from the negatives. Eastman Kodak Company produced these in the late 1880's and they weren't long lived so we're assuming the photos are from that period. Any help you can give is greatly appreciated as we attempt to identify location and eventually photographer (which of our collections this came from).

Comment at flickr, at BPH, or shoot me an email acope@uwm.edu . No comment is too obvious - any help you can give is great!

See the images here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/agslibrary/sets/72157643747255184/

There are 45 photos all together. Here are some specific photos with identifiable features:

A castle or fort (shown here): 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agslibrary/13725612093/in/set-72157643747255184

City on coast:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agslibrary/13725974764/in/set-72157643747255184

Rock outcrop on beach:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agslibrary/13725610173/in/set-72157643747255184

Huts:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agslibrary/13725610793/in/set-72157643747255184

Boat:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agslibrary/13725973504/in/set-72157643747255184

Platinum and palladium prints are among the most highly valued photographs in today's art and history collections. The wide tonal range and variety of surfaces provided photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century a broad palette with which to depict their most important subjects.

The collections of the Smithsonian Institution, for example, include platinum prints for photographers’ finest portrayals of the lives of Native Americans. The study of exceptional platinum photographs by photographers such as Gertrude Käsebier, Edward Steichen, and Clarence H. White, reveals cross-cutting themes, such as the role of women in society, religion, spiritualism, and fashion at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Irving Penn was responsible for the resurgence of the practice of platinum-related photography in the mid-twentieth century. More recently contemporary photographers have been eager to explore this alternative historic process. 

Conventional wisdom regarding platinum and palladium prints held that they are charcoal in hue with a matte surface, and that they are quite stable and do not fade. In recent years, however, inconsistencies have been observed. The image hue can range from sepia to blue-black, and paper supports have sometimes been found to darken, yellow, and become brittle. In some cases actual images have faded. These issues, along with other observations of the physical attributes of platinum and palladium prints, have established a new paradigm regarding the chemical and the aesthetic characteristics and permanence of these photographs. These recent insights presented the opportunity for the National Gallery of Art to initiate a multi-year collaboration to study these materials and reassess approaches for their conservation treatment, long-term preservation, and safe display. This interdisciplinary research will culminate in a four-day program of lectures, workshops, and tours in Washington, DC, to be held in October 2014.

The programs will provide an opportunity for members of the conservation, scientific, curatorial, and educational fields to glean knowledge from the NGA-led team of research collaborators. Sharing the results of the multi-year endeavor will advance the collective understanding of platinum and palladium photographs and our ability to preserve them for future generations. The speakers’ breadth and depth of knowledge and their commitment to disseminating new information will provide an essential foundation for those responsible for the interpretation and preservation of some of the most rare and important photographs in the collections of museums, libraries, and archives.

The Programme

The Platinum and Palladium Photographs program consists of three related activities, taking place over four days (October 21-24, 2014):

• A two-day symposium of lectures will be held at the National Museum of the American Indian’s 300-seat Mary Louise and Elmer Rasmuson Theater. Distinguished subject experts will present the results of the collaborative research, focusing on the technical, chemical, and aesthetic history and practice of platinum photography. The preliminary program is included below.
• A one-day, hands-on workshop hosted by the National Gallery of Art will explore the chemistry of platinum and palladium photographs and consider how variations in processing affect the appearance and permanence of the prints. The workshop will be held twice and will be led by Christopher Maines, Conservation Scientist, Scientific Research Department, NGA, and Mike Ware, Photographic Materials Chemistry Consultant to the NGA.
• Tours of collections held by the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, and the National Museum of American History will be conducted by leading photograph historians, conservators, and scientists and allow up to 60 participants to see rare examples of historic and contemporary platinum and palladium photographs.

These events are being presented by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) and are funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Registration and the full programme is here: http://www.conservation-us.org/education/education/current-courses/platinum-and-palladium-photography

Anne Lyden is to give a talk at 1400 on 12 April 2014 at the National Media Museum, Bradford. She will be talking about Frederick Evans.

Lyden is the newly appointed International Photography Curator of the National Galleries of Scotland (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/annie-lyden-appointed-international-photography-curator-at-the-na) and is responsible for some 34,000 images She is also the author of books on Evans, Strand and Hill and Adamson plus “Photography, Travel and Perception” (2003) and “A Royal Passion.  Queen Victoria and Photography” (2014), an exhibition on which opens at the Getty, Los Angeles this year.

To book a place click here. 

The National Media Museum in Bradford is hosting a two-day conference on the challenges and opportunities around the acquisition and management of archives by cultural institutions. Such archives may be still, moving or mixed-format; analogue or digital or both; they may be from a company, private, practitioner, virtual, community-based or regional; complete or partial; contained or continually developing.

This is a Call for Papers asking for perspectives on the strategic issues, opportunities and challenges presented by organisations which actively acquire and curate bodies of work.  The conference seeks to examine emergent digital technologies and their impact on archival practice and acquisition.

Contributions which evidence new approaches and/or creative and innovative ways of thinking which challenge conventional understanding are particularly welcome.

Four sessions will consider different types of archives encompassing perspectives from:

• Practitioners & Photographers
• Curators and Institutions
• Mixed Media & Technology Environment
• Commercial & Galleries World

Suggested themes and questions include:

1. The Archive

• What is considered to be `the asset’?
• What constitutes an archive and what challenges do these present to collecting institutions?
• At what point is it useful or helpful to call a `collection’ an `archive’?
• What is the difference between them, if any?
• What is the rationale for acquiring archives?

2. Mixed Curatorship

• Curatorial perspectives and models of mixed curatorship
• Does it need to be comprehensive or representative?
• What are the challenges around the acquisition of analogue/digital/mixed archives?

3. Ownership, Role and the Value of Attendant Data

• What is the impact of removing an archive from its locale?
• To what extent is it valuable for a practitioner to continue to be involved with their archive?

4. The Challenges of Copyright

• What is the role of commercial galleries and organisations?
• The challenges of acquiring multi-media or mixed format collections.
• What are the copyright issues around the acquisition of digital archives, and how can these be addressed?

5. The Future of the Archive: The Role of New Technologies

• What are the positive and negative impacts of `new technologies’?
• Digitisation against retention of the original
• Preservation and dissemination
• Public access, engagement and creative exploitation

For further information, please contact paul.goodman@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk directly.

UPDATE: The conference web pages can be found here: http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/Collection/ArchivesConference 

TIMETABLE

Deadline for abstracts [c.250 words for a 20 minute paper]

9 May 2014

Acceptance of abstracts

30 June 2014

Deadline for texts submission (web)

30 September 2014

A new online resource reproduces the surviving record books in the Dallmeyer archive held at Brent Archives, covering the period 1863-1902. Although the pages are not searchable the photographs of the pages are relatively simple to search. If you are fortunate you will be able to locate a lens serial number, identify what it was made as, who made it, when it was sold and who bought it.  

See: http://www.thedallmeyerarchive.com/Records/Identification.html

The Nicholas Brothers & A. T. W. Penn: photographers of South India 1855–1885 examines the successful studios established by John and James Perratt Nicholas and Albert Penn in Madras and Ootacamund. The text is illustrated with over 100 plates and 150 figures, the majority of which are published here for the first time. The book further reproduces a catalogue of Nicholas & Co.’s photographs from 1881, which will serve as an invaluable tool for researchers and collectors.

In the 1850s and 60s, Madras was an important centre for the rapidly developing art of photography. Dr Alexander Hunter founded the Madras School of Arts in 1850 and the Madras Photographic Society in 1857, where John Nicholas served on the committee. Pioneering photographers Linnaeus Tripe, John Parting, Edmund David Lyon, Willoughby Wallace Hooper and Samuel Bourne all contributed to the rapid advance of photography in the region. James Perratt Nicholas and A. T. W. Penn continued their work to the end of the nineteenth century.

This publication marks the end of a 12-year research project for the author, who scrupulously documents three decades of work by James Perratt Nicholas and A. T. W. Penn. It begins with the early years of the Nicholas studios in Madras and Ootacamund, explains how the business achieved success in the 1870s and 1880s and concludes with the introduction of the Kodak, the rise of the amateur photographer, and the inevitable decline in the studios’ profitability that followed.

The Nicholas Brothers & A. T. W. Penn: photographers of South India 1855–1885 is being published by Quaritch in Summer 2014. If you would like to be contacted when it is available for purchase at the special prepublication price, please contact: Alice Ford-Smith: a.ford-smith@quaritch.com

The inspiration for this book was a remarkable purchase made by the authors at a small country auction in 2006 for £75,000 (See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514218/Mystery-photographs-part-of-Ruskin-collection.html). Ken and Jenny Jacobson found that one lightly regarded lot contained a lost collection of daguerreotypes that had once belonged to John Ruskin, the great 19th-century art critic, writer and social reformer. This discovery included scenes of Italy (mostly Venice), France and Switzerland, and has at a stroke much more than doubled the number of known Ruskin daguerreotypes.

Despite his sometimes vehemently negative sentiments regarding the camera, Ruskin’s involvement in photography is now shown to have been much more extensive than previously imagined. He assiduously collected, commissioned and produced daguerreotypes and paper photographs; he pioneered the use of the collotype and platinotype processes for book illustration. Many of the recovered daguerreotypes reveal surprising compositions and have enabled insights into how Ruskin’s use of the daguerreotype influenced the style of his watercolours.

The text includes a fully illustrated catalogue raisonné of 325 known daguerreotypes. The overwhelming majority of the newly discovered plates are published here for the fi rst time. There are an additional 275 illustrations in the text and an essay describing the technical procedures used in a remarkably successful conservation programme.

Ken and Jenny Jacobson met whilst working in the Biophysics Department at King’s College, University of London. Both were drawn to the field of nineteenth-century photographs and redirected their academic curiosity towards the history of photography. After 44 years immersed in the subject, they now find themselves increasingly involved with archives and libraries. Ken’s previous publications, in which Jenny took an active role as editor and advisor, include: Étude d’Après Nature: 19th Century Photographs in Relation to Art; ‘The Lovely Sea-View… Which All London is Wondering at’: A Study of the Marine Photographs Published by Gustave Le Gray, 1856-1858; Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839–1925.

Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes is being published by Quaritch in Summer 2014.

If you would like to be contacted when it is available for purchase at the special prepublication price, please contact: Alice Ford-Smith: a.ford-smith@quaritch.com

The Photography gallery at London's V&A is showing a special exhibition looking at the history of fashion photography which complements the V&A's major exhibition The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945-2014. 

Selling Dreams: One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography charts the evolution of fashion photography over the last 100 years through the work of leading practitioners, whose images go far beyond the simple recording of fabrics and surface detail. The photographs on display include both iconic and rarely exhibited works from the V&A collection by masters such as Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and David

Bailey, alongside contemporary images by Steven Klein, Corinne Day, Rankin, Miles Aldridge and Tim Walker.

28 March 2014 - 4 May 2014, 10.00-17.30

See: http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/3098/selling-dreams-one-hundred-years-of-fashion-photography-4491/

In this lecture the artist/photographer Michael Schaaf will lead you through the wet-collodion process. He’ll discuss the history of collodion photography and its properties and practically demonstrate how it’s done; from the cleaning of the plates, coating with collodion, sensitising, capturing a picture, developing and then finally the varnishing of the plate with historic varnishes made of gum sandarac and lavender oil.

There will be time for discussion and to have a look at some of Michael's plates and prints. A must for everyone interested in historic photographic processes.

Times/Date: 10.30 – 12 Noon /1 0th May 2014

Address :The Royal Photographic Society, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath  BA2 3AH

Non members £10/ Members and Students £7

Booking; http://www.rps.org/events/2014/may/10/wet-collodion-talk

In celebration of an important acquisition, the Museum of London is displaying a selection of Christina Broom's photography, highlighting Broom's images of the military in London and kick-starting a programme of events marking the centenary of World War One. The original albums were offered at Sotheby's in 2009 where they failed to sell.

A pioneering press photographer who documented life in the capital between 1903 and 1939, the small display anticipates a large-scale retrospective in autumn 2015.

See more at: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/london-wall/whats-on/exhibitions-displays/christina-broom/

Cooke Optics, formerly Taylor, Taylor & Hobson and then Rank Taylor-Hobson and Rank Optics has a history back to the 1880s. It is still based in Leicester where it continues to make outstanding lenses for still photography and cinematographic use. 

This video shows the process of manufacture and assembly.

Cooke Optics Factory Tour with Titles from Cooke Optics on Vimeo.

A fascinating new photographic exhibition at Perth Museum & Art Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, tells the story of three Perth photographic businesses at a time when the demand for newspaper photography grew hugely.

The exhibition was put together by Paul Adair Photographic Officer at the museum who sent me over the full details - good job!

View details and more images

...and Please let me know if you have seen this exhibition and any comments - looks good

David Burder FRPS, FBIPP, BSc, has one place left on his very special, hands-on, workshop on 6 April in his North London studio. David will take participants through the many aspects (some safe, some dangerous), of Daguerreotype imaging, the cameras and actual hands-on production of an actual Daguerreotype image. It will be a very interactive experience with course members taking away up to three Daguerreotypes made on the day. Stereo Dags will also be demonstrated. This is a rare opportunity to work with a Daguerreotypist.

The cost for the day will be £350. The workshop will take place at David’s studio in North London. Contact David@3Dimages.co.uk for further information and for Workshop booking.

David is Director of 3D Images Ltd in London, and holder of a dozen 3D imaging patents. He is a Fellow Of The Royal Photographic Society, and a previous recipient of several RPS awards, including The RPS Saxby award for 3D imaging.
David is one of only a handful of practising Daguerreoptypists/ lecturers and has appeared on BBC TV, as well as in in The Guinness book of records, for creating the Worlds largest Daguerreotype. (having first had to build a 2 metre tall camera to house the 24x48 inch plate holder.)

He also created the worlds first 3D Lenticular “Dag”, as well as re-discovering the fabled true colour Daguerreotype process, which basically re-writes the early history of colour imaging. David has given several “live, hands-on” demonstrations of this  procedure at several RPS events.

As he wrote in The Daguerrian Annual, “in making Daguerreotypes, I have created many smells and met many new friends”.

http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/events/lecture-sebastian-dobson-once-you-have-decided-to-have-your