Blogs

Auction house Sworders is offering a rare carte-de-visite showing Jacob Washington besides the coffin of David Livingstone, made by the London studio of Elliott & Fry in 1874. The story behind the carte is poignant. 

The fourteen-year-old Jacob Wainwright (c.1859-1892) was hired to accompany Dr Livingstone as he explored East Africa. Jacob had been sold to slavery as a child, but was liberated by a British anti-slavery ship and subsequently sent to an asylum for freed slaves in India.

Having contracted dysentery, Livingstone died at Chitambo, near the edge of the Bangweulu Swamps in modern Zambia, on 1 May 1873. Wainwright and two other Africans, Abdullah Susi and James Chuma, resolved to bring his body the 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the British consulate at Bagamoyo in Zanzibar. Before the journey, Livingstone's heart and entrails were removed from his body and buried in an iron box. Wainwright recorded that a massive blood clot, possibly a cancerous tumour, was found in the lower bowel. At the burial ceremony, Wainwright read from the Book of Common Prayer, and he was also given the responsibility of making a full inventory of Livingstone's possessions.

The Church Missionary Society paid for Wainwright to accompany Livingstone's body back to England and he faithfully guarded the coffin on its journey. The explorer's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey, on 18 April 1874, with Wainwright the only African among the eight pallbearers. Following Livingstone's death, Wainwright stayed in England at Kessingland, Suffolk, and also spent time travelling across the country addressing meetings of the Church Missionary Society, before finally making his way back to Africa, dying in Tanzania in 1892.

Out of the Ordinary
19 August 2025
In person and online, lot 315
See: https://www.sworder.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-david-livingstones-coffin-attended-by-jacob-wainwright/?lot=538766

Launched today is a new-looked for the website that explores the role of women in the history of Australian photography between 1850 and 1950. 

See: https://photoria.com.au/

A bit of a long shot but Ian Trumble, Curator of Archaeology, Egyptology and World Cultures, Bolton Library and Museum Services, would like to know of the whereabouts of any photographs taken by the egyptologist Annie Barlow, in particular any photographs taken on her visits to Egypt. Although Annie Barlow, in her role as Honorary Local Secretary for Bolton of the Egypt Exploration Fund, was instrumental in establishing the extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts at Bolton Museum, the largest collection of Egyptology of any local authority museum in the UK, her photographic archive has disappeared, not to say it hasn't survived though. So, with fingers crossed, we are issuing this appeal for information.

Image: Annie Barlow / Bolton Museum

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World (9 October 2025 - 11 January 2026) at the National Portrait Gallery will be the first major exhibition to spotlight the renowned twentieth century photographer’s trailblazing fashion photography, the core of his illustrious career which laid the foundation for his later successes. Often highlighted, but rarely examined in detail, the exhibition – curated by Vogue contributing editor Robin Muir – will explore Beaton’s contribution to fashion, charting his meteoric rise and distinguished legacy. The exhibition will celebrate how his signature artistic style – a marriage of Edwardian stage glamour and the elegance of a new age – revitalised and revolutionised fashion photography and led him to the pinnacles of creative achievement.

Renowned as a photographer, Beaton was also a fashion illustrator, Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist and perceptive writer. ‘The King of Vogue’ – was an extraordinary force in the twentieth century British and American creative scenes. Elevating fashion and portrait photography to an art form, his era-defining photographs captured the beauty, glamour and star power in the interwar and early post-war eras.

With around 250 items displayed, including photographs, letters, sketches and costumes, the exhibition will showcase Beaton at his most triumphant.

Through several interwoven themes, the world of Cecil Beaton will be examined in detail. The exhibition will follow Beaton’s career from its inception, as a child of the Edwardian era experimenting with his first camera on his earliest subjects, his two sisters and mother (c. 1910), his years of invention and creativity as a student at Cambridge University, to his first images of the high society patrons who put him on the map. Including Stephen Tennant and the Sitwell siblings.

The exhibition will journey through the London of the 1920s and 1930s, the era of the ‘Bright Young Things’ and Beaton’s first commissions for this greatest patron, Vogue, to his travels to New York and Paris in the Jazz Age. Drawn to its glamour and star wattage, Beaton photographed the legends of Hollywood in its Golden Age.

Cecil Beaton’s first royal photographs appeared in the late 1930s. As the Second World War loomed, he defined the notion of the monarchy for a modern age. Appointed an official war photographer by the Ministry of Information, his wartime service took him around the globe.

The war’s end ushered in a new era of elegance and Beaton captured the high fashion brilliance of the 1950s in vivid, glorious colour. The exhibition will end with what many consider his greatest triumph and by which he is likely best known: the costumes and sets for the musical My Fair Lady, on stage and later on screen.

Almost entirely self-taught, Beaton established a singular photographic style; a marriage of Edwardian stage portraiture, emerging European surrealism and the modernist approach of the great American photographers of the era, all filtered through a determinedly English sensibility.

Robin Muir, exhibition curator, said: “Cecil Beaton needs little introduction as a photographer, fashion illustrator, triple Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist, elegant writer of essays and occasionally waspish diaries, stylist, decorator, dandy and party goer. Beaton’s impact spans the worlds of fashion, photography and design. Unquestionably one of the leading visionary forces of the British twentieth century, he also made a lasting contribution to the artistic lives of New York, Paris and Hollywood. It’s a delight to return to the National Portrait Gallery with this exhibition.”

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World
9 October 2025 - 11 January 2026
London, National Portrait Gallery
£23 / 25.50 with donation
Free for Members
See: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2025/cecil-beaton/

Images:  (l to r): Worldly Colour (Charles James evening dresses), 1948. Original colour transparency. The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, London; The Second Age of Beauty is Glamour (suit by Hartnell), 1946, Original colour transparency, The Condé Nast Archive, London; At the Tuxedo Ball (Nancy Harris), 1946, Original colour transparency, The Condé Nast Archive, New York.  All images courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Archive © Condé Nast.

Perth’s Civic Trust have unveiled the city’s first two commemorative blue plaques.One honours David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), the Scottish painter, lithographic printer and great pioneer of photography, in recognition of his important contribution to the development of the photographic art and his legacy in early photographic techniques. The other honours Jessie Mann (1805-1867) considered Scotland’s first woman photographer. Both plaques can be viewed outside 3 Watergate, the Hill’s family home.

The Perth Watergate and High Street corner

David Octavius Hill, the eighth son of bookseller and stationer, Thomas Hill and Amelia Murray is best known for his collaboration with photographer Robert Adamson, in forming one of the earliest and most influential photographic partnerships in history. Between 1843 and 1847, Hill and Adamson produced more than 3,000 images, using the calotype process, an early positive/negative method. Their portraits, landscapes and architectural studies are considered masterpieces and are held in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and in major collections around the world.

Jessie Mann was born in Perth to house painter Alexander Mann and Sarah Laidley. She grew up with four sisters and a brother as near neighbours to the Hill family. When her father died in 1839, she moved to Edinburgh with her two unmarried sisters, to live with their brother, a solicitor, who later became Hill's solicitor. Probably through their earlier Perth connections, Jessie became an assistant to Hill and Adamson at their Rock House Studio. It is believed she took portrait photographs when Hill and Adamson were unavailable, most notably of the King of Saxony in 1844. She featured in a Tate Britain exhibition celebrating women photographers “Painting with Light” in 2016, emphasising her relevance in early photography.

Perth Civic Trust perthcivictrust.org.uk are introducing a scheme of 15 blue plaques celebrating notable Perth individuals by marking the buildings where they lived or worked. This will include Perth born photographer, Magnus Jackson. Starting out in 1855, Jackson created the earliest photographic record of people and places in Perthshire. His collection of around 3,000 glass wet plate collodion negatives is held in Perth Museum & Art Gallery can be viewed on-line at collectionsearch.pkc.gov.uk/search

New post on early Arctic photographs by George Rexworthy De Wilde - The first book to include photographs of the Arctic was published by William Bradford in 1873. The second was The Cruise of the Pandora by Sir Allen Young which followed Young’s 1875 voyage to confirm the fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew. This rare publication contains 12 vintage albumen prints taken in 1875 by George Rexworthy De Wilde – all hand-pasted into the pages of the book. These important but little-known photos are the subject of this article. Read more ...  

Thursday, 10 July, saw the opening of the National Science and Media Museum's Sound and Vision galleries to the public. The opening now means that the museum is fully open across all its public spaces for the first time in many years.  The opening marks the culmination of a £6.8 million transformation of the museum, the new galleries span two floors of the museum, showcasing world-class collections of photography, film, television, animation, gaming and sound technologies in new and innovative ways.  

The new galleries feature over 500 exhibits, a new art commission and a range of interactive displays. Designed by award-winning AOC architecture and futureproofing the museum for years to come, the galleries have been years in the making. Their opening marks the completion of the Sound and Vision project, exploring globally significant stories of technological innovation and social change.  

Consultation and collaboration with key audiences and community groups has been at the centre of the creation of the new galleries, ensuring the stories told resonate with as broad an audience as possible. Underpinning the galleries has been a vibrant set of activities, supporting greater access, representation and volunteering opportunities, focused on enabling more people to engage with the museum and its collections.  

Throughout the project, the museum has engaged and consulted with community leaders, access groups, young people and schools including SHINE West Bowling, Morley Street Resource Centre, and Bradford Deaf Centre, among many others. Volunteers have also played an integral role in the project's development, with volunteers contributing over 1900 hours of time to consultations and engagement activities.

Journeying through the galleries, in the first section, ‘Innovation’, visitors encounter some of the earliest examples of photographic, film and sound technologies and Europe’s first IMAX projector, first installed in the museum in 1983, providing a gateway into the evolution of visual technologies. From displays telling the story of William Henry Fox Talbot’s earliest photographic negatives to Louis Le Prince’s single lens cine camera – which captured the world’s first moving film footage in Leeds – visitors can explore the origins of media technologies.  Other highlights include the camera used by Herbert Ponting to document Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition in 1910 and John Logie Baird’s groundbreaking experimental ‘television apparatus’ from 1926. These pioneers found new ways to explore and share our world through the media technologies they developed, just as creators and inventors continue to do so today.  

The ‘Identities’ section explores the countless ways that media technologies help us express who we are. Tracing the development of photography from early portrait studios to the first popular cameras and the ongoing development of digital imagery, photographic technologies have given millions of people the opportunity to capture their lives. This gallery also tells the story of home-made gadgets and communities that bring people together through tech.  In Gig Zone, visitors can explore the ways in which media technologies have enhanced our shared experience of live music, showcasing a mixing desk used by The Prodigy and the iconic Marshall amplifier stack.  

As well as telling our own stories, sound and vision technologies enable us to create rich, imagined worlds. The ‘Storytelling’ section of the galleries takes visitors on a journey through visual effects workshops, the sound worlds of Doctor Who via the Radiophonic Workshop, and the meticulous, technical work of some of the world’s leading animation studios. Iconic horror film props are brought to life in an evocative display featuring Dracula’s fangs as worn by Christopher Lee and a model of the eponymous Alien head and torso from the 1979 film.

Stories can be entertaining, but media technologies have also been used to trick and manipulate and the displays challenge visitors to think about what they can and can’t trust as they navigate them. At the intersection of entertainment and manipulation, the museum’s prized Cottingley Fairies cameras and photographs take centre stage in a special interactive installation.

Today’s museum visitors are used to sound and vision technologies being ever-present and the ‘Everywhere’ section asks how we got here and how media technologies have changed society. From the moon landings bringing people together en masse in front of the television to the media technologies we now carry in our pockets every day; visitors will explore how sound and vision technologies are a part of our everyday lives and affect how we interact with the world.  

This section confronts uncomfortable truths about the impact of media technologies on people and the environment. From a poignant Victorian chair, used to photograph suspected criminals, to a controversial Smart Bear with built-in camera and microphone, visitors will be left to ponder how we use technology to monitor people and places, and the impact this has on individuals and society. Journeying through the galleries, visitors will also be left to consider the environmental impact of sound and vision technologies, with 'Modern Mining’, an artwork by Katie Sturridge, showcasing a pair of shoes that have been used and worn by an e-waste recycling plant worker in Mumbai, now encased in copper ‘mined’ from e-waste collected at community events in Leeds.  

At the heart of the gallery is a newly commissioned artwork supported by Art Fund, ‘Circus’ by Nayan Kulkarni. In this playful experience inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 film The Circus, visitors move around a room of ‘digital mirrors’ — momentarily becoming part of the museum’s displays, highlighting our role in modern media technologies as both subject and creator. Circus sees a double height space opened between the galleries on levels 3 and 5 and by linking the two floors vertically through this central installation, Kulkarni’s work invites visitors to experience the gallery as one connected, dynamic space.  

Visual media have been used across the world to share stories with and for communities – be it through travelling magic lantern displays in the 18th century right up to the present day with community shadow puppet shows. Radio has been a popular tool for the dissemination of national messages as well as amongst grassroots communities and this section of the galleries explores the rich tradition of commentary by the people for the people, with an authentic – and interactive – recreation of Bradford Community Broadcasting’s radio studio.  

The Sound and Vision galleries have been shaped by the voices of people from Bradford and beyond. Through extensive collaboration, local communities have helped to influence not only which stories are told in the new galleries, but how. The museum’s Youth Forum and Access Panel played a key role in shaping the space, offering fresh perspectives and encouraging the museum to think differently about how to present star objects and stories from their collections to make them accessible and engaging to all.    

Partners such as Allstar and BCB Radio have brought vital local perspectives to the galleries, reflecting the creativity and diversity of Bradford’s cultural scene whilst creating narratives that are relatable to people both from the district and those visiting. Individual contributors such as Paul Seal, a disabled gamer whose gaming setup enables him to continue to play through adapted technology, also shared personal insights that bring depth and authenticity to the galleries, highlighting how innovation in media technology can empower individuals. Collaboration with the Marshall Factory, a renowned name in sound technology, further added industry insight and national perspective to the galleries. Together, these contributions have helped make the galleries more inclusive, and representative of both local communities and wider society.  

Marking a new era and launching during a momentous year for Bradford, these object rich and interactive gallery spaces confirm the museum’s position as a national museum rooted in its community. As well as spotlighting hundreds of previously unseen exhibits, visitors who know the venue well will sense echoes of the museum’s past, with a Dalek greeting them on Level 5, a delightful new exhibit on loan from Aardman animation studios, and charming film footage of the museum’s now retired magic flying carpet, which was once a firm favourite with visitors, captured by the legendary Bradford Movie Makers.  

Finally, BPH is able to advise that Insight, the museum's research centre, will re-open from September to researchers and the public wishing to see objects from the various collections held in the museum. As before, three days a month are set aside for research visits which need to be pre-booked. See more and book here: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/researchers/access-to-our-collection 

A detailed review of the new galleries is in preparation. 

See more: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/sound-and-vision

Flowers in all their forms take centre stage in The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth, the 2025 exhibition in the historic house and gardens, the home of the twelth Duke of Devonshire and his family. The exhibition features both historical and contemporary works of art from the Devonshire Collections, and is supported by key loans from national and international museums, and new artist commissions.

Inspired by the estate itself, The Gorgeous Nothings builds on the work of an important lineage of landscape designers, gardeners, scientists and botanists who, over the last six centuries have planted, gathered, foraged, researched, collected and preserved an array of botanical treasures at Chatsworth, from rare botanical volumes and illustrated manuscripts in our library to coveted specimens in our garden and grounds.

Of particular relevance to BPH readers is the inclusion of a copy of Anna Atkins's British Algae featuring over 400 cyanotype impressions from original specimens. 

The exhibition has been curated by Allegra Pesenti. 

The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth
until 5 October 2025
Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, DE45 1PJ
Details: https://www.chatsworth.org/events/gorgeous-nothings/

See a short film exploring the exhibition here: https://youtu.be/ShJ4x6ROEOk

Image: clip from the short film noted above. 

This is a Research Associate (RA) post for the funded project, ‘Salon Photography and the Making of the Nation: Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma (Myanmar) in the 1950s and the 1960s’. The lead investigator is Dr Zhuang Wubin, British Academy 2025 Visiting Fellow at CREAM.

Working with Dr. Zhuang, the Research Associate will help to identify relevant source materials from the collection of Burmese-language newspapers and pictorial periodicals primarily at the British Library. The postholder will make photo documentation or digital scans of these materials in a systematic way, and will advise Dr. Zhuang on the selection of materials most pertinent to the research project. Where necessary, the RA will accurately translate the materials into English, interpreting some of the nuances in the Burmese-language sources. The Research Associate will provide administrative assistance to CREAM to organise Dr. Zhuang’s public talk on the project with the Global Photographies Network. It is essential for the Research Associate to have an excellent command of the Burmese language and be able to translate the selected materials into English of a high quality.

For further information about CREAM, Dr. Zhuang’s British Academy Visiting Fellowship, and the Global Photographies Network, please visit the website https://cream.ac.uk

Further information can be found in the job description and person specification, which can be accessed through link here.

The First Fully Researched Biography of Frederick Scott Archer. I first began researching the life and work of Frederick Scott Archer in 2005, whilst writing my ‘magnum opus’ on the history of astronomical photography, ‘Catchers of the Light’- a work which took 7 years to complete.

I began writing this book based on my knowledge and experience as both a professional astronomer and as a trained genealogist. It soon became clear that much of what had been previously written on the life and work of the photographic pioneers featured in my book, was either missing, badly researched or blatantly wrong. Of the many men and women included in ‘Catchers’, the one pioneer whose life and work was the subject of the greatest misrepresentation and falsehoods was Frederick Scott Archer.

What had little that had been written of him was either badly researched or wrong, even on a basic level of when and where he was born, and his family background.

His Wikipedia entry states: “Frederick Scott Archer (1813 – 1 May 1857) was an English photographer and sculptor who is best known for having invented the photographic collodion process… Scott Archer was the second son of a butcher in Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire who went to London to take an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and silversmith with Mr. Massey of 116 Leadenhall Street...’

Almost all the above is either incorrect or incomplete. It is also commonly believed that he was orphaned as a child – also untrue!

FSA was born on the 30th August 1814 at Bull Plain, Hertford not in Bishops Stortford. He was the fifth son of the seven children born to Thomas Archer, a butcher and former Mayor of Hertford. FSA’s mother died in 1817, but his father was very much alive when he remarried in 1830! This is just the beginning of the misrepresentation of FSA’s life and work.

I had originally intended that my biography should be published to coincide with the actual bicentennial of his birth in 2014; but delayed it because I felt it was incomplete and required much more research. Instead, I self-published a short eBook on his life and work. Now, a decade later I returned to the task, and finally completed the task.

Like FSA, I have decided to release a draft of my biography freely to the photographic community; with the aim of improving upon through your comments, criticisms and any additional information you can provide.

Whilst researching my biography several extremely interesting facts were uncovered. It became clear that most of FSA’s photographs were based on the same subjects and locations of the early drawings and watercolours of the great English landscape artist, J M W Turner. In addition, FSA even exhibited his photographs in the same street and possibly the same building in which he had been born, some forty years earlier – a coincidence?

If you are interested in reading my biography, it can be downloaded as a zip file from:

https://catchersofthelight.com/downloads/Collodion Chemist.zip

Also included is an Excel spreadsheet which details those individuals, companies and institutions that contributed to his Testimonial Fund, which was setup following his his death in 1857.

So, any comments etc., can be forwarded to me at this email address: biography@frederickscottarcher.com

Thank you.

Kind Regards,

Dr. Stefan Hughes
Photographic Historian

Launched on World Stereoscopic Day, this lavishly illustrated book shows the unique skills of a gifted, amateur pioneer of 3D photographer, Reginald Grove. A country doctor in the early twentieth century. Grove was a gifted amateur stereographer.

In addition to being a member of the United Stereoscopic Society, Reginald was elected in 1925 as President of The Stereoscopic Society and served in this role for 23 years until his death in 1948. He was elected a member of the Royal Photographic Society. He was a regular exhibitor at their annual exhibitions in the years up to the Second World War and became well known for the quality and composition of his work, particularly of his character studies of country folk, most of whom were his patients. Examples of his photography are now held in the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Peter Flower, is a grandson of Reginald Grove. He read modern history at King’s College, London University and was elected an Associate of Kings College (AKC). He has written a 3-volume biography on Reginald Grove.

Viewing the stereo images with a simple, hand held, modern 3D viewer will bring Reginald’s work to life; the Lite OWL is an inexpensive viewer which can be bought online from the London Stereoscopic Company Ltd: https://shop.londonstereo.com/lsc-owl-viewer.html

The Enduring Photographic Legacy of Reginald Grove. A gift amateur stereoscopic photographer
Peter Flower
Brown Dog Books, 2025
£24.99 (free P+P if ordered direct from the publisher)
See: https://www.browndogbooks.uk/products/the-enduring-photographic-legacy-of-reginald-grove-peter-flower

In the annals of mountaineering history, few tales were as compelling and transformative as Edward Whymper’s. First published in 1871, this classic work chronicles the first successful climb of the Matterhorn in 1865, a feat that heralded mountaineering as a popular sport and spawned a new genre – that of the high-thrills adventure book. It was soon recognized as a masterpiece and the Times wrote about his gripping bestseller, The Ascent of the Matterhorn, that ‘you can almost hear the tinkle of bells on the Apls; you breathe the fresh fragrance of the pine trees’.

Almost 150 years later Whymper’s memoir is republished for the first time in an expanded illustrated edition. Whymper was not only a keen mountaineer but also a Victorian driven by an insatiable curiosity. One of his pursuits was photography and in 1874 he was the first man to lug a mobile camera on to the Matterhorn to take pictures. He used these pictures for his lantern-lecture tours around the world and they are included for the first time in this edition.

In the nineteenth century the book opened a window on to the Alps but in the 21^st century, it is still a landmark in autobiography for ramblers and climbers alike. Bill Bryson has long been an admirer of Whymper's work, which is one of his favourites. In his view,  is not just a mountaineering classic but a testament to the indomitable human spirit. Bryson appreciates Whymper's meticulous attention to detail and his ability to convey the awe-inspiring beauty and formidable dangers of the Alps. According to him Whymper’s ‘glorious’ narrative transcends its genre with its leap from exhilaration to complete desolation, offering a dramatic reflection of human ambition and the relentless pursuit of dreams.

Today the Matterhorn is still treacherous with its implacable ridges and it certainly was on the day of the ascent, made on July 14, 1865, for the men in the their tweeds and rudimentary mountaineering equipment and skills. Whymper's team consisted of seven climbers, including Michel Croz, Lord Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, and Douglas Hadow. Their summit success was overshadowed by tragedy during the descent, when Hadow slipped, causing a catastrophic fall that claimed the lives of Croz, Douglas, Hadow and Hudson. They had crossed the fine line between triumph and disaster and Whymper could never unsee the sudden dispatch to their deaths of the men he had led to victory.

Whymper’s account is both a gripping adventure story and a meticulous chronicle of his repeated attempts and eventual triumph.In her foreword, Theresa May reflects on the historical and personal significance of Whymper’s journey. She draws parallels between the challenges faced by Whymper and those encountered in political and personal arenas, highlighting the timeless virtues of perseverance, courage, and leadership. May's insights add a contemporary dimension to Whymper’s tale, emphasizing its relevance to modern readers.

The Ascent of the Matterhorn. The forgotten photographs
Edward Whymper, foreword by Theresa May 
Gibson Square, 2025
ISBN: 9781783342846
£16.99, 288 pages

The National Science and Media Museum will open its much-anticipated permanent Sound and Vision galleries to the public on Thursday 10 July. This marks the culmination of a £6.8 million transformation of the museum, the new galleries span two floors of the museum, showcasing world-class collections of photography, film, television, animation, gaming and sound technologies in new and innovative ways. The museum review here partially re-opened in January. 

Thanks to a transformational gift from The National Lottery Heritage Fund – made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the new galleries feature over 500 exhibits, a new art commission and a range of interactive displays. Designed by award-winning AOC architecture and futureproofing the museum for years to come, the galleries have been years in the making. Their opening marks the completion of the Sound and Vision project, exploring globally significant stories of technological innovation and social change.  

Consultation and collaboration with key audiences and community groups has been at the centre of the creation of the new galleries, ensuring the stories told resonate with as broad an audience as possible. Underpinning the galleries has been a vibrant set of activities, supporting greater access, representation and volunteering opportunities, focused on enabling more people to engage with the museum and its collections.  

Throughout the project, the museum has engaged and consulted with community leaders, access groups, young people and schools including SHINE West Bowling, Morley Street Resource Centre, and Bradford Deaf Centre, among many others. Volunteers have also played an integral role in the project's development, with volunteers contributing over 1900 hours of time to consultations and engagement activities.

The Sound and Vision galleries have been shaped by the voices of people from Bradford and beyond. Through extensive collaboration, local communities have helped to influence not only which stories are told in the new galleries, but how. The museum’s Youth Forum and Access Panel played a key role in shaping the space, offering fresh perspectives and encouraging the museum to think differently about how to present star objects and stories from their collections to make them accessible and engaging to all.    

Partners such as Allstar and BCB Radio have brought vital local perspectives to the galleries, reflecting the creativity and diversity of Bradford’s cultural scene whilst creating narratives that are relatable to people both from the district and those visiting. Individual contributors such as Paul Seal, a disabled gamer whose gaming setup enables him to continue to play through adapted technology, also shared personal insights that bring depth and authenticity to the galleries, highlighting how innovation in media technology can empower individuals. Collaboration with the Marshall Factory, a renowned name in sound technology, further added industry insight and national perspective to the galleries. Together, these contributions have helped make the galleries more inclusive, and representative of both local communities and wider society.  

Marking a new era and launching during a momentous year for Bradford, these object rich and interactive gallery spaces confirm the museum’s position as a national museum rooted in its community. As well as spotlighting hundreds of previously unseen exhibits, visitors who know the venue well will sense echoes of the museum’s past, with a Dalek greeting them on Level 5, a delightful new exhibit on loan from Aardman animation studios, and charming film footage of the museum’s now retired magic flying carpet, which was once a firm favourite with visitors, captured by the legendary Bradford Movie Makers.  

Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum commented: “We are thrilled to be launching our new permanent Sound and Vision galleries this month. They have been a true labour of love and collaboration, and they showcase our incredible collections in new and innovative ways. Our collections and the rich narratives they tell touch upon all our lives, from the first photographic negative and film footage to the advent of radio and television, and the power of sound technologies to bring us together. Our Sound and Vision galleries showcase how everyday objects have the power to be extraordinary.    

We have worked closely with a huge range of people to develop the galleries, ensuring these spaces work for everyone and that our visitors feel represented in the stories we tell. Consultation with our local communities has been central in the development of Sound and Vision and it feels especially significant to launch the galleries during Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture. We hope the galleries will be a key focal point in our city’s momentous year and for a long time to come.  And we are incredibly grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the support of National Lottery players for making Sound and Vision possible. We can’t wait to welcome visitors to explore our new galleries soon.”  

Helen Featherstone, Director, England, North at The National Lottery Heritage Fund added:  “The Sound and Vision galleries at the National Science and Media Museum are a cultural gem for the city, telling the story behind the photographic, film and sound technologies that have played such a big role in our lives. We’re incredibly proud to have funded these wonderful galleries thanks to National Lottery players."

Look out for more details and pictures shortly

The V&A Museum is seeking a Project Archivist and Project Cataloguer to work on and support the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) digitisation project. The RPS Project is a vital part of the V&A’s broader programme of cataloguing, digitisation, collections care and access. It aims to safeguard the collection and provide meaningful access to benefit and inspire current and future generations. The initiative is headed by recently appointed Amy Mayhew, who reports to V&A senior curator of photography Martin Barnes. 

Project Archivist. The main purpose of the role is to catalogue the Royal Photographic Society archive in accordance with the International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD(G)) using the Museum’s Collections Management System.

Project Cataloguer. The main purpose of the role is to create new catalogue records for objects in the RPS collection and, with the Project Manager, to supervise volunteers to input basic cataloguing data. The V&A seeks to accelerate digitization through a new RPS Project Team, with cataloguing as a central focus.

Both roles are three-year, full-time, fixed-term contracts. 

The RPS collection is the largest and most important collection of photography at the V&A. It contains many items of global significance, including some of the earliest photographs, artworks by well-known photographers, invaluable documents of history and evidence of 200 years of technical and scientific advances. The collection numbers an estimated 310,000 photographs, negatives, pieces of photographic technology, books, journals and archive items. Some 90% of the collection remains to be catalogued, imaged and digitised. 

Applications for both jobs close on 18 July 2025. See the links above for full details. 

Amy Mayhew has been appointed Project Manager for the five-year digitisation project of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Collection at the V&A Museum. The job was advertised earlier this year as a five-year fixed-term contract. 

Amy joins the V&A from the British Film Institute where she spent over eleven years in various roles. Latterly she specialised in the management and delivery of large-scale digital access cultural heritage projects. Previous work includes the digitisation of film, videotape, and stills collections, as well as 35mm film printing, the Film on Film Festival, and Britain on Film.  She has a Masters in World Cinema from Birkbeck. 

The new role is to plan, budget, monitor, report on and drive forward the RPS Digitisation Project. The V&A's stewardship of the RPS Collection is at an inflexion point and the digitisation will start with the RPS photographs ultimately making them available online with full catalogue descriptions. Detailed plans are still being determined but the work may extend into some of the archival material and, perhaps, the technology colllection later in the project. 

The V&A is assembling a team to support the initiative and two new archivist and cataloguing jobs are currently open. The project will also be making use of volunteers to bring specialist and practical skills to the project.  

Image: courtesy of Amy Mayhew

The Stereoscopic Picturesque is an interdisciplinary study of nineteenth-century 3D photography and its relation to the picturesque tradition in art, literature, and tourism. The study focuses on the invention of the stereoscope, originally a laboratory device for demonstrating the nature of three-dimensional vision, and the simultaneous invention of photography, in order to show how early stereo photographers used the optics of the stereoscope to extend the possibilities of picturesque representation.

Their images also made 'virtual travel' possible for an international mass audience, allowing millions of people to explore places and natural wonders that they would otherwise never have seen. Many of these places had deep literary associations – Wordsworth’s Lake District, for instance, or Scott’s Trossachs – and the stereography of these regions constitutes an important, yet largely unexplored, chapter in the reception history of these authors. Many of the photographs were deliberate attempts to encourage the preservation of environmentally sensitive sites, something the realism of photography and the 3D presentation of the stereoscope made especially effective. 

The Stereoscopic Picturesque combines fields of study that have rarely been brought into such close contiguity: the history of science, art history, the history of photography, literature, and environmentalism. The result is an unprecedented look at Victorian popular culture and the way stereo photography shaped their ways of seeing the world.

The Stereoscopic Picturesque. Nineteenth-Century Photography, Literary Landscapes, and the Third Dimension
Bruce Graver
Liverpool University Press, 2025
ISBN:9781835537916 (Hardcover) |eISBN:9781835537923 (PDF) |eISBN:9781835537930 (ePub)
https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781835537916

George Platt Lynes began his career photographing celebrities in the 1930s, and it’s those portraits along with his extravagant fashion work that he’s best remembered for today. However, George’s heart, his passion, and his greatest talent lay elsewhere, in his work with the male nude.

This work, sensuous and radically explicit for its time, has only recently begun being fully discovered and appreciated for the revolution that it represents — a man capturing his fantasies as a gift, a window to a future his camera saw coming before anyone else.

From visionary art director Sam Shahid, HIDDEN MASTER features a stunning collection of photography from the 1930s-50s, uncovering the life of Lynes less known: his gifted eye for the male form, his long-term friendships with Gertrude Stein. Christopher Ishwerwood and Alfred Kinsey, and his lasting influence as one of the first openly gay American artists. 

HIDDEN MASTER: THE LEGACY OF GEORGE PLATT LYNES
(Feature documentary, 96 mins, USA)
Directed by Sam Shahid
Peccadillo Pictures, 2025
UK cinema release 11 July 2025, digital platforms from August
You can view the trailer here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTPljOAhj8g

"Sleeping beauty"

When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten.
When this you see remember me Lest I should be forgotten.”

This is the first posting on Art Blart on the phenomenon of postmortem photography for exhibitions on this subject are few and far between.

Any photograph is a “little death” which “refers to the concept of “la petite mort” or “the little death,” a French idiom and euphemism for the momentary loss of consciousness or breath, often associated with orgasm, but also used to describe the act of freezing a moment in time through photography. This concept suggests that photography, by capturing a specific moment, essentially stops time and thus, in a way, creates a small, contained death of that moment.” (Google AI Overview)

All photographs (and especially postmortem photography where the deceased are memorialised through images) can be seen as “memento mori”, a Latin phrase meaning “remember you must die,” reminding us that of the impermanence of life – for photographs “capture a moment in time, forever preserving a fleeting instant and highlighting the passage of time and the inevitability of death.” (Google AI Overview)

As Susan Sontag observed, “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” (On Photography)

Victorians were faced with the vicissitudes of fortune, and death at any age was a common occurrence due to illness with no antibiotics available to treat the many lethal diseases. They became stoic in the face of the impermanence of life, stoic in the face of death and through photography, sought to record into permanence the likenesses of the departed (the beloved), so that they could remember and honour them. Photographs thus became symbols of mortality which encouraged reflection on the meaning and fleetingness of life…

But unlike a photographic self-portrait, where a human looks at their image (in which they are dead) which reminds them about their physical death in the future, an anterior future of which death is the stake (and the prick of discovery of this equivalence)1 - in postmortem photography the little death and the actual death are as one for the anterior future can never be viewed by the subject of the photograph (they are dead), a separation only revived in the heart and mind of another.

Through postmortem photography the deceased live in an interstitial space, forever brought back to life in the eyes of the viewer as we reawaken and reactivate their spirit in the world. I was once here and I am again. Remember me.

Thus the euphemism “sleeping” is appropriate (sleeping beauty awakened once more with a kiss), as the viewer transcends time bringing past dead back into living world – where past, present and future coalesce into single point in time – their death and our death connected through the gaze and the knowledge of our discontinuity. Eons contracted into an eternal moment.2

In this expanded-specific moment in time, through an awareness of our own dis/continuity, what we are doing is talking about something that is remarkable. We are moving towards a language that defines the human condition…

Dr Marcus Bunyan

‘Remember Me. Postmortems from the M. G. Jacob Collection’ and
‘Through Light. The First 20 Years of Photography in the Photo Library Collections’ at Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia, Italy

24th April – 5th July, 2025

SEE THE FULL POSTING AT https://wp.me/pn2J2-v6N

1/ Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire), Section 39, 1980
2/ Marcus Bunyan. "This is not my favourite photograph," part of What makes a great photograph? at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy, Wednesday 5th December 2012 [Online] Cited 27/06/2025

Many thankx to the Biblioteca Panizzi and Michael G. Jacob for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Main image:

Unknown photographer (American)
A sleeping man (detail)
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American)
A sleeping girl
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

This conference-within-a-conference presents international scholarship on the history of stereoscopic photography and is part of the National Stereoscopic Association's 51st 3D-Con taking place at Minneapolis-St Paul from 3-11 August 2025. The conference is in person only.

The history papers comprise: 

Rephotographing Piazzi Smyth: Identifying People and places from his visit to Tenerife in 1856
José A. Betancourt, The University of Alabama in Huntsville

The First Stereoscopic Exchange Club (1859 – 1863)
Rebecca Sharpe, The Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy

The Legacy of Edward Lovejoy: De-Integraton of the Chicago Stereograph Market in the 1870s
William F. Zieske, Independent Researcher

Early Stereoscopic Photography and the Visual Construction of Iran in the 19th and Early 20th Century
Shahriar Khonsari, Independent Researcher

Guilherme Santos – Brazilian photographer of the 20th century
Roger Hama Sassaki, Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)

Arthur Rothstein's Parallax Look
Eric Drysdale, Independent Researcher

Cold War Spatial Mapping: Medium Format Soviet 3D
Zachary Horton, University of Pittsburgh

Dahlonega Gold Mining in 3D!
Kenneth Watkins and Heather Abercrombie, Dahlonega Gold Museum State Historic Site

Details: https://3d-con.com/history.php