Blogs

News reached BPH last night of the passing of Robert Hershkowitz on Friday, aged 81 years. One of the earliest and most successful dealers in photography of his era Hershkowitz was an American living in Sussex. He had been active as a dealer, researcher and writer in photography for more than fifty years, working alongside his partner, Paula, and latterly with daughter, Kate. A stalwart of Photo London since its inception, Hershkowitz's 2024 exhibition The Magic Art of French Calotype. Paper Negative Photography 1846-1860 was a beautifully curated show and a testament to his expertise and connoisseurship. His interests in vintage photography were focused on the early period from Talbot and Fenton to later masters such as P H Emerson who Hershkowitz described as being a key influence on both artists and photographers from Miller to Stieglitz.  

Robert Hershkowitz was a leading British dealer in fine early European photographs generally buying in Britain and Europe and selling to collectors and, especially, institutions, in the United States. He handled the estate of Tony Ray-Jones for a period and he curated The Essential Fenton show at Photo London 2019. He wrote a number of articles on P H Emerson, and was the author of The British Photographer Abroad: The First Thirty Years (1980). He and Paula were regular attendees at the various London photograph fairs and auctions over many years.

A profile published in 1980 in The Photographic Collector noted that 'he has a very fine personal collection' and he described himself there as a 'dealer's dealer'. One of his great loves was Roger Fenton and Hershkowitz spent a considerable time studying his photography and tracking down rare prints some of which were offered in his selling exhibitions. 

His clients included The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; The National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Getty; the Chicago Art Institute; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and the National Gallery of Canada, amongst other major museums. In 1991 he presented Masterworks of Early European Photography at Hamiltons Gallery, London and in 1993 his company co-published Felix Teynard: Calotypes of Egypt with an essay by Kathleen Howe. 

See: The Classic no. 1 (Spring 2019) which carried an interview (p36-45) with Robert Hershkowitz: https://theclassicphotomag.com/wp-content/uploads/the-classic-01.pdf and https://hershkowitzgallery.com/

More to follow... 

Images: (top) Paula and Bobby Hershkowitz, courtesy of the Hershkowitz family; (left) Robert Hershkowitz (standing), Colin Ford and Sue Grayson Ford visiting the exhibition at Photo London; (below) The Magic Art of French Calotype at Photo London 2024; © Michael Pritchard.

Anne Strathie will give a talk about Bath’s own polar explorer, including images of examples from BRLSI’s Franklin Expedition artefacts. They and other objects are now held world-wide, in polar regions, museums, archives, private collections and public spaces. They reflect the contributions to our knowledge of polar expeditions, not only of world-famous explorers, but also of women, whaling captains, scientists, artists, photographers and other less familiar figures.

Anne Strathie has also written three biographies of members of Captain Scott’s Terra Nova Antarctic expedition. She had travelled widely for research and speaking engagements, including in Britain, the polar regions, and countries including New Zealand, Australia, North America, Japan and Norway. Originally from Scotland, Anne now lives in Gloucestershire, in the same home town of polar scientist-explorer, Dr Edward Wilson.

Anne‘s latest book, A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: from Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age, spans a period which is the bedrock of our multi-disciplinary knowledge of the polar regions.

A history of polar exploration in 50 objects
Anne Strathie
9 April 2026, hybrid
Bath, BRLSI, Queens Square
https://www.brlsi.org/whatson/a-history-of-polar-exploration-in-50-objects/

Images: (top) de Gerlache and Weddell seal stereoview; (right): HG Ponting and A S Newman.

Since its invention in the 1820s, photography has been used and understood in many ways: as a technology of seeing, a social document, a commercial transaction, a tool for communication, as a visual language and as a creative practice. It has undergone constant technological development from the analogue through to the digital age. But the power of the still image that seems to fix time remains. What and where is photography today? How can the mutable states of photography be fixed, exhibited and interpreted within the museum?

Photography has been collected and exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) since it was founded in 1852. The collection is now one of the most significant in the world. Martin will look at the contexts and power structures in which photography has been located within this museum of fine and decorative arts. He also considers why photographs as objects, and a visual literacy in the medium, still matter today.

Martin Barnes is Senior Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A). He began working there in 1995 after gaining an MA in Art Museum Studies from the Courtauld Institute of Art. His special interests include early processes, cameraless and experimental photography, industry, photography exhibitions and museology, nature and the environment. Martin has built the V&A collection, conceived the Photography Centre, and is currently lead curator for the digitisation and research project for the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection at the museum. He has curated numerous exhibitions with books, including: Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour (2006); Shadow Catchers: Cameraless Photography (2010); Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography (2011); Curtis Moffat: Experimental Photography and Design 1923-1935 (2016); Camera-less Photography (2018); Into the Woods: Trees in Photography (2019) and Maurice Broomfield: Industrial Sublime (2021).

Why Photography Matters: Changing Contexts at the V&A
Martin Barnes
St Andrews,  School Ill (in St Salvator’s Quad – behind the chapel on North Street).
25 March 2026 at 1600. Free
Organised by the Institute for Museums, Heritage and Society (IMHS)
Details: https://imhs.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2026/02/04/why-photography-matters-changing-contexts-at-the-vamartin-barnes-va-london/

The advent of photography revolutionised how we make and share images. The inventions of William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre were rapidly adopted, and by the mid nineteenth century, travellers, merchants and diplomats were travelling around the world with a camera.

BRLSI’s new exhibition explains the early origins of photography and the difficulties that early photographers faced in the field. It might seem that the cities of Shanghai and Bath stood ‘worlds apart’ at this time, but these two collections of photographs draw interesting parallels and place them together in surprising ways. Carefully composed and wonderfully evocative, the images capture our attention and transport us back in time.

Francis Lockey’s calotypes, made from paper negatives, explore the Bath of 170 years ago, with some spots barely recognisable and others barely changed. The historic prints have been enlarged and reprinted especially for the exhibition so that the finest detail is visible while preserving the unique qualities of the original images.

Low light levels in a specially constructed booth enable the display of some original fragile negatives of Bath scenes (surprisingly crisp and clear considering they come from a time when photography was still in its infancy). Despite the many thousands of miles that separated the photographers in Bath and China, they were attracted by remarkably similar subjects; ancient buildings, bridges, gateways, and rural landscapes.

The photographs from China, taken at a time of great political strife during the Second Opium War, contain fascinating portraits of bankers, street traders, school children and diplomats, as well as rivers, pagodas and temples. Historic objects from the BRLSI collections, things like the hats, fans, children’s toys and shoes we glimpse in the photographic scenes of the daily life of Chinese people, bring the scenes to life and add depth and colour to the exhibition. The gallery space also delivers the chance to learn something of the early origins of photography.

For children visiting there are activities to fuel curiosity and capture the imagination and you may even want to keep a look out for BRLSI’s photography centred summer holiday workshops.

Worlds Apart: Rare Early Photographs of China and Bath
28 March-26 September 2026 (closed Sundaysand Bank Holidays)
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath, Somerset BA1 2HN
https://www.brlsi.org/whatson/worlds-apart-rare-early-photographs-of-china-bath/

Image: (left): Huxinting Teahouse, dubbed the ‘Willow Pattern Tea House’ by foreigners, 1850s; (right): Coal wharf on Kennet & Avon Canal, Bath, Francis Lockey,1856

The photographer, film maker and historian of photography - and BPH member - Noel Chanan died on 7 March 2026 aged 86 years. Chanan studied photography at college, but initially worked as a documentary film maker at the BBC between 1962-1966 and then on a freelance basis for 35 years as both a director and an editor.

In the 1960s he worked as editor on Tonight, Doctor Who, in the 1970s on Not the Nine O-Clock News, the 1980s on Real Lives and The World Around Us, and in the 1990s on Troubleshooter, amongst many other programmes. Mark Haworth-Booth, former curator of photography at the V&A, described the Chanan directed television film on the photographer David Goldblatt (Channel 4, 1986) as 'the best I have ever seen on a photographer'. He also directed in 1979 three episodes of the series Camera: Early Photography.

When Chanan retired from film making he returned to photography full time and, between 1998 and 2003, had three solo exhibitions. Three of his photographic portraits, Ted Hughes (1979) and one of Isaiah Berlin (1971) are held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. A collection of 105 of his photographic prints, the majority of the sculptor Leonard Baskin, are in the Bodleian libraries.  

As a photographic historian Noel Chanan is best known for the rediscovery of the work of William, 2nd Earl of Craven  (1809-1866). The collection was dispersed at auction in 2000. He acted as photography consultant to Bearnes auction house for several years, close to his Devon home.  

For the past year Noel had been well cared for in Mountbatten Care Home in Windsor. He will be buried with his wife, June, in Taunton. The funeral will be on Tuesday, 7 April at 1320 at Somerset West and Taunton Cemetery and Crematorium, Wellington New Road, Taunton TA1 5NE. It will be followed by a buffet lunch at the Stonegallows Inn, Stonegallows TA1 5JP, which is five mins walk from the cemetery. No flowers. If you wish to make a donation in Noel’s memory please donate to Thames Hospice via: thameshospice.org.uk/donate

He leaves brothers Gabriel and Michael. 

See: https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/9969
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp60282/noel-chanan

Image: (top) William, 2nd Earl of Craven (1809-1866), Tree study, 1854-55, albumen print; (left) Noel Chanan at the launch of his book on JDJ, South Wales Post, 11 May, 2013, uploaded by Noel to BPH. Noel is In the foreground and in the background is Richard Morris who was married to a descendant of JDL.  

Vandalism on a Grand Scale is a major new hardback publication dedicated to the work of Tish Murtha, one of the most important British documentary photographers of the late twentieth century. Published by British Culture Archive in collaboration with the Tish Murtha Archive, the book returns Murtha’s seminal Youth Unemployment body of work to print for a new generation. Long out of print and highly sought-after since its original publication in 2017, it now returns in a redesigned and resequenced form, with texts by Ella Murtha and Jen Corcoran, and design by Friederike Huber.

With a bold new title drawn from Murtha’s accompanying essay, the book brings one of the defining works of British documentary photography back into circulation with renewed clarity, urgency and force. Produced as a substantial case-bound hardback, it has been made as a lasting publication worthy of Murtha’s landmark body of work.

“Since the original book went out of print, I’ve been asked so many times if I’d ever make another. For a long time, I didn’t feel ready, but returning to the series now, with British Culture Archive, who believe so deeply in the work, has felt very special. I’m so proud of what we’ve created together for my mam.” Ella Murtha

The book will be available to pre-order from 14 March 2026, with publication and fulfilment scheduled for 9 June 2026.The first 1,000 copies of Vandalism on a Grand Scale will include an exclusive fine art card featuring the cover.

Vandalism on a Grand Scale
Tish Murtha
£50, 226 pages
ISBN 978-1-9191700-0-8
British Culture Archive, 2026

Only available through the BCA. https://britishculturearchive.co.uk/product/vandalism-on-a-grand-scale/

Following the cyber-attack in October 2023, the British Library's Archives and Manuscript catalogue is back online. For researchers wishing to find the Kodak Historical Collection, Fay Godwin's photographs, and the Talbot collection alongside the wider photographic materials related to South Asia, you can use this link: https://searcharchives.bl.uk/?f%5Bcollection_area_ssi%5D%5B%5D=Visual+Arts

In the last year, we've been focusing on improving access to the Kodak Historical Collection and in particular the Kodak News archive, which spans from the late 19th century through the early 2000s. Since the start of this new project, our cataloguer has prepared approximately 9000 records. These will be made available via the Archives and Manuscript platform in due course.

The new cataloguing of photographic material (negatives, photographic prints, glass plates) specifically looks at the material from the Kodak Research Division of Kodak which was based at Harrow from 1928-2000s - and some of the projects that were developed including Harold Edgerton's 'Kodatron' with Eastman Kodak in 1939 and Kodak's involvement with Spacelab, a resuable laboratory developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). 

For access and enquiries, email us at apac-prints@bl.uk.

Top image: An unidentified woman who was employed in the Kodak Research Division in the 1950s, British Library, Kodak A3146/27(8)​.

A new sustaining and chemical free direct-to-plate photopolymer gravure combines hand-drawn and digital illustration with photogravure in a new exhibition at Hidcore, a Cotswold National Trust garden. A Place That Whispers reimagines Hidcote as a fantastical threshold where photography, illustration and storytelling converge.

Photographic artists Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low discovered Hidcote during the COVID-19 pandemic and felt themselves to have been transported to an oasis of calm, 'a world more akin to legend, myth and fairy tales than present life'. With few visitors and silent paths at that time, the garden felt like a forgotten storybook. Ancient trees whispered myths, flowers bloomed with character and every winding path invited a new tale. Hidcote became both sanctuary and muse, and the inspiration for this exhibition.

Collaborating since 1990, Anderson & Low’s photographic art can be found in numerous museums and collections, including the National Portrait Gallery (London), the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). Their work is recognised for stretching the boundaries of photography, and the pair have worked with both the Star Wars and James Bond franchises.

This new project, which showcases a pioneering new sustainable and chemical-free printmaking technique, Direct-to-Plate (DTP) photopolymer gravure, draws inspiration from the darkly enchanting illustrations of Arthur Rackham, as Hidcote’s clipped hedges, arched topiary and winding pathways are reimagined through a folkloric lens. ‘The realm of the fairy tale is never far from the woods. It lies just beyond the bend of the path, behind the knotted tree, or beneath the leaves where no one looks,’ note the artists. Anderson & Low’s works introduce mythical figures and anthropomorphic forms, merging hand-drawn and digital illustration with photogravure to produce richly layered, dreamlike images.

Wandering through Hidcote’s labyrinthine garden rooms, shadowed yew alleys and sunlit borders, Anderson & Low were struck by the garden’s narrative power. "Each turn at Hidcote feels like the beginning of a story,’ they explain."The vistas do much more than merely contain beauty – they direct the imagination, conjuring presences just out of sight, like a fairy tale unfolding in real time."

In a further layer of storytelling, each image in the exhibition is accompanied by its own story – whether a fairy tale, myth or fantastical tale. These stories are drawn from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives, ensuring the voices within the work are as varied and textured as the landscapes themselves. In this way, the exhibition becomes both a visual and literary journey, where image and text whisper to one another in dialogue.

This project also coincides with Anderson & Low’s appointment as Visiting Research Fellows at the Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham City University, where they are pioneering the Direct-to-Plate (DTP) photopolymer gravure process. This sustainable, chemical-free technique opens up new creative possibilities while advancing the material traditions of intaglio printmaking. This initiative aims to position Birmingham City University at the forefront of environmentally responsible, technically innovative and creatively expansive image-making and printmaking.

In celebrating Hidcote, the exhibition also reflects on the broader cultural role of English gardens – from Capability Brown’s sweeping parklands to Vita Sackville-West’s poetic Sissinghurst – as both real and symbolic spaces. Historically, gardens have served as vessels for imagination, nostalgia and identity. Anderson & Low extend this tradition into the present, offering a contemporary vision of the garden as a stage for storytelling and transformation.

"Ultimately, this exhibition is a homage," the artists reflect, "not only to Hidcote and its maker, but to the enduring idea of the garden as a threshold – a place where reality slips into wonder and where landscape itself becomes fable".

Hidcote, now a Grade I listed garden, was created by Major Lawrence Johnston. He designed the garden as an intricate series of ‘rooms’, filling its borders with discoveries from the plant collecting expeditions that took him around the world. It has been in the care of the National Trust since 1948. Hidcote’s Property Operations Manager, Rose Futers, says: "We’re delighted to welcome Anderson & Low to Hidcote. Their extraordinary vision invites us to see the garden through a new lens and we can’t wait for visitors to experience this imaginative reinterpretation."

A Place That Whispers
16 March-13 September 2026
Anderson & Low
On display in the entrance hall of the Manor House. Normal admission applies, and no need to book to visit.
For more information about visiting Hidcote including prices and opening times visit nationaltrust.org.uk/Hidcote

Images: (top): The Dragon of Verdant Hollow © Anderson & Low All Rights Reserved; (below): The Three Hands © Anderson & Low All Rights Reserved

The number of deepfakes shared online rose from around half a million in 2023 to eight million by 2025. While much of this material is seen as humorous or satirical, deepfakes are increasingly used for scams, misinformation, and political manipulation, exploiting a long-standing human weakness: our tendency to trust what we can see.

The Long View explores a striking historical parallel — the Cottingley Fairies affair of 1917–1921. In post-First World War Yorkshire, two young cousins, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, produced photographs that appeared to show real fairies. The images were crude cut-outs, but photography was then a new “truth machine”, imbued with cultural authority. The photographs were believed not only by many in the public but by the famous writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who championed them as evidence of spiritual reality. At the same time, rationalist sceptics weighed in, dismissing the photographs as fake and a polarised debate ensued. The girls did not fully admit the images were fake until the 1980s. Cottingley shows us not only that images can be faked but that - from early photography to today’s generative AI - every era over-trusts its latest representational technology before learning its limits.

Jonathan Freedland is joined by Dr Merrick Burrow from the University of Huddersfield and Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation specialist to explore the Cottingley Fairies story and ask what lessons can be learned from it in today’s age of digital deception. Guests: Dr Merrick Burrow, Head of English and Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield; Marianna Spring, BBC Disinformation Specialist

Listen on Radio 4 and now on BBC Sounds: The Long View:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002s4cv

A new photography fair offering vintage through to contemporary photography and photobooks is to take place on 16 May 2026. The Other Photography Fair will be held at the Hilton London Olympia Hotel which is a five-minute walk from the Photo London's new venue, a five-minute walk from Olympia railway station and a short journey from High Street Kensington tube and Chiswick Auctions Fine Photographs Gallery.

Exhibitor tables are 6 x 2.5ft and will cost £200 each. There is a 10% discount if you book more than one table. Discounted hotel accomodation is also expected to be available. The new fair comes during Photo London which runs from 14-17 May in its new venue at Olympia, and the day before Photographica on 17 May which mainly offers vintage and collectible cameras and takes place at the Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury. 

Organised by Austin Farahar, the Other Photography Fair is being sponsored and marketed by Chiswick Auctions Fine Photographs Department. Prospective exhibitors are invited to signal their interest in participating by filling out an online form here. If you have any questions about the event, logistical or otherwise, Austin Farahar would be delighted to answer any questions. His direct line is (+44) 07843 348748. 

A Vixex colour print from Madame Yevonde has sold at an auction in the United States for $29,210 (approx £21,800). Metis which dates to c1935 was included in an auction of Photographic Masterworks from an Important Private Collection by New Jersey based Rago auctions on 12 February 2026. It had been estimated at $3000-5000. The print had been exhibited by Yevonde at the National Exhibition of Professional Photography held by the Institute of British Photographers in 1952.

It had previously appeared at Christie's auctions in 1992 and 2012 where it sold for £462 and €22,500 respectively. An example is also held in the National Portrait Gallery collection which holds the surviving Yevonde negatives.  

See: https://www.ragoarts.com/auctions/2026/02/photographic-masterworks-from-an-important-private-collection/100 and the NPG Collection print

The Albert-Kahn Museum’s current exhibition, A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey, from 1930 to today (Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930), offers a reinterpretation of the films and photographs produced during a mission to Dahomey (now Benin) led from January to May 1930 by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and camera operator Frédéric Gadmer for Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet. This immersion, meant as a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions the views on non-European cultures in a context of colonial rule and the birth of ethnography.

Following on from a series of inaugural exhibitions dedicated to travel and gardens, the Albert-Kahn Museum continues to explore the fundamental themes of its collections, this time focusing on perspectives on non-European cultures and the ethnographic dimension of the Archives of the Planet, recently added to the UNESCO 'Memory of the World' Register.

The 1930 mission to Dahomey was unique in several ways: it was the only foray by the Archives of the Planet into sub-Saharan Africa, the last major expedition before the project was halted due to Albert Kahn’s bankruptcy, and the result of an initiative by an atypical clergyman, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945). This missionary priest, committed to a long-term endeavor to improve knowledge of African cultures, contacted Albert Kahn in 1927 and convinced him to finance his project to document Dahomey’s cultural and religious practices, in line with the philanthropist’s humanist views.

One of the first film collections of French ethnography

Father Aupiais’s goal was to promote an 'African recognitio' by documenting the traditional culture of Dahomey, particularly royal ceremonies and vodun rituals, which he held in high esteem. The mission lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (color photographs) and shot 140 film reels under Aupiais’s direction. These films, the first of this scale to be shot in Dahomey, constitute the largest collection of films in the Archives of the Planet and one of the first film collections of French ethnography, five years after the founding of the Paris Institute of Ethnology and one year before the Dakar-Djibouti mission.

Recently digitized in high definition (4K), these films constitute the narrative arc of the exhibition, which aims to present the outline, challenges, and legacy of this unusual mission, a century later. Projected in large format throughout an immersive journey, they offer unprecedented image quality and immerse visitors in the intimacy of Dahomey’s ceremonies and cults, forging links between yesterday’s protagonists and today’s visitors, between France and Benin.

Numerous objects, in a large part loaned by the musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, echo the still and moving images: emblems of power, vodun artifacts, and tools dedicated to divination are striking in their sophistication, matching the uses for which they were intended, documented in the films. These rare pieces also feature items exhibited in France by Father Aupiais himself.

Views from contemporary African artists

A Return Trip to Benin also questions the contemporary reception of images from 1930 through the eyes of artists from the African continent. Serving as a perspective and critical counterpoint, artworks by Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created specifically for the exhibition, combine painting, photography, installation, and performance, reappropriating and reactivating the photographs and films.

The Albert-Kahn Museum

Located in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, the Albert-Kahn Museum preserves and promotes the work of Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a French banker and philanthropist who devoted his fortune to promoting knowledge and understanding between peoples. In addition to the collection of photographs and films in the Archives of the Planet, it features a four-hectare landscaped garden, the vegetal embodiment of its patron's universalist dream.

An ambitious renovation completed in 2022 significantly increased the space dedicated to exhibitions, notably thanks to a new 2,300-square-meter building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, creating a dialogue between the image collections and the garden. The museum has welcomed more than 600,000 visitors since its reopening.

A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey, from 1930 to today / Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930
until 14 June 2026
Musée départemental Albert-Kahn – Albert-Kahn Museum, 2 rue du Port, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt
Further information: albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr

Image: Frédéric Gadmer, Vodunon performing the dance of Heviosso, Dahomey (Benin), 1930, film still © CD92 musée départemental Albert-Kahn / Archives de la Planète

The Peter Marlow Foundation (PMF) was established in 2018 to celebrate, preserve, and activate the archive of the late Magnum photographer Peter Marlow, while supporting contemporary photography and visual literacy across the UK, with a special focus on Kent and surrounding counties. As part of this mission, we launched our Archival Research Fellowship, funded through a Knowledge Exchange Partnership with the University for the Creative Arts. The fellowship invited a PhD student to help PMF investigate best practices for photographic archives and develop a training programme for local young people.

We were delighted to work with Camille Serisier as our inaugural Archival Research Fellow. Camille, a doctoral candidate at UCA with extensive experience in the GLAM sector, conducted a detailed scoping review of PMF’s resources, goals and organisational structure, and created an archival inventory, collections management documentation, plans for a training programme for local young people and a sustainability strategy.

A full report of Camille’s work and outcomes is available on our website and via the UCA digital research repository, UCARO. We hope it will support other photographers and archives, and we look forward to sharing more results from this knowledge exchange in the future.

Read more here: https://petermarlowfoundation.org/journal/announcing-our-archive-research-fellowship/

Image: Archival Research Fellow, Camille Serisier, working in the Peter Marlow Foundation archive in Dungeness. Photo Credit: Olivia Arthur/Magnum Photos

Quaritch has announced the publication of its latest book, The Photographer at Work: Documenting Civil Engineering 1853 to 1913. This catalogue of photographs highlights the intersections between civil engineering and photography from 1853 to 1915, lavishly illustrated with over four hundred photographic illustrations. Beginning with portrait photographs of the civil engineer  Robert Stephenson, The Photographer at Work highlights the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge and Montreal’s Victoria Bridge before featuring photographic albums on individual civil engineering projects, with a great deal of material on French infrastructure, the Paris metro, and the Panama Canal.

The photographs take centre stage, showing not only an impressive array of canals, water supply systems, harbours, lighthouses, railway bridges, and tunnels, but also fascinating portraits of builders and engineers at work.

The photographs and albums included in this catalogue are a part of the broader Andrews Collection of Civil Engineering. The overall collection of 7500 items includes not only printed books but also bound manuscripts, drawings, and an extensive archive of construction photographs, some of which have been presented here. The collection documents the development of engineering in the broadest terms and therefore includes European, Arabian, and Asian as well as North and South American material.

Mark E. Andrews has been collecting books about applied science and civil engineering since his university days in the late 1970s.  He is a member of the Grolier Club and the Association internationale de bibliophilie. In addition to writing numerous bibliophilic articles, he has published a series of catalogues documenting the books related to machines and hydraulics in his collection.

The Photographer at Work. Documenting Civil Engineering 1853 to 1913. 
Mark E Andrews
Toronto, AE Publications, 2025
£85, Square folio (280 x 280 mm), pp. xvi, 431, [9]; over 400 photographic illustrations, c. 150 of which full- or double-page; coloured endpapers, printed boards, with photographic dustjacket
See: https://www.quaritch.com/books/andrews-mark-e/the-photographer-at-work-documenting-civil-engineering-1853-to-1913/U70/

Charlie Phillips describes himself as a “Windrush kid”. He arrived in London from Jamaica in the late 1950s at the age of 11. It was a time of slum landlords and race riots. He spent his teenage years in Notting Hill – back then regarded as a ghetto – with few possessions, sharing a single, cramped room with his parents.

After a Black American GI looking for fun in the city left behind a Kodak Retina camera at a house party in Notting Hill (swapping it with Charlie’s father for taxi fare), Charlie’s life changed. Aged 14, he taught himself to develop 35mm film, turning his bathroom into a darkroom in the dead of night when everyone was asleep. A copy of The Saturday Evening Post the GI also left behind, with the painting The Runaway by Norman Rockwell on the cover, became his gateway to another world.

At first, he took photos of his friends and sold them at school, but then through the lens he began to document the world around him, the emerging one of musicians, street life, parties, families and rude boys in their zoot suits arriving fresh from Tilbury Docks; and the disappearing one, taking us into the unseen world of Afro-Caribbean funeral culture (a decades-long project called How Great Thou Art has documented changing fashions as much as changing attitudes) and photographing the final days of streets demolished for the Westway flyover. The relaxed nature of his subjects speak of Charlie’s own spontaneous style and personality, but the compositions tell a bigger story of a changing London and Britain.

Charlie Phillips - A Grassroots Legacy
Bluecoat Press
£50, 240 x 291mm, 112 pages
Cloth-bound hardcover with tip-in
With an introduction by Cecil Gutzmore and a preface by Paul Goodwin
https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/charlie-phillips-a-grassroots-legacy-1962-2010/

The Royal Anthropological Institute is a learned society, founded in its present form in 1871.Today, it has around 1850 members and Fellows, and a busy and varied programme of events, publications, conferences, and related initiatives.

The RAI cares for large and diverse collections. These comprise institutional archives recording the history of the institute and anthropology in the UK and a manuscript collection which includes fieldnotes, maps, transcripts, and other research materials from anthropologists working across the globe over the past 150 years. The photographic collections number over 120,000 images ranging from 19^th century colonial documentary images to recent field photographs across formats including glass-plate negatives, prints, film, and born-digital material. The collections also include historic films, and a smaller number of original artworks and objects.

The RAI regularly welcomes researchers and visitors to its collections as well as licensing images for publication. We also receive new collections each year.

About the role

The RAI are seeking to appoint a Collections Assistant to support the care of its archival and photographic collections. The Collections Assistant will work alongside the Archivist and Photographic Curator, focusing on the cataloguing, digitisation, and storage of uncatalogued and newly accessioned material.

The successful candidate will have experience in working with archive or museum collections, experience or interest in digitising historic photograph collections, and an interest in anthropology.

Key responsibilities

• To support the Archivist and Photographic Curator in organising collections and identifying appropriate structures and approaches to cataloguing them.
• To catalogue archival and photographic collections to ISAD (G) and SPECTRUM standards using the RAI’s FileMaker database and in-house archive cataloguing system.
• To identify items which may need additional levels of care or discussion e.g. fragile, damaged, or ethically complex documents or photographs.
• To digitise historic photographic collections using scanning equipment.
• To pack archival and photographic collections for safe handling and storage.
• To support the Archivist and Photographic Curator with day-to-day collections care and management including: supervising visitors to the collection; fulfilling publication requests for images; moving and rehousing collections, supporting exhibitions, acquisitions, and loans; and integrated pest management (IPM).

Location: London (in-office). Due to the nature of the work this role is not suitable for remote or hybrid working. 
Contract: Part time, Permanent
Hours: 2 days per week, working pattern may be negotiated
Start date: Early June 2026 
Pay: £29,694 pro rata (£11,877.60)

Read more about the photography collection here: https://therai.org.uk/photographs/

Details: https://therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/vacancylink/collections-assistant/

As BPH hinted at the beginning of February there are changes coming at Impressions Gallery. The Gallery is to relocate pending finding a permanent space and its long-time director Anne McNeill is stepping down. Impressions Gallery will take up temporary residence in the former Bradford Club, an iconic and well-loved historic building in the city centre, when Impressions lease in Centenary Square ends in March. This marks the next chapter in the gallery’s long and successful history from 1972, as it continues developing plans for its new permanent home in Bradford.

The move coincides with a planned change in leadership, as Director Anne McNeill prepares to step down after 26 years in the role. Impressions Gallery has an established relationship with the Bradford Club, having presented pop-up exhibitions and events in the building in recent years. This relocation will enable the charity to continue its artistic programme in 2026 and 2027.

The upcoming programme, with a focus on sustainability, includes the national touring exhibition Clare Hewitt’s Everything in the forest is the forest at MAC, Birmingham (April to August 2026); offsite exhibitions launching autumn 2026; the development of the community-sourced digital archive Bradford Family Album; and outreach work with local communities and young people. Impressions base at the former Bradford Club will also act as a welcoming hub for photographers in the region to connect with each other, and receive guidance and support at regular events and drop-ins.

“Impressions Gallery has a strong track record of working beyond conventional gallery spaces,” says Anne McNeill, “returning to the former Bradford Club as a temporary home builds on our existing connection to the space, while allowing us to continue our work and think ambitiously about a permanent future in the city.”

Director Anne McNeill will step down from her role in March 2026, concluding 26 years at the gallery. During her tenure, McNeill has led Impressions through a period of sustained artistic and organisational development, cementing Impressions’ national and international profile in photography and visual culture. This includes the gallery’s bold move from York to Bradford in 2005, and the realisation of major international exhibitions for Bradford’s Year as UK City of Culture. McNeill will remain in post until the end of March 2026, working alongside the experienced and committed team to support the transition.

Anne McNeill, Director says: “After 26 years, now feels like the right moment to hand over the reins and make space for new leadership and fresh ideas as Impressions enters the next chapter in its long and successful history. It has been an absolute privilege to lead Impressions, firstly in York, then moving the organisation to Bradford in 2005 and opening the first purpose-built photography gallery in the UK, through to our role in helping Bradford to secure its title as UK City of Culture 2025. I have loved working with such dedicated colleagues and talented artists. I’m immensely proud of what the team has achieved together; nurturing talent, building communities, championing photographers and diverse voices that reflect the richness of society. As for me, I am looking forward to exploring new creative challenges, while remaining a passionate advocate for photography and for Bradford.”

Julian Rodriguez, Co-Chair of Impressions Gallery, said: “We sincerely thank Anne for her visionary and committed leadership and the immense contribution she has made to Impressions Gallery and the wider international photography sector. As Impressions move into this next chapter, we remain focused on delivering an ambitious programme and playing an active role in Bradford’s cultural landscape as it continues to strengthen and grow”.

Impressions Gallery Board of Trustees will begin the process of appointing a new Director in spring 2026. Further announcements about the organisation's relocation and longer-term plans for a permanent home will be made later this year.

Impressions in Residence, The Bradford Club, 1 Piece Hall Yard, Bradford BD1 1PJ
t: 01274 737843
w: www.impressions-gallery.com
Instagram: @ImpGalleryPhoto

In the last twenty years, Impressions has staged 65 exhibitions in its Bradford gallery space, showing the work of 207 a!tists and commissioning 37 new bodies of photographic work, which have then toured the UK and beyond. Last year Nationhood: Memory and Hope, a powerful and poignant photography exhibition celebrating the diversity of the UK by acclaimed Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh and seven rising UK photographers became the first ever UK City of Culture project to take place in all four nations of the UK. Read more about Impressions Gallery's history and Anne McNeill.

Images: (top) Bradford Club; (lower) Anne McNeill. Courtesy Impressions Gallery. 

I’m delighted to share that a collection of amateur stereographs, deposited at Huntingdonshire Archives in 2025, has now been fully catalogued and listed on our online catalogue: https://calm.cambridgeshire.gov.uk

The material forms part of the personal papers of Dr William Reginald Grove of St Ives. Professionally, Dr Grove was a dedicated country doctor; but on a personal level he was an inquisitive and enthusiastic photographer who found enjoyment in stereoscopic imagery. The stereographs preserved within the archive represent only a portion of his photographic output, generously deposited by Peter Flower [Dr.Grove's grandson].

Alongside personal letters and diaries, the stereographs chiefly document family life in Huntingdonshire. However, the collection also includes photographs taken in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, London, Austria, Switzerland and France. There is even material relating to The United Stereoscopic Society. Particularly intriguing are several double-sided stereographs and examples that retain printed templates on the reverse for recording details of their creation.

The collection is under reference number: D1757 - Personal papers of Dr William Reginald Grove (1869 - 1948) of St Ives, and family members

I won’t go into further detail here, as Dr Grove’s enduring photographic legacy has already been explored by Michael Pritchard's blog post, which you can read here: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/publication-the-enduring-photographic-legacy-of-reginald-grove

The Kent County Council Art Collection began to be sold off at auction in 2025. A sale in July last year sold around 350 lithographs, linocuts, screenprints, etchings, wood cuts and engravings. Advice from an unnamed art historian was that the material might not represent any official historic value but was nonetheless interesting. The lots included scenes depicting Dover, Tenterden, Maidstone, Ivychurch, Canterbury and Sepham Heath near Sevenoaks with seascapes, wildlife and of course oast houses, all of which one might have thought would have been of interest and value across Kent. Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services and Reform councillor Paul Webb said: “The reason for selling is a practical one, with the closure of the basement store where the art works are kept." The Reform council is under severe budgetary pressure and struggling to find savings which would allow it to deliver on a promised council tax cut.  

Most of the art was purchased forty years ago as part of the Kent Visual Arts Loan Scheme (KVALS) designed for lending to schools and work places. This offered the opportunity for people to experience and benefit from art on a daily basis when it might otherwise not have been a possibility. KVALS has not run for more than 10 years and the artwork has been in storage since that time. The catalogue can still be viewed online. The Kent County Council Art Collection runs from lots one to 92 with an estimated maximum value of £45,700 and individual lots varying from £200 to £1,500. The eventual hammer price was just over £40,000. 

Now a second group of some 160 lots from the Collection has been put up for auction which includes prints, oil paintings and a significant group of photographs from Tony Ray Jones, Andy Goldsworthy, Timothy Fagan, John Firman, Terry Hulf, Chris Shore, and others. The photographs run from lot 331-396. 

The Tony Ray Jones work consists of 33 prints mainly taken in Kent, but also including work from London, the Isle of Man and Brighton. All are estimated at £300-500. 

Thanks to Paul Reas for flagging up the sale.

Paint. Print. Sculpt.
Sworders, online auction
10 March 2026 
See: https://www.sworder.co.uk/auction/search/?au=1298

Image: Tony Ray Jones (British, 1941-1972), 'Trooping the Colour', 1967

A photograph of Oscar Wilde on his death bed in Paris on 30 November 1900 has sold for £279,800 (inc premium) against a presale estimate of £2000-3000. The megnesium flash lit photograph was taken three hours after Wilde's death by Gilbert Maurice at the request of Robert Ross. The 84 x 115mm silver-gelatine print carries an ink stamp on the reverse of 'William E. Gray, 92 Queen's Rd., Bayswater, W., Fine Art Photographer'.  Gray received his royal warrant to the King in 1904 and by 1910 was also photographer to the Queen. 

Bonhams note:  After receiving Extreme Unction from the Catholic Priest Father Cuthbert Dunne the day before, Wilde died on 30 November 1900 at his room in the Hôtel d'Alsace, Paris, in the presence of Robert Ross, Reginald Turner, and hotel proprietor Jean Dupoirier, who laid Wilde out, clothed in a white nightshirt. Shortly after Ross asked Gilbert Maurice to take this photograph. Gilbert Maurice "was a young marine infantryman... whom he [Wilde] picked up in the street having been struck by his beautiful eyes, and his fine profile... Although driven, initially, by passion, the relationship had its intellectual aspect" (Matthew Sturgis, Oscar: A Life, 2018). Jeremy Mason records, in a note included with the lot, that "Merlin Holland confirmed that the inscription on the back of the photograph is in the handwriting of Robert Ross...".