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He is most famous for the pictures he took of the Titanic. But the work of Cork-born Jesuit priest Father Francis Browne extended to four continents and nearly 42,000 prints. Hailed as "Ireland's greatest photographer", a new book has revealed never-seen-before images taken by the cleric in Ireland from when he first picked up a camera in 1897, until shortly before his death in 1960.
Father Browne's great collection of negatives lay forgotten for 25 years after his death in 1960. It was by chance in 1986 that Father O'Donnell discovered the lost collection in a large metal trunk and brought the negatives to the attention of the features editor of the 'Sunday Times' in London, who dubbed them "the photographic equivalent to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls".
His legacy was a collection of nearly 42,000 photographs, including the ones he took aboard the Titanic in 1912. Fortunately, he disembarked at Queenstown, now Cobh, on the orders of his superiors. All rights to the Father Browne collection are owned by the Jesuits in Ireland.
As a result, this new book, The Father Browne Yeats, is published by Messenger Publications, publishers of 'The Scared Heart Messenger', or search for it in the Amazon link on the right.
The full news report can be found here.
Falmouth Art Gallery has a small but important collection of 20th century and contemporary photography. It boasts the largest collection of Lee Miller photographs outside of the Lee Miller archive and has remarkable images by Eve Arnold, Fay Godwin and Linda McCartney. The collection is particularly strong in Surrealist photographs including works by Lee Miller’s husband Sir Roland Penrose, Man Ray and Jonathan X. Coudrille.
Contemporary photographers include Bob Berry, Susan Boafo, Vince Bevan, Miles Flint, Nick Meek, Steve Tanner and Anthony & Kate Fagin. See also ‘Underwater Photography' for marine photographs by the award winning Mark Webster.
Falmouth Art Gallery will be exhibiting material from this collection under the title 'Masters of Photography from 12 February-2 April 2011. The exhibition will profile in particular the work of Ian Stern.
To view the Falmouth Art Gallery's 20th century photographic holdings on their web catalogue: http://fag.looksystems.net/Collection/Masters_of_Photography
Manchester design consultancy NRN Design has been appointed to create new Internet galleries at the National Media Museum in Bradford, which will explore the history, evolution and social impact of the Internet. The contract is worth £88,000. More illustrations are available here. The same company was responsible for the computrer games lounge situtated in the museum foyer.
National Museums Scotland is one of the UK's leading museum services. Operating five museums and one of the largest multidisciplinary collections in the UK, it aims to be a world-class museums service that educates, informs and inspires. A major redevelopment and modernisation programme is currently being implemented across our organisation, including a £46 million redevelopment of the Royal Museum building. This investment will create new displays, enhance learning and public facilities and provide high quality visitor experiences.
This is a temporary, full time appointment for a period of 9 months. You will support the Photography team to achieve objectives relating to the Royal Museum Project and Online Collections, by providing digital photography, primarily of collections.
You will have a recognised professional qualification in Photography at HND or degree level (or equivalent), together with a good knowledge of photographic and digital imaging techniques and studio flash lighting. You will be familiar with imaging software, including Adobe Photoshop; both PC and Mac platforms; scanners and related software; and will have a high level of professional technical competence. Demonstrable relevant professional experience is essential, including the use of digital imaging technology, and you will have proven ICT skills in Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook. Experience of working in both museum and commercial photography environments is desirable, as is a driving licence.
The selection event will be held on Friday 14 January 2011.
National Museums Scotland is committed to being an Equal Opportunities Employer.
Closing date for completed applications is 10/12/2010
Details, including an application pack, can be found here.
Known as an adventurer, a scholar, and possibly a spy (!) - Dutchman, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, (1857 - 1936) proved that he was also a pioneering photographer with his rare 1885 photographs/sound recordings of the holy city of Mecca.
Started life as a theology student at Lieden University, Netherlands, Hurgronje was later appointed as an adviser on the native affairs of colonial Netherlands East Indies. In 1880, he wrote his doctorate thesis entitled "Het Mekkansche Feest" (The Festivities of Makkah) which described the Haj pilgrimage and its customs.
In 1884, through a partial funding from the Dutch government, he was sent to Mecca/Jeddah. During this short but comprehensive stay, he observed and chronicled the daily lives of the local society through photos, written memoirs and sound recordings. Unfortunately, he was forced to leave earlier than intended after unfound accusations of his involvement in an attempt to steal a historical artifact.
His camera equipment wasn't wasted. After Snouck's departure, Al-Sayyid Abd al-Ghaffar, a local physician that the Dutchman had worked alongside, began using the camera, possibly becoming Mecca's first home-grown photographer. Al-Ghaffar continued sending his images to Snouck in The Netherlands. Many of the photographs were originally credited solely to Snouck but they are now jointly credited, with experts unable to tell who shot what.The images, archived by Leiden University Library, were published four years after Snouck's trip. Original copies of the album now sell for about $45,000, according to the gallery.
Under the patronage of Princess Reem Al-Faisal and in collaboration with Netherland’s Leiden University Library and Hes & De Graaf Publishers, this exhibition “Mecca — A Dangerous Adventure,” features re-photographed and re-produced 19th century platinum prints of the works of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936).
Details of the Snouck Hurgronje article, including a slide show, can be found here, and the exhibition here.
Photos: Group portrait of sharif Yahya with camel slave and two lower sharifs; Dutch scholar Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje.
An on-going exhibition which opened earlier this year (with another commencing in 2011) showcases the royal portraiture of Marcus Adams. Marcus opened his Children’s Studio on Dover Street, London in 1920. He quickly established a reputation as a leading child photographer through his ability to capture the personality of his young sitters, who included the children of the writers A.A. Milne and Agatha Christie. Adams wanted his subjects to feel completely at ease, believing that photography was ‘ninety-five per cent psychology and only five per cent mechanical’. The studio was filled with gadgets and toys, and had no visible equipment or dazzling lights. Instead, Adams built a special camera in the form of a toy cabinet, which he operated remotely while he moved about and talked to the children. As many as 200 photographs would be taken during a typical royal sitting, resulting in at least 50 successful images. A number of the portraits were kept by the Royal Family, some were published in newspapers and magazines, and others appeared on postcards, postage stamps, calendars, commemorative china, and even biscuit tins and jigsaw puzzles.
Details of both exhibitions can be found here and here.
Photos: Marcus Adams; Prince Charles by Marcus Adams bromide print, 1953
9 5/8 in. x 7 1/2 in. (244 mm x 191 mm) Purchased, 1980; Primary Collection, NPG P140(27);
Walton Adams is Reading's oldest commercial and family photographic business established since 1867.
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1884, Watkins was active in NewYork in the 1920s, where she had a studio in Greenwich Village and worked with Clarence White and the other great photographers of the period including Stieglitz and Strand. Her work in advertising and art photography was often innovative and experimental, and she exhibited internationally.
In 1928 she visited her four elderly aunts in Glasgow, which became her base for the rest of her life, allowing her to travel in Europe and particularly in Russia where she made some of her most striking work. However, after the war she became very reclusive. Joe Mulholland was her neighbour, but in the many years he knew her, she never referred to her photographic career and it was only after her death that the nature and scale of her achievement became evident.
A newspaper article on Watkins can be found here, and details of the exhibition here.
It includes an archive of historical documents, letters and estates records of this Gloucestershire garden, as well as over 50 original glass photographic plates dating from 1910until 1917.
Any BPH members with green fingers can read the full report here.
Photo: The archive includes over 50 original photographs of Batsford dating back to 1910.
From the collections of the V&A and Royal Anthropological Institute to those at local libraries and in professional archives such as Magnum Photos, London plays host to a surprising variety of often unknown photographic collections and archives, all of which are kept for different purposes.
Using practical explorations, visits and thematic discussions this course arranged by the Photographers' Gallery and Birkbeck considers the histories, preservation, use and related issues involved in these fascinating archives.
There are nine sessions in total, from 8 January - 10 February 2011, with a combination of Saturday mornings, 10.30am-1.30pm, and weekday evenings, 6pm-8pm. Full dates to be announced.
For more information and to book: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/ce/modules/FFWO099H4.html, 020 7631 6651
If you’ve been looking for yet another good reason to come visit us at the Fox Talbot Museum in the historic village of Lacock, here it is! The Fox Talbot Museum is presenting a series of photographic workshops for next summer, comprising:
- Dawn of Photography, with Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman
- Wet and Dry Collodion on Glass, also led by Mark and France
- Daguerreotype Workshop, with Mike Robinson
- Photogenic Drawing Workshop, with Richard Cynan Jones.
Registration for these workshops starts now and is limited to small classes so sign up soon to avoid disappointment.
Come visit us at www.talbotworkshops.co.uk for more information and registration details.
Fay Godwin (1931 - 2005) was one of Britain's greatest landscape photographers. She is best known for her 1985 exhibition and accompanying book, Land - a very personal celebration of the British landscape that enjoyed enormous popular and critical success. A comprehensive background on Godwin can be found here and here, and details on the current NMeM exhibition here.
Godwin's Land exhibition was a critical and popular success during akey period for photography. Professor Roger Taylor (Photo historian) and Colin Ford (Head of National Museum of Photography, Film and TV, 1983-93) recount this achievement in a short film which can be found here.
In a blog report earlier this year BPH noted that the National Media Museum was looking to save a rare photograph by pioneering 19th century British photographer, Roger Fenton, entitled 'Pasha and Bayader'. Today it has been confirmed that the photograph has been saved, and it is no longer in danger being moved abroad.
The Art Fund and the National Media Museum has managed to jointly raise over £100,000, and the image will now be on display in the National Collection of Photographs.
Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, said: "This captivating tableau is of huge importance to the display and study of photography. The intriguing interplay between the characters and Fenton's visual trickery are sure to fascinate viewers, helping bring a wider understanding of 19th century art and culture."
The Art Fund noted (see here): Fenton created Pasha and Bayadere in 1858 as part of a series of photographs inspired by his recent expedition to photograph the Crimean War. It is an important and beautiful expression of an orientalist theme in British art of the nineteenth century and reflects the Victorian fascination with the ‘exotic’ east. Fenton himself appears as the ‘Pasha’ and the musician is the English landscape painter, Frank Dillon, who originally owned the print.
- Medium: albumen silver print
- Dimensions: 42 x 38cm
- Grant Paid: £49,000.00 ( Total: £108,506.00; Export stopped)
- ArtFunded in: 2010
- Vendor: Descendants of Frank Dillon
Only two examples of this image exist - the other is in the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and is believed to be a proof.
The full report fromt the Daily Telegraph can be found here.
In 1896, he expanded his business and opened the largest photography studio in Bombay, which was patronized by both local Indians, as well as the British.
The legacy of Raja Deen Dayal is an exhibition mounted from the collection of glass-plate negatives of India's most accomplished photographer of the 19th century, and an introduction to his life and works.
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Photo: The Studio of Raja Deen Dayal & Sons, 1890.
At the heart of the MMTC is the extraordinary research archive, containing 1,500 archive boxes of theatre ephemera, and the library of 15,000 books. The boxes, arranged according to Raymond and Joe's system of classification, are full of playbills, photographs, newspaper cuttings and original documents from the eighteenth century to the present. The collection is particularly strong in holdings on the London Theatre in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and there are also files on regional theatres, on actors and actresses, and on specialist subjects such as circus, variety, puppetry and pantomime. Musicians and dancers of note are also represented.
Leicester's De Montfort University will be supporting the MA research of Brian Carr on 43 extremely rare daguerreotypes. The daguerreotypes are part of the collection of Maidstone Museum where Carr, a photography enthusiast, has been a long-standing volunteer.
The valuable collection of early photographs date back to 1851 and include stills of the King of Hawaii, his wife and the Royal entourage. They were brought to Maidstone by Julius Brenchley, the third son of wealthy Maidstone brewer. He was educated at Cambridge University and undertook a scientfic expedition in 1851 to the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawaii). He later he went on to the Great Salt Lake City, visited the plains Indians in America and brought back further images.
Brian, who took up photography at 14, said he cannot wait to get to grips with the collection: “Naturally I had read about Daguerreotypes, but actually holding one of these early images made the hairs on the back of my neck stand-up. The thought went through my mind that I am in effect travelling back 150 years and here is a person looking back at me. This is something that I have never felt with any other process. To hold a one-off Daguerreotype is to hold a slice of time, frozen into perpetuity. I am extremely honoured to have unrestricted access to such a rare collection, and hope that I can do it justice in my MA.”
The full press release is here and report from the Kent News can be found here.
Lastly the show focuses on great photographers of the second half of the twentieth century, with works borrowed from the collections of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.
Details of the exhibition can be found here.
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The renowned 19th-century French photographer, Charles Marville, has remained a mystery for so long partly because documents that would shed light on his biography were thought to have disappeared in a fire that consumed Paris' city hall in 1870. The whereabouts of others were simply unknown. However, new research by exhibition curator Sarah Kennel and independent researcher Daniel Catan has uncovered a wealth of documents that have been critical in reconstructing Marville's personal and professional biography.
Both Kennel and Catan have made astounding discoveries in Parisian archives that have provided the basis for a completely new history of Marville. The most important revelation is his given name: Charles-François Bossu. Born into an established Parisian family in 1813 (and not 1816, as previously thought), the young Bossu adopted the pseudonym Marville just as he was embarking on a career as an illustrator and painter in the early 1830s. Although he continued to be known as Marville until his death in Paris on June 1, 1879, (two facts also just uncovered), he never formally changed his name and therefore many of the legal documents pertaining to his life have gone unnoticed for decades.
The first exhibition in the United States and the very first scholarly catalogue on Marville will present recently discovered, groundbreaking scholarship informing his art, including his identity, background, and family life. On view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from October 1, 2012 through January 6, 2013, Charles Marville, 1813–1879 will include some 100 photographs that represent the artist's entire career, from his city scenes and landscape and architectural studies of Europe in the early 1850s to his compelling photographs of Paris and its environs in the late 1870s. The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Photo: Rue de Constantine, Paris; Charles Marville c1865 (Metropolitan Museum of Art )
LENS is held from 19-20 November 2010 at The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, which holds the largest photographic collection in Wales (over 800,000 photographs). The collection includes the earliest surviving Welsh photograph, a daguerreotype of Margam Castle taken by Calvert Jones in 1841.
This is the only festival of its kind held in Wales, aimed specifically at those interested in documentary photography, in the history of photography and/or Welsh social history.
For details of the event, see here.
The dates have been announced for the 2011 London Photograph Fairs which will take place on 20 February, 15 May, 11 September and 20 November 2011. The venue will be the Holiday Inn, Coram Street, London, close to Russell Square tube station and within walking distance of Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross mainline stations. Admission is £3. For more information see www.photofair.co.uk
