Blogs

If you happen to be hiking in the Swiss Alps this summer, do drop in to the town of Vevey by the north shore of Lake Geneva to view this exhibition.

When the film on a flexible support appeared on the market in the 1880s, the whole world of photography was radically transformed. Cameras underwent a complete metamorphosis, rapidly becoming smaller and smaller and more and more sophisticated mechanically. The arrival of the film meant that a sequence of shots could be linked up and with the added advantage of glass-plate negatives, the use of cameras as a whole was greatly simplified, leading to a total revolution in the way people saw everything and communicated their observations. This was the beginning of the intensive activity of 20th Century photographers.

Long before George Eastman’s invention, Prudent René-Patrice Dagron, a chemist and photographer, produced the first type of film during the French-German war in 1870. On this occasion, important documents were reduced photographically onto a sheet of collodion, then transmitted by pigeon carriers to the besieged Parisians. When Eastman came up with the Kodak, a compact, user-friendly camera with a flexible film, promoted by the famous slogan "You press the button, we do the rest", photography rapidly became the witness of happy days for so many amateurs and their families. Photographic images, now accessible to one and all, suddenly became more spontaneous... This was the beginning of the intensive activity of 20th Century photographers.

This new exhibition portrays the ways in which photography has spread to all age groups, all social categories, amateurs and professionals alike. Visitors will be able to admire all kinds of photographic devices, many unusual, rare items and amazing applications, not forgetting the users themselves, whether behind or in front of the camera.

Details of the exhibition can be found here, and the official press release here: Le%20sie%CC%80cle%20du%20film%20communique%CC%81%20presse_GB.pdf:

Photo: 35 mm film, cellulose nitrate for the Cinématographe with Lumière perforations, and its metal box.

The Gernsheim Collection, published by the University of Texas Press, written by Roy Flukinger and designed by Pentagram, won the Fred Whitehead Award for Best Book Design at the Texas Institute of Letters 75th anniversary awards ceremony last Saturday.

The Gernsheim Collection housed at the Harry Ransom Center on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, is one of the most important photography collections in the world. Amassed by the renowned husband-and-wife team of Helmut and Alison Gernsheim between 1945 and 1963, it contains an unparalleled range of images, including the world’s earliest-known photograph, made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. Its encyclopedic scope—as well as the expertise and taste with which the Gernsheims built the collection—makes the Gernsheim Collection one of the world’s premier resources for the study and appreciation of the development of photography.

The Gernsheim Collection is an oversized 360-page volume, designed by Stout and Savasky, that presents masterpieces of the Gernsheim Collection, along with lesser-known images of great historical significance. Arranged in chronological order, this selection effectively constitutes a visual history of photography from its beginnings to the mid-twentieth century including iconic works by groundbreaking photographers like Sir William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy Henry O’Sullivan, Eadweard J. Muybridge, Alfred Stieglitz, Jean-Eugéne-Auguste Atget, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, André Kertész, Brassai, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Arthur Rothstein, Robert Capa, Edward Weston, Arnold Newman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Aaron Siskind and Lucien Clergue.

Each photograph in the book is accompanied by an extensive annotation in which Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator at the Harry Ransom Center, describes the photograph’s place in the evolution of photography and also within the Gernsheim Collection itself. In a scholarly introduction Flukinger traces the Gernsheim’s passionate and colorful careers as collectors and pioneering historians of photography, showing how their untiring efforts significantly contributed to the acceptance of photography as a fine art form and as a field worthy of intellectual inquiry.

If you like to own a copy of this Award-winning book yourself as reference, just search for it on the Amazon link on the right.

The Photographers’ Gallery is due to reopen in a transformed space at Ramillies St in late 2011/early 2012, providing, for the first time in our history, artists, audiences and our funders with the high calibre facilities expected of a photography space in the 21st century. Opportunities for effective fundraising from the corporate, private, and public sector will be dramatically improved through the new facilities on offer.

Reporting to the Director and working closely with the 3 members of the development team, you will be responsible for developing and implementing the fundraising strategy to raise the revenue needs for the new gallery programme.

With at least 5 years minimum experience in revenue fundraising, with 2 years at senior level, you will have a proven track record of successful fundraising within the corporate sector and have some experience in securing grants from foundations, trusts and the public sector.

Closing date for application June 1st 2011

See: http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?pid=243

This exhibition which ended just a few weeks ago, included more than 100 photographs from the National Gallery of Canada's own collection, ranging from the historical images of William Henry Fox Talbot, taken circa 1839, to the sophisticated architectural studies made by Frederick H. Evans at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

You can read an interview with Lori Pauli, Associate Curator of photographer at the NGC, on her thoughts behind the exhibition, her favourite photographs, which she considered to be most important etc, in an interview found here.

A Victorian science expert at St. John's University, Snyder offers a four-in-one biography of 19th-century scientists -  Whewell, Babbage, Jones, as well as John Herschel, who mapped the skies of the Southern hemisphere and coinvented photography. 
In 1812, when academic science was still a backward field, the four Cambridge students founded the Philosophical Breakfast Club, devoted to scientific discussion. Snyder provides insights into their personal lives, their myriad professional accomplishments, and their influence on science and economics.

An excerpt of this book can be found here, and if you are still keen you can search for it through the Amazon link on the right.

The International Mission Photography Archive offers over 60,000 historical images from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections in Britain, Norway, Germany, and the United States. The photographs, from the 1860s until World War II, offer a visual record of missionary activities and experiences in Africa, China, Madagascar, India, Papua-New Guinea, and the Caribbean. The photographs reveal the physical influence of missions, visible in mission compounds, churches, and school buildings, as well as the cultural impact of mission teaching, religious practices, and Western technology and fashions. Indigenous peoples' responses to missions and the emergence of indigenous churches are represented, as are views of landscapes, cities, and towns before and in the early stages of modern development.

The online archive can be accessed through this link here.

South Shields Local History Group is looking for volunteers from outside the group with a knowledge of ships and trains to help identify and research a collection of glass negatives dating from the late 1800s to about 1930.  The photographic images are held in the local history section of the town library in Prince Georg Square. Having just  gained funding from the Community Foundation under its Active At 60 scheme, the images will also be digitised to help the library preserve the glass negatives for future generations.

Anyone interested in becoming involved or wishing to find out more is invited to the library on May 17, between 2pm and 4pm. For information about the photographic collection, contact the Local Studies Library on 424 7860, or log on to localstudies.library@southtyneside.gov.uk. The full report can be found here.

Photo:  Anne Sharp of South Shields Local History Group with an old glass photographic plate (The Shields Gazette).

John Thomson, a Scot who was born two years before the invention of the daguerreotype and the birth of photography, is considered a pioneer of photojournalism and one of the most influential photographers of his generation.

At that time, foreign travel was much more arduous and rare than it is today, and photography was still in its infancy, requiring a cumbersome mass of equipment. But Thomson, with energy and perseverance, captured a wide variety of images - landscapes, architecture and people from all walks of life - that give us an extraordinary insight into the everyday life and people of 19th century China.

Organised by the School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow, and supported by the Wellcome Trust and Friends of Glasgow Museums, a special symposium to expand on the current Burrell Collection exhibition China through the Lens of John Thomson, 1868-1872 will be held on Saturday 7th May 2011. The one-day event will bring together speakers from the world of visual art and culture to present in-depth discussions on the Scottish photographer John Thomson’s experiments in China, and on his significance as one of the pioneers of documentary photography and photojournalism. The day will also offer an opportunity to see some new images from John Thomson’s glass negatives, never before shown in public.

Details of this symposium can be found here, and the symposium programme here: China%2520Through%2520the%2520Lenses%2520of%2520the%2520Western%2520Photographers.pdf.

You can secure a place at this symposium by contacting The Burrell Collection direct on 0141 287 2593. The accompanying exhibition is on-going, and separate details can be found here.

Some of you BPH members may have already come across this site, but nevertheless, a useful resource for those who haven't.

This national 'on line' catalogue contains art-historical information on the earliest photographs owned by the Rijksmuseum (Rijksprentenkabinet) in Amsterdam, the Print Room of the University of Leiden and 25 other museums, archives and libraries in the Netherlands. The catalogue encompasses more than 3,700 portraits, city views and landscapes from the pioneering period 1839 -1860. These photographs were taken in the Netherlands, France, England, Germany and the United States by both Dutch and foreign photographers. Famous images by photographers such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Edouard Baldus and Gustave Le Gray are found along with the earliest photographs of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Haarlem. Every technique is represented, from daguerreotypes to salted paper prints, glass negatives, paper negatives and photolithographs. The various uses of photographs are also presented; photographs in a case or in a frame; photographs pasted in books or albums; and stereographs. The catalogue contains a wonderful cross-section of photographic production from the pioneering period.

More than 2100 photographs are from the National Photograph Collection in the Rijksprentenkabinet in the Rijksmuseum, which has actively collected international and Dutch photographs since 1996. The Leiden Print Room and Study Center for Photography , which administers the oldest public photograph collection in the Netherlands, owns almost 900 photographs from before 1860.

The information and the available visual material is presented in an `online' collection catalogue which can be found on this link here.

Amateurs and Artists: 19th and 21st Century Photography in the South West. A conference presented by Royal Photographic Society, Historical Group, from Friday, 13 May– Sunday, 15 May 2011 in the Lecture Theatre 2, Roland Levinsky Building, University of Plymouth Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA.

Early photography in Plymouth is an untold story. Robert Hunt, independent inventor of photographic processes, Richard Beard, the first daguerreotype licensee, Charles Eastlake RA, first RPS president, and Linnaeus Tripe, an early calotypist, were all from Plymouth. W.H.F. Talbot, inventor of the positive/negative (calotype negative) process, photographed Plymouth in 1845 and Roger Fenton photographed the Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash, in 1858. Local interest in photography was such that the Devon and Cornwall Photographic Circle was established in January 1854.

The conference is linked closely to three exhibitions. Amateurs and Artists: Early Photography and Plymouth at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, on display 9th April to 30th July 2011. Out of the Ordinary, a group exhibition of work by members of the Royal Photographic Society, South West Contemporary Group is on display at Sherwell Centre, University of Plymouth, 9th to 27th May 2011. The third exhibition, Chemical Traces, is a response to Amateurs and Artists: Early Photography and Plymouth, and will be on display in Scott Building, University of Plymouth. Tours of these exhibitions form part of the conference on Friday and there will be a special viewing of Amateurs and Artists on Friday, 5.30 – 7.00 pm.

The speakers, who represent a wide range of photographic expertise: curators, university staff, photohistorians and contemporary photographers, include Carolyn Bloore, Jon Blyth, Colin Ford, Rod Fry, Michael Gray, John Hannavy, Jenny Leathes, Richard Morris, Nigel Overton, Matthew Pontin and Jem Southam. Speakers correct at time of printing.

Friday 13th May and Saturday 14th May 2011 10.30am-5.00pm. Main speakers and lecture programme. 

Saturday 14th May 2011 7.30 pm (Optional)
Conference Dinner, Jurys Inn, 50 Exeter Street, Plymouth. Menu options are to be pre-booked, see menu choice sheet and booking form. The cost is an additional £19.95. Jurys Inn is conveniently located for the Roland Levinsky Building, University of Plymouth and Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery in Drakes Circus, Plymouth. Preferential rates have been agreed for overnight accommodation with Jurys Inn. See rates at bottom of menu choice sheet and booking information.

*Sunday 15th May 2011 Events 11.30 am – 4.00 pm (Optional)
A calotype demonstration. Revisiting the site of William Henry Fox Talbot’s photograph, The Victualling
Office, Plymouth, 1845, a view from the Battery at Mount Edgcumbe across Plymouth Sound. Meet at the
Orangery, (café) Mount Edgcumbe, 11.30 am. The Cremyll ferry leaves Admirals Hard, Stonehouse,
Plymouth at 11.15 am (ferry time 8 minutes). Departure times, 09.15 quarter to and quarter past the hour
until 21.15. Return journey depart Mount Edgcumbe 09.00 on the half hour and hour until until 21.00.
Single fares only £1.20.

2.30 – 4.00 pm Reconstruction of the position of the early 19th century Camera Obscura on The
Promenade, Plymouth Hoe. An opportunity to view the optics and the panorama within the Fotonow
VW Camper Obscura. The Fotonow VW Camper Obscura will be on this site, Friday – Sunday, 13th – 15th
May, 9 am until 6.30 pm.

Conference fee £50 per person  Conference dinner £19.95 per person (optional)

Booking forms and information can be downloaded from: http://www.rps.org/events/view/2052?m=0&y=2011&d=&t=0&g=Historical&r=0&reset=reset

For further information please contact:
Jenny Ford, Secretary, RPS Historical Group
Jennyford2000@yahoo.co.uk or tel. 01234 881459

As mentioned in an earlier BPH blog, The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has just published a new book containing never-before seen photographs of Mecca taken by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje in the late 1800s.

The Islamic scholar Hurgronje was the first westerner to capture images in this ‘forbidden city’. He did so by converting to Islam so that he could take part in the Hajj. He became world famous the moment his books of photographs were published. Now, for the first time, we learn about the obstacles that Snouck Hurgronje had to overcome in order to obtain his photographs. He took those in his first book himself, while the second is filled with photographs by his assistant, the Meccan doctor ‘Abd al-Ghaffar. His share in Snouck Hurgronje’s books and their remarkable collaboration have never been studied before. One of the high points is an exceptional circular, six-shot photograph taken with a homemade ‘detective camera’. It was made with the ‘revolver method’ of a rotating glass plate that enabled six photographs to be taken in succession without changing the plate.

You can try searching for the book through the Amazon link on the right, or direct from the Museum here.

Bill Brandt portrayed the lives of all levels of British society in both staged and documentary photographs from the 1930s and 1940s. Now four of his works, including Soho Bedroom (1936), depicting a couple locked in a passionate embrace which was published in his influential book A Night in London (1938) can be viewed in a new exhibition at the Met, details of which can be found here. 

Brandt also made night views of London during the Blitz, when the city imposed blackouts.

Photo: Soho Bedroom, Bill Brandt (1938)

Did you know that the Mariannhill Monastery, near Pinetown (South Africa) was a fully fledged photographic studio (complete with painted backdrops for people to pose) from the 1880s to the 1930s? In the late 1890s this studio, then run by Brother Aegidius, produced an album of ethnographic photographs depicting the local Zulu people that found its way into the collections of ethnographic museums all over Europe.
It was this album that led Christoph Rippe to his interest in the monastery and its photographic record. A doctoral student in cultural anthropology at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, Rippe is currently researching the photographs archives of Mariannhill Monastery produced since the 1880s. 
The museum purchased an album of photographs — 156 in all — from Mariannhill in 1899. “In 1897 Brother Aegidius sent out letters to ethnographic museums in Europe, making them aware of the album,” says Rippe. “He produced a standard set accompanied with a pamphlet giving a detailed account of objects, the ritual practices depicted, along with the Zulu names for objects depicted in the photographs.  Most major museums in Europe have Mariannhill collections — in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, even Hungary.” 

According to Rippe, these images were not just ethnographic photographs, but also used as propaganda and to raise funds for the mission as well as to foster an interest in vocations.

You can read the rest of the report here.

Sydney lawyer and identity Arthur Wigram Allen, a tirelessly enthusiastic photographer, was fascinated by the social and technological changes occurring during his lifetime. His talent for amateur photography produced extraordinary pictures that offer a fresh insight into the Edwardian years in Sydney.

The Edwardian era was sandwiched between the great achievements of the Victorian age and the global catastrophe of World War I. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 heralded a new century of significant inventions and social changes, including powered flight, the rise of the motorcar and a new federated Australia.

An Edwardian Summer: Sydney & Beyond Through the Lens of Arthur Wigram Allen will present a selection of Allen’s beautiful images, depicting intimate moments with family and friends, motoring and harbour excursions, theatrical celebrities, bush picnics, the introduction of surf bathing on Sydney beaches, processions, pageants and mass celebrations, and new freedoms in fashion. Most have never before been published, and they form an unrivalled personal pictorial record of these rapidly changing times.

The accompanying exhibition, which just ended at the Museum of Sydney, also included artworks by Rupert Bunny, Ethel Carrick Fox, Arthur Streeton and Grace Cossington Smith, examples of male and female fashion including evening and day wear, motoring ensembles and children’s dress-up costumes, jewellery and accessories, furniture and decorative embellishments characteristic of the Edwardian era.

If you are interested, just click on the Amazon link on the right to preorder the book which will be out in June 2011.

Bearer of better news this time round!

The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) seeks a curator of photography. This person will oversee and manage the museum's extensive collection, and establish priorities for collections research and development, exhibition programming and interpretation. Additionally, the candidate will be expected to participate in scholarly and public programming activities (lectures, docent training, presenting papers, authoring articles, et al). 
NOMA's photography collection, begun in the early 1970s, currently numbers over 8500 images and ranges in date from the invention of the medium to the present day. It is strong in the works of German and Czech avant-garde photography of the 1920s and early '30s; the Pictorialists in America and Europe; American Documentary photography, including the work of the Farm Security Administration and the New York Photo League; Louisiana photography as well as examples by major contemporary artists. Among the many artists represented in depth are Bernice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, E.J. Bellocq, Ilse Bing, Margaret Burke-White, Wynn Bullock, Imogen Cunningham, Harold Edgerton, Frederick Evans, Walker Evans, Andreas Feininger, Arnold Genthe, Laura Gilpin, John Gutmann, Lewis Hine, Andre Kertesz, Clarence John Laughlin, Aaron Siskind, August Sander, Patti Smith, Edward Steichen, Joseph Sudek, Edmund Teske, Jerry Uelsmann, James Van Der Zee, Edward and Brett Weston, and Joel Peter Witkin. 
Many great photographers have worked in New Orleans, using the city as both subject and muse. New Orleans has been, and continues to be, the locus of a vibrant community of photographers and collectors. It is expected that the curator of photography will embrace opportunities to engage fully with this community. 
The successful candidate will have at least 3-5 years of curatorial experience dealing with research, exhibitions, acquisitions and collaborative programming and have a distinguished record of scholarly achievement. A PhD in art history with a specialization in the history of photography is preferred, and it is expected that the candidate will have expertise in areas that parallel the collection's strengths. Salary and benefits are competitive. 
Applicants should send a letter of interest, a current CV, references and a list of publications to: 
Shayne@noma.org or send to New Orleans Museum of Art, 1 Collins Diboll Circle, New Orleans, La 70124 EEO/M/F/DV 
Applications will be accepted until 1st June 2011, or until the position is filled.

Full details can be found here. Good luck!

If your budget can't quite stretch to the Report of the Juries (1851), fear not as there is a selection of interesting 19th century photographs up for grabs at a forthcoming auction to be held at Bloomsbury Auctioneers on Wednesday 18th May 2011.

This includes one of the earliest instantaneous news photographs -  an 1855 stereoscopic daguerreotype by P H Delamotte for Negretti & Zambra of the reception of Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Gernsheim records that only one daguerreotype of that occasion is known, and that, although four photographers covered the reopening of the Crystal Palace on 10 June 1854, only one deguerrotype of that occasion has survived. Estimated at a mere £9,000 - £12,000.

You can find details of the lots for sale here.

Photo:  P H Delamotte for Negretti & Zambra The Reception of Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 20th April 1855.

Although BPH is not particularly commercially orientated every so often something comes along which deserves making a fuss of. British auction house Bonhams has a copy of Reports by the Juries (1851) up for auction on 7 June 2011. This particular copy was presented by W H F Talbot to his daughter Matilda in 1860 and come by descent to the present owner so it is reasonable to assume that it has come from Lacock Abbey. The lot is estimated at a very reasonable £20,000-30,000 for what is a rather wonderful item with exceptional provenance.

The lot can be found here http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?screen=lotdetails&iSaleItemNo=5006378&iSaleNo=18847&iSaleSectionNo=1 and the lot description and footnote is reproduced below:

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Lot No: 67•

GREAT EXHIBITION and W.H. FOX TALBOT
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851. Reports by the Juries on The Subjects in the Thirty Classes into which the Exhibition was Divided, 4. vol., ONE OF FIFTEEN COPIES GIVEN BY THE COMMISSIONERS TO WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT, this copy inscribed by Talbot at the foot of the specially printed tipped-in presentation leaf to "his dear daughter Matilda 1st January 1860", 154 MOUNTED CALOTYPES, captioned on the mounts, images 175 x 224mm., 3 chromolithographed plates by Day & Son, some light occasional foxing (images unaffected), original red morocco by Riviére, title of each volume and the crowned monogram of Victoria and Albert stamped in gilt on covers and spines, red morocco turn-ins with gilt Greek key pattern, blue watered silk endpapers with gilt stamped Royal insignia between Victoria and Albert monograms, g.e, folio (347 x 255mm.), Spicer Brothers, Wholesale Stationers, W. Clowes & Sons, Printers, 1852

Estimate: £20,000 - 30,000, € 23,000 - 34,000
Request Condition Report

Footnote:
TALBOT'S MAGNIFICENT PRESENTATION COPY TO HIS DAUGHTER, MATILDA.

As inventor of the calotype, and the holder of the patent, Talbot agreed to accept fifteen copies of the Reports (each valued at £30), in lieu of what he might have received by exercising his rights under the patent for the calotypes used.

Nikolaas Henneman (Talbot's one time photographic assistant) was responsible for printing all 20,150 photographs needed for the Reports, of which 130 copies were printed, from albumenised glass plate negatives and calotype paper negatives by Claude Marie Ferrier and Hugh Owen respectively. Henneman was commissioned by the Royal Commissioners and Executive Committee of the Great Exhibition to undertake the printing of the positives on Talbot's silver chloride paper. However, as Talbot commented at the time, "[the Committee] are so extraordinarily stingy, notwithstanding they have a surplus of £200,000, and make such hard conditions with [Henneman], that it is doubtful whether he will earn anything by his labour" (Gernsheim, p.207). One hundred and thirty copies of the Reports were printed, each set comprising four volumes containing 154 calotype prints, for presentation to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Cabinet Ministers, foreign governments and institutions such as the British Museum. The Great Exhibition is today often thought to be synonymous with various decorative arts, but many of the calotypes serve to remind that British engineering and technology were very much in the minds of the Commissioners, including Crampton's locomotive (illustrated) and Naysmyth's steam hammer.

Provenance: William Henry Fox Talbot, presented to his daughter Matilda in 1860; and thence by direct decent to the current owner.