The Jan/Feb 2024 issue of Stereo World carries new research by Rebecca Sharpe in to the Stamford photographer and stereographer Elizabeth Higgins (1828-1899). The research was prompted by the discovery of stereocards by Higgins dating from c1859.
Rebecca Sharpe, 'The hidden depths of Elizabeth Higgins (1828-1899). Early Lincolnshire stereo photographer' Stereo World, v.49, no. 4 (Jan-Feb) 2024, 12-19
Join the V&A for an exploration of the work of one of Vogue’s first and most influential fashion and portrait photographers. During his glittering career in Europe and America, George Hoyningen-Huene collaborated with the likes of Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst and Lee Miller, and befriended Hollywood’s brightest stars. V&A Curator Lydia Caston and Condé Nast Corporate Photography Director Ivan Shaw join author Susanna Brown to discuss Hoyningen-Huene’s extraordinary life and legacy.
This event celebrates the publication of the major new book from Thames & Hudson, George Hoyningen-Huene: Photography, Fashion, Film.
The study of photography collectors and collecting in the nineteenth century promises to open rich new ground for us in understanding about how the medium was received and regarded during its first golden age. In recent years albums created by such collecting have been the focus of some of the great digitizing projects taking place around the world, and examples in places as far apart as Los Angeles and St. Andrews in Scotland can be viewed remotely by researchers, often with the added help of IIIF (the International Image Interoperability Framework).
I have had the chance to make initial surveys on two albums of work by the Hill, Mann and Adamson partnership which are not yet available in any online form and offer brief accounts of each in the hope of getting them both more firmly on the record.
The first, which I'm calling here the "Mitchell Album", forms part of a large deposit of papers and albums collected by the great Scottish psychologist and antiquarian Sir Arthur Mitchell (1826-1909) placed with the National Records of Scotland by the WS Society/Signet Library of Edinburgh in 1995.
The second, which I'm calling here the "Brodie Album" relates to the circle of the Scottish artists William Brodie R.S.A. (1815-1881) and John Phillip R.S.A. (1817-1867) and is in the care of the National Library of Scotland.
In the case of the Mitchell Album, I am grateful to the National Records of Scotland for providing superb digital images to create a study surrogate for the delicate original volume (the prints are in excellent condition but the album's hinges are no longer suitable for reading room handling).
The Brodie Album is as yet unimaged but I have given references to the relevant entries in the Hill and Adamson "Bible", Sara Stevenson David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson: Catalogue of their Calotypes taken between 1843 and 1847 in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1981) or, if "not in Stevenson", to the relevant reference in the Dougan Collection at the University of Glasgow. I'd like to thank the staff of the National Library of Scotland for their help in providing me with access to and handling of the album, and in particular Dr. Graham Hogg for information on the album's background and provenance.
Image 6 of the Mitchell Album, a carbon print, is reversed from Stevenson's George Combe b in the same way as the carbon print at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the carbon print in Andrew Elliot's posthumous Calotypes by D.O. Hill and R. Adamson : illustrating an early stage in the development of photography (Edinburgh : printed for private circulation, 1928). This may further tie the prints in Elliot's book to Thomas Annan's studio c. 1879 and James Craig Annan's account of their production in his 1945 letter to Helmut Gernsheim (as opposed to Elliot using Jessie Bertram's superb carbon prints which has sometimes been suggested)
In common with better-known Hill, Mann and Adamson albums (e.g. the Bicknell and Stansfield albums) both of these albums conduct a kind of tour of the partnership's activity and inventory, perhaps reinforcing the sense that an idea of what the partnership's work had consisted of both existed on Calton Steps during Hill's lifetime but also survived into a subsequent period.
The Brodie album - uniquely, I think, amongst surviving albums - contains duplicate prints. A number of explanations work equally well for this, but one might be that pre-prepared selections had been made up at Rock House at some point, with fragments of two such selections acceding to the Brodie/Phillip circle.
The captions to the MItchell Album, which are in Sir Arthur Mitchell's hand, suggest that by the time his album was compiled memories (and identifications) of the sitters were no longer fresh (and may no longer have been Hill's direct recollections if collecting took place after 1870)
As the extraordinary and revelatory digitization of the MacKinnon Collection by the National Galleries of Scotland has shown, there are still "new" Hill, Mann and Adamson images waiting to be uncovered. Both Mitchell and Brodie albums contain images "not in Stevenson" or the Dougan and Getty collections, although this may be a matter of digitization catching up with large collections of that kind.
My interest in the albums comes as part of my continuing research into the background of the Signet Library copy of Hill, Mann and Adamson's Series of Calotype Views of St. Andrews which came to light in October 2022 and which was the subject of an event at the Library in March 2023. The next stage of the project will be the release of a revised and much enlarged account of the album and its fellow survivors in other collections.
This will be in print, appearing later in the year and distributed to major institutional and photographic libraries, with sections covering:
The Signet Library album: discovery, provenance, conservation Analysis of other surviving copies Comprehensive review of existing scholarship Relationship to St Andrews photography Relationship with other Hill and Adamson albums Album images
There will also be a new digital surrogate for the Signet Library album accompanying a shorter online version of the printed account. All enquiries please to James Hamilton, Research Principal at the WS Society at jhamilton[at]wssociety.co.uk
“In 2012, I found a piece of material in a rock pool that changed my life. Mistaking this moving piece of cloth for seaweed, started the recovery of synthetic clothing from around the coastline of Britain for the next ten years”.
Two hundred and two ‘specimens’ of clothing and garments recovered from one hundred and twenty-one beaches mimic different species of marine algae, with the intention to raise awareness about the over consumption of synthetic plastic clothing also referred to as ‘fast fashion’, which is currently having the greatest impact on global climate change.
After seeing an original copy of the book, ‘Photographs of British Algae, Volume 1’, by Anna Atkins, at The Royal Society in London, Barker was captivated by its detail and significance, for the way it changed how we looked at science in 1800’s, but more importantly for the possibility to re-create similar work that could engage how we look at science in connection with a present-day critical issue.
In this new presentation titled ‘Cyanotype Imperfections’, instead of the Atkins ‘Cyanotype Impressions’, the book includes 202 cyanotype images and 8 cyanotype text pages using original 1800’s J Whatman paper that Atkins used from the original Turkey Mill in Kent.
Art curators will be able to recover images on daguerreotypes, the earliest form of photography that used silver plates, after a team of scientists led by Western University learned how to use light to see through degradation that has occurred over time.
Research published in Scientific Reports – Nature includes two images from the National Gallery of Canada’s photography research unit that show photographs that were taken, perhaps as early as 1850, but were no longer visible because of tarnish and other damage. The retrieved images, one of a woman and the other of a man, were beyond recognition.
“It’s somewhat haunting because they are anonymous and yet it is striking at the same time,” said Madalena Kozachuk, a PhD student in Western’s Department of Chemistry and lead author of the scientific paper. The image is totally unexpected because you don’t see it on the plate at all. It’s hidden behind time,” continues Kozachuk. “But then we see it and we can see such fine details: the eyes, the folds of the clothing, the detailed embroidered patterns of the table cloth.”
The identities of the woman and the man are not known. It’s possible that the plates were produced in the United States, but they could be from Europe.
For the past three years, Kozachuk and an interdisciplinary team of scientists have been exploring how to use synchrotron technology to learn more about chemical changes that damage daguerreotypes.
Invented in 1839, daguerreotype images were created using a highly polished silver-coated copper plate that was sensitive to light when exposed to an iodine vapour. Subjects had to pose without moving for two to three minutes for the image to imprint on the plate, which was then developed as a photograph using a mercury vapour that was heated.
Kozachuk conducts much of her research at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) and previously published results in scientific journals in 2017 and earlier this year. In those articles, the team members identified the chemical composition of the tarnish and how it changed from one point to another on a daguerreotype.
“We compared degradation that looked like corrosion versus a cloudiness from the residue from products used during the rinsing of the photographs during production versus degradation from the cover glass. When you look at these degraded photographs, you don’t see one type of degradation,” said Ian Coulthard, a senior scientist at the CLS and one of Kozachuk’s co-supervisors. He is also a co- author on the research papers.
This preliminary research at the CLS led to today’s paper and the images Kozachuk collected at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source where she was able to analyze the daguerreotypes in their entirety.
Kozachuk used rapid-scanning micro-X-ray fluorescence imaging to analyze the plates, which are about 7.5 cm wide, and identified where mercury was distributed on the plates. With an X-ray beam as small as 10×10 microns (a human scalp hair averages 75 microns across) and at an energy most sensitive to mercury absorption, the scan of each daguerreotype took about eight hours.
“Mercury is the major element that contributes to the imagery captured in these photographs. Even though the surface is tarnished, those image particles remain intact. By looking at the mercury, we can retrieve the image in great detail,” said Tsun-Kong (T.K.) Sham, Western’s Canada Research Chair in Materials and Synchrotron Radiation. He also is a co-author of the research and Kozachuk’s supervisor.
This research will contribute to improving how daguerreotype images are recovered when cleaning is possible and will provide a way to seeing what’s below the tarnish if cleaning is not possible. The prospect of improved conservation methods intrigues John P. McElhone, recently retired as the chief of Conservation and Technical Research branch at the Canadian Photography Institute of National Gallery of Canada. He provided the daguerreotypes from the Institute’s research collection.
“There are a lot of interesting questions that at this stage of our knowledge can only be answered by a sophisticated scientific approach,” said McElhone, another of the co-authors of today’s paper. “A conservator’s first step is to have a full and complete understanding of what the material is and how it is assembled on a microscopic and even nanoscale level. We want to find out how the chemicals are arranged on the surface and that understanding gives us access to theories about how degradation happens and how that degradation can possibly or possibly not be reversed.”
As the first commercialized photographic process, the daguerreotype is thought to be the first “true” visual representation of history. Unlike painters who could use “poetic licence” in their work, the daguerreotype reflected precisely what was photographed.
Thousands and perhaps millions of daguerreotypes were created over 20 years in the 19th century before the process was replaced. The Canadian Photography Institute collection numbers more than 2,700, not including the daguerreotypes in the institute’s research collection.
By improving the process of restoring these centuries-old images, the scientists are contributing to the historical record. What was thought to be lost that showed the life and times of people from the 19th century can now be found.
Image (top right): National Gallery of Canada//Western University. An image of a woman is recovered from a 19th-century daguerreotype that had tarnished almost beyond recognition. A novel process, developed at Western University and Canadian Light Source Inc, mapped its mercury content and brought the 'ghost' back to life.
(Below): Left: An image of a man is hidden in this tarnished 19th-century daguerreotype. A novel process, developed at Western University and Canadian Light Source Inc, mapped its mercury content and brought the 'ghost' back to life. Right: An image of a man is recovered from a 19th-century daguerreotype that had tarnished beyond recognition. A novel process, developed at Western University and Canadian Light Source Inc, mapped its mercury content and brought the 'ghost' back to life.
Mid-century comics on both sides of the Atlantic portrayed children as camera users through product advertisements, photography competitions, and—especially—fictional depictions of heroic child photographers. In the illustrated hands of comic characters like “Kid Click” and “Snapshot Susie,” cameras could figure as tools for conquest (paralleling weaponry and surveillance devices) or operate as metaphorical moral compasses for personal development, decency, and altruism. In this lecture, Annebella Pollen explores how these comic adventures, particularly when triangulated with the camera promotions and children’s photographs on parallel pages, offer a productive space for understanding children’s media production and the mediation of their world.
Photography permeates every aspect of contemporary life, serving as a tool for visual communication, personal expression, artistic creation, documentation, social engagement, and civic action. In the twenty-first century, the traditional distinctions between high and low art, as well as between art and applied practices, and among different lens-based media have become blurred over time, rendering previous museum taxonomies obsolete and posing practical challenges for professionals.
This inaugural agenda-setting workshop seeks to foster dialogue among international scholars, curators, artists, photographers, museum professionals, and archivists regarding various definitions and understandings of "photography" and its cultural significance within and beyond museum settings. Featuring presentations by invited speakers, a roundtable discussion, and breakout sessions, the workshop aims to explore diverse institutional perspectives, policies, practices, and challenges related to the collection, exhibition, and interpretation of photographic images. Insights and feedback collected from participants will shape the framework and topics of subsequent workshops.
Prof. Anna Fox, Photographer and Director of Fast Forward: Women in Photography, UK Dr. Iro Katsaridou, Director of MOMus –Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece;
Dr. Katrina Sluis, Associate Professor and Head of Photography and Media Arts, Australia National University, and artist;
Liz Wewiora, Founder of Socially Engaged Photography Network (SEPN) and Head of Social Practice at Open Eye Gallery, UK and artist.
Budi N.D. Dharmawan, Independent Photographer and Writer, Indonesia.
Please join us for the first in a series of workshops on Friday 22 March 2024, 09.30-16:00 BST. Online.
Museum Dialogues is a project co-ordinated by the Northern Centre of Photography at University of Sunderland, UK, with key partners MOMus – Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece and MuFoCo – Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea in Cinisello Balsamo, Italy. Museum Dialogues is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Research Networking scheme.
This 12-month research network aspires to transcend the disciplinary boundaries of art history, visual culture, photography, new media, museum and curating studies and bridge theory and practice. It seeks to unite scholars, archivists, curators, museum workers, and artists from across the globe with a view to developing a comprehensive understanding and exchange of innovative solutions, inquiries, and practical challenges relating to the exhibition, collection and interpretation of photography.
Workshop 1 (online): Problems and Definitions - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN HERE
Friday 22 March 2024, 9:30 - 16:00 GMT
Workshop 2 (online): Building Photography Collections for the Future
Friday 24 May 2024, 9:30 - 16:00 BST
Workshop 3 (online): Rethinking Programming: Interpretation and Experience, Inclusion and Equity
Friday 12 July 2024, 9:30 - 16.00 BST
Three-day hybrid international conference: Re-evaluating the Past, Capturing the Present, Anticipating the Future
Friday 22, Saturday 23, Sunday 24 November 2024 (Sunderland and Online).CALL FOR PAPERS HERE
The call for a £500 stpiend to support research in to the Bill Douglas Centre for Cinema History collections closes at 12 noon on 18 March.
The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University Exeter, UK, is both a public museum and a rich research resource for scholars of moving image history. The museum is named after the renowned filmmaker Bill Douglas and was founded on the extraordinary collection of material he put together with his friend Peter Jewell. In the twenty-five years since its opening, the museum has received donations from many sources and now has around 90,000 artefacts on the long history of the moving image from the seventeenth century to the present day.
Thanks to the support of the Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Fund we are again able to offer a small number of stipends for 2024 for scholars, researchers, and practitioners to enable research using the collections at The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. We are inviting applications for two categories of award:
UK stipends - available to academics, postgraduate students and other researchers based in the UK, and are worth up to £500 each.
International Stipends – available to scholars and other researchers from outside the UK and are worth up to £1500 each.
The monies are to be used for travel and accommodation costs incurred while visiting the Museum to undertake significant research that will be enhanced by access to its collections. Proposed research should contribute to publications or other demonstrable outcomes, such as films or artworks. Successful applicants will be required to write a blog post for the museum’s website about their research following their visit. You will find details of previous years’ stipends and the blogs that stipend holders contributed at http://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/research/research-at-the-bill-douglas-cinema-museum/stipends-at-the-bill-douglas-cinema-museum/ The monies should be spent by the end of December 2024.
BPH has only just spotted this...Are you an experienced Senior Curator and a specialist in photography? Do you have experience of mounting exhibitions, conducting original research, and publishing on the history of photography? Are you actively engaged in widening access to photography and making it more inclusive? Then we want to hear from you.
This position is an ideal opportunity for an established Senior Curator to be part of our enthusiastic and dedicated team within Collection & Research. You’ll work across all four of our amazing Galleries based in the heart of Edinburgh.
In this role you will be researching, managing, and helping to use and share our exciting and extensive photography collection and related archives for our audiences. You’ll also represent the organisation at conferences / seminars. You’ll be responsible for our world-class collection of 55,000+ photographs and its growth in areas that fulfil our commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
You’re likely to have a wide network of contacts as well as experience in competing and securing funding through philanthropy and public grant-giving bodies. You must also have exhibition and publication experience with excellent communication skills.
Meet John Herschel, much less famous today than either his father or his aunt yet in his day he represented the very definition of what a scientist should be. In 1824, as the BRLSI began, he too was just starting out. On the 8 June, there will be a Conference dedicated to every aspect of the life & work of this great man, but for today let’s just get to know him. What did he do? Why should we care about him? What were his politics? What was his family life like? Come along on 3rd March and find out.
This introduction to John Herschel will prepare us for the all-day conference on Saturday 8th June 2024,
Emily Winterburn is one of the authors for the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to John Herschel. She is also the author of a biography of John’s aunt, Caroline Herschel (The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel, 2017) and completed her PhD on the Herschel family in 2011. She is the former curator of astronomy at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Today she is a teacher and writer living in Leeds. She is also honorary vice president of the Society for the History of Astronomy.
Rare early photographs of Chinese women from the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection will be exhibited for the first time in New York as part of Asia Week New York. Dragon Women: Early Chinese Photography curated by Stacey Lambrow runs from March 14th – May 15. Admission is free.
Dragon Women: Early Chinese Photography celebrates the Year of the Dragon and the representation of women in the earliest photography of China. This is the first exhibition devoted to the depiction of Chinese women in early photography. The 50 photographs include the first photographic portraits of Chinese women, most made in the 1860s and 1870s. Many have never before been shown. The exhibition examines women’s place in society in the late Qing dynasty and their depiction in historical photography of China. It also presents work by the few known early female photographers of China.
Highlights include a rare photograph by the first known Chinese female photographer, Mae Linda Talbot, and works by Hedda Morrison, Isabella Bird, and Eva Sandberg Xiao. Masterworks abound including photographs by Chinese and international artists such as Sze Yuen Ming Studio, Pun Lun Studio, A Chan Studio, Lai Fong, John Thomson, and Thomas Child. The exhibition showcases the diversity of Chinese women and their experiences during the final decades of imperial China.
The dragon is an integral part of Chinese culture. The origin of dragons in Chinese mythology extends back to the earliest recorded dynasties, where male and female dragons were revered as powerful and benevolent creatures created by the gods to govern the world. Unlike the evil, fire-breathing European dragon, the Chinese dragon is an auspicious and multifaceted figure. It is both powerful and benevolent, fierce and elegant. The dragon also symbolizes imperial power.
This exhibition held in the Year of the Dragon reclaims the feminine power of the dragon and honors all Chinese women. It includes iconic photographs of Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) by her Court photographer Yu Xunling (c.1880-1943). Cixi, one of the most powerful women in Chinese history, was referred to as “Dragon Lady.” Some caricatured her as a uniquely sinister, manipulative, and cold-blooded ruler. However, scholars agree that the Empress’s contribution to empowering and advancing opportunities for women is an important part of her legacy, thereby revising this one-dimensional view.
The early photographic portraits of women in Dragon Women challenge the negative and shallow stereotype of the “dragon lady.” The term remains a pervasive stereotype, often used against women who are unapologetically driven or have agency and power. It is particularly pernicious as a Western stereotype of East Asian women.
The exhibition portrays and honors women of various ages, classes, and social circumstances. The diversity of the “dragon women” in the photographs more authentically reflects the power and complexity of the dragon.
For the majority of women at the end of the Qing dynasty, being photographed was off-limits for social and financial reasons. Qing society perpetuated the conservative ideas of previous dynasties, and the majority of women were isolated in their homes. Some of the women in these images chose to be photographed, while others submitted to the photographer for other reasons. Some of the photographs were made as personal family photographs and others were produced for popular consumption to portray the women as “exotic.” Regardless, the camera immortalized their images and offer us a rare and complicated view into the lives of Chinese women during a period of modernization in China.
Most late Qing dynasty photographs of Chinese women depict unnamed sitters and a great number of the portraits were created by photographers who at this time remain unidentified. As research into the history of photography of China advances, more of the names of the Chinese women appearing in nineteenth-century photographs will be discovered and more of China’s pioneering photographers will be identified. Certainly, more of the early photographers working in China will prove to be women.
The Loewentheil Photography of China Collection includes the largest selection of nineteenth-century photographs of Chinese women in the world. In photography’s most formative years Chinese women were involved in the art in a myriad of ways. Their presence exerted a profound influence on the development of the art of photography. Women worked alongside men in photography studios, sometimes as the wives and daughters of studio owners, or as printers, finishers, retouchers, colourists, camera operators, or studio managers. In addition, women participated as subjects of early photographs. Early photographs of Chinese women, rank among the greatest nineteenth-century photographs ever made.
Dragon Women: Early Chinese Photography. First Exhibition of the Earliest Photographs of Chinese Women 10 West 18th Street 7th Floor, 14 March – 15 May 2024 Opening Celebration March 15 from 6pm to 9pm, with a Lion Dance with rare Female Dancers at 7:00 https://loewentheilcollection.com/
About the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection
The Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, based in New York, is the finest and largest holding of historical photographs of China in private hands. It contains many thousands of photographs spanning the earliest days of paper photography from the 1850s through the 1930s. The majority date to before 1900, including the largest selection of nineteenth-century photographs of Chinese women in the world.
The University of Brighton's Centre for Design History is hosting a double professorial book launch on 17 April at M2. The event will launch Cold War Photographic Diplomacy: The U.S. Information Agency and Africa, by Darren Newbury and Art without Frontiers: The Story of the British Council, Visual Arts and a Changing World, by Annebella Pollen. It will be an opportunity to hear from the authors and celebrate the publication of their books.
PhotoMuse - The Museum of Photography in Kerala, India, is hosting a new exhibition Curated by Dr. Unni Pulikkal S , the Director of PhotoMuse, the exhibition marks a significant milestone in the nation's photographic history. It serves as the inaugural event for the newly constructed permanent museum. Scheduled to commence on March 10th at 1100, the exhibition will be inaugurated by Mr. Murali Cheeroth , a distinguished artist and Chairperson of the Kerala Lalit Kala Academy. The event will also be graced by the presence of Mr. Herbert Ascherman Jr. , an internationally renowned photographer and photo-historian, who will dedicate the new museum to the people of the country.
Running for the next three months from its opening date, the exhibition will showcase a collection of historical and modern photographic processes. Spanning from the 1850s to the present, it meticulously traces the evolution of photography as a handheld object over two centuries.
PhotoMuse is India's first public museum dedicated to the art, history and science of photography. Through the pursuit of photography and photographic history, PHOTOMUSE documents, interprets and promotes the natural and cultural inheritance of humanity. With photography-based outreach and educational programs, the museum emphasizes education, conservancy and India’s photographic legacy.
FORMAT photography festival in Derby has a number of talks and activities around the exhibitions. On 16 March Peter Jordan-Turner is talking about the carte-de-visite.
The Cartes de Visite craze in the second half of the nineteenth century was recognised, even at the time, as a social phenomenon.
Join Peter Jordan-Turner as he reveals how problematic early photographic technologies were swept aside by a method of production and usage that welcomed all but the very poorest into the studios that sprang up in every town and city in Britain.Cooks and countesses, railway porters and aldermen could all see themselves as never before, almost instantly, and their likenesses were shared with their social circle, or sent to family and sweethearts to cement relationships in an age that saw greater mobility around the country and the Empire.This new sharing of photographic portraits established a habit that has grown stronger as each new technology placed photography closer to the people who ultimately use it, and is the true ancestor of Instagram and every other photo sharing platform.’
Peter Jordan-Turner is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Derby and the University of Gloucestershire, and is a Trustee for the W.W.Winter Heritage Trust.
He is also pursuing a doctorate in the history of nineteenth century commercial photography, titled Reconnecting with a Historic Photographic Archive: The case of W.W.Winter (Derby) as a model for public and academic access to a significant archive of commercial photography, and is author of ‘From Darkroom into light: Photographic archives and community cohesion’ to be presented at the 5th CAA Conference in Greece in April 2024.
Continuing its series of seminar days the Martin Parr Foundation has announced British Photography in the 1990s which will take place on Saturday, 11 May 2024. Speakers include Vinca Petersen, Stephen Gill, Juergen Teller, Joy Gregory and Richard Billingham. This event follows on from previous seminar days exploring photography in the 70s, 80s and Another Country, showcasing an overview of British Documentary Photography since 1945.
Past seminars have filled up very quickly so early booking is recommended.
British Photography in the 1990s Saturday, 11 May 2024, 0930-1730 Bristol: Martin Parr Foundation £55 / regular £48 / MPF member £48 / students Lunch, teas and coffees included
In a new blog post Mary Phan, the V&A's second Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by the Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, discusses her research on the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) Collection which is part of the Royal Photographic Society collection, held at the V&A Museum. The NCC collection consists of nearly 2000 images from the late ninteenth century to the 1960s. It was passed to the RPS after the NCC was dissolved in 1991.
Mary is also curating a display on ‘Ecology and the Photobook’ in the V&A's Photography Centre. Opening in June 2024, the display will feature contemporary photobooks concerning the intersections of art and ecology.
This symposium welcomes researchers, curators and photographers from all geographical areas. Proposals may concern any post-colonial period from the 19th to the 20th century. Abstracts in english or french (approx. 500 words) must be sent by May 31, 2024 at the latest, with a short biography, affiliation information, and a bibliography (for researchers). Authors will receive an answer in June 2024. Travel and accommodation expenses for selected participants will be covered. We welcome proposals addressing one or more of the following topics:
History
Histories of the passage, transition, training and circulation of photographers and photographs from the liberation and independence struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Histories of hindered and unfinished photographic projects
Histories of the construction and deconstruction of visual cultures and imaginaries from the independence struggles of the 19th to the 20th centuries.
Histories of photographic networks and trajectories shaping new Cold War cartographies and imaginaries
Histories of networks building alternative image economies outside or through the capitalist circuits of photography
Histories of the creation of national press agencies
Socio-aesthetics
Photography’s reconsideration of power relationships: domination/resistance, emancipation/reversals of gaze
Porosities between auctorial photography (in the face of the question of anonymity) and propaganda photography, between dissidentism and conformism, between individual and collective action
Photography as a vector for the construction of cultural, collective and national identities, political imaginations, fictions and futures
The question of materiality, with technological and material approaches differing from those of Europe and the United States
The paradigm of the gaze and photographic modernities outside Europe and the USA
Images and approaches that rethink Western-centric aesthetic criteria and approaches to photography
Methodologies / Epistemology
Considering the obstacles of certain fields, the lack of sources, and the disappearance or destruction of archives
Countering homogenizing narratives, or how to approach specific individual practices and the interplay of local and global scales
Questioning the oral history method in writing the history of photography, as well as micro-historical approaches
Question the limits of postcolonial approaches to understanding these photographic histories
Challenge the Eurocentric historical view of photography, and imagine new « non-Western » ways of thinking about photography as an epistemological axis
For centuries, portraiture has played a vital role in shaping the public’s perception of the Royal Family. Over the past 100 years, no artistic medium has had a greater impact on the royal image than photography. Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography will chart the evolution of royal portrait photography from the 1920s to the present day, bringing together more than 150 photographic prints, proofs and documents from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives. The photographs presented in the exhibition will be vintage prints – the original works produced by the photographer, most of which have never been on public display.
The works on show will demonstrate how the Royal Family has harnessed the power of photography to project both the grandeur and tradition of monarchy, and at times an unprecedented sense of intimacy and relatability. The exhibition will examine the changing status of photography as an art form and consider the cultural, artistic, and technological shifts that influenced the work of the most celebrated royal photographers, from Cecil Beaton and Dorothy Wilding to Annie Leibovitz and Rankin.
Archival documents and unreleased proofs will shed light on the behind-the-scenes process of commissioning, selecting and retouching royal portraits. From photographers’ handwritten annotations to never-before-seen correspondence with members of the Royal Family and their staff, these materials will reveal the stories behind some of the most enduring photographs ever taken of the Royal Family.
The exhibition will open with the 1920s and 30s, the golden age of the society photographer. Post-war prosperity and technological advances led to a boom in photographic studios, and members of the British and European Royal Families were among the ‘Bright Young Things’ eager to be captured on camera. Many of the new studios were operated by women, and female photographers such as Dorothy Wilding and Madame Yevonde were among those experimenting with a bolder, more modern aesthetic.
In the mid-20th century, no royal photographer had a greater impact on shaping the monarchy’s public image than Cecil Beaton. The exhibition will present some of Beaton’s most memorable photographs, taken over six decades. These include Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s famed 1939 shoot in the Buckingham Palace Gardens, dressed in her ‘White Wardrobe’ by Norman Hartnell, and Beaton’s original Coronation portraits of Queen Elizabeth II – arguably the most prestigious photography commission of the century.
Close relationships between royal sitters and photographers will unfold throughout the exhibition, seen most clearly through the lens of Lord Snowdon (born Antony Armstrong-Jones). One of the most sought-after photographers of the 1950s, Snowdon’s unpretentious style soon attracted the attention of the Royal Family, and he became a member of the family himself when he married Princess Margaret in 1960. His remarkably intimate portraits of the Princess, taken both before and during their marriage, hint at the depths of trust and collaboration between them.
The exhibition’s final room will explore the innovations in digital and colour photography that revolutionised the medium between the 1980s and the 2020s. During this period, photography came to be recognised as an art form in its own right, and the perception of the role of the photographer shifted from image-making craftsperson to celebrated artist. From Andy Warhol’s diamond-dust-sprinkled screenprint of Queen Elizabeth II to famed photographs by Rankin, David Bailey, Nick Knight, Annie Leibovitz and more, the bold and colourful works in this room will demonstrate the extraordinary variety, power and at times playfulness of royal portrait photography over the past four decades.
Alessandro Nasini, curator of Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, said: ‘This is the first exhibition from the Royal Collection entirely dedicated to modern portrait photography, an artistic medium that has helped to shape how the world views the British monarchy. We are excited for visitors to discover the beauty and materiality of these original prints, many on display for the first time, and we hope they will also enjoy a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creative process behind some of these iconic royal images.’
Periodically something appears at auction which deserves a wider audience. Coming up in a Bonhams European Decor and Design auction in the United States is a stunning Carlo Ponti Megalethoscope with original bill of sales from 1876. It is estimated at US$8000-12,000. Details are below:
Carlo Ponti Megalethoscope on Stand, Italian, c. 1865,
floral carved viewer with ebonized trim, lg. 35; set on a marble top rectangular table cabinet with carved panel doors and sides and set on carved and turned legs, with carved labels "Ponti Venezia", "Megaletoscopio" and "Privilegiato", ht. 30 1/2, d. 25, lg. 39 1/2 in.; with photographic prints.
Provenance:
New England Industrialist Lucius Bowles Darling was a successful businessman and politician, including his appointment as Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island (1885-1887), and owner of the Pawtucket, Rhode Island Music Hall Building. Darling and his and wife Angeline (Armington) embarked on a Grand Tour circa 1878, purchasing items for their Pawtucket residence. Together with the original itemized invoice from Carlo Ponti, Venice, 30 July 1878 for 764 lire.
Note: The invention of the megalethoscope by optician and photographer Carlo Ponti before 1862 greatly enhanced the experience of viewing photographs. Ponti was born in Switzerland and studied photography in Paris; he later opened photographic studios throughout Europe and was an optician to King Victor Emanuel II of Italy. Ponti's advanced understanding of optics led him to create a device that could create the illusion of perspective and of viewing a scene in daylight or at night. The optical illusion is achieved by inserting a specially prepared photograph into the rear of the megalethoscope to be viewed through a large lens at the front of the instrument. To view a photograph in daylight, doors with attached mirrors are opened to reflect sunlight onto the photograph. The doors were left closed for a night scene and an oil lamp was placed behind the megalethoscope to light the photograph from behind, creating the illusion of a night-time scene. Ponti created different models of the megalethoscope for both prints and transparent views. He exhibited the viewer at the International Exhibition in 1862 for which he received a medal. Given that Lucius Darling owned a music hall, it is possible it was used to delight audiences with scenes of Europe.
