Blogs

This workshop delivered by The National Archives, Kew, is designed to develop the knowledge and experience of students undertaking research in material culture, and in particular through the use of visual sources.

Students will learn about the different kinds of records held at The National Archives which can be particularly useful sources for material culture research. These comprise designs, images registered for copyright protection, and other artwork, graphic design and photographs produced or collected by government departments.

Our specialists will guide students through the history and structure of the different collections and explain how best to search and browse the online catalogue to find useful results. Students will also learn how to move between indexes and registers to find specific relevant material.

Attendance options

The National Archives is offering hybrid attendance options for its programme of PAST Skills and Methodology workshops in 2022. This workshop, focusing on visual sources, can be attended at two levels:

• Online-only workshop: Day 1 - 22 March  (online) only
• Full hybrid workshop: Day 1 (online) and Day 2 24 March (on site at The National Archives)

Course outline

Day 1 (online) will focus on providing an overview of the kinds of records relevant to material culture research and how they can be used and analysed. It will introduce three key areas of The National Archives visual collections: registered designs, art & graphic design and photographs & film. The day will include demonstrations of the use of Discovery, our online catalogue, and other online resources to access these collections and students will be given practical exercises to tests the knowledge they have acquired.

Day 2 (on site) will  give students the opportunity to handle and work with original records from each of the collections introduced in day 1. The sessions will include practical exercises to familiarise students with the use of indexes and registers to find material within the collections. There will also be an opportunity to hear about the research journeys of other researchers who have worked with The National Archives' visual collections to investigate aspects of material culture history.

At the end of the course, you will understand the range of visual records available at The National Archives and how they can be analysed and applied to the study of material culture. You will also feel confident using online search techniques, and original indexes and registers to find records in the different collections.

This event is aimed at current taught postgraduate and PhD students, but other researchers are welcome. Please get in touch if you fall outside these categories and would like to attend. 

Each day is a full-day workshop, running roughly from 9am to 5pm. Exact timings for the programme will be confirmed and published on this page a week before the workshop.

Details and booking here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/past-skills-methodology-visual-sources-for-material-culture-research-registration-229349258807

Eric Butler writes...Many people will be aware of the A4 sized paperback book with the pale blue cover, A Faithful Likeness the very informative book by the late Pauline and Bernard Heathcote. It is frequently referenced in publications about early photographers. A Faithful Likeness: The First Photographic Studios in the British Isles 1841 to 1855, has now been made available online by Bromley House Library, Nottingham. It is also accompanied by a five-volume appendix.

Background

Pauline Heathcote, supported by her husband Bernard, became a full-time researcher into early photographers and their studios. In her quest for information, she searched directories and wrote to librarians, archivists, museum curators and even descendants of the photographers. In addition, she also visited newspaper archives, scouring them for announcements, features, and advertisements relating to early photographers and their studios. Bernard and Pauline would travel around the country visiting archives or museums.

Bernard was, justifiably, extremely proud of his wife’s achievements and in 2015, ten years after her death, he donated the Pauline Heathcote Archive to Bromley House Library. The archive contains notes, letters, marriage and death certificates, and a large number of file index cards under the main headings Names, and Places. Today it is difficult to comprehend that such an extensive research archive had been compiled without using the internet. The archive has been available, by appointment, at Bromley House Library since 2015. Only a few people made use of this wonderful resource, possibly because they were familiar with the title A Faithful Likeness, but not with the name Heathcote.

Although published in 2002 and despite the advent of online resources A Faithful Likeness is still relevant today

Now Bromley House has made A Faithful Likeness and its 5 volume appendix available online. This significant publication lists over 800 photographers and the appendices comprise carefully referenced advertisements and editorial comment from newspapers throughout the country, from Aberdeen to York alphabetically. A total of over 600 pages.

Perhaps I should add that Bernard, until his death in 2020, was very protective of Pauline’s work and always insisted on appropriate acknowledgement!

Access the resource here: https://www.bromleyhouse.org/our-photographic-history/

Ikon was founded in the 1960s and is an internationally acclaimed, independent contemporary art venue located in central Birmingham. Housed in a magnificent neo-gothic school building, it is an educational charity and works to encourage public engagement with contemporary art through exhibiting new work in a context of debate and participation. It offers free entry to all. Ikon’s activity not only reflects the historical circumstances of Birmingham and the country as a whole since then, but also it constitutes a distinct point of view on British post-war art history. The gallery programme features artists from around the world. Ikon’s off-site programme develops dynamic relationships between art, artists and audiences outside the gallery. Projects vary enormously in scale, duration and location, challenging expectations of where art can be seen and by whom. Education is at the heart of Ikon’s activities; through a variety of talks, tours, workshops and seminars, the Learning team aims to build a meaningful relationship with Ikon’s audience that enables visitors to engage with, discuss and reflect on contemporary art. Being based in Birmingham, a super-diverse and young city, Ikon’s partnership working and equality diversity and inclusion is central within all the organisation does, from the Board of Trustees throughout the whole organisation. Ikon’s commitment to the city is to continue to show diverse exhibitions from around the world, and reflect these locally, while working with children and young people and diverse communities who are currently underserved within the region.

Ikon’s long-standing Director, Jonathan Watkins, is stepping down from the role after an impactful twenty-three years with the Gallery and the organisation is now seeking candidates who can lead Ikon into the next chapter of its history. The Director will drive the development of Ikon through effective strategic and operational leadership and deliver the artistic and organisational vision for Ikon whilst also furthering the gallery’s reputation as a major centre for the presentation and promotion of contemporary visual art. Candidates will bring a knowledge of visual and contemporary art and a passion for working with artists. They will have a track record of working with diverse artists and audiences and a commitment to inclusion, relevance and diversity in all aspects of the organisation. The Director will need to be a compelling communicator, able to engage a range of stakeholders, funders (including Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council) and partners.

See more here: https://www.artsjobsonline.com/jobs/ikon-gallery-director/

The V&A is planning a photography exhibition for the spring of 2024 drawing from the Sir Elton John Collection. It will be a spectacular presentation showcasing highlights from the collection and attracting a large and diverse audience. The exhibition will stage work by major photographers and give an insight into the collecting passions of one of the world’s great performing artists.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication and a wide variety of other events. It will be managed between the Exhibition Department and the Photography Section of the Art, Architecture, and Design Department.

The post holder will coordinate research and other activities associated with the project, supporting the creative vision set out by the Head of Photography, and to help develop and deliver the exhibition and accompanying publication.

This vacancy is available as either a secondment or fixed term contract and is open to internal applicants only.

Closing date for receipt of applications is Monday 21 February at 09:00.

See more here. 

I devised a method of scanning full plate glass negatives. The photographer is unknown but appears to have been from a commercial studio as two of the negatives are numbered on the plate.

One view of the bridge is from the same location as plate 36 reproduced in the book 'J. W Lindt - Master Photographer', by Shar Jones publ: 1985. The plate is captioned 'View of Melbourne from Studley Park'. (Victoria, Australia) C1876-1894.

The Imperial War Museum is building new art, film and photography galleries at IWM London, opening to the public in late 2023.The new galleries have been made possible with support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Like previous developments at IWM London, the Galleries will be free to enter. 

The Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will explore how artists, photographers and filmmakers together bear witness to, document and tell the story of conflict, and demonstrate how artistic interpretation can uniquely shape our understanding of war.

New acquisitions will be exhibited alongside renowned works from IWM’s existing collection, including Gassed by John Singer Sargent, They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson and Steve McQueen’s Queen and Country.   

The development of these Galleries is the third phase in the dynamic transformation of IWM London and will enable IWM to share works from its exceptional art collection, one of the most important representations of twentieth century British art in the world. They will also showcase some of IWM’s vast and era-defining film and photography collections, which include over 23,000 hours of footage and over 11 million photographs.  

Read more and see highlights from the photography collections here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london/blavatnik-art-film-photography-galleries

Henry Brooks and his family are hardly remembered these days, yet they lived in High Street, Salisbury, for nearly a century. Henry was in turn a wood turner, a carver and gilder, a picture restorer, a frame maker and a painter. He was also one of the earliest Salisbury photographers, opening his studio around 1855, and his business was carried on by his sons well into the twentieth century.

Photo historians Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe, from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, will bring the Brooks family back to life for this evening.

Henry Brooks & Sons, Salisbury Artists and Photographers
Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe
Thursday, 17 March 2022 @ 1930 (GMT)
The Salisbury Museum, 65 The Close, Salisbury SP1 2EN
£9 (members) and £12 (non-members)
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-henry-brooks-sons-salisbury-artists-and-photographers-tickets-242248982227

19,  a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary study in the long nineteenth century and based at Birkbeck, University of London, has published a paper by Helen Trompeteler titled Queen Victoria and the Photographic Expression of Widowhood. 

The abstract reads: After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Queen Victoria began an extended period of mourning that remains indelibly linked to perceptions of her identity and visual representation. This article firstly addresses the place of photography in the construction of family memory and examines how Victoria used photography to articulate her private grief and to remember Albert in the context of both her immediate and extended family. Secondly, I seek to establish the ways in which this private image is made public and is circulated by Victoria to generate popular empathy and support for political ends. Lastly, I touch on the global reach of this, and question how mourning and widowhood are implicated in international royal networks and imperial power. Thus, the article reveals the photograph of the mourning widow as more than just an illustration of Victoria and her grief; rather, it shows how the medium shapes that grief and makes it useful for monarchy and empire.

Trompeteler, H., (2022) “Queen Victoria and the Photographic Expression of Widowhood”, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 2022(33).
doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.4717

The online journal is open access and the paper can be read here: https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/4717/

Image: John Jabez Edwin Mayall, Group Portrait with a Bust of Prince Albert, April 1863, albumen print, Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022.

This paper will explore relationships between ecology, sexuality, and decolonisation in the portrayal of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) by queer Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt and queer British anti-imperialist filmmaker Basil Wright, who collaborated together in the 1930s prior to the country’s independence in 1948. In the nineteenth century British colonisers outlawed homosexuality as ‘against the order of nature’ and shifted the island’s economy to mass plantations. At a time when homosexuality was also illegal in the UK, Wendt and Wright’s collaboration reveals how imperial control over desire and the landscape were challenged by photography and film.

Dr Edwin Coomasaru is a historian of modern and contemporary art. He has been awarded Postdoctoral and Research Fellowships at Edinburgh University (2022), the Paul Mellon Centre (2020-22), and the Courtauld Institute of Art (2018-19) — where he earned his PhD in 2018 and co-convenes the Gender & Sexuality Research Group. In 2021 he also worked as a Freelance Research Assistant on an anti-racist and decolonial resource portal for the Association of Art History. He has contributed to Third Text, British Art Studies, Oxford Art Journal, The Irish Times, Irish Studies Review, The Irish Review, Photoworks Annual, Burlington Contemporary, Architectural Review, Source Magazine, and the Barbican’s Masculinities (2020) exhibition catalogue. History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)

History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)
University of Edinburgh / Edinburgh College of Art
30 March 2022 at 1330-1430
Online. Open to all
Details here: https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/event/history-art-research-seminar-series-sri-lankas-queer-tropics-lionel-wendts-ceylon-1950-and
For enquiries, contact Malene Nafisi, malene.nafisi@ed.ac.uk

This intensive two-day workshop offers a much-needed forum for cross-disciplinary dialogue and inter-disciplinary experimentation in the area of recreative practices - including photography and photographic history.

Recreative practice – the process of re-making an object - is widespread in the arts and humanities. Frequently employed in art, photography and design as a technique for retrieving haptic and tacit forms of knowledge and lost technologies, re-makes are also present throughout contemporary art and the museum world. Yet practices vary widely not only in their very appellation – recreative practice, reproduction, experimental archaeology, remaking, replication - but also in the nature and degree of their theoretical grounding. The fields of art history and curatorship, dress, and photography are particularly well-grounded theoretically and heavily engaged with questions of replication, copying and the simulacrum. In other disciplines, scholars rely on positivist materials science, yet other fields see living traditions embodied by contemporary craftspeople as critical mediators of past practice. In both cases, there are opportunities for greater criticism of the underlying assumptions these approaches entail and engagement with theoretical developments in other fields. Notwithstanding these many differences, a common set of questions and problems are readily apparent across media and disciplines. This workshop invites researchers in recreative practices to share their experiences and dialogue around these questions in a unique multi-disciplinary forum.

CALL FOR PAPERS - DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL MONDAY 14TH MARCH, MIDNIGHT (GMT)

CALL FOR PAPERS for Workshop on Recreative Practices in the Art and Humanities (15-16 June 2022)

Co-hosted by the School of Fashion, Textiles and the Photographic History Research Center, De Montfort University, Leicester (UK)

The Call for Papers is available here: https://sites.google.com/my.westminster.ac.uk/amateurdarkroompractices/research-notes-events

Deadline for proposals: Monday 28 February 2022 17.00 (GMT).

This year's McKenzie Lecture will explore the intersection between book history and the history of photography, and will look at the possibilities of such a combined view of the photographic book from 1843 to now.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, has published widely on the history of collecting and the history of photography since 2014. He is the author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack (2020) and of John Thomson (1837–1921): Photographer (1997), a major study of the Scottish photographer.

Photography and the Book
Richard Ovenden OBE
17 February 2022 at 1700-1800 (GMT)
Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty, St Cross Building, Oxford
Live and streamed live, free
Register: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/feb22/photography-and-the-book

As part of the City of Culture programme, Photo Miners are presenting Richard Sadler's photography of the immediate years after the Second World War in Coventry. In this period, Coventry not only recovered from the horrors of the multiple bombings that devastated the city but also renewed its character through hard work and forgiveness. Coventry became a city of the future, a welcome home to displaced and migrant people and one that pioneered new ways of living through its architecture and planning and innovative industry.

Richard lived through this period and, in a time of scarce photographic resources, committed to documenting Coventry's story. Thanks to his work, we have high-quality visual evidence of 1950s Coventry. At the Old Grammar School, Hales Street, Coventry, Photo Miners are working with communities to curate three sequential exhibitions that try to do justice to both Richard and that time.

The exhibitions are:

Pioneering People: Sadler and the City / 8 February - mid-March 2022

In this first exhibition, we present the people of post-war Coventry: the children, teenagers and young adults that inherited a damaged city and set the common ground to transform Coventry into a city of peace and reconciliation.

You'll see the Umbrella Club, opened by the Goons in 1955 as well as Foleshill Jazz Club from earlier in the decade. We'll show you dancing in the streets too, as well as how to hang out at the precinct in 1950s Coventry.

We also present some photography of Coventry at the time, the damage and the recovery, including a series on the famous Godiva Cafe and Broadgate - to illustrate Coventry's belief then that it is a city of the future, a belief we believe applies today.

Pioneering Industry: Sadler and Courtaulds / End March - end April 2022

Courtaulds was an internationally-renowned man-made fibre manufacturer, producing products used by the military as well as by civilians. It was so strategically important that, as a condition of the USA joining the Second World War, the Courtaulds Company had to give up its manufacturing base and product rights in America.

Courtaulds had facilities across the UK but Coventry was its beating heart - its research centre that developed the products that made its name.

In this second exhibition, we use Sadler's 1951-54 photography to showcase the scientists, workers and processes that made the company such a huge success.

In particular, we focus on how Courtaulds in Coventry employed more women than men, and in particular Vera Furness, who led the research team which eventually created another world-changing product - carbon fibre.

Coventry remains an innovative city and elements of the Courtaulds Company, and their specialisations, have been inherited and built upon, and so we also feature a few examples about specialist companies today.

Pioneering Arts: Sadler and the Cathedral / May - mid-June 2022

The new Cathedral appeared in Coventry not just as an extraordinarily high-quality building designed and built to last for a thousand years but as one that was home to new art. In a time when so much of the past was lost, and so the clamour to return to known ways was strong, the committee that oversaw the new cathedral was steadfast in its commitment to new art. Today we know they made the correct decision and are grateful for it.

This third exhibition, held to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral, celebrates the time when the cathedral was new. We present unseen images of the Sutherland tapestry being offloaded and moved to the cathedral, of it being hung before the internal space was complete. We see the Ramsey-Hoskins nativity scene, now partially lost, making its first appearance. We also present previously unseen images of early mystery plays performed in the ruins. As with the City of Culture today, we're seeing in this exhibition an investment in emerging and new artists whose ways of seeing provide fresh but unfamiliar perspectives. Trust in art and you will be rewarded for years to come. 

About Richard Sadler 

Dr Richard Sadler was the official photographer at Coventry Cathedral, Belgrade Theatre, RSC and Courtaulds for many years. He also undertook arts projects, exhibiting locally, nationally and internationally, finding fame in particular with his portrait of Arthur Fellig, known as WeeGee, the American crime photographer.

Richard exhibited regularly, both locally, nationally and internationally. His website, www.richardsadler.co.uk, has more details on his many accolades and successes.

In 1968 he joined what is now Derby University as a member of the arts faculty and remained there until his retirement in the 1990s. Richard sadly died in 2020 aged 93.

Pioneering Coventry: the post-war photography of Richard Sadler
Old Grammar School, Hales Street, Coventry, between 8 February-30 May 2022
https://photomining.org/

The National Portrait Gallery has announced a major partnership with the global leader in family history, Ancestry. Over 125,000 digitised portraits from the Gallery’s extensive Collection will be made available to Ancestry users, and to celebrate, the National Portrait Gallery is working with Ancestry to launch The Nation’s Family Album – a search for undiscovered portraits of everyday British people collated into a representative online album. The initiative invites people of different ages, backgrounds and cultures in the UK to delve through suitcases in attics, scour photos on walls or flick through albums on bookshelves and submit their favourite family images.  

Entrants will be in with the chance of having their own family photographs and stories included in an online exhibition, as well as a display at the iconic National Portrait Gallery in London when it reopens in 2023, following the completion of its Inspiring People redevelopment project. 

The Nation’s Family Album is set to be an important record of our collective history, as it will highlight, celebrate and capture the rich and diverse family stories across Britain, making it easier for future generations to find out more about their family history.  

Entries open today and submissions must be uploaded digitally by Thursday 30 June 2022. Any person in the UK may submit a maximum of three images that relate to the following themes: Belonging, Legacy, Connection and Identity.  

Later this year, a panel of experts – including the National Portrait Gallery’s Chief Curator, Dr Alison Smith, and family history expert Simon Pearce from Ancestry – will shortlist a selection of portraits that best encapsulate the themes of The Nation’s Family Album. 

The UK, Portraits and Photographs, 1547- 2018 collection, launching on Ancestry today, captures British history and culture in a variety of mediums, including paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings, and prints. The National Portrait Gallery showcases the work of many acclaimed artists and photographers, but portraits in the Collection are selected primarily for their subject matter and the sitter’s importance to British culture and history. As well as many iconic portraits of famous figures, the collection includes images of individuals from all walks of life, including:

• David William Richardson - Teacher; second son of Elizabeth Marion and Neil Richardson
• Lydia Dorothea Benoly - First woman mayor of Bethnal Green; social worker and teacher 
• Mairi Chisholm - Motorcycle ambulance driver, nurse and photographer

For more information about how to submit your family photographs, entry Terms & Conditions and to explore the collection, visit www.ancestry.co.uk/FamilyAlbum. To buy copies of the portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, please visit www.npg.org.uk/shop/npgprints.

A new book by Jason Bate has just been published by Bloomsbury Academic. Photography in the Great War asks what is it to study historically positioned vulnerabilities in regard to patients in emerging medical photograph collections? What is the impact of the violent nature of institutional archives and imperial modes of ordering on marginalised and suppressed communities? Who exactly is being protected by the ethical protocols and conventions here? Is it the institution, the author, the reader, the deceased historical figure or distant relatives? At what point does or should the subject’s confidentiality take effect? When does a person, their name, their image have a right to privacy and anonymity and when not, and who gets to decide? 

In Photography in the Great War, Jason Bate draws on a rich set of materials to examine postwar experiences of ex-servicemen who were facially-disfigured during the First World War. Weaving together medical, institutional, amateur and family photographic practices and processes under a social history framework, he underscores overlooked aspects of these men’s continued hardships after returning home from the front. In particular, a focus is on the private sphere of the family and the complicated world of employment that disfigured veterans navigated on their return. 

Little attention has hitherto been paid to the aftercare of disfigured veterans once discharged from the army, or the long-term impact on individuals, and the sense of burden felt by families and local communities. In addressing this neglected area, the chapters here illuminate different practices of photography by doctors, nurses, press agencies, and families across the generations to challenge our perceptions of the personal traumas of soldiers and civilians.

Photography in the Great War. The Ethics of Emerging Medical Collections from the Great War
Jason Bate
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022
See more here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/photography-in-the-great-war-9781350122062/

Photohistories has published an extensive and insightful interview with Grace Robertson & Thurston Hopkins by Graham Harrison. It dates to from 19 January 2011....Sitting with their cats in the lounge of their cottage at Seaford on the Sussex coast, Grace and Thurston are discussing the demise of Picture Post, as Graham Harrison listened. The couple regret not taking their negatives from the ‘Post’ darkroom, nearly all of which went into the Hulton Picture Library....

Read the full piece here: https://photohistories.org/histories/grace-and-thurston-seaford-19-january-2011

The Library of Congress will create a new National Stereoscopic Photography Research Collection, fellowship and public program in collaboration with the National Stereoscopic Association to support one of the nation’s largest collections of this photography format, the two organizations announced today.

Stereographs are paired photographs that provide an illusion of three-dimensionality when placed in a special viewer called a stereoscope. They were among the first photographic entertainment formats that became popular from the Civil War to the early decades of the 20th century when new technologies like motion pictures captured the public’s attention. Recent technical innovations like virtual reality have brought renewed focus to both the history and continued use of the stereo format.

The Library’s Prints and Photographs Division holds one of the foremost collections of stereographs, dating from early daguerreotypes in the 1850s to published sets from the 1930s. More than 40,000 have been digitized and are available online at https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/stereo/.

A monetary donation from the association has established the National Stereoscopic Photography Research Fellowship and annual lecture at the Library of Congress. The award will ensure support for research on stereoscopy and the history of photography within the Prints & Photographs Division holdings and the unparalleled photographic history collections at the Library of Congress — including over 15 million photographs, rare publications, manuscript materials and historic newspapers — and build awareness of the Library of Congress as a premier research center for photographs in this format. 

“The Prints & Photographs Division is excited by the opportunity to host its first research fellows dedicated to the study of photography,” said Helena Zinkham, chief of the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division. “The gift by the National Stereoscopic Association will give new scholarly focus to this pivotal, but often overlooked, format.”

“The National Stereoscopic Association sees this as an ideal collaboration, addressing the missions of both organizations. We are delighted to collaborate with the Library of Congress to increase awareness of the importance of stereoscopic photography and to support the scholarship and visibility of photographs as historic resources,” said John Bueche, president, National Stereoscopic Association.

The Library of Congress National Stereoscopic Association Fellowship committee will award up to two fellowships annually (with award amounts from $3,000 to $6,000) to be used to cover travel to and from Washington, D.C., accommodations, and other research expenses to assist fellows in their scholarly research and writing projects on stereoscopic photography, or more broadly within the field of photographic history to the extent that research is connected in some manner to the Library’s holdings on the format.

Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, independent scholars, creators and other researchers with a need for research support are encouraged to apply.

Additional information about applying for the fellowship is available at this link: https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/national_stereoscopic.html. 

The application deadline is April 15, 2022, and notification of selection will occur at the National Stereoscopic Association’s annual convention in August 2022. The Fellowship research must be completed in 2023.

Additionally, the National Stereoscopic Association is donating a complete collection of the organization’s StereoWorld magazine, related research files, organizational records, historic publications, checklists, and member materials to build the collection and assist in the research and interpretation of stereo photography. The collection will provide an archival home and historic record of the association and its contributions to the field at the national library. 

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.govand register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

# # #

Media Contact: Brett Zongker, bzongker@loc.gov

Public Contact: Micah Messenheimer, stereofellow@loc.gov

A recording has been made available of this event organised by the RPS Contemporary Group and the RPS Thames Valley Region that took place online on 18th January 2022. Chaired by Avijit Datta, the speakers were Paul Hill, Brian Steptoe, Douglas May, Tessa Mills and Zelda Cheatle.

https://youtu.be/46TDp917imI

A recording has been made available of this event organised by the RPS Contemporary Group and the RPS Thames Valley Region that took place online on 18th January 2022. Chaired by Avijit Datta, the speakers were Paul Hill, Brian Steptoe, Douglas May, Tessa Mills and Zelda Cheatle.

https://youtu.be/46TDp917imI

The discovery of the ‘X-ray’ had profoundly significant effects upon modern culture; it pushed the boundaries of science and medicine, operated as spectacle for public entertainment, nourished beliefs in the paranormal and provided a subject through which printed media could raise emerging modern social and ethical issues. The fascination with X-rays has been described as a ‘mania [that] swept the West’. At least forty-nine books and 1,044 scientific essays on the subject appeared in the first year of its discovery. Whilst X-radiation generated incredible cultural and scientific fascination, it was also enveloped into other media, from writing and literature to film and painting. This talk will consider some examples of the cultural and artistic forms that this new discovery took and what they had to say about it.

Dr Tom Slevin is a Senior Lecturer at Solent University. Tom has published numerous works around the themes of modern visual culture, photography, critical theory, the European artistic avant-garde, the philosophy of technology and bodily representation.

 Art, Science & Technology: The Discovery of X-Rays and its Culture
Dr Tom Slevin
Wednesday, 16 February, 2022 Start time: 7:00pm
from £4.50 to support the work of the Southampton City Art Gallery
Register here: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/532395#

Reposting this from a few years ago, I have an 1870s albumen photo by Mansell, and my colleague Thomas Harris has an 1846 Daguerreotype by Mayall of the same image, clearly an early rubbing of the Rosetta Stone with applied graphics. After years of searching we have yet to find any information about it. My albumen has pencil notations on the reverse that suggest someone was trying to decipher a particular hieroglyphic line.

Can someone here suggest a person I can contact at the British Museum about this?  

Many Thanks, David