Blogs

Earlier this year we heard the sad news that the some of the collection of the great Irish collector of early photography, Sean Sexton, had been stolen. Some of the collection has been turning up, but a lot of it is still untraced. Here are photos of some of the main items which are missing.

I also have a Word document with 20 pages listing the stolen items, with many photos, which is too big to insert here. I am happy to send the list by email to any member here who supplies an email. If anyone here has details about any of the items, I am happy to have them sent along to Sean through the Gallery of Photography, Ireland where I am on the Board of Directors. We have in the past held exhibitions of items from Sean's collection, including some of the items which have been stolen.

Previously reported on BPH see: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/stolen-historic-cameras-and-photographs-london-9-april-2100-2300

A print from an album likely to have been compiled by Roger Fenton is being offered by Chiswick Auctions online on 3 December. The anonymous portrait, by Fenton, comes from the notorious 'grey paper album'. The important album was disbound and each image was offered, and dispersed, individually, at auction between 1977 and 1984.

No record of the album and its sequencing was made at the time and it remains an example of commerce determining to break up an album to maximise value for the consignor.  Pages from the album are now scattered across the world, including at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and prints periodically appear at auction. 

The Chiswick auction also contains other early photographs, stereocards and cameras. 

The Fenton lot description can be seen here.

The sale whole auction here. 

My collection of Grubb Patent Aplanatic Lenses made in Dublin between the 1850s and the 1870s all have micro-engraving with a number at the very edge of the glass lens element to match the engraved or stamped number on the brass barrel of the lens. The purpose behind this is to indicate authenticity and avoid fakes.The writing (for that is what it is) is barely visible to the naked eye and even more difficult to photograph.

Below is a poor photo of the micro engraving on the lens element of Grubb Patent Aplanatic No 582 which reads 'Grubb Patent No 582'. No 582 is the lens in the front middle of the group photo of my Grubb lens which is also below. 

What I am wondering is whether other 19th Century lens manufacturers 'signed' their lenses in this fashion. I have read that Darlot lenses have some kind of signature, but all I have is a Darlot copy sold by Morley, which has no obvious sign of a signature. This seems to me more than just a copyright issue and it is just like a signature on a photograph or a painting to say 'this is my work'. I cannot avoid getting the image of a craftsman, in a dark workshop in the 1860s, writing or scratching this on a freshly made lens, using a magnifying glass to see. Comments are welcome.

The largest glass plate negatives produced in the nineteenth-century appear to have been made in Sydney, Australia, in 1875. They were made by the professional photographer Charles Bayliss with the help of a wealthy amateur photographer Bernhard Otto Holtermann, who also funded the project.

Only four of the colossal glass negatives produced by Bayliss and Holtermann have been identified and all of them were taken from Holtermann’s purpose-built camera in the tower of his mansion in North Sydney. Two were 160 x 96.5 cm (5.1 ft x 3.08 ft) and formed a panorama of Sydney Harbour from Garden Island to Millers Point.

The other two were 136 x 95 cm (4.4 x 3.1 feet) and were of the Harbour Lavender Bay and Fort Maccquarie and Berry's Bay and Goat Island. All four colossal negatives were acknowledged at the time as being the largest negatives made and appear to have remained so until 1900 when George R. Lawrence built his (4.5 x 8 ft) camera to photograph the Alton Limited locomotive.

Three of these negatives are currently held by the State Library of New South Wales. read the full post

Bristol's Arnolfini arts space is presenting two photography exhibitions as part of its Health and Well-being series, both come from the Hyman Collection. A picture of health presents a group of women photographers and Jo Spence: from fairy tales to phototherapy presents work held in the Collection. 

The first, brings together a group of contemporary women photographers featuring autobiographical perspectives and social commentaries on the wider society, that aims to de-stigmatise subjects around mental health and create an environment in which people can have open conversations about their wellbeing. A Picture of Health includes work by Heather Agyepong, Sonia Boyce, Eliza Hatch, Susan Hiller, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Anna Fox, Rosy Martin, Polly Penrose, Jo Spence, and Paloma Tendero.

Jo Spence is drawn from one of the most comprehensive collections of Jo Spence’s works in the world, From Fairy Tales to Phototherapy focuses on the intersection between arts, health and wellbeing, celebrating her work as a photo therapist in which she used photography as a medium to address personal trauma, reflecting on key moments in her past.

Both exhibitions run from 4 December 2020-28th / 21st February 2021 respective. Both are free but will require pre-booking so social distancing can be respected. 

See: https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/a-picture-of-health/ and https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/jo-spence/

Images:  Wish You Were Here 1. Le Cake Walk: Rob This England Heather Agyepong; Only When I Got to Fifty Did I Realise I was Cinderella, (03). Jo Spence in collaboration with Rosy Martin

Two daguerreotypes of Charles Dickens and his wife, Catherine, by the London photographer J. J. E. Mayall, are being offered at auction on 17 December 2020. Both are dated c.1853-55 and are estimated £50,000-70,000 and £10,000-20,000 respectively.

Dickens was regularly photographed by Mayall and he wrote about his experiences in his publication Household Words in 1853 (vol. vii, no. 156, 19 March 1853).

See: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26015/lot/40/?category=list

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26015/lot/41/?category=list

Sworder's London auction is offering a lot of London photographs by James Hedderly. The eight photographs are estimated at £1000.

JAMES HEDDERLY (1814-1885)
a collection of seven photographs of Chelsea before the building of the  Embankment in 1871-3; Old Battersea Bridge (as depicted by Whistler); Chelsea Old Church; Cheyne Walk near Chelsea Physic Garden; Monument to Sir Hans Sloane at Chelsea Old Church; Statue of Sir Hans Sloane by John Michael Rysbrack in Chelsea Physic Garden; Houses on Cheyne Walk at the junction of Beaufort Street and Battersea Bridge; Cheyne Walk before the building of the Embankment; largest 20.5 x 42cm, unframed; together with a further photograph by W Brown of the Inspection of the Main Drainage Works at Barking, July 14th 1862 (8)

This collection by the Chelsea born artist James Hedderly gives a fascinating insight to what Chelsea was like in the 1870s, before the building of the embankment which changed the landscape of London so fundamentally. Hedderly's work focused on the Chelsea area and he did much to document the construction of the embankment. It was a time when Chelsea was established as a major artistic centre and community in London based around places like Cheyne Walk, which in 1870 boasted Dante Gabriel Rossetti (no.16) and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (no.96) as residents.

Hedderly's work can be seen in the Kensington and Chelsea Archives and National Monuments Record. Photographs are also published in John Bignall, 'Chelsea seen from 1860 to 1980', London Studio B, 1978.

See more here.

On behalf of Mattie Boom and Hans Rooseboom, Curators of Photography, we would like to bring to your attention our current research opportunities within the Rijksmuseum Fellowship Programme – in particular the new Terra Foundation Fellowship in American Photography.

Currently, the team of Photography Curators of the Rijksmuseum is preparing a major exhibition of its collection of American photographs—from the birth of the medium in 1839 to the present—in a wider context. Candidates are invited to submit a research proposal that links to the themes that were chosen for the upcoming exhibition: American landscapes, portraits, the private use of photographs, the application of photography in advertisement, fashion, politics, (decorative) utensils, and a number of social themes – from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement and from poverty to the experience of wars in the Homeland, as well as the relation of photography to modern art (especially after World War II).

The deadline for applications is 17 January 2021. We are hopeful to continue this programme as planned for the next academic year, with fellowships commencing in September 2021.

Marije Spek & Barbara Tedder
Coordinator Academic Programmes
e: Fellowships@rijksmuseum.nl

 You can find all further details and eligibility requirements here:

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/fellowships

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/fellowships/terra-foundation-fellowship

If you have a spare £20,000 then one fascicle from William Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature (1844-1846) - the first commercially published photographic book - can be yours. The fascicle is illustrated with two calotypes - including one view of Lacock Abbey, and one photogenic drawing of lace. Approximately forty complete or substantially complete copies survive. 

If you want to bid check out the lot here. 

UPDATE: The lot remained unsold with no bids, was re-offered and then withdrawn by the seller, suggesting a sale may have been done privately.  

The Icon Photographic Materials Group is delighted to announce that this year’s fourth Round Table discussion will take place online. We hope that a virtual format will allow more people to attend, nationally and internationally. 

As in previous years, the event will consist of a series of five-minute presentations followed by questions and discussion. As always, it is open to anyone with an interest in the care and preservation of photographic materials. 

We invite abstract submissions from conservators and non-conservators working in public institutions, private practice and education. Subjects could include (but are not limited to) treatment practices, preventive conservation, scientific research, education, outreach and funding. 

If you’d like to give a five-minute presentation, please send a titled abstract (c.100 words) with your name and affiliation to phmgicon@gmail.com by the 30th November. Presentations should include around five PowerPoint slides, which should be illustrative rather than textual. Please get in touch as soon as possible for further details or to discuss your idea. 

The Round Table event will be followed by a brief update from the group committee.

A Zoom link and programme for the event will be emailed to attendees closer to the date.

Registration is free. To register please follow this link to our Eventbrite page. A final version of the programme will be available by early December, but you can check our Eventbrite page for updates before then. We look forward to continuing the discussion for another year.

See: https://icon.org.uk/events/call-for-papers-virtual-round-table-discussion

I have recently launched a website about my grandmother, the photographer, Laelia Goehr. Laelia came from Berlin to the UK in 1932 having already been a refugee from Kiev to Berlin in 1921 at the age of 13.

She studied with Bill Brandt in the 1940s and had a successful career. She was published in Picture Post, Lilliput and the Jewish Chronicle to name but a few and published a number of books including Faces (Profiles of Dogs) with text by Vita Sackville-West which was republished in 2019, Musicians in Camera which featured many of leading musicians and composers of the day including Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, William Walton, Pablo Casals, plus many more. Her photographs, Stravinsky Rehearses Stravinsky, taken in 1965 on his last visit to the UK, were exhibited around the world including Los Angeles, Vienna and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

She was the first photographer to be exhibited at the Ben Uri Gallery in London in the 1950s with a series of photographs from the newly founded state of Israel.

The website can be accessed at https://www.laeliagoehr.com/

Image: Laelia Goehr. Bill Brandt with his Kodak Wide-Angle Camera  (1945) 

Every week we ask a photographer to describe what photography means to them in less than 5 minutes as a piece of audio. This is then included within the weekly A Photographic Life podcast, presented by Grant Scott. The 88 contributions in this book are edited transcriptions of that audio. Including UK based photographers Paul Trevor, Daniel Meadows, Brian Griffin, Robert Darch, Alys Tomlinson, and Sirkka Liisa Konttinen amongst many others. 

What does photography mean to you? Is a simple question but its simplicity of language is deceptive. The reality of such an enquiry is that it forces the photographer to whom it has been addressed to question the very essence of their relationship with a medium that provides them with a creative outlet that is a visual representation of what they think, believe, experience, and wish to convey. It also introduces reflections concerning outcome versus intent, success versus failure and recognition versus anonymity. It is a question that goes deep.

The responses were generous, illuminating and honest. Often raw in their passion, considered in their introspection. Most importantly, themes began to develop, themes of approach, intention and desire. 

Storytelling  is a constant foundation for many photographers as is the importance of collaboration. Many reveal a love/hate relationship with the medium, detailing the torment they often feel as part of their photographic process. Others felt the need to place their practice into the context of their journey, reflecting on those photographers whose words and images informed their own understanding of the medium. Some are up-beat others more melancholic in their presentation, but all are passionate, informed and engaged. Their words force the listener to stop and take stock, they force self-questioning, reconsidering pre-conceived understanding. They make you think.

This book contains some of the world’s most interesting photographers explaining what photography means to them with a portrait of each photographer submitted by the photographer. It’s a small book that will fit in your pocket, camera bag or on your desk. The perfect companion to your photography and your sense of self as a photographer.

What Does Photography Mean to You?
Edited by Grant Scott
£9.99
Softcover
Bluecoat Press

On sale now at https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/?fbclid=IwAR0TvEEp0k1ZFpCiCdIIzEhhwinR1sQKJldnlM1b8oRgEpbqwK6BetSARx4

The Reece Winstone Archive is planning to become a charitable trust in order to ensure the corpus remains intact...writes John Winstone. We also have a policy of seeing continuing growth. The Archive presently holds 100,000 images of Britain from the 1930s to the 1980s and, in particular, on Bristol. Included in this tally are some 10,000 collected photographs of Bristol and area down to 1840 and the work of other twentieth-century freelance topographic photographers working across England in black and white and colour.

Reece Winstone FRPS was founder of the RPS Photo-Journalism Group in 1957, a member of the RPS Historical Group and published many photographs of Bristol in 37 volumes in a long freelance career.

We are looking for volunteers interested in undertaking digitising various parts of the Archive, mostly medium format negatives. For reasons of ease of lending material in the pandemic we would like to hear from those living in the south-west in the first instance.

Please contact John Winstone at reecewinstonearchive@gmail.com.

Image: Reece Winstone in Queen Square, Bristol, on 9 October 1948 taken by Bristol CC member N. Dibble.
 

The Cinema Museum, established three and a half decades ago by Martin Humphries and Ronald Grant, is at once a visitor attraction, heritage site and sporadic cinema. While this means it carries broad appeal to a range of audiences, straddling several sectors has posed a problem when emergency pandemic funding programmes are staunchly siloed.

The venue, a Grade II Listed former Victorian workhouse that counts Charlie Chaplin among its previous residents, is now crying out for public support via a Crowdfunder page – with great success thus far.

Read more here: https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/features/people-power-cinema-museum-reliant-on-crowdfunder-campaign-after-missing-all-government-support/

The Crowdfunder can be seen here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/reopen-and-reimagine-the-cinema-museum

The long history of the renowned Alinari photographic firm, founded in 1852 in Florence, reached a turning point in December 2019 as the regional government Regione Toscana acquired the company's millions of photographic objects, documents, specialized publications and historical technical equipment; the acquisition of the digital assets will soon complete the process.

The Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia (Alinari Foundation for Photography) was established on July 16, 2020. The shift from private to public ownership represents not only a management challenge, but also a unique opportunity to root the activities of the newly created Fondazione into the fabric of the vibrant international scientific community at the highest intellectual level. So as to facilitate this transition, the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz in partnership with Regione Toscana and Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia will host a study day with prominent international scholars in dialogue with artist Armin Linke.

The goal of the event is to identify new directions and outline new research scenarios that will connect the past, present and future of the Alinari project.

The recordings from the individual presentations made at the study day are now available here: https://vimeo.com/khiflorenz

The University of Edinburgh's Centre for Global History's seminar series is hosting Dr Luke Gartlan of the University of St Andrews who will be presenting a paper Bringing Empire Home: St Andrews and the Global Networks of Victorian Photography on 18 November at 1600. Registration is free and open to all.  

Details here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/centre-global-history/events-and-seminars/current-programme

Rebecca Gowers uncovered a fascinating story within her family tree - that of Harry Larkyns. She learnt that Harry was an attractive cad who lived a charmed life right up until the moment he fell in love with the wife of noted photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Rebecca will discuss the scoundrel Harry Larkyns and will be joined by our The National Archives collections expert Katherine Howells, who will showcase some of the Muybridge pictures held within our collection at The National Archives. This talk will conclude with a live Q&A with Rebecca Gowers and Katherine Howells.

Presented by The National Archives
Online, 18 November 2020 at 1930
Book here.

An online event with Dr Jan Graffius, curator of collections at Stonyhurst College, who will be talking to Gilly Read FRPS about Roger Fenton and his photographs of Stonyhurst and the surrounding countryside.  

Although Roger Fenton (1819-1869) is best known for his images of the Crimean War, he trained as a painter and photographed many varied subjects. He lived near Stonyhurst at Crimble Hall and took many landscape photographs around Stonyhurst as well as photographs of the College itself. Fenton was also the first secretary of the Photographic Society, now the Royal Photographic Society. 

The talk is free and can be booked here: https://rps.org/stonyhurst

“The collection is the most comprehensive private collection of Nasa photographs ever presented at auction, and spans every visual milestone of the space program, from the early days of Mercury, the technical advances of Gemini and lunar orbiter, to the triumphs of Apollo,” Christie’s said in a press release promoting the sale.

Voyage to Another World: the Victor Martin-Malburet Photograph Collection is a chronological journey of humankind’s achievements in space beginning with the early days of rocketry in the 1940s to the first color photograph of Earth and the moon together in the same still image, taken from the Voyager 1 space probe in 1977.

Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind is on sale to the highest bidder after a private collector released a treasure trove of Nasa images from spaceflight’s golden era for auction, including the only photograph taken of the first human walking on the moon.

The July 1969 snapshot is the highlight of the collection of 2,400 vintage images across 700 lots featured on the Christie’s of London website, including the first selfie from space by Armstrong’s Apollo 11 crewmate Buzz Aldrin and the epochal Earthrise photograph that captured the planet emerging above the moon’s horizon.

For more see https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/nov/11/nasa-photos-auction-first-selfie-in-space

See the auction here from 6-16 November 2020: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/voyage-another-world-victor-martin-malburet-photograph-collection/lots/1949