Blogs

The Guardian newspaper has profiled Charlie Phillips,a British photograoher of Jamican heritage, living in London from the 1950s.

Charlie Phillips never planned to become a photographer. His childhood dream was to be an opera singer, or a naval architect. But then a camera fell into his lap. It was 1958. The 14-year-old had arrived from Jamaica two years earlier and was living in Notting Hill, west London, at that time the first port of call for many Caribbean immigrants. The area was also a destination for African American soldiers stationed at nearby military bases, who didn’t feel so welcome in central London’s white venues.

Read the full piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/25/charlie-phillips-why-did-it-take-so-long-for-one-of-britains-greatest-photographers-to-get-his-due

Over the last fifteen years, Nicky Bird has examined the themes of land, heritage, personal and social memory through a collaborative photographic practice. This show includes new works and brings together several of her site-specific projects for the first time, especially reimagined for Street Level, which largely focus on Scotland’s rural and small town communities.

She considers contemporary relevances of ‘found’ photographs and latent histories of specific sites, investigating how they remain resonant. Her work incorporates new photography, oral histories and collaborations with people who have significant connections to the original site and its photographic archive. Alongside commissioned projects, she has exhibited nationally and internationally, published essays on themes of erased place and digital exchange of photographs. Nicky is a Reader in Contemporary Photographic Practice at The Glasgow School of Art.

Legacy - Nicky Bird
27th April - 6th June 2021
http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/legacy-nicky-bird

An exhibition minigraph includes an in conversation between the artist and Annebella Pollen

One of British photography's most recognisable and charismatic photograph dealers and collectors, Janette Rosing, has died. There is a short obituary in the Antiques Trade Gazette from Pierre Spake and other tributes will be forthcoming. Janette was a regular buyer at auction and fairs from the early 1980s and often had a table at the London photograph fairs. 

See: 

https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2021/march/2485/backpage/obituary-photography-collector-janette-rosing/

Photograph: courtesy of Christophe Lunn / http://www.lunn-galerie.com/. Janette at a London Photograph Fair. 

To mark the launch of her important new biography of Herbert Ponting, Anne Strathie will discuss Ponting's career as a photographer and filmmaker and explore his remarkable achievements.

Herbert Ponting FRPS (1870-1935) loved stereoviews as a boy and, as a young Liverpool bank clerk, bought his first cameras. In post-Gold Rush California, he ran a fruit-farm, worked in a mine, courted an American wife and honed his photographic skill. In 1901 Ponting began a series of long trips to Asia, working for leading stereoview companies and illustrated magazines, including in Japan, China and Korea.

In 1907, after reporting on the Russo-Japanese war and touring India, Ponting returned to Britain, where his most striking images appeared in RPS and other exhibitions, leading magazines and his Japanese memoir. In 1909 Ponting signed up for Scott’s Terra Nova expedition and received tuition from camera-designer Arthur Newman on operating a kinematograph in hostile conditions. In Antarctica, Ponting stretched his skills and resilience to the limit, but in doing so made photographic and cinema history.

Anne Strathie’s new book will be widely available in Britain by mid-April, including from local bookshops and Waterstone’s (or their websites). It presents new research on Ponting, his life and career and is set to become the definitive work on this important photographer and former RPS member. 

See more and book here: https://rps.org/ponting

The appointed Archivist will lead on the first stage of the Feeney Archive Project with Vanley Burke, which we anticipate taking place in the physical space of the archive in May 2021 (although this start date is dependent on safety regulations and work permitted within Covid-19 regulations).

The content and timescale of the work required will be decided through initial conversations between the appointed Archivist and Vanley Burke in advance of physical archival work. Art360 has recommended that an archive appraisal is an essential first step to the project. The Archivist will specify their day rate for the work required following the setting out of initial plans.

Whilst the Archivist will lead on the delivery of the required work, wherever helpful, Art360 will offer support with the planning of archival work, as well as guidance and mentorship throughout the duration of the project.

In 2020 Art360 was thrilled to receive support from the Birmingham-based John Feeney Charitable Trust to support Vanley Burke in the organisation of the Artist’s extensive and extraordinary archive of photographic prints, negatives, research material, correspondence and ephemera.

This exciting project will take place in Birmingham in the context of the private space of the Artist. The overall project will involve several independent specialists, who will carry out work at different intervals over an 8 to 12-month period, and will involve some of the following activities: an archive appraisal, inventory-building, digitisation of materials, a Curatorial Residency (appointed through open call) and the production of a documentary film exploring Vanley Burke’s legacy.

See more and apply here. 

Please send a CV and cover letter of no more than 500 words to contact@art360foundation.org.uk.

Deadline is 6 April 2021.

In partnership with Chanel, the National Portrait Gallery has launched Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture, a new three year project, which aims to enhance the representation of women in the Gallery’s Collection and highlight the often overlooked stories of individual women who have shaped British history and culture. The project is part of the new Chanel Culture Fund, a global programme of unique initiatives and partnerships that will support innovators across the arts in advancing new ideas and greater representation in culture and society.

The role of women photographers in both documenting history and encouraging other women to enter the profession will be explored further, spotlighting Edwardian photographers such as Alice Hughes, who only photographed women and children, and at the peak of her career employed up to sixty female assistants.

Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture includes the appointment of a new team led by Chanel Curator for the Collection, Dr Flavia Frigeri, which will focus on researching the Gallery’s Collection with the aim of enhancing the visibility of select figures, as well as acquiring portraits of women not yet represented and commissioning new portraits of trailblazing contemporary women. The project will increase the proportion of women artists and sitters on display at the Gallery in London when it re-opens in 2023, following a major transformation, which includes a complete re-presentation of the entire Collection and a significant refurbishment of the building.

Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture will challenge traditional notions of women’s careers and how we think about women in relation to their male counterparts. Research will also explore the cultural, institutional, social, and political factors that shape difference, including class, race, gender and sexuality. Amongst the iconic and inspirational women whose portraits and stories will be explored are: Modern painters such as Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, one of Britain’s most important émigré artists; activist, writer and artist, Ray Strachey, and Gluck, who was also a trailblazer in gender fluidity. Significant sculptors, including Anna Mahler and Patience Lovell Wright, a famous 18th century wax sculptor whose portraits preceded Madame Tussaud, will also be reconsidered.

Image: Dorothy Wilding by Dorothy Wilding, 1930s © William Hustler and Georgina Hustler / National Portrait Gallery, London.

Sotheby's online auction of Classic Travel Photographs showcases works from the mid-19th - to the early 20th-century by Peter H. Emerson, Francis Frith, John Burke, William Saunders, Roger Fenton, and Gustave Le Gray, among others.

Arranged alphabetically by country from Afghanistan to Vietnam, the sale is led by a complete copy of Emerson and Goodall’s magnificent photobook “Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads” (1886) illustrated with 40 fine platinum prints (lot 33).

delighted to present a splendid collection of finely framed city panoramas including rare views of Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Istanbul, New York, Budapest, Kabul, Hong Kong, Havana, Sydney, Nagasaki, Cape Town, and Jerusalem. With estimates starting at only £400, there is something for every collector.

For more details and to view the catalogue click here.

The Ramsey and Muspratt collection of negatives, given to Cambridgeshire Libraries' collection in the 1980s, comes to the rescue.

See the full story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-56401868

The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award of £2,000, facilitated by FotoDocument and generously supported by Nikon UK, is granted annually to a professional woman photographer towards the completion of a compelling and cohesive documentary photo essay, which addresses an important social, environmental, economic or cultural issue, whether local or global that has a focus on positive solutions. Submissions for the 2021 award will be open from 8 March International Women’s Day and close on Monday 24 May 2021.

Submissions will be reviewed by international panel:

Andrea Bruce – award-winning photojournalist, co-owner NOOR photo agency, Nikon ambassador

Donna De Cesare – award-winning photojournalist, associate professor University of Texas

Nina Emett – award-winning founding director FotoDocument, documentary photographer

Melanie Friend – documentary photographer

Neo Ntsoma  award-winning photojournalist, founder Neo Ntsoma Productions

Marilyn Stafford and her daughter, honorary judge, Lina Clerke.

One overall winner will receive The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award of £2,000 towards an ongoing project and one runner up will receive £500.

The work should, in part, showcase positive solutions to any issues it raises in order to contribute to constructive photojournalism, in line with the wishes of Marilyn Stafford and the aims of FotoDocument. The Award is reserved solely for documentary photographers working on projects which are intended to make the world a better place and which may be unreported or under-reported.

The final work will feature on the FotoDocument and Nikon websites and will be published via social media and shared with international media for publication. Shortlisted applicants will be featured on the FotoDocument and Nikon websites and publicised via social media.

Women from any stage of their careers are welcome to apply, whether emerging, mid-career or established. They must have completed at least one full documentary photo essay to demonstrate track record. Entrants must be over 18, they may be any nationality and based anywhere in the world. It is free to submit an application. 

Submissions close at 5pm on Monday 24 May 2021.

https://fotodocument.org/

Lewis Carroll began photographing children in the mid-nineteenth century, at a time when the young medium of photography was opening up new possibilities for visual representation and the notion of childhood itself was in transition. In this lavishly illustrated book, Diane Waggoner offers the first comprehensive account of Carroll as a photographer of modern childhood, exploring how his photographs of children gave visual form to emerging conceptions of childhood in the Victorian age.

Situating Carroll’s photography within the broader context of Victorian visual and social culture, Waggoner shows how he drew on images of childhood in painting and other media, and engaged with the visual language of the Victorian theatre, fancy dress, and Pre-Raphaelitism. She provides the first in-depth analysis of Carroll’s photographing of boys, which she examines in the context of boys’ education and reveals to be a significant part of his photographic career. Waggoner draws on a wealth of rare archival material, demonstrating how Carroll established new aesthetic norms for images of girls, engaged with evolving definitions of masculinity, and pushed the idea of childhood to the limit with his use of dress and nude images.

This book sheds unique light on Carroll’s decades-long passion for photography, showing how his complex and haunting images of children embody conflicting definitions of childhood and are no less powerful today in their ability to challenge, fascinate, and shock us.

Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood
Diane Waggoner
Princeton University Press
Price:$65.00 / £54.00
ISBN 978 0691193182

In My Father And Me, documentary film director Nick Broomfield explores his relationship with his father, photographer Maurice Broomfield (right). The film is both memoir and tribute, and in its intimate story of one family, takes an expansive, philosophical look at the 20th century itself.

For decades among the foremost names in documentary (more recently for Marianne And Leonard: Words Of Love; Whitney: Can I Be Me; Tales Of The Grim Sleeper), Nick Broomfield has often implicated himself in the filmmaking process with honesty and candor. Yet never has he made a movie more distinctly personal than this complex and moving film about his relationship with his humanist-pacifist father Maurice Broomfield, a factory worker turned photographer of vivid, often lustrous images of industrial post-WWII England. These images inspired Nick’s own filmmaking career, but also speak of a difference in outlook between Maurice and Nick.

Alongside the family story, My Father And Me also documents the changes taking place in Britain itself, the rise and fall of industry in the North and the class divide. Rich in striking imagery, it is photographed by Nick’s son Barney Broomfield and Sam Mitchell, and is produced by Mark Hoeferlin, Shani Hinton and Kyle Gibbon.

Nick Broomfield is the recipient of awards including Sundance First Prize, Bafta, Prix Italia, Dupont Peabody Award, Grierson Award, Hague Peace Prize, Amnesty International Doen Award. My Father And Me was commissioned by Mark Bell for BBC Arts.

See the film on BBC2,  20 March 2021 at 2145-2315

The V&A Museum holds Maurice Broomfield's photography archive.

See: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O243084/maurice-broomfield-photography-photograph-broomfield-maurice/

An exhibition of Broomfield's work is due to open in the V&A's Photography Centre from November 2021, curated by Martin Barnes. See: https://mauricebroomfield.photography/

Significant Scottish photography collections feature in two forthcoming talks arranged by the RPS Historical Group. On 20 May Blake Milteer will be talking about the MacKinnon Collection which was jointly acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. The collection, originally amassed by Aberdeenshire collector Murray MacKinnon, represents Scottish life and achievements from the 1840s through to the 1950s, revealing a century of dramatic transformation, innovation, and upheaval in Scotland.

On 22 June Ian Leith of the Wick Society will look at the Johnston Collection, a unique photographic archive which provides an insight into more than a century of life in and around Wick, from 1863 to 1976. Three generations of the Johnston family ran a photography business in Caithness which documented its social history, from the time the herring industry was at its height and Wick the herring capital of Europe. 

Both talks are free to attend. Read more and book here.

Image top:  John D. Stephen (Scottish, died 1917), Dawn of Light and Liberty, about 1908. Hand-coloured gelatin silver print. MMK.00449. The MacKinnon Collection. The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. Jointly acquired with assistance from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Scottish Government and Art Fund.

Left: Image: © The Wick Society / Johnston Collection / Alexander Johnston in his studio / JN43447P222.

George Szirtes reads his award-winning memoir about his mother, Magda. Her turbulent life reflects the drama of the 20th century.

She survived incarceration in two different concentration camps during the Second World War and then settled in Hungary - but fled with her family in 1956. Arriving as a refugee in London, serious illness forced her to abandon professional photography and to live at home as a housewife, where she began the process of “Englishing” her family.

The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life told backwards, from the depths of Magda’s final days to her girlhood as an ambitious photographer in Budapest. The woman who emerges is beautiful, energetic, direct, warm and passionate. It is a book born of curiosity, of guilt, and of love.

With thanks to Colin Ford CBE for highlighting this broadcast

The Photographer at Sixteen - George Szirtes
BBC Radio 4 from 15 March and then for four further episodes daily and on BBC Sounds 
See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000t418/episodes/guide

The Guardian newspaper has reported that the E Chambré Hardman studio negatives in Liverpool is deteriorating. It noted: The National Trust faces a “race against time” to save a historic collection of previously unseen photographs before they deteriorate.

Renowned Liverpool photographer Edward Chambré Hardman’s collection of 140,000 prints and negatives passed to the National Trust, along with his house, in 2003 but some negatives were found to be “actively deteriorating and emitting toxic gases”.

The under-threat prints were not properly conserved by Hardman at his studio on Rodney Street in the Georgian quarter of Liverpool and initial inspections revealed serious problems in the way some items had been stored.

Read the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/03/edward-chambre-hardman-national-trust-in-race-against-time-to-save-liverpool-photographers-archive

Photographs: © Michael Pritchard. The Chambré Hardman House and darkroom. 

This workshop, led by Almudena Romero, will give you detailed knowledge on chlorophyll printing (and on other sustainable photographic methods), including the science behind the process, tips and recommendations, info on suppliers,  process steps and troubleshooting techniques, to help you to make great chlorophyll prints from home. 

Starting with an introduction to a range of sustainable, yet little-known, early (1840s) photographic techniques, this workshop thoroughly explains sustainable photographic processes' history, science and practice. 

Get to play with photography in an unusual and environmentally friendly manner and produce beautiful image-objects for your home and friends.

See more and book here. 

When Anna Bertha Röntgen first glanced at the radiographic picture of her hand she is supposed to have said “I have seen my death!” and refused to take part in any similar experiments. In a brief time however, this new way of seeing the body forever altered the landscape of both popular culture and the visual arts.

This talk explores how X-rays and other medical imaging techniques have had their diagnostic capacity repurposed and subverted, becoming an integral part of experimental artistic practices. It follows a historical trajectory, from the early works of the avant-garde to contemporary interdisciplinary projects and artist residences within imaging facilities. It discusses the interactions between artists and medical practitioners, as well as its impact on viewers of the general public: what changed from the time Mikhail Larionov and Francis Picabia were engaging in explorations of the radiographic gaze? How is the meeting point of art, medical science and technology framed in the works of contemporary artists such as Matthew Cox, Mona Hatoum and Paulina Siniatkina? The talk will also highlight lesser known creations and initiatives from the former Eastern bloc, highlighting X-ray depictions and the medical gaze as part of the state apparatus, through the works of artists such as A.I. Kurnakov, Morozov Anatoly Alekseevich, Obrosov Igor Pavlovich and Levichev Yuri Ivanovich.

Looking Inwards: The Role of Medical Imaging Technology in 20th and 21st Century Visual Art

Tuesday 16 March  1-2pm (UK time) on Zoom.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/91441604082

Meeting ID: 914 4160 4082

Passcode: 195522

See: https://chstmphdblog.wordpress.com/lunchtime-seminars/

If you haven't already, please consider taking the Photograph Preservation Initiatives survey or sharing it with colleagues who work with photographic materials, including those in other countries (the survey is available in five languages). The extended deadline to complete the survey is March 17, 2021.

Link to survey: utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_82GgIHMVqNpfF5Q

We very much appreciate your help in collecting this valuable information!

Thank you,

Debra Hess Norris, University of Delaware

Heather Brown, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Shannon Brogdon-Grantham, Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute

Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Marta Garcia Celma, M+ Museum, Hong Kong

Amber Kehoe, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Lee Price, Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, Philadelphia

Ioannis Vasallos, The National Archives, UK

William Van Sommer (1859–1941) was a little-known amateur photographer who left behind a unique collection of images of his local Surrey landscape and favourite gardens in colour.

He took his pictures in an era when gardens were known for their waves of colour – for the contrasting shades of their rock gardens and the vibrant hues of their herbaceous borders. Yet the Edwardian garden was seldom captured in colour photography at the time.

Van Sommer’s beautiful ‘autochrome’ pictures provide a rare glimpse of the colours of these gardens of the past. Read on to discover some of the earliest colour images of the great outdoors including the first known colour photographs of RHS Wisley.

Read more about him and see his autochromes here: https://www.rhs.org.uk/digital-collections/william-van-sommer

If anyone has more information about Van Sommer and his photography feel free to contact Sarah McDonald, Heritage Collections Manager at the RHS. 

The exhibition has been created by RHS Lindley Library. Based at the Royal Horticultural Society’s headquarters at Vincent Square in London, the Lindley Library holds a world-class collection of horticultural books, journals and botanical art.

The University of West of England's Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol is running a series of photographic process workshops aimed at, amongst others, artists, designers, craftspeople, communicators, photographers, teachers and managers. CPD courses offer the opportunity for professional updating, learning new skills and techniques, and for intellectual stimulus. 

They will run in the summer of 2021 and cover early photographic printing processes, photogravure, platinum/palladium and preparing digital negatives, and are led by Dr Peter Moseley

Find out more and book here: https://rps.org/CFPR

Image: Dr Peter Moseley

An auction house has asked for identification of a photograph which will be offered at auction on 13 April 2021. There are two photographs in the lot. The photograph which has an unidentified photographer is a portrait of Julia Prinsep Stephen, née Jackson.

The other print shows Mary Louisa Fisher and Julia Prinsep Stephen (both née Jackson), and is attributed to James Mudd or Joseph Cundall. 

Any attributions - ideally with sources - would be welcome.