Blogs

The Pictorialist Movement in photography took place in a parallel time frame to the Arts and Crafts Movement. However, though both were shunned by the academic arts establishment, the A&C movement never embraced photography, perhaps in small ways, but never fully. My take on this is that the A&C Movement was fully engulfed in Medievalism, which was antithetical to photography.

There were separate movements in Pictorial Photoraphy like the Photo-Secession or the Linked Ring, but, I cannot recall any partnering among these and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Any comments?

Alan Griffiths the founder of the photo-history resource Luminous Lint writes: While we all go through the turmoil of COVID-19 we each have to do what we can. It is important for all students to have access to high quality materials on photohistory as universities, schools and libraries around the world close down so I've opened up Luminous-Lint.

You can login to www.luminous-lint.com for free with the email address spring@lumlint.com and the password "spring" all in lowercase. You can login here.

This will be available until 18 April 2020 and then I will take another look at the situation.
 
I would ask the following of you:
 
1. If you see any errors or have something to add let me know. I'm always at alan@luminous-lint.com
 
2. Subscribe if you can afford it as it allows me to provide services to those who can't.
 
Other than that - have an interesting time exploring and I wish you, your family and friends all the best,

The British photography world continues to react to the government's latest announcements and advice concerning the coronavirus. Venues are closing and events are being cancelled or postponed. Some of the actions taken by the main photography venues along with upcoming events are noted below. Please comment with details of others.  

Events

• Photo London, London, May 2020, postponed until the early autumn
• Classic Photograph Fair, May 2020, postponed until the autumn
• Photographica 2020, London, May 2020, cancelled
• The Photography Show, Birmingham, NEC, March, postponed to the autumn
• Photokina, Cologne, May, cancelled, returns May 2022
• Sony World Photography exhibition, London, April, cancelled
• Birkbeck History and Theory of Photography Research Centre lectures, London, postponed
• Photoworks programmes, Brighton, postponed; Photoworks Festival 2020 later in the year still running

Symposia, exhibitions (see also venues below) and lectures

• Photography beyond the Image symposium, London, April 2020, postponed until the autumn
• Ways of Seeing: Women and Photography in Scotland symposium, Glasgow, April; 2020, postponed until 29 October
• Kraszna-Kraus lecture, 30 March, London, postponed until the autumn
• Another Eye exhibition, Four Corners Gallery, London, closed
• Conference: Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain 1930s-60s, London, postponed

Venues

• National Science+Media Museum, Bradford, closed until further notice
• National Portrait Gallery, London, closed until further notice
• British Library, London, all sites closed, events cancelled. Aim to maintain online services
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London, closed 
• The Photographers' Gallery, London, closed until at least 31 March
• Tate galleries, London, closed until at least 1 May
• Barbican Gallery and Centre, London, closed 
• Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, closed until further notice
• Royal Photographic Society, Bristol, gallery closed; all events cancelled until at least the end of April
• Imperial War Museum, London, closed until further notice
• Scottish National Portrait Gallery / National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, closed
• Autograph, London, closed until further notice
• Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock, closed from 20 March
• Stills Gallery, Edinburgh closed until further notice
• Side Gallery, Newcastle, closed until further notice
• Impressions Gallery, Bradford, closed for the foreseeable future
• Ffotogallery, Cardiff, closed until further notice
• National Museum Cardiff, Cardiff, closed and all events cancelled
• Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, closed from 18 March until further notice 
• Hamiltons Gallery, London, closed until further notice

Photographs are found in museums, libraries and archives all over the world and their care can present special challenges. This course is aimed at those responsible for their care. You will learn how to identify the common photographic processes, recognise potential conservation problems and solutions and prioritise care accordingly. The environmental, storage and wider preservation requirements of photographs will be covered, including how these might relate to digitisation projects. Examples of the common processes will be shown and discussed as part of the course. Samples of storage materials and enclosures will be given to participants. Handouts will be included.

The course is led by Susie Clark ACR ICON, an accredited and experienced photographic conservator. Susie has given many courses in a variety of regional and national institutions in many countries and is used to providing practical help and advice.

Courses are £147 each and take place at British Library.

Book online

Enquiries +44 (0)1243 818300

A while back I wrote a short biography of the British photographer Horace Roye most famous for his picture Tomorrow’s Crucifixion (1938) — a surreal image of a naked girl on a cross wearing a gas mask with clouds of smoke in the background. He was murdered in 2002 in Morocco aged 97.  Let me know what you think of the article.

https://pamela-green.com/horace-roye-a-short-biography/

As you all know, it has become more and more difficult to justify spending money on websites, especially for improving them, maintaining them and curating them from one server to another. The Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University is committed to bringing you research resources free of charge, as we have done since 2004.

In order to do this we need to find out how you use them so your feedback is needed! Have you looked up Talbot letters, searched a photographic exhibition, or used one of the other web research resources hosted at the PHRC?

Please take 3 minutes and answer just 6 questions in a survey. Your responses are anonymous.

If you would like to write at length about how you use your favourite website, please send an email to phrc@dmu.ac.uk.

Thank you for your time.

Kelley Wilder

Director, Photographic History Research Centre

A ‘collaborative space for the public to explore, engage and have conversations with museum staff’, the new Ideas Hub will house a series of objects representing all areas of the Museum’s collections. Once visitors have interacted with these exhibits, they will be encouraged to offer feedback on their preferred ways of learning about such items’ stories – both in terms of medium and tone.

“Ideas Hub will see us using our temporary gallery in a very different way to usual, alongside objects we’ll have staff from teams across the museum on gallery throughout the week, a collaboratively programmed workshops space and more opportunities than ever to feedback and start a conversation with the museum,” explained Alice Parsons, the Museum’s interpretation manager, “I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to hear from and talk with our visitors about our collections, our exhibitions and our place in the city of Bradford. I hope people will join us in this exciting process and have their say,” 

The Hub will be open between 26 March-10 June and is designed to shape the institution’s programming and interpretation in the coming months and years.

https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/ideas-hub-join-conversation

An exhibition on Scotland’s coasts featuring photographs and illustrations from Historic Environment Scotland's (HES) archives will go on display at the Shetland Museum and Archives until 17 May as part of the Year of Coasts and Waters.

The exhibition explores the Viking era, fishing and oil industries, 19th century seaside holiday makers, coastal castles, industrial heritage and lighthouses. The archives span pre-historic times to the modern day and gives visitors an insight into how important the coast has been to life in Scotland.

The exhibition features architect's drawings, Edwardian holiday snaps and unique images taken by HES's survey photographers.

The exhibition will open on Saturday 29 February at the Shetland Museum and Archives, running until Sunday 17 May and is free to enter.

Scotland's Coasts will tour the following sites throughout 2020 and 2021:

• Fort George: 25 May – 25 August 2020
• Arbroath Abbey: 31 August – 30 November 2020
• Aberdour Castle: 5 December 2020 – 28 February 2021
• Stanley Mills: 13 June – 30 August 2021

More information on HES’ Year of Coasts and Waters activity

In time for International Women's Day today - 8 March - Historic England has recognised the contribution of women photographers represented in the Historic England photography archive. Photographs include the earliest from 1864 by Miss E Scott (shown here) to the more recent architectural work of Margaret Harker.

See more: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/womens-history/women-photographers-in-historic-england-archive/  

The current issue of Source magazine (no. 100 / Winter 2019/20) reports on the most recent photography acquisitions and existing photography collections of the Arts Councils of Ireland, England and Northern Ireland. The Scottish Arts Council stopped collecting in 1996.

A tables summarises the top twenty photographers with the most held prints which is headed by John Benton-Harris (80), Chris Killip (62) and Keith Arnatt (57). 

The full article can be be read in Source magazine. See: www.source.ie    

Details of ACE acquisitions for 2018-19 can be seen here: https://www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk/new-work/new-acquisitions and the full collection can be browsed here: https://www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk/collection

The Arts Council Northern Ireland collection can be viewed here: http://www.artscouncil-ni.org/artwork/imu/

The Arts Council of Ireland collection can be seen here: http://artscouncil.emuseum.com/

Image: 

One of the earliest travel photographers in Asia, John Thomson (1837-1921), who travelled extensively across China, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, in the 1860s and early 1870s, is to be honoured with a commemorative plaque in the city of his birth.

Heritage Environment Scotland (HES) is to install a bronze heritage plaque to John Thomson, at his childhood home, 6 Brighton Street, Edinburgh. The Thomson family moved to live in a flat in this tenement building in 1841, when John was four years of age. John Thomson lived there until he left for Singapore in 1861. It is fitting that John Thomson is to be commemorated in this way in his home city at last – and a welcome accolade, celebrating the capital’s significant contribution to Scottish photographic history. The plaque has been supported by the house's current occupants and Edinburgh City Council which gave permission for its installation. 

Thomson photographed the people, landscapes and monuments across a large part of south east Asia, resulting in an important series of books describing the places he visited and his own experiences.

Historic Environment Scotland described John Thomson as a towering figure in 19th century photograph, acclaimed for his photography in China.  Betty Yao MBE commented: “John Thomson’s photographs provide a rich and lasting visual record of the Far East. They are loved, admired and appreciated by people of all ages and from diverse backgrounds.”

Terry Bennett commented: “John Thomson was a master of the art. The photos he took in the Far East set standards of excellence against which other practitioners are judged. He is particularly revered in China, where he is considered to be China’s most important nineteenth-century Western photographer. When he returned to the UK in 1872, after a ten-year tour of the East, his fame earned him the moniker of ‘China Thomson’.”

Deborah Ireland commented: “It is very fitting that the house where John Thomson lived in Edinburgh, whilst studying at the Watt Institute and School of Arts, is to be marked. He gained a life diploma there in 1858 which enabled him to attend Chemistry classes (today this institute is part of the Heriot-Watt University) and it was the knowledge he gained during this period which propelled him forth into the world to become the leading travel photographer of the Victorian age.”

Thomson was born in Edinburgh in 1837 and died in London in 1921. He is widely acclaimed as one of the best photographers of China of the period. On his return to London in 1872 he ran a successful portrait studio, gaining the royal warrant in 1881. He was a member of the Royal Photographic Society from 1879. Thomson also acted as the principal photography teacher for the Royal Geographical Society, training a new generation of travellers and explorers in photography. He was a member of the Royal Photographic Society from 1879.  

His most important publications were Illustrations of China and Its People (1873/4) and Street Life in London (with Adolphe Smith, 1877). John Thomson retired in 1910 and spent most of time in Edinburgh where he continued to write about photography. He died in London in 1921 and his grave was recently restored, 

It is hoped that a formal unveiling will be held later this year. 

A major collection of rare photobooks has been given to the Bodleian Libraries, building on the Libraries’ world-class collection of photographic works and books. The donation includes works from some of the most renowned photographers from the 20th century, including Man Ray and Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus.   

The collection of more than 2,300 printed photobooks published between 1887 and 2016 includes monographs, serials, exhibition catalogues, as well as artist and private press books. It features a huge variety of subjects and photographers, with particular strength in photobooks from France and Germany.

A collection of this size and breadth is particularly rare and its size makes this one of the largest donations to the Bodleian Libraries so far this century, and builds on its growing photographic resources; the Libraries already hold one of the earliest photobooks, The Pencil of Nature, produced by William Henry Fox Talbot between 1844-46.

A small selection of photobooks – by Brassai, Man Ray, Krull, and Cartier-Bresson – will feature in a one-day display in the Weston Library on 13 March 2020. See: http://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Photobooks are books designed to share the photographic work of individual photographers, groups, studios or collectives, sometimes with accompanying text, sometimes purely based on images. Images are often presented in a sequence to communicate a narrative, and innovative printing techniques are often used to reproduce the photographic image. Collaborations with writers and poets sometimes feature as part of the approach to making photobooks, but they could also reflect on the role of photography in advertising, propaganda, industry and public life. Many titles are produced in very small editions and are therefore very rare. Photobooks are vulnerable to light and damage caused by handling so photobooks in good condition are highly collectable.

The photobooks were given to the Bodleian Libraries by Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey through the generosity of the Arts Council England’s Cultural Gifts Scheme. Chadwyck-Healey, founder of both the Chadwyck-Healey publishing group and Environmental Risk Information and Imaging Services, is also an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian said, “The Chadwyck-Healey collection of photobooks is a major acquisition for the Bodleian, immeasurably enriching our holdings through adding highly significant materials from European, Russian, Japanese and American photographers. This collection has great strengths including French Surrealist and avant-garde photography, the scarce work of the Russian constructivists, and the major American photographic movements. Photography is an area of growing scholarly importance, and it is vital that a great research library like the Bodleian is able to document in depth this crucial means of communicating visual ideas in the modern world.”

The photobooks donated to the Bodleian Libraries include:

• Man Ray Photographies 1920-1934 (1934) – An extremely rare modernist/surrealist photobook, spiral-bound with text in French and English. Man Ray’s first monograph, it begins with a portrait drawing of Man Ray by Pablo Picasso and consists of 104 photographs of still lifes, rooms, landscapes, cityscapes, and flowers.
• Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment (1952), considered one of the most influential photobooks of all time. Both the US and French edition (Images à la Sauvette) are included in the collection, both with presentation inscriptions from the photographer, and in the famous dust wrapper designed by Matisse.
• Robert Capa’s Slightly out of Focus (1947), which features iconic images of the D-Day landings at Normandy, taken by the Hungarian-born photojournalist and co-founder of the famous Magnum photographic agency.
• Paris vu par André Kertész (Day of Paris) (1945) which features a superb collection of photographs of everyday life in Paris. Kertész was considered a key figure in photojournalism and Day of Paris is his most sought-after title. 
• Bill Brandt’s The English at Home (1936), a hugely influential collection of 63 photographs capturing domestic life in challenging juxtapositions, revealing class inequality of the time. 
• Brassai, Paris de nuit (1933), a collaboration between the Hungarian photographer Brassai and the French writer Paul Morand, this is one of the first books of photographs taken at night. The images, with their iconic design (full-bleed images), revolutionised the way photo-books looked. One of very few copies in UK libraries.
• Metal (1928) by photojournalist Germaine Krull, a contemporary of Man Ray, features a series of 64 collotypes depicting industrial structures and one of the pioneering works of modernist photography. This is one of the few copies available in public collections in the UK.
• Other photobooks by Diane Arbus, Philippe Halsman, Edward Weston, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Robert Frank and August Sander.

Over 600 of the photobooks in the collection have been catalogued already and are available for library readers to access in http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.  The remaining photobooks will be catalogued over the next year for completion in March 2021. 

Due to popular demand, the hugely successful Oscar Marzaroli retrospective at Street Level Photoworks has been extended until Sunday 5th April.

For more information visit: http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/oscar-marzaroli

BPH reported earlier this year that James and Claire Hyman had donated 100 examples of British photography to the Bodleian libraries.  The Financial Times carried a piece by the writer William Boyd which muses on the the writer's own connection to Wolfgang Suschitzky, the Hyman donation and the nature of British photography. 

Read the piece here: https://www.ft.com/content/4bd1265a-52ab-11ea-90ad-25e377c0ee1f

The Hyman Collection can be explored through the digital Bodleian here.

Inspired by the British Library exhibition, Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights this weekend course will introduce work by women photographers who have challenged the boundaries of representation. There is a long practice within feminist photography to investigate performing identities, misbehaving bodies and extended bodies. Photographers including Jo Spence, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, Zanele Muholi and Khadija Saye have each explored the constructions of complex identities, using the photographic image as a stage, a site for rehearsal and as a platform to resist, or to return, the gaze.

Through a series of creative photographic activities and access to a pop-up studio, participants will have the opportunity to develop a body of work. We will explore conceptual, as well as aesthetic and technical aspects of portraiture and self-portraiture through themes relating to identity, self-determination, community and solidarity.

The course is led by photographer and academic Dr Julia Winckler.

See more here: 

Portrait Photography Masterclass
British Library, London
Weekend course, Sat 9 May 2020, 10:30 - Sun 10 May 2020, 17:00

Image: 'Vicky'(from Two Sisters series) by Dr Julia Winckler Two Sisters is a multi-layered exploration of the lives of Dr Julia Winckler’s great-aunt Martha and grandmother Vicky. Winckler rediscovers and recreates for a wider audience the very different experiences of personal lives affected by WWII and the sisters' resilience and eventual self-determination.

John Baines Tours is promoting a tour following in the footsteps of John Thompson who explored China in the 1860s. It takes in Canton (Guanzhou) and goes up the coast to Beijing. It visits the places he visited and seeks out the sights he photographed that remain to this day. You will travel through the streets of Shanghai and Beijing with local historic societies, learning about the society and history of Beijing and Shanghai in the period that Thompson was there.

This tour is lead by the accomplished photographic historian, Deborah Ireland, who has lectured widely on Thompson and written about Isabella Bird's travels in China.

Find out more here: https://www.jonbainestours.co.uk/tours/cultural/in-the-footsteps-of-john-thompson-in-china

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship on historical photographs, Indigenous knowledge and heritage in Guyana at Royal Holloway University of London, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and Kew Gardens. This award is made by the Science Museums & Archives Consortium under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme. The project, due to begin in September 2020, will be supervised by Prof Jay Mistry and Prof Felix Driver at Royal Holloway and Dr Catherine Souch at the RGS-IBG, with further support from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

This project aims to reconnect historical photographs documenting Indigenous peoples and practices to contemporary initiatives concerning Indigenous knowledge and heritage development. Working in the Rupununi region of Guyana, the project will explore the use of significant photographic archives as a resource to enrich the understanding of Indigenous knowledge and practices, Indigenous heritage, identity and rights in contemporary Guyana. It will link work on Indigenous knowledge and memory with collections-based research, using methods of visual elicitation and digital repatriation in collaboration with the relevant Indigenous communities. The project combines (a) archival research in UK collections with (b) field-based photo-elicitation in the Rupununi. A participatory action research framework will allow research questions to be refined and addressed with participants in an iterative way to produce tangible benefits. The student will be encouraged to use participatory video as a way of creating new interpretative narratives. The possibility of a small-scale exhibition will also be considered in order to engage with wider audiences in Guyana.

Rupununi re-collections: historical photographs, Indigenous knowledge and heritage in Guyana
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, with Royal Geographical Society & Kew Gardens

A full project description is available here

Further information on eligibility, funds and how to apply is available here  

The application deadline is 31 March 2020

Interviews will be held at the RGS-IBG, provisionally on 16 April 2020.

Further Information

Details of the project and how to apply:

https://royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/geography/news/gg_ahrc-phd-studentship_2020/

PhD research in Geography at Royal Holloway:

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/geography/studying-here/postgraduate/

RGS-IBG collaborative doctoral research:

https://www.rgs.org/about/our-collections/collaborative-research-on-the-collections/

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships:

https://www.ahrc-cdp.org/

The inaugural Kraszna-Krausz Lecture will be given by internationally renowned writer, public speaker and curator David Campany. Titled Photography and Cinema, from A to Z, the lecture will take the form of twenty-six short reflections on still and moving images. It will consider the relations between Photography and Cinema: stillness and movement, cinema's changing attitude to the depiction of photographers on screen, the freeze frame and the art of the film publicity still.

The lecture series, newly established by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation, will provide a platform and space for fresh voices and perspectives on photography and the moving image.

Presented in partnership with the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre, the lecture will take place on Monday 30 March 2020 at Birkbeck’s Clore Lecture Theatre, in central London.

The lecture is free to attend but spaces are limited. Tickets must be booked: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=11229

Kraszna-Krausz Lecture 2020: 'Photography and Cinema, from A to Z' presented by David Campany

Monday 30 March 2020
Registration from 1800, lecture at 1830. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception
Clore Lecture Theatre (CLO B01), Birkbeck, University of London,
Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London, WC1E 7JL

Image: © Chris Marker, frame from La Jetée, 1962 courtesy Argos Films

A notable collection spanning photography's first 100 years will be auctioned by PBA Galleries in Berkeley, California on Thursday, March 5, 2020, commencing at 11 a.m. Pacific Standard Time..

The collection was amassed by Dr. Robert Enteen while living in Paris and other major European cities.  It includes an estimated 10,000 photographs, photo-books, and ephemera.

The earliest items date from 1839, the dawn of photography, to 1939, spanning the medium’s first century.  Photography originated in France and England, but the technology spread quickly throughout the globe.  The collection includes original works by numerous luminaries, including:  Fox Talbot, Charles Negré, Charles Marville, Edouard Baldus, Matthew Brady, Timothy O´Sullivan, William Henry Jackson, Eadweard Muybridge, Edward Curtis, Félix Nadar, Félix Bonfils, Francis Frith, Fratelli Alinari, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Eugene Atget, Man Ray, André Kertesz, Kimbei Kusakabe, Lewis Hine, Karl Blossfeldt, and others.

The Journal of the French Academy of Sciences announced the new medium in 1839.  This announcement is among the many high points in the collection, which also includes paper negatives; one of only four known examples of the earliest paper photograph of Charles Darwin (1854); an album of over 100 photographs of a tsarist estate in Russia c. 1895; an extremely rare first edition, first issue of Man Ray´s first book of photos; and the only known complete set of Yellowstone Albertypes taken by William Henry Jackson, which influenced the US Congress to designate Yellowstone the first national park in the world.

According to the collection´s owner, Robert Enteen, “The photographs in this museum-quality collection are notable not only because there are many exquisite images, but also because they have historical significance.  One can see transitions in photographic technology, materials, and styles, as well as the medium’s enormous influence in medicine and science, the arts, politics, education, travel and ethnology, history, architecture, religion, and other fields of human endeavor.

Dr. Enteen, originally from NewYork City, has been collecting antiques, rare books and prints for over 50 years.  His photography collection began at a flea market in Paris in 2013, when he acquired a large group of early photographs by Adolphe Braun.  Subsequently, he added to his growing collection in Italy, Spain, Germany, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.  He has intensively studied the field of early photography, which helped him curate this comprehensive collection.

Bruce MacMakin, Executive Vice President of PBA Galleries,  notes that, “The Enteen Collection is among the largest private collections of early photography ever placed in auction.  It includes European, American, Asian and African works by most of the great photographers.  In my experience, it comes closest to an American version of Sotheby’s celebrated Paris auction of the Thérèse and André Jammes collection.”

PBA Galleries, which has been a leading San Francisco auctioneer and appraiser, has been in business for over 60 years.  They are currently located in Berkeley, CA.  The auction catalogue can be viewed at:

https://www.pbagalleries.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/513/

The photographer Martin Parr and actor Michael Sheen will be discussing Martin’s work and his long-standing relationship to Wales, which is reflected in his current exhibition, Martin Parr in Wales, on display at National Museum Cardiff until 4 May 2020.  

To book a ticket: https://museum.wales/cardiff/whatson/10999/In-Conversation-Martin-Parr-and-Michael-Sheen/

Image: 
Snowdonia, Wales, 1989
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos / Rocket Gallery