Blogs

Roddy Simpson, photographer and University of Glasgow honorary research fellow in the school of culture and creative arts has published a blog on Elizabeth Johnston Hall (1822-1901). Hall was one of the most famous photographed Scottish women because of the image of her produced in the mid-1840s by the pioneering Scottish partnership of David Octavius Hill (1802-70) and Robert Adamson. 

Read the full blog here: https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/early-photography-elizabeth-johnston-hall-1822-1901/

Image: Elizabeth Johnston Hall by Hill and Adamson. Carbon print by Jessie Bertram 1916. University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections Dougan Add. 40

Those of us with an interest in British cameras will know the Ensign Multex as an interesting and collectable camera from the late 1930s.  It is unusual in being a 14 on 127 camera with a coupled rangefinder focussing down to 21 inches.  

Launched in 1936 as “The British Precision Miniature Camera” it moved quickly through 3 variants (Model I, Model II and Model 0 in that order) in less than 3 years and then disappeared.

I am in the middle of a project to try to understand the development of this intriguing camera across its variants and I would appreciate any help readers can give me.  My aim is to report back via a comprehensive article in Photographica World later this year.

There are two ways in which you may be able to help me.  If you own a Multex, I have produced a survey document to help me to gather data on the production run.  I can send this to you by email.  Secondly, I would appreciate details or copies of any adverts or publicity material you may have access to which refers explicitly to the Multex Model 0.  This appears to be the most common model amongst collectors, but I have not found any advertising which mentions it.

You will learn how to create exquisite, unique handmade prints on art paper. Make photograms from leaves & objects and/or images using your own photos. Book now so we can create your negs in time for the class. There will also be the opportunity to try toning, to create a wonderful range of different looks!

Darkroom workshops are led by Catriona Gray and are in small groups to maximise the learning experience.

All materials included. Cost £60

Darkroom London, Unit 10, Burmarsh Workshops, 71 Marsden Street, London, NW5 3JA

See more and book here: https://www.darkroomlondon.org/alternative-processes-cyanotypes/van-dyke-brown/polaroid-lift/lumen-prints/

The Royal Collection Trust has a number of upcoming events related to the exhibition Shadows of War: Roger Fenton’s Photographs of the Crimea, 1855 at the Queen's Gallery, London:  

Creative course: Photography in Focus

Saturday, 9 – Sunday, 10 February, 10:00 – 17:00, £175

Enhance your photography skills on this two-day course led by award-winning British Army photographer Rupert Frere. Learn the theory behind taking a good photograph using Fenton's and Frere's own photographs as inspiration, before taking your new-found skills out into the heart of London under the supervision of your tutor. This course will improve your confidence, creativity, composition and help you find your photographic voice.

Book here: https://www.rct.uk/whatson/event/912681/Creative-course:-Photography-in-focus

Lecture: Roger Fenton: The First War Photographer

Wednesday, 20 March, 13:00–14:00, free with an exhibition ticket

Join Sophie Gordon, Head of Photographs, as she discusses Roger Fenton's photographs of the Crimean War, taken in 1855. The lecture will look at the commercial motivations behind Fenton's work and the public display of the photographs across Britain in 1855–6. It will also highlight the emotional content of this pioneering photography by comparing his images with the work of other Crimean War photographers.

Book here: https://www.rct.uk/whatson/event/912693/Roger-Fenton:-First-war-photographer

and at Windsor Castle:

Evening lecture: Crown and Camera: A Victorian Passion for Photography

Wednesday, 13 March, 18:30 – 20:00, £15

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were fascinated by photography from a very early date. Catlin Langford, Assistant Curator at Royal Collection Trust, considers the wide range of photography they commissioned and collected that provides us with a unique glimpse into their passions, beliefs and private family life.

https://www.rct.uk/whatson/event/912396/Crown-and-camera:-A-Victorian-passion-for-photography

Images: top: © Rupert Frere; middle and lower: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019.

Philip Banham collection of optical toys, optical prints, and stereoscopy including the Great Exhibition 1851 auction takes place at Bearnes, Hampton and Littlewood in Exeter on 6 March. In addition to the areas covered in the title the 236 lot sale also includes photographs, albums, persistence of vision devices and related equipment and images. 

The auction has over 200 lots and includes some rare and unique pieces such as a rare stereoscopic daguerreotype of the visit of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Crystal palace (shown left), Sydenham, 20th April 1855.   As well as rare pieces like this there are a number of good examples of stereoscopes, stereo cards and optical toys and prints that have been collected over a fifty year period. 

For more information please contact Brian Goodison-Blanks 01392 413100 bgb@bhandl.co.uk

The online catalogue is now live here: https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/bearneshamptonandlittlewood/catalogue-id-bearne10071

The archive of British photographer Daniel Meadows was acquired by the Bodleian Library in March 2018. It had been at the Library of Birmingham from 2014-2018. Northern Narratives, working in partnership with Daniel Meadows and The Bodleian Library, is developing an exhibition drawn from Meadows' substantial archive which will tour to a number of international galleries throughout 2020-21. Dates and venues will be announced in Autumn 2019. The exhibition will be supported by a new book published by the library. 

Meadows' archive was assembled over nearly five decades.  It contains his life's work — all the negatives and contact sheets associated with his photo-documentary work also a great many contextualising documents including posters, magazines, books, receipts, newsletters, notebooks, diaries, audio tapes, digital stories, his PhD document and research material, and much correspondence besides. It is housed in the Bodleian's Weston Library and at the time of writing accessioning is currently underway with its catalogue being mapped onto the Bodleian's own so that, from 2019, it can be made available online. 

See: https://www.photobus.co.uk/the-archive/#LoB

https://www.northernnarratives.org/

https://www.bjp-online.com/2014/08/daniel-meadows-at-the-library-of-birmingham/

At a special event on 31 January 2019 Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s librarian, marked the conclusion of a six-year project to produce the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné Project which commenced in earnest in 2016. The project has transferred the records of the world’s leading Talbot scholar Professor Larry J Schaaf on to a searchable, illustrated, database. It has set a model for future online catalogues raisonné.  At the time of writing it features some 18,177 records, plus a supporting blog and contextual texts.  

The conclusion was marked by two lectures and a panel discussion from Dr Kelley Wilder of De Montfort University and Malcolm Daniel of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.  Hans P Kraus Jr paid tribute to, and spoke on behalf of, Schaaf who was unable to attend the event.

Ovenden similarly paid fulsome tribute to Schaaf without whom the project would have not been realised and noted that, although the funding for it had ended, Schaaf had agreed to continue to support and enhance the data records. He also highlighted the fact that ‘photography is now at the heart of Bodleian Library’. The library acquired the Talbot archive from Lacock Abbey and has been actively developing its photography holdings. 

The archive of British photographer Daniel Meadows was transferred from Library of Birmingham to the Bodleian Library in March 2018. Northern Narratives, working in partnership with Daniel Meadows and The Bodleian Library, is developing an exhibition drawn from Meadows' substantial archive which will tour to a number of international galleries throughout 2020/21. Dates and venues will be announced in Autumn 2019.

See:  https://talbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

For many years I've been trying to identify the group of men in this stereograph.  The original carries no information. Three of them are holding stereoscopes which suggests a meeting.  I believe the man on the left is Roger Fenton and next to him looks like Frederick Scott Archer.  If this is the case this could well be a meeting of members of the Photographic Society of London in the mid 1850s. 

While it is easy to provide names of members from that time frame, the problem is attaching faces to names.  I'm hoping that perhaps somewhere there is an identified version of this group, or lacking that, that perhaps someone will recognize any of the gentleman. 

Any help or insight will be welcome.  Thank you -- Paula Richardson Fleming

Phil Nichols and Robin Ansell the authors of the recent book Secure the Shadow: Somerset Photographers 1839-1939 will be speaking at the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution, Queen Square, Bath, BA1 2HN on 25 March, on behalf of the Bath & Avon Family History Society. The talk is open to everyone. 

See more here: https://www.bafhs.org.uk/events/calendar-view/eventdetail/298/-/bath-group-meeting

Details of Secure the Shadow can be found here. 

‘Odd,’ wrote Roland Barthes in his renowned 1980 study of photography, ‘that no one has thought of the disturbance (to civilisation) which this new action causes.'

Recent years have duly witnessed an explosion of scholarship considering the social and psychological impact of taking photographs. This course draws on recent approaches to explore the wide-ranging changes in perception brought about by the technology since its invention in 1839. How has photography shaped the aesthetic sensibilities and ethical sensitivities of the modern world?

Through a series of discrete but related talks by experts in the field, this programme considers how the camera has informed our understanding of art, politics, nature and the self.

The programme is: 

21 February - ‘Introduction to Series:  What Is Photography?’

Dr Sean Willcock, Birkbeck, University of London. 

28 February - ‘Portraiture, the Album and the Self’

Dr Patrizia Di Bello, Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck University of London.

7 March - ‘Making an Art of Photography’

Dr Juliet Hacking, Program Director, Sotheby’s Institute of Art. 

14 March - ‘Reframing Fields of Vision: From “Pencil of Nature” to Environmental Futures’

Prof Liz Wells, Plymouth University. 

21 March - ‘War Photography: The Pleasure of Ruins’

Simon Norfolk, award-winning freelance photographer whose work has featured in many leading publications and galleries around the world.

Enrolment for the course is now open. To see the syllabus for the course or to book click here.

Photography and its histories
21 February to 21 March 2019
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Every Thursday for five weeks. 
Open to all and free to attend, but enrolment is required. 
London: Paul Mellon Centre

As The Photographers' Gallery approaches its fiftieth anniversary in 2021 it is seeking an archivist. The Gallery is the UK’s leading centre for the presentation and exploration of photography in all its forms and a dedicated home for an international photographic community. Established in London in 1971, the Gallery has been instrumental in reflecting photography’s pivotal role in culture and society and championing its position as a leading art form through a rich programme of exhibitions, talks, events, workshops, courses and other activities.

The principal job objective of the Archivist is to oversee the acquisitions, management, preservation and dissemination of the collections within The Photographers’ Gallery’s Archive. Core duties will include:

• Appraising, prioritising and safeguarding material for preservation and retention;
• Cataloguing and digitising The Photographers’ Gallery’s collections;
• Overseeing and maintaining the Archive’s database system;
• Setting/adhering to, and regularly updating, policy guidelines concerning the Archive (preservation, cataloguing, digitization and public access);
• Supporting funding bids for the Archive and activities related to it;
• Line managing the Archive Assistant, ensuring that their work contributes to a wider framework;
• Overseeing copyright clearance for identified material.

The ideal candidate will be someone with knowledge and experience of 21st century archiving practice within a visual arts organisation. The post holder will be diligent, resilient, flexible, proactive and a good problem solver with a keen eye for detail. Among other criteria, they will have 3 or more years' experience in an equivalent post, a strong commitment to digital preservation and a passion for photography and the visual arts.

Please apply by reading the full job description and using the application form on our website: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/about-us/jobs

The Val Williams Archive is to become part of the collection at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol. The archive consists of papers, letters, audiotapes, video, manuscripts, published material, invitations, posters, press cuttings and research materials documenting the work of one of the UK’s most important curators and writers on photography. 

The material spans Williams’ entire career from the early years of Impressions Gallery, through to more recent exhibition projects and books including The Other Observers (1986), Who's Looking at the Family (1994), How We Are (2007) and a full archive of Val's writing about photography in publications such as Creative Camera, the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent and many other publications. 

Highlights of the archive include a collection of letters from Martin Parr, many written while he was working and living in Ireland at the end of the 1970s, the handmade dummy book for Daniel Meadows’ National Portraits, the original manuscript for The Other Observers: Women’s Photography in Britain, published by Virago in 1986, the exhibition files made by Val Williams and Susan Bright for How We Are at Tate Britain (2007) and the vintage projection slides for Plastic Metropolis, the outdoor projection for the 1998 Shoreditch Biennale, featuring the work of Derek Ridgers, Hannah Starkey, Nick Knight and many others.

Preserved by Val Williams over the last 40 years, and also including important sets of magazines, including Picture Post, i-D and The Face, the archive represents a unique record of one of the most important periods in British photographic history. It was previously held at the Library of Birmingham. 

The archive was explored in the recent film Storage, made by Wendy Short, Belinda May and Hannah Blackmore, to coincide with Val Williams’ Professorial Platform in 2011. 

Almost 200 boxes of archived material have been transferred to the Martin Parr Foundation, which opened in 2018, and which includes extensive holdings of books and photographic works of British photography. The archive will be accessible to researchers later in 2019. 

Val Williams said: "I am delighted that my archive will now be part of the Martin Parr Foundation and that it will form a new resource for the study and interpretation of photography and cultural networks from the early 1970s. The Foundation is preserving and disseminating the history and heritage of British Photography as well as supporting contemporary photographers. I have worked with Martin Parr throughout my career, and am very impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of Martin and the team at the MPF."

Martin Parr commented: "I am delighted to welcome the Val Williams Archive into the collection of the Martin Parr Foundation. Val is one of the most esteemed British photography curators, with a long and illustrious career.  But also for me, we have intertwined career trajectories from early days at the Impressions Gallery in the 1970s, when Val offered me (and colleague Daniel Meadows) our first shows, during our college days, then a few years later, staged the 'Home Sweet Home' exhibition. Val also edited and wrote my retrospective book, published by Phaidon (in 2002, revised 2012) to accompany my show at the Barbican Gallery, which Val also curated."  

https://www.martinparrfoundation.org

www.valwilliams.uk

Roger Fenton’s (shown right) letters home from the Crimea in May 1855 indicated that he was taking stereoscopic pictures of the ruins of Inkerman, the valley at Inkerman and the battlefield of Balaklava. However, these views have never come to light.

It has been suggested by Roger Taylor and Denis Pellerin that they were taken for Wheatstone’s reflecting stereoscope (which by 1855 had been almost totally superseded by the most portable Brewter-type instrument) and that later the various halves may have been mistaken for two copies of the same print and dissociated.

A search in various collections for Roger Fenton’s images taken at Inkerman and the heights above the Plains of Balaklava has now revealed the existence of images that appear to be stereoscopic pairs. To date, two of these stereoscopic pairs have been found for Fenton’s landscapes: The Plains of Balaklava IV and The Quarries and the Aqueduct at the Head of the Harbour. Other possible pairs are still being assessed. This discovery seems to have solved the mystery surrounding Fenton’s lost stereoscopic images.

The two pairs of stereoscopic pictures are shown as anaglyphs (red/cyan) courtesy of Denis Pellerin. 

The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford (NSMM) houses a 3-screen cinema operation including Europe's first IMAX. The NSMM Pictureville cinema (300 seats) and Cubby Broccoli cinema (100 seats) screen the best of independent cinema with selected mainstream titles and a Screen Arts programme. IMAX (218 seats) screens the best feature titles available in IMAX format and a regular programme of shorter educational IMAX films for families and pre-booked groups.

As of 31st October 2019, the Museum's cinema operation will transfer from Picturehouse Cinemas to the Science Museum Group, to be managed in-house.  To support our growth and vision, we are looking for a Project Manager to oversee this transfer on a fixed term contract until 31st December 2019.

Using your experience and a collaborative approach, you will work closely with the Project Steering Group and wider teams across Picturehouse, National Science and Media Museum and Science Museum Group, to ensure an efficient transfer of operations within the defined timescales.

Joining us, you will have enthusiasm for our vision and a passion for film. Bringing experience and an understanding of how projects are successfully planned and delivered, you will be able to drive decisions, manage budgets and proactively identify and mitigate project risks.

You will be offered excellent benefits, including 25 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays, a contributory pension scheme, BUPA medical and dental care, an annual season ticket loan and numerous staff discounts whilst developing your career in a world class museum group.

See more here.

A little modern than most posts but quite unusual images worth seeing and a good story of what can be done with an archive of almost 60 year old fascinating images. A Kickstarter project for a book based on the archive photographs of the Rough Stuff Fellowship - the worlds oldest off road cycling club. I usually see their stall at the cycling rally in York, and their back issues of their magazine have proved interesting reading.

Nice to see them having instant Kickstarter success to publish the images in a book.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/688905218/the-rough-stuff-fellowship-archive-book?ref=project_email

The Pitt Rivers Museum has been awarded £70,500 in the latest round of DCMS/Wolfson funding awards, aimed at helping museums increase access to their collections.

This award will fund Engaging the Senses: Activating the Pitt Rivers Museum’s Photograph and Sound Collections through digital audio-visual technology. This project will improve visitors’ engagement and introduce elements of digital exploration and learning in the galleries for a variety of audiences. A digital interactive table top, listening station and interactive screen will display unique photographs and sound collections, improving the visitor experience for visitors with disabilities, local communities and the wider public.

In 2018 the Pitt Rivers Museum welcomed a record 502,000 visitors. These new audio-visual elements will allow the growing number of visitors to not only see the objects that are on display but also search the Museum’s digital collections, hear unique historical field recordings, and view film footage and photographs from around the world.

Welcoming news of the award, Dr. Laura Van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum,said: ‘We are very grateful to DCMS/Wolfson for this opportunity to allow our visitors to access the full breadth and depth of the collections, now also giving access to unique sound recordings, photography and film. The project will allow us to show many more fascinating historical and cultural facets of the collection.’

The Pitt Rivers Museum has just recently launched a new website with a wealth of information to enhance the visitor experience but also wants to bring new material into the Victorian age space of the Museum itself. The challenge of Engaging the Senses will be to sensitively show and share the unique material in the photo, film and sound collections without distracting from the objects on display.

Curator of Photograph Collections, Dr Chris Morton said: ‘This very welcome funding will bring collections such as the fabulous travel photographs of Sir Wilfred Thesiger, author of ‘Arabian Sands’ and ‘The Marsh Arabs, into the galleries for all our visitors to explore and enjoy, as well as the incredible collection of sound recordings of polyphonic singing made by Louis Sarno among the Bayaka of Central Africa. There is currently very little opportunity to show these collections to our visitors among the Museum’s dense displays, but the sensitive use of digital interactive technology in the historic museum space will allow us to enhance the visitor experience considerably.’

The DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund supports national and regional museums across England to improve the quality of displays, enhance exhibition spaces and public access, and increase awareness of their collections.

https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/

Make exquisite rich brown images using this 19th century print technique.  Led by local photographic artist Catriona Gray who specialises in alternative processes, this short, three-hour workshop, will show you all you need to make your own exquisite and unique Van Dyke Brown prints.

You will learn how to coat your own photographic paper, and expose it to light using the photogram technique of placing objects directly onto the paper. There will also be the opportunity to make a photographic print from a digital negative (if you want to do this, please email your image in plenty of time before the workshop).

We encourage you to bring your own objects, leaves, flowers etc. along to the workshop, to make the images truly personal.

See more here.

Courses take place on 27 January, 21 February and 27 March, book here.

Edinburgh auction house Lyon and Turnbull is offering a group of photogenic drawings dating from May 1839 in its forthcoming auction of books and photography. The group are believed to have been made by William Thomas Salvin of Croxdale Hall, County Durham. They are estimated at £2000-3000. 

The catalogue description is below: 

[COUNTY DURHAM] PHOTOGENIC DRAWINGS, BY WILLIAM THOMAS SALVIN (1767-1842) OR WILLIAM THOMAS SALVIN (B. 1808)  OF CROXDALE HALL, COUNTY DURHAM 

3 of feathers, c. 108 X 174mm., annotated on verso, "Magpie feathers May 1839 W. Salvin" and "W. Salvin, May 15, 1839"; 4 of plants, from 75 x 105mm. to 175 x 105mm., annotated on versos in pencil "April 1839, W. Salvin", "May 1839. W. Salvin" (x 2) "[?] from High [-]oile, Salvin, 1829", one of the armorial bookplate of W.T Salvin Esq., annotated "May 16th 1839, W. Salvin", & 3 totally faded; all somewhat faded, one creased
Note: These must be amongst the earliest "photogenic drawings" produced in Co. Durham. First conceived in England by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1834, photogenic drawing is the first photographic process capable of producing negative images on paper. The inventor did not publicize his experiments until the Daguerreotype was introduced in January 1839. The first photogenic drawings were produced of flat objects (plants, fabrics, drawings or manuscripts, etc.), being placed directly on light sensitive paper, following the principle of a photogram. Talbot had presented his discoveries of photogenic drawing to the Royal Society in January and February 1839, and it is therefore likely that William Thomas Salvin (1767-1842) or his son, also William Thomas Salvin (b. 1808) was present at Talbot's Royal Society lecture and was inspired by it to make some of his own photogenic drawings in May 1839.

See more here.

Alexander Lamont Henderson (1838-1907) was a photographer who was distinguished for his services by Queen Victoria of Britain and a member of the Royal Photographic Society. The information related to his life and work is poor as his "royal" images were destroyed after the death of Queen Victoria and his "commercial" work which was donated to the library of the London Guildhall Museum in 1907 was destroyed in 1940's bombing. A set of what he himself called "Holiday snaps" could possibly be the only part of his work that is saved nowadays. It consists of photographs taken between 1884 and 1906 during his trips in Mediterranean countries.

In 1884, Queen Victoria awarded him with a Royal Warrant. This permitted him to depict moments from the everyday life of the royal family and was also responsible for printing portraits of members of the British royal court on porcelain plaques destined to be mounted on jewellery.

After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Henderson retired. It was then that he made a series of photographic tours in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, and Australia. Upon his return to London, he turned the negatives produced on his trips into lantern slides and presented a series of these pictures during special projection events called ‘Lantern Lectures’ on the occasion of the annual exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society in London.

What makes his Greece body of work so special is that his camera did not follow the iconographic stereotypes of the time and disregarded the systematic recording of ancient monuments.

In addition to panoramic views of Athens, showing newly built neoclassical mansions, Henderson recorded snapshots of the social and everyday life of the city with images of street vendors being particularly prominent.

The views from the royal palaces of Athens and Tatoi are of particular interest, as they record for the first time their original interior decoration. Furthermore, the photographs from the halls of the National Archaeological Museum and from the first permanent exhibition of the National Historical Museum in the main building of the National Technical University of Athens provide important information on museum displays of the time. Leaving the confines of the city of Athens, Henderson toured Faliro and the port of Piraeus, where he captured unique snapshots of vibrant everyday life. His Greek tour concluded with a short visit to Chania and Patras.

In spite of their limited number, his photographs distinguished themselves by the variety of their subject matter, their defined composition and their outstanding chemical treatment; they clearly demonstrate the work of an excellent professional photographer rather than that of a tourist finding himself equipped with a camera in early 20th century Greece. In total, they constitute a valuable treasure from which unique information about the history and the physiognomy of our country can be drawn.

Henderson died in 1907 and his photographic work was donated to the London Guildhall Museum, which unfortunately was destroyed during the Second World War when the German Air Force bombed London causing major damage. A small portion of Henderson’s work, indicated as ‘Holiday Snaps’, was discovered in the family house and was preserved by the photographer’s son-in-law, William Henderson Gray. This set, probably the only body of Henderson’s work that survived the Blitz, included about 4,000 subjects, produced mostly during the trips he made in the latter years of his life. Among them were the 86 glass lantern slides held today in the Photographic Archives of the Benaki Museum. For the exhibition, the material was processed and part of it was digitally printed.

Guided tours to the exhibition will be carried out by the exhibition curator Aliki Tsirgialou who will attempt to trace Alexander Lamont Henderson’s travels in Greece.

For more information go to @TheBenakiMuseum on Instagram or search #HendersonHolidaySnapsBM

See more here: https://www.benaki.gr/index.php?option=com_events&view=event&id=5752&Itemid=559&lang=en 

#HendersonHolidaySnapsBM

Opening on 30 January, 2019 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey presents masterpieces of early 19th-century photography by one of its unsung pioneers. A trailblazer of the newly invented daguerreotype process, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804–1892) travelled throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from 1842 to 1845, producing more than one thousand daguerreotypes - the largest known extant group from this period and the earliest surviving photographs of Greece, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Jerusalem, and among the first depicting Italy.

Featuring approximately 120 of his daguerreotypes, supplemented by examples of his graphic work—watercolors, paintings, and his lithographically illustrated publications—the exhibition will be the first in the United States devoted to Girault, and the first to focus on his Mediterranean journey. Many of the sites depicted have been permanently altered by urban planning, climate change, or conflict.

The exhibition is made possible by the Arête Foundation/Betsy and Ed Cohen.

Additional support is provided by Jennifer S. and Philip F. Maritz and the Alfred Stieglitz Society.

It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Daguerreotypists in the early 1840s faced enormous technical challenges, especially in the desert, so daguerreotypes from these years are exceedingly rare. No other photographer of the period embarked on such a long excursion and successfully made a quantity of plates anywhere near Girault’s production of more than a thousand daguerreotypes. The resulting photographic campaign remains an unparalleled feat in its appearance, scope, scale, and ambition. Using an oversize, custom-made camera, he exposed more than one image on a single plate to create at least six different formats, including unexpected horizontal panoramas and narrow vertical compositions.

The fact that a collection of this size survived at all is extraordinary and attests to the achievement of an unheralded innovator working with unprecedented technology. The survival of this monumental and exemplary collection is also a result of Girault’s meticulous archival process—precocious at the time, even if today it seems commonplace. The artist stored his daguerreotypes in custom-built wood boxes; in addition, he carefully sorted, labeled, and dated the images so that he could retrieve them for future use, occasionally recording when he utilized them, for example, as the basis for a painting or published print. He also had them inventoried several times during his lifetime. In essence, he created the world’s oldest photographic archive.

“The exhibition reveals Girault as the originator of a thoroughly modern conception of photography, by which visual memories can be stored, retrieved, reassembled, and displayed,” stated Stephen C. Pinson, Curator, Department of Photographs. “At the same time, it is perhaps more important than ever to recognize that Girault was himself the product of a complex network of political, social, and historical forces that had far-reaching impact on the West’s relationship with the world he photographed.”

The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to experience these rarely seen works, as Girault never exhibited his daguerreotypes and died without direct heirs in 1892. In 1920, a distant relative, Charles de Simony, purchased Girault’s estate outside Langres, France, and discovered the photographs—labeled and carefully stored in their original wood boxes—in a storeroom of his  dilapidated villa. A handful of intrepid collectors and curators were henceforth aware of the collection, but its dramatic content and scope remained little-known to the world until 2003, when the first of several auctions of material drawn from the original archive was held.

Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey is curated by Stephen C. Pinson, Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The catalogue is made possible by the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.

The exhibition is featured on The Met website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter via the hashtag #MonumentalJourney.