Blogs

The British Library has secured the Dillwyn Llewelyn/Story-Maskelyne photographic archive which was offered to any United Kingdom institution under the government’s acceptance in lieu scheme.

The Dillwyn Llewelyn/Story-Maskelyne photographic archive is a significant addition to the Library’s collection and enhances and supports the 2006 donation of Talbot material by Petronella and Janet Burnett-Brown and other members of the Talbot Family Trust. The British Library has further enhanced its position as the leading centre for material relating to Talbot and his circle of early photographers.

The Dillwyn Llewelyn/Story-Maskelyne photographic archive, approx 164 early photographic prints in 5 photograph albums (including W.H. Fox Talbot, High Street Oxford), 50 glass negatives, the memoirs and journals of Thereza Story-Maskelyne in 10 volumes (the memoirs including a further 52 early photographs), photographic research papers of Nevil Story-Maskelyne in 2 portfolios, and related albums and papers.

John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810-1882) initiated his first photographic experiments -- prompted by news of the activities of William Henry Fox Talbot (a cousin by marriage) -- at his house at Penlle’r-gaer (usually spelled Penllergare by the family), near Swansea, in February 1839, and daguerreotypes of his family and house survive from as early as the following year. He claimed (in a letter to Fox Talbot) to have been familiar with all the known photographic processes, and in 1856 announced his own innovation, the oxymel process, ‘a mixture of honey and vinegar, whereby the collodion plates of the period could be prepared some time before use and developed when the photographer returned home’ (ODNB). He was on the first council of the London Photographic Society, and was awarded a silver medal of honour at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855 for his instantaneous photographs.

The photograph albums in the archive not only provide an important, family collection of some of Dillwyn Llewelyn’s best-known images, but also demonstrate the extent to which the whole Dillwyn Llewelyn family and its wider offshoots participated in the experiments, either as subjects or as photographers: amongst the identified images are photographs by his sister, Mary Dillwyn, his son-in-law, the mineralogist Nevil Story-Maskelyne (grandson of the astronomer royal, whose photographs often depict the family house at Basset Down, Wiltshire), and at least three of his children.

Dillwyn Llewelyn’s daughter, Thereza Story-Maskelyne, was closely involved with his photographic activities, and was also an active amateur astronomer – both activities highly unusual for a woman of the period; she combined both fields in the pioneering telescopic photographs of the moon which she took with her father in the mid-1850s. Thereza’s memoirs and journals in the present archive are a rich source of information on her scientific career, and include not only an important series of photographic prints, but also her own watercolours of comets and other phenomena from the 1850s onwards.

The acquisition builds on an important earlier gift to the British Library of the work of Nevil Story-Maskelyne (1823-1911), which included paper negatives, salted paper and albumen prints, collodion on mica negatives and research papers on early photography. The additional material now acquired – which includes a series of Story-Maskelyne’s wet collodion negatives, as well as prints and other papers – brings together the largest surviving archive of the work of an important- if undeservedly little-known - photographer. The journals of his wife Thereza contain many references to the photographic practises of the Llewelyn and Story-Maskelyne families and will form a rich primary resource for the study of this formative period of British photography.

Images: from top:

1. Portrait (self-portrait?) of Nevil Story-Maskelyne, late 1840s (reproduction from the original calotype negative.
   
   
2. John Dillwyn Llewelyn, Thereza Llewelyn and dickies, mid-1850s (salted paper print).
   
   
3. John Dillwyn Llewelyn, Gipsies – Palmistry, mid-1850s (albumenised salted paper print
   
   
4. John Dullwyn Llewelyn, Costume of Glamorganshire, mid-1850s (albumenised salted paper print).
   
   

Courtesy: John Falconer / British Library

Fotografiska, Stockholm's centre for contemporary photography, is to open a new building to be called Fotografiska - London Museum of Photography in 2018.

Fotografiska - London Museum of Photography will occupy the lower ground floors and a new office pavilion at The White Chapel Building, designed by Fletcher Priest Architects, at 10 Whitechapel High Street, E1, This is Fotografiska's first gallery outside Stockholm and will add another important cultural and leisure hub to the fast improving Whitechapel area. Fotografiska is also believed to be about to lease a 45,000 sq. ft space in New York on Park Avenue South.

In London, the initial rent is £2.4m per annum or £27 per sq ft. with Fotografiska occupying the whole of Phase 2 comprising 89,000 sq ft on a 15-year lease.

John Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Derwent London, said: “We are very excited to welcome Fotografiska - The London Museum of Photography to The White Chapel Building.  We believe their arrival will be a major benefit to the area and Fotografiska’s character endorses the Group’s focus on good design.  This pre-let means that we will have successfully let the entire property."

Tommy Rönngren, Founding partner and Chairman of the Board of Fotografiska London, said: “Derwent is a developer with great creative vision and we chose to work with them because of the combination of the building itself and the creative heritage of Derwent.  Fotografiska has for a long time been searching for suitable facilities in London, one of the world's most dynamic cities when it comes to photography.  Whitechapel, which is one of London's most dynamic areas, will be a perfect location.  It will be really exciting to bring the concept of Fotografiska to London.”

Fotografiska, is a privately-run 'museum' of photography on the waterfront in Stockholm and opened 2010, although, as Wikipedia pithily points out, it is not a museum having no collection, conducting no research and it is for profit. Fotografiska describes itself as an international meeting place where everything revolves around photography. In practice this means exhibitions and commercial activities which attract some 550,000 visitors annually. The founders of Fotografiska are brothers Jan and Per BromanIt and it is co-owned by venture capitalist Jan Tommy Rönngren.

Alex Schneideman writes... My friend Paddy Summerfield, who has died, was broadly considered Oxford’s greatest photographer since Henry Fox Talbot. Summerfield, a child imbued from infancy in Oxford’s history and art was raised in the same house in Summertown from the age of two until he died.

Having studied at Guildford School of Art (not without controversy) Summerfield became known as a photographer in the 1980s but it was not until the publication by Dewi Lewis in 2014 of his seminal work, Mother and Father that he came to the forefront of British documentary photography.

The photobook depicts Summerfield's parents in the garden of their north Oxford home as they tended to the lawn and plants and to each other. As the book progresses we watch as his father increasingly cares for his mother, her eventual disappearance and then the loss of his father too. In most of the photographs the parents’ faces are turned away from the
photographer-son. Summerfields images were typified by a certain spirituality and he maintained that his work had always been about “abandonment and loss” as his parents had turned their attention inward following the tragic early death of his older sister when Summerfield was two years old. However he insisted that ‘Mother and Father’ stood as a durational “love letter” to them both.

Summerfield’s first major publication was important because it established his groundbreaking use of a unique and emotional photographic ‘perspective’. His work would become representative of what became known as the ‘psychological perspective’ - in which Summerfield’s compositions place the viewer in the emotional apex of the scene, blurring the boundaries between the subject, the photographer and the viewer.

Several more books were to follow including The Oxford Pictures (2016), Empty Days (2018), The Holiday Pictures (2019) and Home Movie (2021). Each subsequent title added to Summerfield’s reputation as one of the most important contemporary British documentary photographers.

Summerfield’s photography was typically black and white but in his final years he worked mainly in colour using an old ‘flip phone’ to photograph the garden and the people who
surrounded him. Some of these were published in his final book, The Beginnings of Eternity (2023).

In 2019 Summerfield married his partner, Patricia Baker-Cassidy, who by this time had become his de-facto producer. Baker-Cassidy brought order to the chaos of Paddy’s now notorious bins of thousands of negatives that he had accumulated over decades. A visitor to the Summerfield home would often find Paddy ensconced in writing, reading or discussion with friends and photographers while Baker-Cassidy worked diligently with a film scanner, as together they put together numerous maquettes for planned new publications.

The well respected Oxford Photography Group was often hosted by Summerfield and Baker-Cassidy at his home. He supported the group and worked closely with individual photographers, many of whom went on to be published, exhibited and collected.

Almost ten years after the publication of Mother and Father a new body of work was made by a group of photographers (including Alex Schneideman, Vanessa Winship, Sian Davey, Matthew Finn, Alys Tomlinson, Nik Roche and Jem Southam) who wanted to preserve the garden where Mother and Father had taken form and and to pay homage to Summerfield’s work. The resulting images were published as ‘Pictures from the Garden’ (as ever by Dewi Lewis) and an exhibition was staged in Oxford supported by The Photographers Gallery.

Summerfield’s work was supported by curators, academics and other photographers such as Richard Ovenden, Nicholas Serota and Martin Parr, Bill Jay and Peter Turner, then editor of Creative Camera. Summerfield’s own exhibition list is long and varied. He exhibited in solo group shows alongside such photographers as André Kertesz, Martin Parr, John Goto and Gerry Badger (who has written extensively about Summerfield’s work as well as providing texts for his publications). His work is held in national, international, private and institutional collections. It should be noted that Dewi Lewis’s sustained support of Paddy’s work brought it to the widest possible audience.

This year the Bodleian Library completed their acquisition of Summerfield’s extensive archive where plans are underway for a major exhibition in Autumn 2025.

It was a great honour for me to give Paddy what would sadly turn out to be his last solo show, The Holiday Pictures, at Flow Photographic Gallery in 2019. Sue Davis, the founder of The Photographers Gallery, then in failing health herself and accompanied by Zelda Cheatle made the trek from her home in Surrey to North West London to see the show - it was to be the last photography exhibition she would visit before her death some months later.

Paddy was the most photographic person I have ever known. It was as impossible to distinguish the man from the medium as it is sometimes to discern the sea from the sky on a blue day when both seem to merge into one.

Paddy leaves a daughter, Lucy and his wife Patricia.

Paddy Summerfield
18th February 1947 - 11th April 2024

Obituary by Alex Schneideman
London, April 2024

Image: (top) Alex Scheiderman, Paddy and Patricia; (lower two) Paddy Summerfield, from his Mother and Father series. 

See more here: https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=131230

A Leica digital camera custom-made by Jonathan (Jony) Ive the British-born Vice President of Design at Apple Inc and Marc Newson for the (RED) Auction 2013. The camera was an edition of 01/01 and sold for a record price of USD 1,805,000 - a world auction record price for a digital camera. A prototype UR Leica made US$2.8 million in 2012.

The sale shows the importance of a designer's name,the association with the world's most valuable brand, Apple; and the longevity of Leica as a collectible. 

See: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/null-n09014/lot.14.html

Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson constructed the first mirror camera which was patented in America in 1840 (patent number 1582). It used a large concave mirror rather than a lens to produce a bright image which was then processed using the daguerreotype process.  William Johnson (John Johnson’s father) came to England to market the camera and found that Richard Beard was the sole licensee for the daguerreotype process in England. Beard patented the Wolcott and Johnson camera in England (patent number 8546 of 1840) and opened the first Daguerreotype studio in London 1840.  The photos below showing an original example in the Saco Museum in Maine, USA... Read nore about the project here: Mirror%20Camera%20%282%29.doc

Last night saw the launch of Ken and Jenny Jacobson's Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin's Lost Daguerreotypes at the publishers, Quaritch. The long-awaited book more than lived up to everyone's expectations - it is a stunning volume, well-research and well-illustrated as one would expect. BPH will carry more on the content shortly.

You can read more about the history of the book here and how to purchase a copy. It remains at a special price of £75, until 31 March 2015. Contact: Alice Ford-Smith at Quaritch (a.ford-smith@quaritch.com) to order. The United States launch will be in New York at AIPAD in April.  

The images show Ken and Jenny with their book, with their daughter, and views of the launch.

The Royal Society for Asian Affairs (RSAA), a registered charity with Royal Charter, with a mission 'to promote greater knowledge and understanding of Central Asia and countries from the Middle East to Japan' and the specific objective 'to conserve all of the Society’s valuable archives, photographic and written' is offering thirteen lots of rare books and early and important photographs at a Sotheby's auction later this month. The lots are expected to realise around £250,000. A number of academics, curators and librarians have mounted a campaign to protest against the sale.

Amongst the photographs being sold are important albums by J C Watson showing China c.1867-1870; John Thomson's Antiquities of Cambodia, c1867; J C White photographs of Sikhim and Tibet and others.The lots can be seen here.

The sale appears to be the result of the RSAA's spending exceeding income since at least 2009, although it does have investments of nearly £300,000. The RSAA's accounts and Charity Commission filings can be viewed here.

This is not the first time that the RSAA has tried to sell part of its historic archive. In 2014 a unique map annotated by T E Lawrence was offered at a Sotheby's auction with an estimate of £70,000-100,000. It was withdrawn soon after news of the sale broke. Read more here.

There have been a number of sales from UK museum and gallery collections as local authorities have attempted to preserve services in the face of government funding cuts. This recently prompted an unprecedented joint statement by ten of the UK's leading funding, membership and museum bodies on unethical sales of public collections. The signatories which include Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund will refuse to work with, or provide grants or funding, to museums whose governing bodies choose to sell items from their collections in contravention of long-standing de-accessioning protocols. 

At the time of writing the RSAA was unavailable for comment and it has been asked for a statement on the forthcoming sale. This will be published here when it is provided. 

Image: From lot 257. Watson, Major J.C., Dr John Dudgeon, John Thomson, (and others?). ALBUM OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF PEKING (BEIJING), NINGPO (NINGBO), AND ENVIRONS. [CHINA, LATE 1860S]. Estimate £40,000 — 60,000

Original post: 8 April 2015 / UPDATED: 18 April

The RSAA issued a statement on 15 April acknowledging 'the deep and understandable concerns' of members and non-members. It added that the sale was essential to ensure the long-term future of the Society and that 'no further sales are envisaged'.

UPDATE 2: 4 May

The sale realised £136,250 (including buyer's premium) and it is likely that the RSAA will net less than £100,000, much less than the exoected £250,000 plus originally expected. 

This long-awaited book from Ken and Jenny Jacobson will be published on 19 March. The inspiration for the book was a remarkable discovery made by the authors at a small country auction in 2006 (See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514218/Mystery-photographs-...)  One lightly regarded lot was a distressed mahogany box crammed with long-lost early photographs. These daguerreotypes were later confirmed as once belonging to John Ruskin, the great 19th-century art critic, writer, artist and social reformer. Moreover, the many scenes of Italy, France and Switzerland included the largest collection of daguerreotypes of Venice in the world and probably the earliest surviving photographs of the Alps.

Despite his sometimes vehemently negative sentiments regarding the camera, John Ruskin never stopped using photography. He assiduously collected, commissioned and produced daguerreotypes and paper photographs; he pioneered the use of the collotype and platinotype processes for book illustration. Many of the recovered daguerreotypes reveal surprising compositions and have enabled insights into how Ruskin’s use of them influenced the style of his watercolours.

Core to this book is a fully illustrated catalogue raisonné of the 325 known John Ruskin daguerreotypes. The overwhelming majority of the newly-discovered plates are published here for the first time. There are an additional 276 illustrations in the text and an essay describing the technical procedures used in conserving Ruskin’s photographs. Ten chapters extensively study Ruskin’s photographic endeavours. A chronology, glossary, twenty-page bibliography and comprehensive index complete this handsome hardback book.

Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin's Lost Daguerreotypes
Ken Jacobson & Jenny Jacobson

Publication date: 19 March 2015 – ISBN 9780956301277 – Price: £85
432 pages (including 601 illustrations)

To reserve a copy at the special price of £75, available until 31 March 2015, please contact: Alice Ford-Smith (a.ford-smith@quaritch.com)

A new home for British photography will open in London in late January 2023. The Centre for British Photography will build on the world-renowned Hyman Collection of British photography and the work of the Hyman Foundation. Three floors of exhibitions will present the diverse landscape of British photography today, as well as an historical overview. The 8000 sq. ft. Centre will be free to visit year-round and will offer exhibitions, events and talks, a shop and an archive and library. 

The Centre will feature photographs from 1900 to the present, work by photographers living and working in the UK today, and images taken by those who emigrated to the UK. It will present self-generated exhibitions and those led by independent curators and organisations, as well as monographic displays. The Centre plans to stage numerous exhibitions throughout the year and also bring together the photographic community – professional and amateur - through its talks and events programme.

The Hyman Collection includes over 3,000 significant works by more than 100 artists including Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Daniel Meadows, Jo Spence, Karen Knorr, Anna Fox and Heather Agyepong. It is currently available as a global online resource, and it also has a history of lending to exhibitions outside London. Now, with this new home, regional museums, galleries and photography collectives will also be invited to use the central London space to present exhibitions and collaborate on talks and events. 

James Hyman, Founding Director, said: “The Centre for British Photography is for anyone with an interest in photography. Photography in Britain is some of the best in the world and we want to give it more exposure and support. With this new physical space, alive with exhibitions and events, we hope to create a hub that increases British photography’s national and international status. We hope that through this initial work to make a home for British photography we can, in the long run, develop an independent centre that is self-sustaining with a dedicated National Collection and public programme.”

Tracy Marshall-Grant, the Centre for British Photography’s newly-appointed Deputy Director, said: “The Hyman Collection is the pre-eminent British photography collection and that will be at the heart of our programming. Inclusivity and diversity have always been key to the Foundation and to the development of the Hyman Collection - for example, the collection is balanced in the numbers of works it holds by men and women. We will reflect this in the programming of the exhibition spaces and those we invite to show, talk and take part in events at the Centre. We also want to support British photographers through commissions, grants, exhibitions, acquisitions and sales.”

Opening exhibitions

The opening events will include two major, new exhibitions: a self-portrait show co-curated by the campaign group Fast Forward: Women in Photography; and The English at Home - over 150 photographs which provide an overview of British photography focused on the domestic interior drawn from some of the major bodies of work in the Hyman Collection. Taking its title from Bill Brandt’s first book, The English at Home will range from Bill Brandt, Kurt Hutton and Bert Hardy to Martin Parr, Daniel Meadows, Karen Knorr, Anna Fox and Richard Billingham.

There will also be four In Focus displays that will spotlight specific bodies of work. These will include Jo Spence: Cinderella in collaboration with the Jo Spence Memorial Library at Birkbeck, University of London; and the series Fairytale for Sale by Natasha Caruana that was recently acquired by the Hyman Collection.

Also on display will be two bodies of work that were commissioned by the Hyman Collection: Spitting by Andrew Bruce and Anna Fox is a response to the original Spitting Image puppets in the Hyman Collection, and Wish You Were Here, a recent series commissioned from Heather Agyepong.

The gallery shop will also present a selling show Paul Hill. Prenonations. Large format platinum prints. 

Print sale

A print sale will go live on 17 November with funds raised going towards the Centre and the Hyman Foundation’s support of photographers in Britain, through commissions, grants, acquisitions and sales. Featuring the work of Martin Parr, Anna Fox, Julia Fullerton-Batten and David Hurn among others and priced at £70, the prints will be available to purchase from 17 November – 19 December 2022 on the Centre for British Photography website: www.britishphotography.org.    

The Centre for British Photography
49 Jermyn Street
London
SW1Y 6LX
www.britishphotography.org

Opens late January 2023

Instagram: @centre_for_british_photography

Landscapes of Sri Lanka - Early Photography in Ceylon. From the mid-19th century on, Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, was an exotic destination that many a world traveller yearned to visit.

Starting in the 1860s, a number of photographic studios established themselves on the island, producing artistically ambitious photographs for an illustrious clientele. Among the most famous photographers from this era were William Louis Henry Skeen, Charles Thomas Scowen, as well as the Hamburg-born photographer Alfred William Amandus Plate, whose studio in the late 19th century expanded into a large-scale commercial enterprise that tried to satisfy the public's hunger for postcard images. The images produced by these photographers played a crucial role in spreading, to the far corners of the British Empire and beyond, the myth of Ceylon as an Arcadia-like tropical island.

Now, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Sri Lanka and Germany, the Museum für Asiatische Kunst is showing an exquisite selection of extremely rare landscape photographs from and of Ceylon. The vintage prints presented in the exhibition not only depict Arcadian landscapes, wildly romantic waterfalls, and exotic beaches but also the encroachment of civilization in the natural landscape, be it through extensive plantations or through settlement, whereby we witness the magnitude of the changes that were wrought to the 'island of dreams' even in the 19th century.

A richly illustrated, bilingual catalogue (English/German) has been released to accompany to the exhibition:
Raffael Dedo Gadebusch (ed.): Landscapes of Sri Lanka - Early Photography in Ceylon / Frühe Fotografie in Ceylon, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-88609-745-6.

Curator: Raffael Dedo Gadebusch
Assistant curator: Karoline Höppner

At a public meeting held at Oxford’s Bodleian Library today, Head Librarian Richard Ovenden (right) made the first announcement of three initiatives that will support William Henry Fox Talbot studies in the United Kingdom and internationally. At the same time they will make the Bodleian central to Talbot studies and the lead of the world’s three principal Talbot archives held at the National Media Museum, Bradford, the British Library, London, and the Bodleian, Oxford.

Ovenden was able to announce, firstly, the completion of the acquisition of the Talbot family archive for the Bodleian which completes the £2.2 million purchase, saving the archive for the nation. (Click here for the previous BPH report on the archive appeal).  

Secondly, he introduced Dr Mirjam Brusius (left) as an Andrew Mellon Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Bodleian. Brusius will lead a renewed focus on the history of photography in Oxford, centred on the Bodleian and will lead work on cataloguing, digitising and interpreting the Talbot archive.

Thirdly, he announced that Professor Larry Schaaf’s long mooted project of preparing a catalogue raisonné of Talbot’s photography had secured funding and would be housed at the University of Oxford and Bodleian Library. He described this as a ‘major scholarly venture’. Schaaf, who is the world’s foremost Talbot scholar, had long had hopes of preparing such a catalogue.

The catalogue raisonné, along with the recent cataloguing of the British Library, Bodleian and National Media Museum Talbot holdings, and the availability of Talbot’s online letters, has the potential to radically inform and revise Talbot’s role in the development of negative/positive photography and will help support a new chronology of his work.

Schaaf, speaking to the audience, (right) said the catalogue raisonné would allow researchers to ‘associate things we’ve never seen before…[and] reveal variations  never studied before’. Schaaf, who has been researching Talbot for more than forty years, has produced a series of landmark books, catalogues essays and papers on Talbot, his circle and his photography. He is project director for the Talbot letters project at now hosted by De Montfort University. He paid tribute to past Talbot historians including Harold White who’s work had prepared the ground for his own and to Matilda Talbot, who did much to ensure his legacy was preserved.

Schaaf currently has some 25,000 Talbot negatives and positives recorded in a DOS-based database and one of the new project’s tasks will be to migrate this data to a new platform that can also support images.

He concluded his presentation by saying, partly tongue-in-cheek, that ‘Digital photography is Talbot’s invention’.

More information will be made available by the Bodleian Library shortly. 

On Friday  On 12th April Lacy, Scott and Knight will be offering a collection of works by, and property belonging to, the celebrated society and theatre photographer Angus McBean. The vast majority of this sale has been consigned by David Ball, Angus McBean's partner and studio assistant of many years until his death in 1990.   It must be with a heavy heart that he bids goodbye to this stunning collection of an artistic genius' lifetime work in which he met and photographed most of the leading theatrical lights and film stars of the mid 20^th century.   It is impossible not to be awed by the beauty and sheer creative brilliance when looking through these images and we are privileged to have been instructed to conduct this sale.

Amongst the selection is a visitor book from McBeans’ studio with over 1000 signatures of his star clientele from the 1940s onwards. The autographs range from silver screen goddesses such as Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor, to very early Beatles signatures (before they developed a signature style), revered actors John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier (who states that McBeans’ ‘rice puddings are excellent’), comedy singing duo Flanders & Swann, queen of crime literature Agatha Christie, ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ Cliff Richard, several members of the Redgrave acting dynasty, surreal comedy genius Spike Milligan (who has dated his entry 1883), Prima Ballerina Assoluta Margot Fonteyn, legendary opera diva Maria Callas and many more.This lot will carry an estimate of £5000-10,000

There are also many individual gelatin silver prints, many signed and annotated, as well as albums of and loose photographs, studio props etc 

Angus McBean Biography
Angus McBean was born in Newport, South Wales, in 1904. As a child he was a devotee of the cinema, spending hours watching the early silent films and experimenting with photography. At the age of 15 he sold a gold watch left to him by his grandfather in order to buy his first camera, a Kodak Autograph, and started taking pictures of local landscapes and architecture. McBean also had a great interest in the theatre, make-up, costumes and making masks. After a brief attempt at a career in banking he moved to London after the death of his father and began work as a restorer of antiques at Liberty’s department store, while continuing his “hobbies” of mask-making and photography.

In 1932 he left Liberty and grew his distinctive beard to symbolize the fact that he would never be a wage-slave again. He worked as a maker of theatrical props, including a commission of medieval scenery for John Gielgud's 1933 production of Richard of Bordeaux. His photographs and theatrical masks were also exhibited at a teashop in West London where they were noticed by prominent society photographer Hugh Cecil. Cecil offered McBean a job as an assistant at his Edinburgh studio where he stayed for 18 months before opening his own studio in London to specialize in theatrical photography.

In 1936 Ivor Novello asked McBean to make masks and take pictures for his play "The Happy Hypocrite." Novello was so impressed with McBeans’ photographs that he commissioned him to take a set of production photographs, including of the young actress Vivien Leigh. The results, taken on stage with McBeans’ idiosyncratic lighting, were chosen to replace the set already made by the long-established but uninspired Stage Photo Company. McBean now had both a new career and a photographic leading lady: he was to photograph Vivien Leigh on stage and in the studio for almost every performance she gave until her death in 1967.

Over the course of the next 25 years McBean photographed all the British theatre stars including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, and Laurence Olivier. He soon became famous for his star portraits in well-known magazines of the time including Tatler, Picture Post and the Sketch. In the 1930s McBean embraced surrealism; with his flamboyance, love of theatre and the ability to create fantastic studio props he was similar to contemporary American photographer Man Ray. By the late 1940s McBean was the official photographer for a number of major British theatres including Stratford, the Royal Opera House, Sadler Well’s and the Old Vic.

As McBeans’ health deteriorated and with the decline of the popular photo magazine he closed his studios. In the early 60’s he began taking pictures for EMI and shot various record covers for Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Shirley Bassey and the Beatles album Please, Please Me. McBeans’ later works also included portrait photographs of individuals such as Agatha Christie, Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward. By the mid 60’s he had semi retired to a house in Suffolk that he was restoring, but he had already built up an enormous and important body of work. His last few pictures were taken in 1988 and include Vivian Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier. He died on the night of his 86th birthday in 1990.

McBeans’ works are now eagerly sought by collectors and are displayed in major collections around the world.
His fame has been somewhat overshadowed by that of Cecil Beaton (thanks to his work for Vogue and the Royal Family) and David Bailey, despite being arguably more artistically and technically gifted.

The sale will take place on Friday 12th April at 1pm in our Bury St Edmunds auction rooms. 

Live bidding available at the-saleroom

Catalogue now available here

Printable PDF here

James Garfinkle advises...After 31 years of being the custodian of Mathew Brady's Studio Wet-Plate Camera, I have decided to let another person or institution have the pleasure of owning 'the most iconic piece of photographic Americana.' The camera was used to take portraits of Lincoln and other notables in the Civil War period.

Its provenance is unmatched: Meserve / Kunhardt collection, then at auction at Christie's in 1980, to me.  Two owners in about 100 years.  The serial number on lens matches that in Brady's bankruptcy filing, included with the lot. The camera has a reserve of $25,000. 

It was most recently displayed at the 'Lincoln in New York' exhibition at the New-York Historical Society.

The sale is Wednesday, November 30th in Dallas. James Garfinkel can be reached at: jamesgarfinkel@gmail.com. The sale is part of a Heritage Auctions Americana sale. More details here: http://historical.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=6066&lotNo=38365

Matt Isenburg, leading photographic collector and historian and driving force behind the Daguerreian Society, has passed away at the age of 89 on 14 November 2016.

Matt was a WW2 US Navy veteran and fascinated by history, in which he obtained a Bachelor's degree at Northwestern Universary. He started as a camera collector, with a major interest in Leicas but switched to collecting early photographica, focussing particular interest on the first 30 years of photographic history. He equally collected images, cameras and related photographic hardware and photographic literature, to tell the complete story of photography across his era of specialty using two collecting maxims, namely to collect the best of the best and to not be afraid to pay tomorrow's prices today. As a result, few private collectors have ever amassed anything like the diversity of important and rare material that Matt did.

Matt enjoyed writing about his extensive collection, producing many articles, a book with Charles Klamkin "Photographica : a Guide to the Value of Historic Cameras and Images" and he gave lectures on a wide array of photographic subjects over the years. In 1978 he founded the Daguerreian Society with John Wood, serving as President for many years. With Matt's encouragement, the Daguerriean Society held its 25th anniversary symposium in Paris in 2013 but his health prevented him from attending.

Matt possessed an unsurpassed collection of daguerrotypes, including a large family collection from the Southworth family (of the Southworth and Hawes studio in Boston), images of the Capitol Building and White House, a large number of full plate daguerreotypes of the Californian gold rush, 23 daguerreian cameras including the first one in America imported by Samuel Morse, numerous choice ambrotypes, tintypes, stereoviews and cartes de visite mostly from America but also other countries; photographic albums, frames and viewing apparatus; unexposed daguerreotype plates and developing outfits; advertising material; letters, documents and manuscripts relating to early photographers and extensive runs of daguerreian and wet plate era photographic periodicals in English, French and German and well as many of the key books on photography from that period.

Hundreds visited Matt's home in Hadlyme, Connecticut over the years to view his amazing collection and were regaled with not only the history of the items, but also the many stories of the chase in obtaining them and often into the very early hours of the morning! Matt possessed an intense passion for early photography and a driving desire to share it and was always generous in providing information and offering advice and encouragement.

In 2012, Matt sold his world class collection for $15, 000000 to media magnate David Thomson to be housed in the Archive of Modern Conflict facility in Toronto 2012. With his health failing, Matt realised his legacy had to continue to be utilised and enjoyed and he was comfortable with his decision, seeing his collection remain intact even though it was leaving the country. The collection has since been gifted to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in 2015 for inclusion in a larger collection called Origins of Photography.

Sean Sexton is the subject of an interview by Orla Fitzpatrick on RTE's website and a television documentary. The interview focuses on Sean's collection of photographs of Ireland, arguably the most important of such material anywhere in the world. The collection of over 20,000 images spans the history of photography covering post-famine Ireland right through to the turbulent revolutionary years. The collection will be the subject of a forthcoming RTE documentary.

As Orla notes: 'Sexton's collection includes all formats, genres and processes, from early salt-paper negatives and once-off daguerreotypes through to snapshots and spy cameras. Portraits, landscapes and even nudes are in the collection.'  He began forming the collection from 1973, later funded, in part, by his purchase in Bermondsey market of a trove of photographs by Charles Jones. 

The collection has been featured in two books and is still awaiting a permanent home in Ireland where it rightly belongs.  

Framing Irish History - The Sean Sexton Collection will be screened on RTÉ 1 on December 28th at 6.30pm and on RTÉ Player

Read the article here: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/1217/1422502-sean-sexton-photos-collection-ireland-history/ 

With the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a new BBC TV programme examines his life and reviews his relationship with young girls. Towards the end of the programme an albumen photograph attributed to Carroll and in the collection of the Musee Cantini, Marseille, (click here to see it) of, allegedly, a naked teenage Lorena Liddell, the elder sister of Alice, is given as evidence of a darker interest by Carroll's in girls.

Of the photograph, conservator Nick Burnett states 'My gut instnct is it's by Lewis Carroll'. A facial recognition expert also believes it is of Lorena Carroll.  

Having seen the programme I am unconvinced by the programme's claims. At best the photograph itself and provenance requires further research: simply being albumen from a glass negative and later dealer's pencil inscription is probably not sufficient to say one way or the other.

Make your own mind up and view the programme on BBC iPlayer here Available for 28 days from 31 January 2015.

Image: Presenter Martha Kearney looks at a Carroll negative from The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford.

UPDATE: A leading Carroll scholar has stated he is 'unconvinced' by the programme's conclusion and notes that the size of the plate/print suggests it dates from Carroll's Christ College period by which time Lorena would have been a more mature woman. 

There is a back story to this item. The daguerreotype had been taken into Tennants, a large regional auction house in the north of England, for valuation and authentication. The auction house, properly recognising the daguerreotype’s potential wider interest and possible high value, did some research and made contact with one of the UK’s leading Carroll experts who consulted a second. Both pronounced the subject of the daguerreotype as someone other than Carroll. They made four key points: firstly, Claudet’s Adelaide Gallery was only operating between 1841 and 1847, secondly, by 1858 the daguerreotype process in Britain had been largely superseded by the wet collodion process in commercial photographic studios such as Claudets, and, thirdly, Carroll was a diligent and noted diarist and made no mention of a visit to Claudet’s studio, and finally, the gentlemen shown in the daguerreotype was not Dodgson which was immediately apparent to the experts - as a simple comparison with other known portraits (including a well-known 1857 portrait - see right, below) of Dodgson would reveal. The auction house rightly decided that they were not able to offer the daguerreotype at auction and it was returned to the owner.

It resurfaced on eBay on 3 March 2011 offered by virtually-cameras. As has now been confirmed to me by someone with direct knowledge of the daguerreotype and the authentication (not the expert) the eBay seller was the same person who took it to the auction house for authentication. But Peter described the daguerreotype only as he saw it, albeit misspelling Dodgson as Dodson, Claudet as Claude and Adelaide as Adelade, and quoting the typewritten label in full. He was careful to say only that the daguerreotype was ‘labelled’ and he made no reference to Lewis Carroll. Peter made no mention of the fact that the daguerreotype had been examined by an expert who had discounted any possibility that it showed Dodgson. On 5 May Peter corrected the Claudet misspelling and added some biographical details about Claudet, presumably found on the internet.

As one might imagine an image of Carroll would attract considerable interest and the description contained plenty in it to allow it to be picked up by buyers’ search terms. Almost as soon as the lot was listed ‘Matthew’ asked Peter if he could buy it straight away for £300. Peter, quite properly declined. Ending an auction early to sell it would breach eBay’s terms of business. But Peter was also expressed surprised by the reaction the lot was attracting and said he wanted to let the auction run its course. A couple of further questions followed which he answered including confirmation of the size: ‘the frame size is 7.5 x 8.5 cm. The visible image is 6 x 5.5 cm’.

I was tipped off about the lot by a friend on 12 March. Looking at the description and image something didn’t ring true and I did some checking. I compared the image with others properly identified as Dodgson and I checked material I had on Claudet which confirmed his business addresses. I also knew that by 1857 it was more likely that the image should be a collodion positive or ambrotype.  I emailed Peter via eBay asking one question: ‘what did he know about the provenance of the image?’ pointing out that the label might allow people to make a link to Carroll which could be unfortunate. Peter responded promptly not really answering my question: ‘I'm sure you will realise after giving some serious thought that it's certainly not possible that I could know how the typed label was placed with the photograph,when the typed label clearly appears to be as old as the photograph! Perhaps you are unaware that a Daguerreotype is a negative image unlike the positive images with which you are making comparison.’

In the meantime I did some research on typewriter history and I concluded that the label was post-1870 and probably c1890-1910. I responded to Peter saying that the provenance would have been useful as ‘I was hoping that the image might have come from a source that would have supported the identification of the subject’. I pointed out that the typewritten label was almost certainly post 1870. Peter again replied promptly: ‘The image was purchased some time ago along with another of a girl, an ambrotype, after being sold at auction in Darlington County Durham’. He also asserted that typewriters dated back to the ‘late 1700s’ and that daguerreotypes ‘show a positive image when tilted against the light however the sitters image is reversed onto backing silvered material during exposure making it a true negative image and only by changing the angle of lighting does the Daguerreotype give the impression of being a positive’. Peter decided not to publish my questions and his responses alongside the description (eBay automates this if it is wanted) – unlike those of his other questioners. I decided to leave it at that.

As I stated at the beginning the daguerreotype sold for £3300.

I think there are a couple of lessons here. For the seller, some simple research should have thrown up some concerns about the image's subject. Peter has been on eBay since 2008. Looking at his past sales he appears to mainly sell modern photographic equipment on eBay, for which he has received good feedback, so the daguerreotype was clearly out of his main area of expertise. Some simple checking would have flagged up that the image was unlikely to be Carroll. He was clearly surprised at the interest the lot was generating and this might have acted as a warning. Since originally writing the piece I have been advised by someone who had discussed the matter with Peter was Peter had been the person who took the daguerreotype to the auction house. As such he clearly had a duty to flag the opinion that the experts had raised in his eBay description.  

Buyers also have a responsibility – caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Peter carefully made no link to Dodgson and simply described the daguerreotype as he saw it - allowing buyers to draw their own conclusions. It might be possible that two buyers liked a possible Claudet daguerreotype and were prepared to pay well over the normal price for such an image. That is unlikely. What is more likely is that bidders thought that they were about to get a bargain which they could resell at a profit; or they bid having jumped to their own conclusion that the subject was Carroll and failed to carry out any further research. It would not have been difficult to do and for the eventual buyer it might have prevented an expensive mistake.

A cautionary tale, indeed.

Dr Michael Pritchard

Bernard Quaritch Ltd has confirmed the acquisition by the Hong Kong based Moonchu Foundation of the Terry Bennett Collection of Early Chinese Photography, now to be known as The Moonchu Collection of Early Photography of China.  Comprising approximately 10,000 photographs from 1844 to the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Bennett collection has been acquired in its entirety.The selling price has not been disclosed but it is believed to be a significant seven-figure sum. 

The Moonchu Foundation was established in 2007 and is a tax-exempt charity established by, but not beneficially owned by Mr Zhang Songyi and family members Ms Mui Bing How and Mr Chang Tsong Zung.  The Moonchu Foundation has entered into a loan agreement with the Hong Kong Museum of History for a major exhibition from the collection at the end of 2013, with the further aim that this loan should become a permanent gift.

The range and depth of the collection is renowned, unrivalled in documented private or institutional holdings. It includes a daguerreotype (right) from Jules Itier’s visit in 1844, when he made the earliest surviving photographs of China; 70 albums by amateur and internationally acclaimed photographers such as Felice Beato, Milton Miller, John Thomson, and Lai Fong, William Saunders, Pow Kee, Paul Champion and William Floyd; some 325 cabinet and carte-de-visite portraits by Chinese and Western studios; many lantern slides and glass and paper stereoviews; hundreds of larger format portraits and views; rare photography periodicals such as The Far East and the China Magazine; multi-plate panoramas of Peking, Hong Kong, Macau and the treaty ports; awe inspiring scenes of natural landscape by Lai Fong and Tung Hing; and an early mammoth plate view of Hong Kong by C. L. Weed.

These photographs illuminate China’s history during the second half of the nineteenth century and the history of photography in China.

From the introduction of the daguerreotype to the era of the ‘Kodak’, the scope of this collection allows for comparative studies across multiple social, cultural and historical subjects.

Bernard Quaritch established a Photography Department in 2005 with Consultant Specialist, Lindsey Stewart, and a photobook department in 2010. It has published six catalogues and five photography books including the landmark three volume series History of Photography in China by Terry Bennett and Odalisques and Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 by Ken Jacobson.

Contact: Bernard Quaritch Ltd., 40 South Audley Street, London, W1K 2PR. Tel: +44 (0)20 7297 4888. Fax: +44 (0)20 7297 4866.  rarebooks@quaritch.com or www.quaritch.com