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In this lecture Deborah Ireland explores how the Royal Geographic Society's first instructor in photography, John Thompson, applied images to the science of geography, to guide and influence a new generation of travellers. Thomson had a career as a photographer in China and elsewhere in Asia and took the photographs for Street Life in London.
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR15 October 2018
at 6.30pm. Ondaatje Theatre doors open at 5.30pm
See more here.
Fotografiska London, the Museum of Photography, which was originally due to open in 2018 has been cancelled as the investment group behind it, Fotografiska London Ltd / AB, has ended its efforts to open at the Whitechapel High Street location. Originally scheduled to open in 2018, and then postponed, uncertainty around Brexit, coupled with current COVID-19 concerns, have now made it untenable for the London-based licensee to successfully establish a franchise. The earlier delays suggest that issues around the financing predate COVID-19.
Fotografiska International sees London as a leading cultural city, and will evaluate other opportunities in London directly in conjunction with real estate partners.
Footgrafiska's other locations in Stockholm, Tallinn, and most recently in New York, continue as before. Fotografiska in Stockholm, which was founded in 2010, stages between 20 and 25 large-scale exhibitions per year and attracts some 500,000 visitors per year. Part of its mission is “inspiring a more conscious world” through its photography exhibitions and programming.
See: https://www.fotografiska.com/london/
The V&A has announced today further details on the second and final phase of the V&A’s Photography Centre, which opens in spring 2023. The Photography Centre will become the largest space in the UK for a permanent photography collection, and the seven galleries – four of which will be new additions – will showcase the museum’s world-leading holdings and enable visitors to experience photography and its diverse histories in new ways.
The V&A has collected and exhibited photography since the founding of the museum in the 1850s, and today its collection is one of the largest and most varied in the world. Phase One of the museum’s Photography Centre opened in 2018, with three galleries designed by David Kohn. 2023 sees the completion of the second and final phase of the Photography Centre with an additional four galleries, with base-build designed by Purcell, and fit-out designed by Gibson Thornley Architects.
Two of the new rooms will showcase global contemporary photography and cutting-edge commissions in rotating displays. The other new spaces - a room dedicated to photography and the book, and an interactive gallery about the history and use of the camera – will shine a light on the processes involved in photography, as well as the study and presentation of the medium. These new rooms join the three existing galleries, with two galleries for changing displays from the collection and a space dedicated to digital media, which will also present new content.
Marta Weiss, V&A Senior Curator of Photography and Lead Curator of Phase Two of the Photography Centre, said: “Photography lies at the heart of the V&A. The museum has collected photography since 1852 and continues to acquire the best of contemporary practice. As photography plays an ever-increasing role in all our lives, the expanded Photography Centre will be more relevant than ever. We look forward to welcoming visitors to explore the medium’s diverse histories and enjoy our world-leading collection.”
Highlights of the opening displays will include recent acquisitions exhibited at the museum for the first time, including works by Liz Johnson Artur, Sammy Baloji, Vera Lutter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tarrah Krajnak and Vasantha Yogananthan, as well as a monumental photographic sculpture by Noémie Goudal. Two major new commissions supported by the Manitou Fund will also be unveiled, with a photographic series by leading Indian artist Gauri Gill, and a digital commission by British media artist Jake Elwes. The Manitou Fund has committed to funding six commissions for the Photography Centre, which will see a new print and digital commission in 2023, 2025 and 2027. On completion, the Photography Centre will also feature new, themed displays, presenting works from the 1840s to the present day, beginning with Energy: Sparks from the Collection, exploring how all photographs need some form of energy to exist, and a smaller display, How Not to Photograph a Bulldog, featuring dog photography manuals from the Royal Photographic Society Library.
About the Photography Centre:
Phase 2 - Room 95 - Inside the Camera
Room 95 will be an interactive gallery exploring how cameras work and how they are used, from the Victorian view camera to the first iPhone. The highlight will be a walk-in camera obscura, demonstrating the optical phenomenon that is the basis of how all cameras work. A timeline of cameras will show their evolution, with accompanying animations explaining the inner workings of these iconic devices.
Phase 2 - Room 96, Room 97, The Parasol Foundation Gallery Photography Now
Two new galleries will be dedicated to showcasing recent acquisitions of global contemporary photography, including special commissions. Highlights in the inaugural display will include works by Liz Johnson Artur, Sammy Baloji, Vera Lutter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Vasantha Yogananthan, all acquired with the support of the V&A Photographs Acquisition Group. A series of self-portraits by Tarrah Krajnak, acquired with the support of the Parasol Foundation Trust, will also feature. A spectacular anamorphic sculpture by Noémie Goudal will bring photography off the wall to explore both geological time and the nature of perception.
A new commission, supported by the Manitou Fund, from leading Indian photographer Gauri Gill will also be unveiled. This new body of work depicts temporary architecture on the outskirts of Delhi, ingenuously constructed by farmers from repurposed materials. The makeshift dwellings housed farmers bringing their concerns from the village to the capital, in response to new laws that threatened their economic security.
Room 98, The Kusuma Gallery - Photography and the Book
A flexible space dedicated to Photography and the Book will reflect how books have been a fundamental way of presenting photography since the 1840s. The Kusuma Gallery, which has been funded by The Kusuma Trust, will visibly house the extensive Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Library, following the transfer of the RPS Collection to the V&A in 2017. The RPS Library contains journals, books, pamphlets and manuals from all over the world, spanning topics from aerial photography to X-rays. More than 20,000 books, published over nearly 200 years, will be available to visitors by request, with a selection of browsing books on open shelves.
The Kusuma Gallery will also feature changing displays of photographic books, periodicals and archival material. The first display will be How Not to Photograph a Bulldog, a light-hearted foray into one of the many topics covered by the photographic manuals in the RPS Library.
Films about the RPS Library and photographic processes will be shown on digital terminals for visitors to enjoy. This flexible space will also be used for teaching and other programming.
Phase 1 - Room 99, The Modern Media Gallery Digital Gallery
The Modern Media Gallery continues to be dedicated to digital media, challenging definitions of what photography is and generating questions around the use of photography today. The gallery will showcase a new digital commission by Jake Elwes, supported by the Manitou Fund.
Phase 1 - Room 100, The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery Room 101, The Sir Elton John and David Furnish Gallery - Photography 1840s-Now
Developed during Phase One of the Photography Centre, these galleries will be entirely rehung for the 2023 opening. A new display, Energy: Sparks from the Collection, will shine a light on the diverse kinds of energy in photography – both the hidden processes intrinsic to creating a picture, and the subjects in front of a camera. Featuring works from the 1840s through to the present day, it will explore how, from the advent of photography, power in all its diverse forms has sparked the imaginations of photographers.
Situated in the V&A’s Northeast Quarter, the Photography Centre reclaims the beauty of seven original 19th-century picture galleries, restoring them to their original glory and purpose. Planned in two phases, the Centre is part of the V&A’s FuturePlan development programme to revitalise the museum’s public spaces through contemporary design and the restoration of original features.
Beyond the physical gallery spaces, a key focus for photography at the V&A is research and the development of new sector-leading initiatives. A major strand is The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, established in 2021 to support women in photography. Led by the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography, Fiona Rogers, and funded by Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and The Parasol Foundation Trust, the Project encompasses a curatorial post alongside acquisitions, research, education and public displays. The Project’s first acquisition by Tarrah Krajnak will be included in the opening display, and an exhibition presenting the work of Laia Abril will open at the Copeland Gallery in Peckham, 10-27 November 2022, in collaboration with the V&A and Photoworks.
The V&A is also delighted to announce additional support from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. Alongside significant funding of Phase Two of the Photography Centre, the Foundation has generously extended their commitment to a series of two-year Fellowships in photography for early-career curators until 2028. The V&A is pleased to announce the appointment of Mary Phan as the second Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, who will be in post until 2024.
The Photography Centre is being made possible by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, The Kusuma Trust, The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, The Parasol Foundation Trust, Modern Media, Shao Zhong Art Foundation and many other generous supporters.
The V&A will be releasing visuals of the new spaces closer to the opening.
Bloomsbury has announced the development of a field-defining book series on photography and history which will create a platform for new visual historiographies and methodologies.
Photographs have been formative in political movements, commercial and industrial development, colonial and imperial expansion, geo-politics and international relations, legal practice, the formation of modern national and personal identities and in public narratives of the past. Volumes in this radical and original series will bring photographic practices into the centre of historical analysis and explore their integral role in global histories from the mid-19th century to the current day.
Call for book proposals:
The editors are currently seeking proposals for single-authored volumes of 80,000–90,000 words based on innovative case studies. Titles might cover a wide range of subject matters and photographic practices, but the emphasis must be on the integration and demonstration of empirical, theoretical, methodological and historiographical significance so that the volumes have the widest impact in history more generally.
Studies must demonstrate the ways in which photographs both shape and reflect historical experience and might focus on a range of processes – production, dissemination, remediation, collecting - of the photographic within history. Exceptional PhD theses will be considered but the proposal must clearly demonstrate how the author intends to develop the work into a book.
The series will be interdisciplinary and welcomes scholars from all disciplines and backgrounds, whether historical, art historical, anthropological, sociological, history of science, archival or curatorial studies.
Series editors:
Professor Elizabeth Edwards, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK; Professor Patricia Hayes, University of Western Cape, South Africa; Professor Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University, USA
Contact:
Please email new proposals to Davida Forbes, Photography Editor, davida.forbes@bloomsbury.com. For more information about Bloomsbury Publishing see www.bloomsbury.com.
BBC Radio 3's The Essay is running a series of five programmes each evening between 16-20 February 2015 at 2245, under the banner of 'The Five Photographs that (you didn't know) changed Everything'. The photographs being discussed are not generally found in the history books; they are not generally art; and the photographers who made them are not generally known beyond a small coterie of photographic historians.
The five photographs discussed in this series of essays changed the way we see ourselves and our place in the world. They had an enormous impact in the fields of medicine, architecture, astronomy, law and cultural history. The series has been supported and developed in association with De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre and The Royal Photographic Society.
The programmes, with their provisional transmission dates are:
Monday 16th February.
1. A woman’s left hand. Kelley Wilder on the x-ray that changed medicine.
The photograph of Anna Bertha Ludwig Rontgens left hand taken in 1896 astounded the scientific world and alarmed the public. For the scientists it signalled the beginning of medical radiography. For the public it gave rise to fears about intrusion and privacy in much the same way as the introduction of the TSA body scanner did in 2007. From medical imaging to airport security, Kelley Wilder shows how x-ray photography changed the world.
Kelley Wilder is Reader in Photographic History, De Montfort University, Leicester
Tuesday 17th February.
2. . Draper’s Nebula. Omar Nassim on how a photo of space changed our view of the universe and our place within it.
Today high-resolution photographs of nebulae or galaxies saturate our culture to such an extent that they are almost kitsch. But when Henry Draper took the very first pictures of a nebula in 1880 it was one of the greatest achievements of photography. Omar Nasim tells the story of how this photograph defied the imagination and raised questions not just about the size of the universe but about the very origins of humanity.
Omar Nasim is lecturer in the School of History at the University of Kent.
Wednesday 18th February.
3. . The Dogon. Jeanne Haffner on how aerial photography changed the spaces we live in. The birds-eye photograph of the Dogon tribe working their fields in Mali was taken by the French Africanist Marcel Griaule. He’d trained in aerial photography during the first world war and he argued that the Dogon landscape, seen from the air, revealed the patterns and secrets of the lives of its inhabitants, patterns which could teach Western city planners and architects how to build a happier society.
Jeanne Haffner is lecturer in the Department of History and Science at Harvard University.
Thursday 19th February.
4. The Broom cottages. Elizabeth Edwards on the photo that changed the way we see ourselves.
The man who took the photo, W. Jerome Harrison, launched a scheme for recording the country’s past in which amateur photographers up and down the land took pictures of the buildings which were important them. Wiki-buildings and English Heritage do this now on a much grander scale. But Elizabeth Edwards argues that the mass participation of people in defining what matters about the past began with Harrison, and changed the way in which a nation viewed itself.
Elizabeth Edwards is Research Professor of Photographic History and Director of the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester
Friday 20th February.
5. The Tichbourne Claimant. Jennifer Tucker on the photo that changed the law.
In 1863 a butcher sat for his photograph in the remote town of Wagga Wagga, Australia. Three years later this likeness had Britain transfixed. Jennifer tucker tells the story of how it was central to the longest legal battle in 19th century England, and sparked a debate about evidence, the law, ethics and facial recognition that has continued ever since.
Jennifer Tucker is Associate Professor of History and Science in Society at Wesleyan University, USA
The programmes will be available on the BBC iPlayer after transmission.
Photography, like other modern media, was readily utilised in the promulgation of political and ideological concepts in Germany between the two world wars. This is especially true for the visualisation of racial and eugenic ideas developed in the nineteenth century and ideas of a ‘Germanic’ nation, subsequently incorporated in National Socialist thinking and propaganda. This exhibition (with illustrated catalogue) shown at the GHIL examines the work of the German photographer Erich Retzlaff (1899-1993) from the turbulent years between the nadir of the Weimar Republic and the downfall of the Third Reich as part of a visual discourse that emerged from an intellectual milieu deeply affected by the parascience of physiognomy and National Socialist race science.
Today almost forgotten in the history of photography, in the early twentieth century, ERICH RETZLAFF (1899-1993) was a prolific and celebrated photographer with several major volumes of his photographs published between the two world wars. In addition to his black and white studies of German workers, landscapes and peasants, Retzlaff was one of the first photographers to use the revolutionary 'Agfacolor Neu' colour film introduced in Germany in October 1936. Erich Retzlaff was considered by the National Socialists something of a pioneer in his idealised depictions of the German proletariat, disseminating notions centred on the people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft), which was at the heart of the National Socialist vision of society. Although his work was not produced under the direct auspices of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda and thus appeared to have a greater degree of creative freedom, Retzlaff was clearly a photographer siding with the regime. Ideological as his work was, Retzlaff's photographs are significant as cultural and historical artifacts of this period of German History.
The accompanying catalogue contains an essay by Christopher Webster van Tonder, an introductory text by Rolf Sachsse, and an article by Wolfgang Brückle.
The exhibition can be seen at the German Historical Institute London from 22 January 2014 to 21 March 2014
Opening Times:
Mo, Tue, Wed, Fri: 10 am – 5 pm
Thursday: 10 am – 8 pm
Closed Weekends and Bank Holidays
Free Admission
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) announces a new Curatorial Fellowship in Photography. Generously supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, the fellowship will run for the next four years. The Curatorial Fellowship follows the Foundation’s ongoing support of the V&A and its significant donation towards the museum’s recently-opened Photography Centre, for which gallery 100 was renamed ‘The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery’ after the businessman and portrait photographer and his wife.
The first fellowship of its kind in photography at the V&A, the scheme will see two fellows join the museum over consecutive two-year periods. The initiative arises from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation’s desire to give early scholars of photography the opportunity to acquire invaluable museum experience and specialist knowledge working alongside the Photography Section’s accomplished curatorial team. Fellows will gain expertise in the history of photography and contribute substantially to the museum’s knowledge of its world-renowned collection that includes over 800,000 photographs.
A focus for each fellow will be an independent research project based on the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection, which was transferred to the V&A in 2017. Exploring areas of strength such as portraiture, colour photography and photographic process, all themes of interest to Bern Schwartz and the Foundation, each fellow will spend three months in the V&A Research Institute (VARI). Using an accompanying travel fund also provided by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, the fellows will also travel nationally and internationally to share their expertise and further their study of the photographic medium.
Applications will open via the V&A website on 25 April and close on 27 May with the first fellow commencing in autumn 2019. Details can be found here.
Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said: “We are enormously grateful to The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation for their generosity in supporting our Photography Centre and mission to make photography available to the widest possible audience. The V&A is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of creative thinkers. This Curatorial Fellowship in Photography will give emerging curators the chance to deepen their own knowledge and expertise while furthering scholarship around the museum’s world-class photography collections.”
Michael Schwartz, Chairman of The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, and Anne Varick Lauder, Senior Advisor, said: “We are delighted to continue supporting the V&A’s Photography Section and its talented team of curators. By directly working with them and the objects in their care, the fellows will gain invaluable on-hands experience essential for furthering their careers in photography. Bern Schwartz was passionate about education and the mentoring experience. His career as a portrait photographer was immeasurably advanced by learning directly from the legendary photographer, Philippe Halsman.”
The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation were the first major funder to support the V&A’s new Photography Centre, which was opened by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge in October 2018. The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery, a refurbished 19th-century picture gallery, is currently host to a major display entitled Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital, which explores photography as a way of ‘collecting the world’. An extension to the Photography Centre is scheduled to open in 2022 and will expand the V&A’s photography offer further with new and exciting ways for visitors to encounter this diverse and dynamic art form.
In 1874 Dr. Barnardo opened a Photographic Department in his Stepney Boys' Home. Over the next thirty years every child who entered one of Barnardo's homes had their photograph taken. Children were photographed when they first arrived and again several months later after they had recovered from their experiences of living on the streets. The photographs were kept in albums and case-history sheets. There are over fifty thousand of these 'before' and 'after' cards, printed on a carte-de-visite, of the boys at the homes, and were then sold in packs of twenty for 5 shillings or singly for 6d. each. This enabled Barnardo to publicize his work and raise money for his charitable work.
However, Barnardo was accused of setting up the pictures in a court case in 1877. He admitted to not always using a child who was destitute as a model and sometimes exaggerating their appearances to get across the "wider" truth about the class of children he wanted to help. The courts reprimanded him but said his homes were still "real and valuable charities".
The case was so important because the status of photography was, at the time, a medium by which some kind of visual "truth" was supposed to be revealed. The idea that Barnardo had staged many of his photographs destabilised a Victorian notion of what it was to be an "authentically" poor child. A deliberately manipulated photograph of a child was considered not just an assault on notions of representational truth, but also an assault on the innocence of the child itself.
Well, you can judge for yourself at a talk entitled "Barnardo's Philanthropy and Photography" - see Events for more information.
Carte-de-visite :The transformation
Pictures from the 1870s used by Barnardo's homes to attract funds,
ostensibly showing children "before" and "after" being rescued from the
streets. Barnardo was later accused of setting up the pictures in a
court case in 1877.
Rob Ball has alerted BPH to a project he has been undertaking since January documenting Dreamland, Margate, with the ferrotype or tintype process. Dreamland was one of the country's oldest amusement parks; at one time, the 16-acre site held a zoo and miniature railway, a cinema, cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and a 2,000-capacity ballroom, not forgetting that in later years it was home to Europe's largest big wheel.
You can follow progress of Rob Ball's work on the Dreamland site. For those interested, the South East Archive of Seaside Photography is well worth a look. Rob Ball is the deputy director.
The project was featured on the BBC website here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-27210062
Four Corners is offering a paid 12-month internship as part of its new National Lottery Heritage Fund project, The People’s Gallery. This is an exciting opportunity to work on Four Corners' Archive collection whilst gaining skills in archiving and collections management, and experience in delivering community and exhibition projects.
A treasure trove of more than 3,000 World War I glass plate negatives of British, Indian, French, Australians, and Americans, and even some of the Chinese Labour Corps and other allied troops have been found, sitting almost undisturbed for nearly a century, in three large chests in a dusty attic of a dilapidated farmhouse in Vignacourt in the Somme valley, some two hours north of Paris. Named after the photographers, local farmer Louis Thuillier and his wife Antoinette, "The Thuillier Collection" was almost lost to history because the farmhouse where they were stored is likely to be sold in coming months and their descendants had no idea of the historical significance of the plates.
Throughout much of the war they photographed the fighting men who came to their humble outdoor studio in the courtyard of their house. Thousands of their photographs must have found their way to homes around the world, including Australia. Remarkably the Thuilliers’ glass plate negatives still exist, sitting almost undisturbed for nearly a century. They have recently been located by investigators from Australia’s Channel 7. The TV program has secured almost 500 of the plates from a Thuillier family relative, Henriette Crognier. When she heard of the great interest in the plates, she insisted on donating them to Australia.
Research at the Australian War Memorial indicates that the Australian photographs were mostly taken in November 1916 and during November-December 1918. Among the latter are scenes of celebration on the day the war ended, 11 November 1918. As Australian War Memorial head of military history, Ashley Ekins, said the ‘Thuillier Collection’ is an extremely valuable collection of images of Australian and other allied soldiers just behind the frontlines, one of the “most important discoveries from the First World War”.
You can catch a preview of the programme "The Lost Diggers" and a gallery of the photos here, as well as an article from the Australian War Memorial here.
Photo: On leave ... a message to the folks at home (Copyright: The Thuillier Collection)
I have a question about this albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron from her illustrations of Tennyson's Idyll of the King. Many years ago, I was offered my pick of several illustrations from the Idylls, I chose this image, "And Enid Sang", as I felt that it was a beautiful stand-alone image, it was in the best shape, and I thought that it was a great example of Cameron's depiction of women.
My question is this:
In many online searches for the Idylls, The "And Enid Sang" image is either omitted, or in rather in terribly faded shape. Is this some sort of orphan image? Is this not included in all copies of Cameron's Idylls?
The copies in the Musee D'Orsay and the Getty are very badly faded, although the Metropolitan Museum has a fine copy.
Does any member have insight on this particular Cameron photo?
Many Thanks in advance,
David
The Albert Kahn departmental museum in France has released nearly 25,000 colour photos of early 20th-century life into the public domain and over 34,000 others that are free to use as part of a project to assure visual history is not forgotten. Called Archives of the Planet, the project was started in 1908 by French banker Albert Kahn who wanted to photograph humanity around the world. Kahn hired 12 professional photographers who visited 50 countries until the project concluded...
Read the story here: https://petapixel.com/2023/01/11/nearly-70000-color-photos-of-early-20th-century-are-now-free-to-use/
Visit the museum collection here: https://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr/
The National Media Museum is one of the leading museums in the north of England, receiving over 500,000 visitors a year and we want you to contribute to our ongoing success.
We are looking for extrovert, engaging and entertaining communicators to fill these stimulating roles. With your excellent presentation and performance skills and your keen interest in media, you will help bring the galleries to life for our diverse range of visitors. As part of the Explainer team in the Learning Department you will present live shows and use your creative skills to develop and deliver art, craft and media based activities for families and groups. It will be up to you to ensure visitors including families, school groups and teachers have an enjoyable, safe and educational visit.
If you have a passion for media, for communication, and for engaging children and adults of all ages, we’d love to hear from you.
This post is 4 days per week including one weekend day.
Part time - 28.8 hours per week
£10,674.40 per annum (£13,343 FTE) plus weekend allowance
Fixed term until January 2013
Closing date for applications: 5 February 2011
For a full job description please email
recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
Interested? Please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
This Bonhams auction in London on 4th Dec includes an exceptionally rare set of two volumes of photographic albums of Java in the Dutch East Indies by the pioneering Victorian photographers, Walter Woodbury and James Page. Containing some 60 topographical views and portraits, mostly around Batavia, they are estimated to sell for between £10,000-15,000.
Another lot on offer is an album of 180 views and portraits taken in Ethiopia by Captain Tristram Charles Sawyer Speedy(1836-1910). It also includes some self-portraits of Captain Speedy himself and us estimated to sell for £600-800.
You can check the rest of the lots here.
The First Fully Researched Biography of Frederick Scott Archer. I first began researching the life and work of Frederick Scott Archer in 2005, whilst writing my ‘magnum opus’ on the history of astronomical photography, ‘Catchers of the Light’- a work which took 7 years to complete.
I began writing this book based on my knowledge and experience as both a professional astronomer and as a trained genealogist. It soon became clear that much of what had been previously written on the life and work of the photographic pioneers featured in my book, was either missing, badly researched or blatantly wrong. Of the many men and women included in ‘Catchers’, the one pioneer whose life and work was the subject of the greatest misrepresentation and falsehoods was Frederick Scott Archer.
What had little that had been written of him was either badly researched or wrong, even on a basic level of when and where he was born, and his family background.
His Wikipedia entry states: “Frederick Scott Archer (1813 – 1 May 1857) was an English photographer and sculptor who is best known for having invented the photographic collodion process… Scott Archer was the second son of a butcher in Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire who went to London to take an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and silversmith with Mr. Massey of 116 Leadenhall Street...’
Almost all the above is either incorrect or incomplete. It is also commonly believed that he was orphaned as a child – also untrue!
FSA was born on the 30th August 1814 at Bull Plain, Hertford not in Bishops Stortford. He was the fifth son of the seven children born to Thomas Archer, a butcher and former Mayor of Hertford. FSA’s mother died in 1817, but his father was very much alive when he remarried in 1830! This is just the beginning of the misrepresentation of FSA’s life and work.
I had originally intended that my biography should be published to coincide with the actual bicentennial of his birth in 2014; but delayed it because I felt it was incomplete and required much more research. Instead, I self-published a short eBook on his life and work. Now, a decade later I returned to the task, and finally completed the task.
Like FSA, I have decided to release a draft of my biography freely to the photographic community; with the aim of improving upon through your comments, criticisms and any additional information you can provide.
Whilst researching my biography several extremely interesting facts were uncovered. It became clear that most of FSA’s photographs were based on the same subjects and locations of the early drawings and watercolours of the great English landscape artist, J M W Turner. In addition, FSA even exhibited his photographs in the same street and possibly the same building in which he had been born, some forty years earlier – a coincidence?
If you are interested in reading my biography, it can be downloaded as a zip file from:
https://catchersofthelight.com/downloads/Collodion Chemist.zip
Also included is an Excel spreadsheet which details those individuals, companies and institutions that contributed to his Testimonial Fund, which was setup following his his death in 1857.
So, any comments etc., can be forwarded to me at this email address: biography@frederickscottarcher.com
Thank you.
Kind Regards,
Dr. Stefan Hughes
Photographic Historian
The British Library is seeking a cataloguer to work on an archive of modern architectural drawings, photographs and maps related to Hampi Vijayanagara, a UNESCO World Heritage site in south India.
This archive, known as the Vijayanagara Research Project, was formed by Dr John Fritz and Dr George Michell from 1986 to 2006 and features the work of a number of architectural historians who systematically documented the topography and archaeology of the site. These important archaeological records provide a chronological continuation of the Library's historical collections related to the site and acts as an important resource for researchers working on cultural heritage. The collections were donated to the British Library in 2016.
The post-holder will be required to arrange, catalogue, edit metadata as well as research and identify archaeological and architectural sites in South Asia in order to make the collection accessible to users.
The curator, academic and writer David Mellor (he added 'Alan' to avoid confusion with the politician of the same name) has died aged 75 years at his home in Machynlleth, Wales. He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's J Dudley Johnston (2005) and Education (2015) awards.
Mellor studied art at Sussex University from 1967 under Quentin Bell. During this time Asa Briggs, then Vice-Chancellor of the University, received the archive of Mass-Observation from Tom Harrisson. Mellor published and curated exhibitions about the substantial collection of pre-war photographs of working-class life contained in the archive. He stayed at Sussex until his retirement in 2018. In the words of Maurice Howard he was one of the country’s leading scholars in the fields of twentieth century painting, film and photography.' Mellor had an extensive list of publications to his name and curated significant exhibitions on Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and on Robin Denny, Cecil Beaton and Bill Brandt. He curated major exhibitions at the Barbican and Tate, most memorably Paradise Lost: The New Romantic Imagination in Britain (1987) and The Sixties (1993), at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.
Mellor was also a director of Brighton's Photoworks and the Brighton Photo Biennial, and Edinburgh's cooperative Photography Workshop from 1996 to 2011.
As Howard notes 'As a teacher, generations of students testify to his unique insights into British culture. David was teaching the inter-relations of media long before the subject became an academic discipline at the University and was sensitive to art and the environment from the beginning of his career'.
With thanks to Paul Hill (seen on the right, in the picture left) who notes: 'So sad to get the news of the the death of photo historian and teacher. David Mellor (left). We worked together quite a few times - up here in Derbyshire at The Photographers Place workshop in the 70s, Salford ‘80, and latterly talking about The Real Britain project at the 2014 Brighton Biennial. Great scholar and lovely guy….'
See:
Hello, I am researching this photo of Rossetti by Carroll. Sorry for my bad quality pics. I believe it's an albumen print, on very thin paper, 5-3/8 x 4 inches. I know the original was taken in 1863, however, the back has a faint pencil inscription: 1873 Life photo. There is an identical print with the oval framing in Morton N. Cohen's Reflections in a Looking Glass- from the Ransom Center.
Would anyone know if Carroll's photos were reprinted in the 1870s? Or could this be a more recent print?
Any information would be appreciated.
Best, David
