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The Art Fund has welcomed Michael G Wilson, as a new trustee. Wilson, is chairman of the trustees of the National Media Museum and a collector of photography. He is a film producer and has lectured on photography and film at universities worldwide.

Michael G. Wilson said: "I am delighted to become a trustee of the Art Fund. The organisation does a tremendous job engaging national and regional interest in the arts and ensuring public access to great art collections through its tireless campaigning and funding."

Wilson opened the Wilson Centre for Photography in 1998. The Centre is one of the largest private collections of photography today, spanning works from some of the earliest extant photographs to the most current contemporary productions. The centre hosts seminars, study sessions, runs an annual bursary project with the National Media Museum and loans to international museums and galleries.

He is also Managing Director of EON Productions Ltd and responsible for box office successes, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, through the James Bond franchise, with his producing partner and sister, Barbara Broccoli. Wilson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California and a Doctor Juris from Stanford Law School. He was awarded anOBE in 2008 for Services to the Film Industry.

In a ceremony at Kensal Green cemetery today, Saturday, 1 May 2010, Frederick Scott Archer was honoured with the unveiling of a plaque on his grave. In addition, those present were able to see for the first time a surviving link to Archer with the re-erection of the original head stone recording his death that had long been lost. Also, John Brewer announced that photo-historians had incorrectly recorded Archer's death as 2 May 1857 when, in fact, he had died on 1 May 1857.

The event was organised by a group of artists called The Collodion Collective who started work on a plan to honour Archer and to put a headstone on his grave. Money was raised through the publication of a book World Wet Plate Collodion Day 2009. The group arranged a demonstration of the collodion process after the plaque unveiling and organised an exhibition of modern wet-collodion images on glass and on paper.

Brewer while researching Archer went back to his original death certificate to discover the correct date of his death. A number of historians including Helmut Gernsheim had relied on incorrect contemporary reports of his death was they incorrect ascribed to 2 May. The newly located headstone also correctly records Archer's date of death.

Archer by all accounts was buried in an unmarked grave but his death was subsequently recorded on the headstone of his sister, Sarah and brother, James who were all buried in the same plot. The headstone was hidden by vegetation and removed and was only discovered close by the plot as plans for the commemoration were made. It confirms Archer's correct date of death and his siblings.

The headstone reads: The Sacred to the Memory of Sarah Archer who died 3rd Decr 1839 aged 24 years. Also of James Archer and brother of the above and third surviving son of Thos. Archer, formerly of Hertford, who died March 17th 1819 aged 36 years. Also Fredk. Scott Archer, brother of the above, 105 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, who died May 1st 1857 in his 44th year.

Finally, as I walked through the cemetary I spotted memorials to another photographic notable, the society portrait photographer Alexander Bassano (10 May 1829–21 October 1913)...

Michael Pritchard

It is little wonder the life of Hemi Pomara has attracted the attention of writers and film makers. Kidnapped in the early 1840s, passed from person to person, displayed in London and ultimately abandoned, it is a story of indigenous survival and resilience for our times.

Hemi has already been the basis for the character James Pōneke in New Zealand author Tina Makereti’s 2018 novel The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke. And last week, celebrated New Zealand director Taika Waititi announced his production company Piki Films is adapting the book for the big screen – one of three forthcoming projects about colonisation with “indigenous voices at the centre”.

Until now, though, we have only been able to see Hemi’s young face in an embellished watercolour portrait made by the impresario artist George French Angas, or in a stiff woodcut reproduced in the Illustrated London News.

Drawing on the research for our forthcoming book, Empire, Early Photography and Spectacle: the global career of showman daguerreotypist J.W. Newland (Routledge, November 2020), we can now add the discovery of a previously unknown photograph of Hemi Pomara posing in London in 1846.

This remarkable daguerreotype shows a wistful young man, far from home, wearing the traditional korowai (cloak) of his chiefly rank. It was almost certainly made by Antoine Claudet, one of the most important figures in the history of early photography.

All the evidence now suggests the image is not only the oldest surviving photograph of Hemi, but also most probably the oldest surviving photographic portrait of any Māori person. Until now, a portrait of Caroline and Sarah Barrett taken around 1853 was thought to be the oldest such image.

For decades this unique image has sat unattributed in the National Library of Australia. It is now time to connect it with the other portraits of Hemi, his biography and the wider conversation about indigenous lives during the imperial age.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" />
‘Hemi Pomare’, 1846, cased, colour applied, quarter-plate daguerreotype, likely the oldest surviving photographic image of a Māori. National Library of Australia

A boy abroad

Hemi Pomara led an extraordinary life. Born around 1830, he was the grandson of the chief Pomara from the remote Chatham Islands off the east coast of New Zealand. After his family was murdered during his childhood by an invading Māori group, Hemi was seized by a British trader who brought him to Sydney in the early 1840s and placed him in an English boarding school.

The British itinerant artist, George French Angas had travelled through New Zealand for three months in 1844, completing sketches and watercolours and plundering cultural artefacts. His next stop was Sydney where he encountered Hemi and took “guardianship” of him while giving illustrated lectures across New South Wales and South Australia.

Angas painted Hemi for the expanded version of this lecture series, Illustrations of the Natives and Scenery of Australia and New Zealand together with 300 portraits from life of the principal Chiefs, with their Families.

In this full-length depiction, the young man appears doe-eyed and cheerful. Hemi’s juvenile form is almost entirely shrouded in a white, elaborately trimmed korowai befitting his chiefly ancestry.

The collar of a white shirt, the cuffs of white pants and neat black shoes peak out from the otherwise enveloping garment. Hemi is portrayed as an idealised colonial subject, civilised yet innocent, regal yet complacent.

Read more: To build social cohesion, our screens need to show the same diversity of faces we see on the street

Angas travelled back to London in early 1846, taking with him his collection of artworks, plundered artefacts – and Hemi Pomara.

Hemi appeared at the British and Foreign Institution, followed by a private audience with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. From April 1846, he was put on display in his chiefly attire as a living tableau in front of Angas’s watercolours and alongside ethnographic material at the Egyptian Hall, London.

The Egyptian Hall “exhibition” was applauded by the London Spectator as the “most interesting” of the season, and Hemi’s portrait was engraved for the Illustrated London News. Here the slightly older-looking Hemi appears with darkly shaded skin and stands stiffly with a ceremonial staff, a large ornamental tiki around his neck and an upright, feathered headdress.

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An idealised colonial subject: George French Angas, ‘Hemi, grandson of Pomara, Chief of the Chatham Islands’, 1844-1846, watercolour. Alexander Turnbull Library

A photographic pioneer

Hemi was also presented at a Royal Society meeting which, as The Times recorded on April 6, was attended by scores of people including Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and the pioneering London-based French daguerreotypist Antoine Claudet.

It was around this time Claudet probably made the quarter-plate daguerreotype, expertly tinted with colour, of Hemi Pomara in costume.

The daguerreotype was purchased in the 1960s by the pioneering Australian photo historian and advocate for the National Library of Australia’s photography collections, Eric Keast Burke. Although digitised, it has only been partially catalogued and has evaded attribution until now.

Unusually for photographic portraits of this period, Hemi is shown standing full-length, allowing him to model all the features of his korowai. He poses amidst the accoutrements of a metropolitan portrait studio. However, the horizontal line running across the middle of the portrait suggests the daguerreotype was taken against a panelled wall rather than a studio backdrop, possibly at the Royal Society meeting.

Hemi has grown since Angas’s watercolour but the trim at the hem of the korowai is recognisable as the same garment worn in the earlier painting. Its speckled underside also reveals it as the one in the Illustrated London News engraving.

Hemi wears a kuru pounamu (greenstone ear pendant) of considerable value and again indicative of his chiefly status. He holds a patu onewa (short-handled weapon) close to his body and a feathered headdress fans out from underneath his hair.

We closely examined the delicate image, the polished silver plate on which it was photographically formed, and the leatherette case in which it was placed. The daguerreotype has been expertly colour-tinted to accentuate the embroidered edge of the korowai, in the same deep crimson shade it was coloured in Angas’s watercolour.

Read more: Director of science at Kew: it's time to decolonise botanical collections

The remainder of the korowai is subtly coloured with a tan tint. Hemi’s face and hands have a modest amount of skin tone colour applied. Very few practitioners outside Claudet’s studio would have tinted daguerreotypes to this level of realism during photography’s first decade.

Hallmarks stamped into the back of the plate show it was manufactured in England in the mid-1840s. The type of case and mat indicates it was unlikely to have been made by any other photographer in London at the time.

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‘New Zealand Youth at Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly’, wood engraving, The Illustrated London News, 18 April 1846.

Survival and resilience

After his brief period as a London “celebrity” Hemi went to sea on the Caleb Angas. He was shipwrecked at Barbados, and on his return aboard the Eliza assaulted by the first mate, who was tried when the ship returned to London. Hemi was transferred into the “care” of Lieutenant Governor Edward John Eyre who chaperoned him back to New Zealand by early December 1846.

Hemi’s story is harder to trace through the historical record after his return to Auckland in early 1847. It’s possible he returned to London as an older married man with his wife and child, and sat for a later carte de visite portrait. But the fact remains, by the age of eighteen he had already been the subject of a suite of colonial portraits made across media and continents.

With the recent urgent debates about how we remember our colonial past, and moves to reclaim indigenous histories, stories such as Hemi Pomara’s are enormously important. They make it clear that even at the height of colonial fetishisation, survival and cultural expression were possible and are still powerfully decipherable today.

For biographers, lives such as Hemi’s can only be excavated by deep and wide-ranging archival research. But much of Hemi’s story still evades official colonial records. As Taika Waititi’s film project suggests, the next layer of interpretation must be driven by indigenous voices.

Elisa deCourcy, Australian National University and Martyn Jolly, Australian National University

The authors would like to acknowledge the late Roger Blackley (Victoria University, Wellington), Chanel Clarke (Curator of the Maori collections, Auckland War Memorial Museum), Nat Williams (former Treasures Curator, National Library of Australia), Dr Philip Jones (Senior Curator, South Australian Museum) and Professor Geoffrey Batchen (Professorial chair of History of Art, University of Oxford) for their invaluable help with their research.

Elisa deCourcy, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow 2020-2023, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University, Australian National University and Martyn Jolly, Honorary Associate Professor, School of Art and Design, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The world's two oldest photographic periodicals have announced their digitisation. The Royal Photographic Society's Photographic Journal, which dates from March 1853 and the British Journal of Photography which dates from January 1854 will be made available in digital forms to researchers and the public. Both publications have been published continuously since their first issue.

BPH understands that The RPS has already completed digitisation of its Journal from 1853 to 2012 and that it will be made available in a searchable form with the launch of The Society's new website in January 2014. The project has been funded through the generosity of a RPS member. The BJP has announced its own digitisation in its January 2014 issue (BJP, January 2014, p. 98) which stated that 'throughout 2014 and beyond, we will be digitising BJP's entire archive'. Its intent 'is to make [it] available to our readers, as well as historians, professors and researchers worldwide'. It is not reported whether access will be charged for. The RPS will make access available to the public without charge.

Commenting on the RPS digitisation to BPH The Society stated: "During a scoping exercise it became apparent how rare runs of the RPS Journal were and digitisation would both preserve the content and make it far more widely available to everyone from photographic historians, to family historians. The Royal Photographic Society was at the forefront of developments in the artistic and scientific development of photography and these were reported and discussed in the Journal. For much of its history the RPS Journal was read and had an influence far beyond its membership. The Society has always been an important body within British and international photography and the Society’s Journal is unique in its longevity". The ability to access the Journal which has never been previously made available in this way will allow The Society's role, that of its members and wider British photography over 160+ years to be studied as never before.

BPH will carry more on both projects as information becomes available. To contact The RPS about it's digitisation email: director@rps.org

With thanks to Bob Gates ARPS. 

Lydia Heeley has been appointed the Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and will start in post on 2 October 2024. She replaces the inaugural curator Phillip Roberts who was appointed in 2022 and left earlier this year. The post was advertised in May. 

Lydia brings curatorial experience from her most recent post as Assistant Curator, Photography, at the museums of St Andrews University a role she has held since December 2022. Prior to this she was Digitisation Officer responsible for 3D and 2D digitisation at the museum, and has been at the university in various part-time and voluntary roles, including work on the James Valentine collection and on the St Andrews Photography Festival.

Her MPhil thesis which was undertaken at St Andrews, supervised by Luke Gartlan was titled Scottish documentary photography and the archive: George M. Cowie, Franki Raffles and Document Scotland in the University of St Andrews Photographic Collection. The first major retrospective of Raffles' work was shown at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and remains on view until 16 March 2025. Lydia blogged about her work on the exhibition. 

The curatorial post at the Bodleian was first announced in 2021 with the objective of caring for, and developing, the libraries' growing photography collections. It was realised through a 'transformational' gift of £2 million from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. The endowment accompanies the Foundation's donation of the archive of renowned American portrait photographer and businessman, Bern Schwartz, and the Bodleian will be delivering an exhibition of Schwart's photography.

The Bodleian houses a significant and growing collection of photography. It has major holdings of significant photographers such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Helen Muspratt, Bern Schwartz, Daniel Meadows, and Paddy Summerfield; photobooks from the Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey Collection; prints gifted by James and Claire Hyman; albums from the Michael and Jane Wilson Collection of Nineteenth Century Photographs; as well as huge volumes of photography present in the Libraries' wider archive and print collections, for example the extensive photographic component within the archive of Oxfam GB. The study of and research into photography is increasing in prominence at the University of Oxford, and the post will be key to bringing together different strands of the University for research collaborations with various faculties, museums within the University, other organisations in the city, and with the History of Art department under the leadership of Professor Geoffrey Batchen, whose work focuses on the history of photography.

See Lydia's Linkedin profile here
The Baltic's Franki Raffles exhibition details are here

Portrait image: Lydia Heeley / Linkedin. 

BPH heard late yesterday afternoon that the British documentary photographer Chris Killip had died at his home in the United States. Killip was born in the Isle of Man, and started his career by assisting Adrian Flowers in London. From 1969 he began concentrating on his own photography. In 1977 he became a founder, exhibition curator, and advisor at the Side Gallery Newcastle, and worked as its first director. His work was championed and purchased by the V&A Museum, London. 

He documented many aspects of 1980s Britain and is best known for In Flagrante (1988). His work has been widely exhibited and collected and his body of work The Station is currently on view at the Martin Parr Foundation. 

From 1991-2017 he was Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, in Massachusetts.

Killip received the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award for In Flagrante.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/14/chris-killip-hard-hitting-photographer-of-britains-working-class-dies-aged-74

and: 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/16/chris-killip-recognition-for-a-great-photographer

Images  © Michael Pritchard. Above: Killip at the launch symposium for the Martin Parr Foundation in 2017. Read more here.  Left: The Station at Martin Parr Foundation, on view until 20 December 2020. 

Morphets of Harrogate is offering at an album of seventy albumen prints by Oscar Gustav Rejlander from the former estate of Surgeon Commander Herbert Ackland Browning RN on 11 September. The album is estimated at a modest £7000-10,000 and the complete album is to be re-created as a page turner pdf book on the Morphets website shortly, see:  www.morphets.co.uk. 

Details of the album are below: 

REJLANDER (OSCAR), AN ALBUM OF SEVENTY ALBUMEN PRINTS, CIRCA 1865-66

A rare and interesting folio of seventy portrait and figurative photographs by this pioneer, the albumen prints mounted on gilt-edged card leaves in a single volume with gilt and tooled black morocco bindings, the sitters including Rejlander himself, Mary Rejlander (nee Bull), Sir Henry Taylor, Hallam Tennyson (son of Lord Alfred Tennyson), John and Minnie Constable, the youngest of Lord Hawarden's children, possibly including Elphinstone 'Eppy' Maud and other unidentified subjects, album 30cm x 25cm, prints varying in size from 12cm oval up to 21cm x 15cm, some with titles or annotations in pencil. 

Provenance: This album was part of the estate of Surgeon Commander Herbert Ackland Browning RN and thence by descent to the vendor.  Commander Browning served throughout the First World War, never married and died at the family home in Dawlish in 1955.  Herbert's father, Captain George Browning RN, was a naval hydrographer and married Elizabeth (nee) Kendal, daughter of Dr Marsters Kendal of Kings Lynne, honorary surgeon to the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, at Sandringham.  It is possible that the album belonged to him and was thus lent to the Prince of Wales and others as annotations indicate. 

Footnote: Oscar Gustav Rejlander (1813-1875), known as the Father of Art Photography, was born in Sweden and studied art in Rome, settling in England in the 1840s.  He lived in Lincoln and later Wolverhampton, working as an artist and portrait miniaturist.  He took an active interest in photography, seeing its potential for assisting artists and in 1853 attended lessons in the London studio of Nicholas Henneman.  This inspired him to develop his own techniques experimenting with portraiture although it is his pioneering work in photo-montage, combining several negatives to form one image, that brought him to wider renown.   His best known work The Two Ways of Life comprised thirty-two negatives and took six weeks to produce.  Following its exhibition in Manchester in 1857 a copy was ordered by Queen Victoria for Prince Albert.  Rejlander became a member of the Royal Photographic Society, regularly lecturing and publishing on the subject and in 1862 he moved to London where he built a photographic studio designed to make the best use of natural light for his subjects.  During his work he came into contact with Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), Lady Clementina (Maud) Hawarden and Charles Darwin.  In the early 1870s he worked with Darwin on illustrations for his treatise on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Although Rejlander sold volumes of his photography through book shops and art dealers it is unknown if the album in this lot was obtained thus by Captain Browning.  One pencil annotation suggests it may have been bought directly from the photographer as it reads 'Rejlander had refused to sell this copy (the only one obtained from the negative taken) at any price: but the offer of £2.2.0 for the Swedish poor was too much for his nerves and I obtained it DEO GRATIAS'.

A further annotation inside the front cover reads 'This album has the honour of being submitted in 1866 to HRH The Prince of Wales by Colonel Teesdale (3 weeks), in 1870 at the request of Cardinal Antorelli to HH Pope Pius IXth by Monsignor Pacca (1 week), into 1871 to Her Majesty by Lady Elgin (several weeks)'.  

Some of the prints herein are well known examples also held in the collections of the Royal Photographic Society, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

For more information contact: Fran Hazlewood on 01423 530030 or email enquiries@morphets.co.uk.

Images: courtesy Morphets of Harrogate

Frankfurt's Städel Museum is claiming to be the first art museum in the world to have exhibited photographic works. The first mention of a photo exhibition at the Städel Museum dates from 1845, when the Frankfurt Intelligenz Blatt – the official city bulletin – ran an advertisement. The museum is claiming this is the earliest known announcement of a photography show in an art museum worldwide.

The 1845 exhibition featured portraits by the photographer Sigismund Gerothwohl of Frankfurt, the proprietor of one of the city’s first photo studios who has meanwhile all but fallen into oblivion. Like many other institutions at the time, the Städel Museum had a study collection which also included photographs: then Städel director Johann David Passavant began collecting photos for the museum in the 1850s. In addition to reproductions of artworks, the photographic holdings comprised genre scenes, landscapes and cityscapes by such well-known pioneers in the medium as Maxime Du Camp, Wilhelm Hammerschmidt, Carl Friedrich Mylius or Giorgio Sommer. An 1852 exhibition showcasing views of Venice launched a tradition of presentations of photographic works from the Städel’s own collection.

The museum is now marking the 175th anniversary of the announcement of the invention of photography with a new photography exhibition. The special exhibition dealing with European photo art – Lichtbilder. Photography at the Städel Museum from the Beginnings to 1960 – presents the photographic holdings of the museum’s Modern Art Department, which have recently undergone significant expansion.

From 9 July to 5 October 2014, in addition to such pioneers as Nadar, Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron, the show will feature photography heroes of the twentieth century such as August Sander, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Man Ray, Dora Maar or Otto Steinert, while highlighting virtually forgotten members of the profession. While giving an overview of the Städel’s early photographic holdings and the acquisitions of the past years, the exhibition will also shed light on the history of the medium from its beginnings to 1960.

See more at: http://www.staedelmuseum.de/sm/index.php?StoryID=1924&websiteLang=en#sthash.xaUUWzZM.dpuf

Image: Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914), Naples: Delousing, ca. 1870.

Doha News reports that plans for the proposed Qatar-based International Media Museum in Doha have been scrapped amidst staff and budget reductions. Several senior staff working on the Media collections have recently left. The newspaper reports that: 'QMA employees have also alleged that teams working on plans for three proposed museums – the Pearl, Media and Children’s museums – have been significantly reduced, and plans for individual museums scrapped.

'However, a QMA spokesperson told Doha News today that while the organization had considered establishing permanent homes for the Pearl and Media collections, these plans were never formalized. The collections remain, however, and their respective teams are still working on them, she said, adding that there had been “no change” to plans for the Children’s Museum.' Reference to the photography and related collections have been removed from the QMA, now Qatar Museums, website which has recently been updated.

The Qatar state has acquired significant holdings of photography, originally through the collecting of Sheikh Saud Al-Thani, and subsequently taken over by the state.  Al Thani collected photography, cameras and printed materials - from the late 1990s. The QMA collections include significant holdings of daguerreotypes and the S F Spira Collection amongst many others. According to the QMA: 'The IMM possesses one of the most outstanding and valuable photographic collections in the region and one that ranks with major collections through the world. The photographs are of exceptional quality and span from the 19th century to present. The collection includes photographs from early daguerreotypes through albums and photography - illustrated books to contemporary colour photographs and photographic advertising poster. Also IMM possesses a collection of films and photographic and film technology as well as a significant rare book collection.' Recently buying of photography by the QMA had largely stopped. 

Details of the QMA Photography collections can be found here: http://www.qma.org.qa/online/index.php/en/collections/photography

Plans for a photography museum, later re-named International Media Museum, were first drawn up by 2002 and were well advanced with designs (shown above, left) prepared by the renowned architect Santiago Calatrava. Construction never started.

In February 2013 World Architecture News revealed plans (image below, right) from Fernando Romero Enterprise’s (FR-EE) latest building concept: PH Museum in the Middle East. The location of the building was widely believed to be Doha. WAN noted: 'The main bulk of the 3,800sq m museum takes the form of a large canopy, shading visitors from harsh sunlight beneath a circular overhang. Romero has taken his cue from ‘the mechanics of a camera’, falling in line with the functionality of the space as a museum of photography and photographic equipment.

FR-EE explains: “Inspired by the mechanics of a camera, the organization of the museum reflects the complexity of a camera lens. The interior is organized radially from the center of the building and a spiraling ramp connects these spaces to emphasize spatial continuity.'

The proposed opening had been postponed several times since, most recently with a date of 2017 being suggested. This now appears to be unlikely as QM reviews its cultural strategy, assesses its budgets, appoints a new CEO after the departure of Edward Dolman, and adopts a policy of Qatarisation for employees. Sadly, the photography museum appears to have become a casualty of those changes. 

See: http://dohanews.co/qatar-museums-authority-announces-re-branding-amid-job-loss-uncertainty/ and 

http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/main/search/search?q=Qatar

Achievers will be among those honoured at the University of Derby's annual Awards Ceremonies taking place on 15-17 January 2014. The University will honour people who've risen to the heights of their profession and will join more than 4,000 students graduating in degree, postgraduate and other higher education courses. Amongst those to be recognised is Emeritus Professor Roger Taylor, the UK's most respected photographic historian. 

Roger Taylor becomes an Honorary Doctor of Fine Art - Author of numerous books, exhibitions, and web databases, Roger is known internationally as a historian of mid-19th century British photography. For almost 60 years photography has been the centre of his working life; as a practitioner, teacher, curator and academic. His career began as apprentice to a leading Manchester commercial and industrial photographer, changing direction after a full-time course (1965-7) at Derby College of Art (later to become part of the University of Derby). After 18 years' teaching at Sheffield Polytechnic, Roger was appointed the National Museum of Photography's Senior Curator of Photography. From 1995 he entered his career's most productive phase, as an independent curator creating exhibitions for leading American museums.

See: http://www.derby.ac.uk/news/lights-camera-and-action-experts-to-be-university-honoraries

The V&A holds a set of stunning 20x16-inch transparencies by Arthur H. Downes of models wearing African fashions.  The  transparencies seem to have been made in Manchester in the 1960s and one them is labelled 'Model from Warri No. 5'. Warri is a city in Nigeria and also the name of a Nigerian modelling agency.

They are part of the Royal Photographic Society Collection and Downes was president of the RPS 1986-1988.  He specialised in colour and began self-processing colour transparencies in the 1950s, including large-scale display transparencies such as these.

My colleagues and I are eager to uncover anything we can about these photographs: Why were they made?  Were they ever displayed or published?  Who were the models?  Where did the fashions come from?  Any information will be gratefully received!

The death has been reported of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani, aged 48, in London. Although not a name that will now be familiar to many photography collectors, for a period in the late 1990s/2000s Sheikh Saud was the largest buyer of photography - photographs and cameras - in the world, securing a number of important photography collections for himself and for the state of Qatar at auction and from dealers across the UK, Europe and North America.

The blurring of lines between the two and allegations of false accounting ultimately brought and end to his spending and formal role but he later resumed his position as a personal buyer. He had a connoisseur’s eye across wide range of art forms, of which photography was just a part and other interests that included wildlife conservation.  

See: http://news.artnet.com/in-brief/worlds-biggest-art-collector-sheikh-saud-bin-mohammed-al-thani-dies-at-age-48-161867

Much of Sheikh Saud's photography collection eventually became part of the the Qatar Museum Authority's proposed photography museum, later renamed International Media Museum, plans for which were scrapped earlier this year - see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/qatar-s-international-media-museum-plans-scrapped

UPDATE: Personal note: I was a Christie's photography specialist when Sheikh Saud emerged on to the scene as a collector of photography.On one memorable occasion he purchased an entire camera sale, bar one lot, much to the chagrin of those present in the auction room who delighted in bidding against him, knowing that he would not stop until he had secured the lot. On another occasion he invited me to a meeting at his Portman Square apartment ostensibly to offer me job in Qatar as a curator of his collection. The whole experience was surreal. Dealers were lining up to offer him all sorts of works of art which he would look at, and then dismiss or indicate an interest with a wave of a hand. We shared a short conversation before I was passed to an aide. The promised job failed to materialise.   

In retrospect, Sheikh Saud could have used some experienced advice on the auction process and how to manage dealers, but I sense, that as money was essentially no object, he knew what was happening and that was part of the game for him. And there was no question that he had a very good eye for traditional works of art, for high-end photography, and to recognise when a photography collection was of sufficient importance to be added to his portfolio.

The Qatar Museums Authority collections are testament to his abilities and it is disappointing that the photography collection that he largely built up is, for now, consigned to a secure, climate controlled warehouse in the desert, with plans for a photography museum now scrapped (see link above) as other priorities for the QMA have arisen. MP

Read more about Sheikh Saud here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saud_bin_Muhammed_Al_Thani

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/

In a new 3D documentary commissioned for Sky 3D, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D takes the viewer on a fascinating journey from the gentle 3D of the Victorian era to the extreme out-of-the-screen 3D of the 1980s. The documentary will be screened on Sky 3D on 7 July 2011.

3D has endured a long bumpy journey. From William Friese Greene simply walking along a Hyde Park pathway in an 1893 3D short to Johnny Depp’s swashbuckling antics in Pirates of the Caribbean IV in 2011, 3D has come and gone several times. Some pundits are arguing that the current 3D era is already coming to an end, pointing to slowing 3D ticket sales; others are saying that there is no going back now and that, for the first time, technology and economics finally make 3D a viable form of mainstream entertainment.

Over the last 100 years, the 3D industry has been scattered with various attempts to lure audiences back into the movie theatres. It is this story that Brian May, ex-guitarist of rock band Queen, explores in the Sky 3D’s latest documentary commission, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D, scheduled for broadcast July 7th.

Not only is Brian May a qualified astro physicist, he is also a passionate advocate of stereoscopic 3D, particularly Victorian 3D of which he has accumulated a substantial collection of Victorian 3D memorabilia over the past forty years. Brian May’s lifelong 3D interest has materialised into a book, A Village Lost and Found, published in 2009. The book includes a proprietary 3D viewer known as the OWL, which brings the book’s 2D images into 3D life and was actually designed by Brian May himself.

Produced by Bigger Pictures in conjunction with Widescreen Productions ,who also produced Britain from the Sky 3D series, (which is currently being broadcast every Thursday on Sky 3D) Brian May’s 3D documentary is a genuinely fascinating look into stereo 3D right from the very early days of Victorian stereoscopic filming to the digital 3D of today. Clips include the insane film “Coming At Ya!” a 1980’s western film that, as you can probably guess from the title, used 3D as its main selling point with nearly every sequence featuring action jumping out of the screen. This is so rarely seen in today’s 3D movies and television shows. Yes, it is gimmicky, but still really fun now and again.

For more click here: http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3dtv/brian-mays-brief-history-of-3d-review-sky-3d/4196