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Auction house Christie’s is working with the Science Museum and the National Media Museum, Bradford, to present a benefit sale of Photographs 1840s to the Present which will be sold on the evening of Wednesday 16 May to raise funds for the new MEDIA SPACE that will open at the Science Museum in London in Spring 2013. The group offered comprises 61 remarkable images which span works by the photographic icons of the 19^th and 20^thcentury, through to leading contemporary names. The auction is expected to realise in excess of £300,000. Christie’s Photographs sale will also take place on the 16 May, in the afternoon, please click here for the separate press release.

The auction is by invitation only but bidding will be accepted via the internet and on commission. The e-catalogue is available here: http://tinyurl.com/cczybjh

Philippe Garner, Christie’s International Head of Photographs: “Christies is proud to be entrusted with this important benefit sale to which so many artists, gallerists, dealers and collectors have donated wonderful works. MEDIA SPACE is an inspiring new suite of galleries and performance spaces for independent thinkers, practitioners, pioneers of technology, writers, agenda setters, and young creative professionals on the design spectrum. It is an investment not only in the capital’s rich cultural offerings but also a further safeguard of photographic history – this will be a remarkable venue for exhibitions which draw on national collections, as well as providing a focused centre for the study of creative media.”

Ian Blatchford, the Science Museum Director: MEDIA SPACE will be a landmark over the next decade, combining the world-class collections of the National Media Museum with the exceptional and iconic space of the Science Museum.”

The most valuable individual work of the auction is print 5, from the sold-out edition of 5, of132^nd Ordinary Meeting of the Conference by Luc Delahaye, the recipient of many prestigious awards who has exhibited widely, most recently at Tate Modern in 2011 (estimate: £20,000-30,000, illustrated left). Having worked for many years for the photographic collective Magnum, Delahaye’s large-format photographs explore new ways of representing socio-political events, incidents and situations, specifically from Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.  

Dating to circa 1846, the earliest work is Bust of Paatroclus by William Henry Fox Talbot the photographic pioneer who invented the calotype negative-positive print process, through which the present work is created (estimate: £10,000-15,000). A further rare 19^thcentury work is General Sir James Simpson, circa 1855, by Roger Fenton (estimate: £1,500-2,000).

Leading the 20^th century works is a celebrated image by Irving Penn of his fellow artistCecil Beaton, which conveys Penn’s respect for the photographer whom he considered ‘an acute reporter of his time and milieu’ (estimate: £15,000-20,000). Another important work, in excellent condition, is Ten Photographs: 1923-1932, a portfolio by Rudolf Koppitz; (estimate: £8,000-12,000).

20^TH CENTURY
Further 20^th century highlights include, from left to right: Portugal, 1976, by Josef Koudelka (estimate: £10,000-15,000); Untitled (Ship it on the Frisco), from ‘Los Alamos’, 1965-1974 and Untitled, from ‘Southern Suite’, 1981, both by William Eggleston (each with an estimate of £8,000-12,000); Le corps robot descending stairs, Monte Carlo, 1995, by Helmut Newton (estimate: £6,000-8,000) and Henri Matisse, Vence, France, 1944, by Henri Cartier-Bresson (estimate: £6,000-8,000).     

CONTEMPORARY
The rich array of contemporary works span, from left to right: Anna, Red Fragment, 2012by Richard Learoyd (estimate: £15,000-20,000); Battersea Power Station, 1997, by Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low (estimate: £10,000-15,000) and The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, Mini Israel, Latrun, Israel 2007 by Taryn Simon (estimate: £7,000-9,000) toTeenage boy in Vondelpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 2, 2006 by Rineke Dijkstra (estimate: £15,000-20,000).

Bob Lansdale and Louise Freyburger are trying to research this image. They writes...We know the name of Regiment – the 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot, stationed in London, Ontario, CANADA at the time of the Fenian Raids (1866-1870). The tintype was found in a letter in a staircase when they demolished an old barracks. It made the newspapers when found in 1947. The mystery is why it was never mailed.  The letter was from “No 354 John Banks C Company 53rd Regt” addressed to his "sister" “Mrs [Charles] Rayner/Pantile House/Barling near Rochford/Essex/England,” dated August 24, 1867. 

We wonder if there are duplicates of this image which can offer further information. Can anyone add to our information about the Regiment and the people?  If so, I would be delighted to hear from you regarding my research of this lost tintype that the soldier's sister never got to see.  Its for an article in Photographica Canadiana, the journal of the Photograhic Historical Society of Canada (PHSC).

The Record Office of West Sussex County holds one of the largest archives of historic photos in the country. For the first time, it has made the archive available online for the general public to browse and buy online.

Apparently, Images can also be put on a jigsaw, coffee mug, mouse mat or keyrings - shock horrors! Prices range from £5 for a small print, fridge magnet or key ring, through to £15 for a photo t-shirt, £17 for a jigsaw or £100 boxed canvas print.

You can check out the archive on their website here.

With the cost of First Class postage going up a staggering 30% from 46p to 60p tomorrow, I'm pleased to say that at least this exhibition from The Royal Mail Archive is free!

The Post Office in Pictures is an exhibition showcasing iconic photographic images sourced from The Royal Mail Archive.

In 1933 Sir Stephen Tallents was appointed Public Relations Officer to the General Post Office (GPO), and so began a major project to promote the range of postal services to the British public. One initiative was the establishment of The Post Office Magazine, intended to give a sense of shared community, camaraderie and endeavour. In order to do this, the GPO employed photographers to create beautiful, informative and often humorous photographs of the Post Office at work.

While the photographic documentation of the Post Office at work in the community has continued to today, this exhibition will celebrate photographs from the BPMA collection covering the 1930s to the 1990s.

Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Photo: A mail cart driven across the shore line bound for Holy Island.

A selection of the glass plate negatives that form the substantial collections of George Washington Wilson and the Aberdeen Harbour Board have produced a set of fine photographic prints that will be exhibited by the Special Collections Centre at the University Library in Set in Silver: Contemporary Reflections on Glass Plate Photography. The images seen across both collections demonstrate a distinctive application of this delicate art. 

The fragile photographic plates are made from glass, with the image retained in a silver solution that rests delicately on the surface. Many thousands of the plates have been digitally scanned at the Special Collections Centre through a painstaking process which has resulted in the exposure of a special selection of prints for the first time to a contemporary audience. 

Photographic elements in the exhibition will be augmented by items borrowed from private and public collections such as the Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collections. 

The exhibition incorporates a selection of films produced by students of the Film & Visual Culture course at the University of Aberdeen, introducing dynamic moving image elements to the exhibition. The films document a contemporary version of the scenes evident in the featured photographs. In this way, the viewer will be able to observe the changes in the city and around the harbour area to the present day.

Details of the exhibition can be found here. Also, photographer Alicia Bruce reflects on the Set in Silver exhibition, whilst drawing parallels with her own practice at a special talk at the Special Collections Centre, University Library, University of Aberdeen on 12th May 2012 from 2.00pm to 2.45pm.

From the architectural record and romance of Gertrude Bell to ground-breaking documentary images by Captain William Shakespear and Harry St. John Philby, this showcase provides an introduction to the work of early British photographers in the Middle East; documenting people and places which have since undergone significant change.

Led by their Collection team, this showcase offers a number of opportunities to learn more about and see highlights of the Society's unique Collections. The first of the two workshops will be held this coming Monday 30th April 2012, and details of the second one can be found here.

Tate Britain will hold an exhibition of 180 classic twentieth-century photographs which take London as their key subject. In the years between 1930 and 1980, some of the best-known photographers from around the world came to London to make work about the city and its communities. This exhibition will bring together some of the biggest names in international photography, to explore the ways photographers, for whom London was a foreign city which they either visited briefly or settled in permanently, saw and represented the subject in their own unique and distinctive ways.

Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Photo: Mike Eghan at Picadilly Circus, London c.1965

© James Barnor

The latest Newsletter for the London Photograph Fair is out now - including full details of our next show on May 20th - also details of several other events taking place on the same day.

At the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards last night the publisher Dewi Lewis was honoured for his outstanding contribution to publishing. Gerry Badger (see right)made the presentation to Lewis who paid tribute to his business partner and wife Carole. Elsewhere Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis (Getty Publications) won the prize for the best photography book. 

The ceremony was part of the Sony World Photography Awards held at a black tie event in London. During the main Awards photographer William Klein was presented with an outstanding achievement award. 

For more information see: http://www.kraszna-krausz.org.uk/ and http://www.worldphoto.org/

Photoworks is recruiting for a full-time fixed-term role to work closely with the Director and Programme Team to develop and deliver the Brighton Photo Biennial in October 2012. The successful applicant will play an integral role in the development of a programme of activities to encourage participation and engagement. Application deadline: 21 May 2012.

Context: Following a recent successful bid to Arts Council England (ACE), Photoworks has merged with Brighton Photo Biennial, a move which recognises both organisations' proven track records in promoting and celebrating excellence in photography.

The merger of Photoworks and BPB presents a unique opportunity to position the new organisation strategically in a global market with key areas of development identified as unique artistic vision, innovative content, digital strategy, audience development and expansion, commercial growth and diversification of funding streams to reduce future dependency on government funding.

We embrace all kinds of photography. Commissioning is at the heart of the organisation. Collaborating with a broad range of photographers, artists and partners, we produce the Brighton Photo Biennial, commission artists and photographers, publish a biannual magazine and books and have a strong educational and participation agenda. The organisation encourages debate, inspires new thinking about photographic and visual culture and reaches out to the widest possible audience locally, nationally and internationally.

Job Title: Programme & Participation Co-ordinator

Reporting to: Director

Responsible for:  Interns and Volunteers

Purpose of the Post: The Programme & Participation Co-ordinator will work closely with the Director and Programme Team to develop and deliver the Brighton Photo Biennial in October 2012. They will play an integral role in the development of a programme of activities to encourage participation and engagement. 

Main Responsibilities: 

Working with the Director and Programme Team to develop and deliver an integrated participation programme for the Brighton Photo Biennial.

Research and develop fundraising opportunities for all projects.

Manage project budgets, ensuring they come in within the available resources.

Develop working relationships with selected schools, FE and HE institutions in the region.

Develop meaningful and strategic relationships with the wider community, identifying and targeting key groups.

Deliver a programme of talks and conferences throughout the Biennial.

Support the Programme Team in the delivery of the Brighton Photo Biennial exhibitions, events and projects.

Assist the Programme Team in the delivery of our magazine Photoworks.

Ensure the strategy for developing audiences for all participation projects is implemented and monitored.

To be responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of all projects and write the required reports to funders and partners.

Recruit and manage all volunteers for the Biennial.

Represent the organisation at external meetings and events where appropriate.

Assist other staff in the efficient day-to-day running of the organisation.

Person Specification:

Significant experience of directly managing participation and education projects.

Understanding and engagement with current themes, trends and issues in contemporary art and education.

Strong understanding of partnership and multi-agency working.

Demonstrable experience of initiating and managing collaborations with a diverse stable of partners.

Excellent project management and research skills.

Strong knowledge of contemporary visual arts and photography.

Ability to communicate effectively and passionately the vision of the organisation to partners, funders, the visual arts sector and the wider community.

Excellent negotiating skills with the ability to establish partnership opportunities and relationships.

Understanding of finances, especially preparing and keeping within budgets.

A proven commitment to equality of opportunity.

Terms & Conditions:

35 hours a week, fixed-term 7 month contract 

£25,000 pro rata per annum

How to apply: 

Click for more information: http://tinyurl.com/cfegtvh

The deadline for applications is Monday 21 May 2012

Culled from the Municipal Archives collection of more than 2.2 million images going back to the mid-1800s, NYC's Department of Records officially announced the debut of their online photo archive featuring all manner of city oversight — from stately ports and bridges to grisly gangland killings.

The project was four years in the making, part of the department’s mission to make city records accessible to everyone. Selected from the world-class historical collections of the Archives, most of these unique photographs, maps, motion picture and audio recordings are being made accessible for the first time through their website here.

I know that this is a bit of an old hat, but for those who missed the NMeM's Niépce in England' Conference back in Oct 2010, the Royal Society now has both a video and audio podcast of Philippa Wright's talk where she announcd and shared with the photographic, conservation and scientific communities the ground breaking findings which had been discovered during the collaborative research partnership between the National Media Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute.

The audio podcast can be found here, and the video one here.

Near the Patti Pavilion stands the statue of Alderman William Thomas, the Pioneer of Open Spaces.

A director of the Landore Tinplate Company, William Thomas of Lan Manor, Morriston, was elected to Swansea Corporation in 1871. Because the rapid increase of industrialisation in the 19th century left little land for recreation, he offered a prize for the best essay in English or Welsh on the desirability and advantages of recreation grounds for the working classes and poor children of Swansea.

His challenge elicited not just essays, but an offer of a suitable piece of land.

John Dillwyn, the elder son of Lewis Weston Dillwyn, had inherited the Penllergare estate when he came of age in 1831, on the condition that he took on the additional surname Llewelyn.

In 1833 at Penrice church he married Emma Talbot, youngest daughter of Thomas Mansel Talbot, of Penrice Castle. John Dillwyn Llewelyn was a pioneer photographer, related through his wife Emma to the Fox Talbots of Laycock Abbey in Wiltshire, who played a major part in the development of photography. In 1874 J D Llewelyn responded to William Thomas's challenge by offering the 42 acre Cnap Llwyd Farm, near the ruins of Morris Castle, to the people of Swansea. Later he also gave £1,000 towards the expense of the farm being laid out as a park. This was officially opened in October 1878 by John Talbot Dillwyn Llewelyn (since his father was unwell), during William Thomas's term as mayor, and named Parc Llewelyn.

It was the first of Swansea's designated parks, and during the Second World War large areas were used in the Dig for Victory campaign to produce oats, wheat and potatoes.

William Thomas o Lan went on to secure the land for Victoria Park, the Recreation Ground at St Helen's, as well as Cwmdonkin, Brynmill and Brynmelyn Parks.

Article courtesy of South Wales newspaper.

Rarely seen documents chronicling the life and reign of Queen Victoria have been made public on a new website marking this year's Diamond Jubilee. The Royal Family released its archive of letters, journals, painting and photographs for the launch.

The website has nine sections tracing the life of Victoria as a princess to her own Jubilee celebrations in 1897. The site also gives details of the young Princess Victoria's studies and timetable of lessons. Many documents have been available to academics but not the public. Britain's longest reigning monarch had nine children with Prince Albert but never recovered from his death in 1861 from typhoid and wore black in mourning for the rest of her life.

Her withdrawal from public life made her unpopular, but during the late 1870s and 1880s she gradually returned to public view.

The website is divided into nine sections: The Young Princess; Becoming Queen; Love and Marriage; Family life; Home and Empire; Victorian Invention and Improvement; Queen Victoria's Household; Diamond Jubilee Day, and Jubilee Celebrations.

Of particular note to BPH readers are the number of original photographs shown and two sections: Photography equipment purchased by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1848 and Daguerreotype of Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, c.1845 which explore Victoria and Albert's involvement in photography.

The website can be found here: http://www.queen-victorias-scrapbook.org/index.html

The photographic archive of the Warwick-based Royal Regiment of Fusiliers has been given a 21st century makeover.

Nearly 3,000 pictures belonging to the historic regiment - formerly the Royal Warwickshire Regiment - have been digitally preserved by Kineton-based experts We (Save Photo) who offered their services to the regiment free of charge.

During the process, carried out over a number of months, many previously unseen photographs were discovered, some dating back as far as the 1870s, which shed new light on the regiment, which has its headquarters at St John's House in Coten End.

You can read the full report here.

Photo: Field Marshall Montgomery inspects troops in Egypt in 1946.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards, the Director of De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre, is giving her Professorial Lecture on Thursday 24 May 2012. The lecture is titled 'Aimless Meandering and Structured Seeing: Photographers, Places and the Feel of History’ and will take place in the Hugh Aston Building, Magazine Square, De Montfort University, Leicester. The lecture will start at 6.00pm and following the lecture, there will be a drinks reception with the opportunity to buy Professor Edwards’ new book The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885-1918 which is formally published on 25 May.

In the lecture, Professor Edwards will look at the relationship between popular photographic practices and the historical past in late nineteenth century England. She will show how photography was used to express a series of moral values  around a sense of the past. But this historical environment was expressed not through a disembodied gaze, but through the embodied practices of photography, mediated through  movement, light, space and above all historical imagination on the ground.

The event will also celebrate the first anniversary of the PHRC. See: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/research-faculties-and-institutes/art-design-humanities/phrc/photographic-history-research-centre-phrc.aspx
 
Anyone interested in attending should call (0116) 257 7452 or email eventsoffice@dmu.ac.uk, by 22 May 2012 highlighting any access requirements that you might have. More information about university and PHRC events can be found at http://www.dmu.ac.uk/events. 

What is a photograph? How do we define its history? This exhibition, compiled mostly from NOMA's permanent collection, examines many forms of photography from the 1840s to the present, in order to explore these questions. Over the past 190 years, photography has infiltrated almost every aspect of modern life, from birth to war and science to religion. During this time, the photograph has taken many forms, such as the daguerreotype, cyanotype, and gelatin silver print. Scholars and historians have often found it difficult to write a history that gives equal weight to each of these distinct forms, but recent technical developments in photography have made it even more complicated. With the advent of the digital era, it appears that we must once again begin rewriting photography's history to include not only images on metal plates, paper, and cloth, but also images on laptop screens and handheld devices, images that have no physical support and may never physically exist at all. It has become clear that a history that narrowly defines photography as one medium is insufficient. Photography, it seems, is not one medium, but many.

This exhibition describes and includes many of the most common photographic processes (daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, gelatin silver prints, and inkjet prints), but it also includes objects, artifacts, and practices that have typically been considered marginal to the history of photography (reproductions of photographs in ink, negatives, camera-less photographs, cartes-de-visite, color processes, and even a piece of jewelry). These disparate works invite you to consider what-if anything-links them together within the history of photography.

Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Sotheby’s 15 May Photographs auction in Paris offers an exquisite selection of works ranging from 19th century daguerreotypes to contemporary photographic oeuvres. The undisputed highlight in the historic photography section is Gustave LeGray’s exceptional album of nine salt prints documenting the Salon de Paris 1852, estimated between € 240,000 and 280,000* ($315,000-368,000). One rare surviving copy is known to be in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay.

Both copies equally contain nine salt paper prints each bearing the photographer's blind-stamp "Gustave Legray".
In both cases, the ninth plate represents not a view of the 1852 exhibition but a view of the 1850/51 Salon beautifully accentuating a group of sculptures, amongst which the Toilette d'Atalante by Pradier now in the Louvre.
On two of the views dating from 1852 Gustave Courbet's Les Demoiselles de village, today in New York's MET, is noticed to have changed place completely. In fact, the regulations of the Salon allowed for five days of closure in order to rear- range the hanging of the exhibits. It is likely that the painting which belonged to a notorious collector, the Comte de Morny, was initially exhibited in the main room and moved to a less prominent place following unfavorable reviews.
The two known copies of this album have the same dark-green shagreen binding, the one here only differing in its more elaborate embellishment, such as the ad- ditional gilded frame lines, the imperial eagle above the gilded title letters on the front and the gilded crowned monogram M on the back cover. The monogram may potentially be attributed to Mathilde LaeticiaWilhelmine, cousin of Na- poléon III. At the time of Le Gray's commission the director general of the French national museums and authority over the institution in charge of organising the Salon was Comte Emilien de Nieuwerkerke who, between 1846 and 1869, was of- ficially the companion of Princess Mathilde.
Princess Mathilde was very much involved in Paris' cultural scene, presiding over her own salon, a patron of the arts and well acquainted with Nadar who portrayed her. Of her companion, the comte de Nieuwerkerke who headed the Louvre and the Salon, exists a portrait by Gustave Le Gray in the Société française de Photographie.

Four years after the 1852 Salon Le Gray, today the most coveted 19th century photographer at auction, showed his grand maritime views in public for the first time at the Photographic Society in London. It would be the starting point for his international success that remains undiminished to this day.

The auction catalogue can be found here.

A profile portrait of the wife of Charles Dickens, Catherine (1815-1879), by John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1810-1901), is to be sold at Bonhams, Knightsbridge, as part of the Photographs Sale on 17th May. The only daguerreotype portrait of Catherine known to exist, it has been estimated at £8,000 – 12,000.

The portrait first came to light in 1996, discovered in an antique camera shop in Canterbury. Initially believed to be an image of Charles Dickens's sister, leading scholars soon identified the sitter as the writer's wife, Catherine (née Hogarth).

The earliest date for the portrait can be given as 1852 from the patent date 'Reg July 20 1852' on the catch of the morocco-bound case. Indeed surviving letters of Charles Dickens reveal that he sat for Mayall in 1852 and a daguerreotype portrait of the novelist, dated 1853-55, was sold at auction in London in 2001. It is possible that the couple visited Mayall's studio together during this period and that the two portraits were intended as a pair.

This daguerreotype was discovered with two ivory passes for the 1870 Italian Opera inside its case, which will be offered here alongside the photograph. One is inscribed 'Miss Dickens', suggesting that the daguerreotype might once have belonged to the couple's eldest daughter Mary, known as Mamie. In 1870 Dickens rented a house in Hyde Park Gardens, in part so that Mamie could experience the delights of the London Season.

The lot can be found here: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20154/lot/1/

Coincidentally, in the same auction, is an 1867 portrait by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) of Valentine Prinsep, with whom, it is believed, Charles Dickens's youngest daughter, Kate, had a love affair. Both Valentine, who was the son of Cameron's sister, Sarah, and Kate were artists and mixed in the same circles.

The sale also includes portraits by Cameron of Alfred Lord Tennyson (an image known as The Dirty Monk), 1865, signed by Tennyson himself (estimate £6,000 – 8,000) and an intimate portrayal of the photographer's grandson, Archibald Cameron, and her maid Mary Hillier (estimate £6,000 – 8,000).

The University of Bristol invites applications to a permanent Lectureship in History and History of Art. Candidates are welcomed who can demonstrate excellence in research in any area which spans the two disciplines concerned, and who are capable of teaching in both and developing other means to encourage the further integration of both within the same department.

You will have a PhD (or completion by August 2012), a record of publication or well-developed plans for publication, and clear potential to achieve international excellence in research. You will be a specialist in any area within History and History of Art. Research fields of interest could include (but are not restricted to): painting, sculpture, ceramics, decorative arts, landscape studies, film history, digital media, the history of photography, architecture, ritual or social space, museum studies, collecting, visual culture, or material culture. You will work to develop further an established research profile through publication, bidding for external research funding, and giving presentations at national and international conferences in order to play an active role in maintaining and enhancing the research profile of the Department, School and Faculty. You will also be expected to supervise postgraduate research students.

Informal enquiries can be made to Professor Ronald Hutton, email r.hutton@bristol.ac.uk, Dr Beth Williamson, email beth.williamson@bristol.ac.uk or Ms R Jacks, email r.jacks@bristol.ac.uk telephone 0117 331 7982. For further information about the department, see www.bristol.ac.uk/history 

Interviews are expected to take placed during the week commencing 25 June 2012. Anticipated start date September 2012. 

Contract: Permanent

Salary: £33,884 - £38,140

Grade: Level b in Pathway 1

Closing date for applications: 9:00am 11 May 2012

Full job description (Ref: 17101) can be found here. Good luck!