Blogs

The Media Space benefit auction held at Christie's last night realised £370,200. After a reception and short speeches from Ian Blatchford, director of the Science Museum and Michael G Wilson OBE the auctioneer, Philippe Garner of Christie's, knocked down sixty lots. The money raised will be used to support the National Media Museum's new space at London's Science Museum which is scheduled to open in March 2013 (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/media-space-the-first-view-of-the-space)

The highest price was achieved by Mark Cohen's True Color, 2008 at £60,000, followed by Luc Delahaye's 132nd Ordinary Meeting of the Conference at £24,000 and Irving Penn's portrait of Cecil Beaton at £20,000. A calotype by W H F Talbot realised £15,000.

The full results can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/8xfdajl

Photo: Michael Pritchard

The next London Photograph Fair takes place this Sunday May 20th.
Preview now online at
 www.photofair.co.uk


I am travelling from Australia to London in July to do some research on my Great grandfather's company which produced halftone photograph's  for pubishing in newspapers, journals and books during the 1890's. The name of the photographic process was called Electro-phototypy, the name of the company was Sutton's Process Syndicate Limited and the company was run out of 4 Tokenhouse Buildings London and they had a premesis just around he corner from Fleet St (address unknown). I am wanting to see what I can find out at the St Brides Library but I am not familiar with which books or records to search in. If anyone has experience in looking in these sort of records at the library and can help me with which items/records or books might be helpful or if anyone with some experience at looking at records at the library could spare a day to assist me I would be very grateful. If anyone can assistance me in anyway please contact me.

Also if anyone knows where the records for the testing of the makers of lantern/camera lenses at the Kew Observatory in the 1890's are located and if  they are available online could you please let me know.

Regards Lorayne

Well, if you have one lurking in the attic, then you're in luck! (I'm still looking for that Chinese vase, though ....)

This is because another record has been broken at an auction held recently on 12th May 2012 by WestLicht Photographica Auction. Its latest record sale was set by a Leica Null-Serie prototype (also known by the name 0-Series), which sold for the pricely sum of €2.16 million ($2.78 million).

The Leica 0-Series was a prototype launched in 1923 of which only 25 examples were made. It preceded the first ever commercial 35mm model, produced two years later by Leica. Today only twelve cameras from this particular series are known to exist, which explains this new record.

The camera was conservatively valued between €600,000-800,000, since the same model was snapped up at WestLicht’s for the sum of €1.32 million a year previously. Unlike in 2011, however, where the successful bidder was Asian, the new record figure was paid by a European collector. Details can be found here.

Before the Leica, the previous record in this field had been set by an 1839 daguerreotype signed by its inventor, Jacques Daguerre. The piece sold for €732,000 - a bargain price now, comparatively!

Roger Burrows' regional Victorian home is filled with more than 700 cameras ranging from the 1800s until the 1970s. Beginning with some of the earliest cameras such as a Victorian brass and mahogany Thornton Pickard and a drop-plate box camera, his collection ends at some of the earliest digital cameras.

You can listen listen to Roger's passion from pocket cameras used in the First World War and Cecil Beaton's love of the twin-lens reflex Rolleiflex to the family Box Brownie camera on the link here.

View Old Master painting through a new lens with London's National Gallery's first major exhibition of photography co-curated by Christopher Riopelle, National Gallery Curator for Post-1800 Painting, and Hope Kingsley from the Wilson Centre for Photography. Opening on 31 October 2012 the exhibition explores work by early photographers from the mid-19th century and the most exciting contemporary artists working with photography, alongside historical painting. It takes a provocative look at how photographers use fine art traditions, including Old Master painting, to explore and justify the possibilities of their art.


Work by leading photographers, such as Martin Parr, Craigie Horsfield, Sam Taylor-Wood, Richard Billingham, Julia Margaret Cameron and Gustave Le Gray will be on display beside key works from the National Gallery collection.

Paintings and early and contemporary photographs are presented together according to traditional genres such as portraiture, still life, nudes and landscape, highlighting the universality of the themes and influences across all the works, both past and present.

Drawing attention to one particular and rich strand of photography’s history – that of the influence and inspiration of historical painting – the exhibition features major early works by the greatest British and French photographers alongside work by an international array of contemporary artists. It includes new photography and video specially commissioned for the exhibition and on public display for the first time, plus works rarely seen in the UK.

Exceptionally, three ‘interventions’ of contemporary photographs by Richard Billingham, Craigie Horsfield and Richard Learoyd will be displayed within the Gallery’s collection, juxtaposed with great 19th-century paintings by 
Constable, Degas and 
Ingres .

The show includes almost 90 photographs alongside selected paintings from the National Gallery’s collection. Key photographs will come from the collection of the Wilson Centre for Photography, with loans from Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Media Museum in Bradford, Fundació La Caixa in Spain, and direct from the photographers themselves.

There is an interview view Colin Wiggins here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/may/13/photography-painting-national-gallery-exhibition and more at the National Gallery's website here: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/seduced-by-art-photography-past-and-present

Image: Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews (c1750), which will be juxtaposed with work by Martin Parr from 1991. Photograph: © National Gallery, London

For most of the last 10 years I've been working on a book about a Scottish amateur photographer by the name of Andrew Milne who was my great great uncle. The story and Andrews work may interest readers on this forum. 

As I'm now able to claim some reasonable progress and can begin plan for completing my first draft I've created a mini-website that introduces Andrew, his pictures and the story of my progress on the book. 

For a period of perhaps two of three years around 1902 Andrew was a madly keen amateur who took his photography seriously enough to enter competition.  With access to the railway through his job, he took his camera from one end of Scotland to the other.

I've now visited almost every location Andrew set up his camera on a tour that has given me great insights into the way he worked.

If you'd like to keep informed about the project please visit and sign up at www.onahillroad.com

Photographs are probably the most ubiquitous and far-reaching records of the colonial past. They trace the experiences of a vast range of people touched by European colonial expansion and domination, both colonised and colonisers.How is this record understood in public histories? What is its role in the way contemporary European cultures configure their pasts for the benefit of their futures?

This new website explores the different ways in which photographs of the colonial past have been used by museums, as spaces of public history, to communicate and interpret the colonial past in a postcolonial and multicultural Europe. Intended for curators, heritage managers, teachers an students, this resources has been built in response to the concerns of curators, debates about difficult histories in museums, the role of photographs in the museum space, and especially, key questions about the representation of the colonial past in museums as vectors of public history. The resource offers a unique comparative character that is the result of a collaborative research project, funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area), in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Norway, all of which have very different colonial histories and postcolonial engagements.

See: http://photoclec.dmu.ac.uk 

A century-old collection of photographs of India has been discovered in the RCAHMS archive. The rare and fragile glass plate negatives, which date back to around 1912, show life on the subcontinent at the high point of the British Raj.

The 178 negatives were found in a shoebox for a pair of grey, size 9,Peter Lord slip-on shoes, and were stored in their original five-by-eight-inch plate boxes, wrapped in copies of The Statesman newspaper dating from 1914. Founded in 1875, The Statesman is one of India’s largest circulation English language newspapers, and is still published today.

Highlights from the imagery include celebrations for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Calcutta in 1912 – the only visit by a British monarch to India as Emperor of the subcontinent – with the city’s buildings lit up at night in tribute; ships arriving at the Chandpal Ghat, the main landing place for visitors to Calcutta along the Hooghly river; pilgrims gathered for a religious festival on the Maidan, the large urban park at the centre of Calcutta; and merchants selling their wares outside the eleventh century Jagganath Hindu temple in Orissa.

RCAHMS architectural historian Clare Sorensen said, "We don't know for sure how the negatives came to be in our collection. We receive archive material from countless different sources, from architectural practices to generous donations from the public, and sometimes take large amounts of material in at once, and often documentation for historical deposits does not exist.

"Over time all this new material will be inspected and catalogued as part of our collection and then made available to the public. It's fantastic that a small shoe-box contained such a treasure-trove of photographic imagery, but in some ways it's not unsual. Our experience as an archive has shown us that some of the most interesting discoveries can be made in the most unlikely of places."

Research by RCAHMS is ongoing into the identity of the photographer and the origins of the collection. Anyone with further information should contact clare.sorensen@rcahms.gov.uk. As the negatives were still wrapped in newspapers from 1914, it is possible that they were transported back to Britain from India at this time, and have remained unopened until now.

All 178 negatives have now been digitised, and a selection of the best images are in an online gallery.

Senior Photography Conservator, International Media Museum, Qatar Museums Authority, Doha, Qatar. 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.

The IMM is seeking a suitably qualified and experienced candidate to work full-time in collaboration with the Head Photography Conservator on the long term preservation and restoration planning of the collections.

Job Responsibilities

In conjunction with the head conservator, identifies problems and suggests appropriate approach based on established treatment standards. Proposes and carries out treatments and repairs to photography materials with minimal supervision and in accordance with accepted standards for conservation practice. Designs and makes complex, custom-fit enclosures for fragile materials bearing in mind the unique needs of those formats and their chemical interactions with the materials available for construction. Selects and uses appropriate specialized tools and equipment for the treatment task; this includes but is not limited to matt cutter machine, ultrasonic welder, suction table; may also perform maintenance on this equipment.

Examines materials through a set of visual techniques and as appropriate, using specialized equipment such as stereoscopes and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Assists in the preparation of photography materials for exhibition. Assists with disaster recovery operations, following standard recovery procedures.

Required Education and Experience:

Bachelor Degree in Photograph or Paper Conservation from a recognized art conservation training program or equivalent and 5 years of related work experience in the examination and treatment of photographic works.

Required Skills and Abilities

Well developed practical skills are essential and the ability to carry out complex treatments with limited supervision. A broad knowledge of materials and methods used in the photographic technology is essential, as well as communication and organization skills. Computer skills including experience in word processing and databases is essential.

Enquiries related to this positionshould be directed to: Maria Matta, Head Photography Conservator, International Media Museum (IMM), Qatar Museums Authority, Doha, Qatar. Tel: +974 44525881 or email: mmatta@qma.org.qa

Please note that the required languages used in Doha are in English or Arabic.

With just under one month to go before the London Festival of Photography opens the programme is now available. In addition a wonderful range of exhibitions there are two events of particular note. On 21 June John Falconer, Lead Curator at the British Library will be talking on Henry Fox Talbot (see: http://www.lfph.org/diary/henry-fox-talbot-intimate-talk-by-john-falconer) and on 24 June 'Professor' Mervyn Heard will be demonstrating the magic lantern (see: http://www.lfph.org/diary/the-secret-life-of-the-magic-lantern-the-exotic-the-erotic-and-the-bizarre) As both events are likely to be popular BPH readers are advised to book early. 

Full details of the Festival can be found here: http://www.lfph.org 

Middlesex University is seeking a Professor or Reader in the Practice or History and Theory of Photography. Our vision for the future is clear: to be internationally outstanding in teaching, research and knowledge transfer. We are proud of our research achievements and are looking for over 50 Professors and Readers, alongside Senior Lecturers and Lecturers to further strengthen research across the University.

To be appointed, you will need to be an outstanding researcher for your stage of career, ambitious for yourself, enthusiastic about collaboration, keen to ensure that your research makes an impact beyond academia, and committed to helping us achieve our vision. In addition to welcoming applications from outstanding individual researchers, we would also welcome approaches from established research teams.

The advertised post is full time unless otherwise stated.

School of Art and Design 

With roots in the Hornsey College of Art, we have been enriching the creative, cultural and intellectual life of London and beyond for over 130 years. The School has thriving teaching and research and strong industry links in animation, fine art, fashion, graphic design, illustration, interior architecture and photography.

Our vision is to develop world-class research and teaching, underpinned by enviable links with the creative industries. The School is based in our £80m Grove building, providing unmatched facilities for art and design education and research. 

For an informal discussion please contact Dr Maggie Butt, Deputy Dean M.Butt@mdx.ac.uk 

Professor or Reader, in the Practice or History and Theory of Photography - A&D_7

Further information

An application form, job description and directions on how to apply for these posts are available by clicking 'Apply Online' here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEJ755/professor-or-reader-in-the-practice-or-history-and-theory-of-photography-aandd_7/.

The National Media Museum has recently revamped its blog giving it a fresh new look and feel, which you can check out here.

A major photographic collection assembled by Eric and Louise Franck has been promised as a donation to Tate it was announced yesterday. The outstanding collection of photographs of London include iconic works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Irving Penn. A selection from the collection, by photographers for whom London was a foreign city, will be exhibited in Another London opening at Tate Britain on 27 July 2012. 

Created over twenty years, The Eric and Louise Franck London Collection comprises in the region of 1400 photographs by 120 photographers and spans the period from the 1880s to the 2000s. The collection is unified by its subject matter: the photographs document the lives and communities of a single city, London. The estimated value of the gift to Tate is over £1million and comprises more than two thirds of the entire collection – the largest gift of photography ever made to Tate. The remaining work in the collection will be acquired on a purchase basis.

The Eric and Louise Franck London Collection will more than double Tate’s holdings of photography and will form a significant basis on which to build. This donation from Eric and Louise Franck follows recent gifts of a group of photographs by Don McCullin and a major vintage print of London by Henri Cartier-Bresson as well as contemporary film works by Tacita Dean and Jaki Irvine gifted to Tate in 2007. 

Highlights of the collection include Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Waiting in Trafalgar Square for the Coronation Parade of King George VI 1937, Bruce Davidson’s Girl with Kitten 1962, Elliot Erwitt’s Bus Stop, London 1962, Robert Frank’s London (Child Running from Hearse) 1951 and Irving Penn’s Charwomen, London 1950.   The majority of the works in the collection are from the 20th-century and include those by some of the century’s finest photographers such as Ellen Auerbach, Eve Arnold, Ian Berry, Dorothy Bohm, Bill Brandt, Horacio Coppola, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Martine Franck, Robert Frank, Stephen Gill, Karen Knorr, Marketa Luskacova, Roger Mayne,Irving Penn, Chris Steele Perkins, Marc Riboud, George Rodger and Chris Shaw.

The collection also contains work by lesser known but historically significant figures from places as diverse as East and West Europe, the Soviet Union, The United States, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean.

As well as being a unique document of London and its communities, this collection demonstrates the technical skill, sensitivity and originality of photographers in the face of a subject as overwhelming, diverse and complex as London. It also provides an important survey of photographic processes like cyanotypes, albumen prints, silver gelatin prints and colour prints.

Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate said “In recent years, photography has become central to Tate’s activity in relation to exhibitions and the development of Tate’s Collection. The acquisition of The Eric and Louise Franck London Collection significantly enhances our holdings of photography in important areas both in terms of particular photographers and iconic works. We are incredibly grateful to Eric and Louise Franck who have been extremely generous in promising this gift and others before it.”

Simon Baker, Curator, Photography and International Art said “This collection is completely unique, with both an intense focus on London as a subject and great diversity in the range of backgrounds and approaches of the photographers included. It will fundamentally transform Tate’s holdings of photographs, and make a major contribution to our photography acquisitions strategy, adding at a stroke substantial bodies of work by some of the twentieth century’s most important photographers.“

Eric Franck said “Louise and I have a long association with Tate, and we are delighted to be able to make such a significant impact to Tate’s permanent photography collection with this promised gift. It is thanks to Louise that this collection exists as it was following her initial suggestion that we began to collect works depicting London.”

The Tate appointed its first photography curator, Simon Baker, in 2009, and formed a Photography Acquisitions Committee in 2010.

Eric Franck has been a key figure on the international art scene for many years. Since 1994, he has owned Eric Franck Fine Art, dealing predominantly in 20th-century photography and photographic literature. He owned Galerie Eric Franck, a contemporary art gallery in Geneva from 1982 to 1994 and co-founded Galerie Franck & Schulte in Berlin in 1990. Franck is also an award-winning film and theatre producer. His production credits include Palermo oder Wolfsburg (Dir. Werner Schroeter, 1980) which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1980. Franck’s sister, photographer Martine Franck was married to Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eric Franck is an advisor to the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris. Louise Baring (Franck) is a journalist and has written two photography books: Martine Franck (published in 2007) and Norman Parkinson (published in 2009). Louise Baring is working on a new book to be published in 2013 on the Dutch photographer Emmy Andriesse.