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The Bethlem Archives & Museum in Monks Orchard Road, Beckenham, records the lives and achievements of people experiencing mental health issues and documents the rich history of the institution, which began in 1247, along with its affiliated hospitals. Recognised as Europe’s oldest institution specialising in mental illnesses, it has been known as St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlem Hospital, Bethlehem Hospital and most notoriously, Bedlam.

Its museum is in the running to collaborate with the photographer, known professionally as Rankin, on a project which has its roots in Victorian images in the Museum’s collection. In the mid-19th century, photographer Henry Hering photographed numerous Bethlem patients to try and detect the patients’ mental health conditions through their facial expressions and features. The Museum holds a large collection of these images, showing patients before and after treatment and illustrating the Victorian need for categorization of patients.

The Museum would work with Rankin to create a new permanent collection of portraits. The project would raise awareness of the extent of mental illness, helping to reduce prejudices by showing that it is not always clear from a person’s appearance that they are unwell. Victoria Northwood, Head of Archives & Museum, said: “As we know now, mental illness cannot always be detected in people’s appearances and our project will aim to emphasise this point. Our historic photography collection is strong and it would be wonderful to be able to revisit the medium with a combination of Rankin’s skill and our contemporary values. 

The full report can be found here. You have until 28th January to place your vote for Bethlem Archives and Museum, or any of the other three contenders here.  It's your choice!

The work of Limerick photographer Franz S. Haselbeck is one of the greatest Irish photographic collections, chronicling an exciting period in Irish history. Haselbeck was never fully appreciated during his lifetime (1885–1973), but his granddaughter, Patricia Haselbeck Flynn, recently painstakingly catalogued his archives, some of which are now on display in Limerick City Hall. 
Haselbeck was a photographer in Limerick City from 1912 until his death, in 1973. He cycled all over the city and surrounding countryside photographing important events of the time, including the War of Independence, construction projects, the military, and taking portraits of the locals.  

His work now provides one of the most important and comprehensive views into 20th century Ireland. Spanning six decades of major change, the collection is made up of almost 5,000 surviving images and documents from the early 1900s to the 1960s.

Patricia Haselbeck Flynn inherited the collection in 1990 and, working closely with the Limerick City Museum and Archives (LCMA ), she has insured her grandfather’s archive of work will be preserved. She also penned the book Franz S. Haselbeck’s Ireland and curated an exhibition of his work and equipment, named The Street, in Limerick City. It is the culmination of years of work.

A selection of his photographs can be seen here, and you can read the rest of the article here.

The National Portrait Gallery, London, has appointed Phillip Prodger (right), founding Curator of Photography at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, as Head of Photographs Collection, from 1 June 2014. He has been at the Peabody since 2008. 

Prodger will lead the Gallery’s photographic exhibitions and displays programme and oversee the Gallery’s Collection of more than 250,000 photographs, which spans from the medium’s invention to the present day.

Terence Pepper OBE, Hon FRPS, formerly Curator of Photographs, has a new part-time role, starting January 2014, as the Gallery’s Senior Special Advisor on Photographs, and will be working on special projects with the Exhibitions team until early 2016. Pepper's change of role was reported by BPH in December 2013.

Phillip Prodger, Ph.D (Cantab.) FRSA, was curator of the National Portrait Gallery's acclaimed exhibition Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street in 2011, and Ansel Adams: From the Mountains to the Sea, which showed at the Royal Museums Greenwich in 2012. He is the author and editor of 17 books and catalogues, including Darwin's Camera, named one of the best art and architecture books of 2009 by the New York Times, and Man Ray | Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism (2011). In 2013 he was the only curator in the United States to receive a Focus Award, given annually to those making a critical contribution to the promotion, curation, and presentation of photography.

Originally from Margate, Kent, Phillip Prodger has held appointments at the National Gallery of Canada, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. He received a Ph.D. in history of art from the University of Cambridge in 2005. Expert in late nineteenth/early twentieth-century art and photography, he has curated more than 30 exhibitions internationally, including at the Beijing Museum of World Art and the Berlinische Galerie in Germany.

Terence Pepper’s exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery include those on Howard Coster (1985) and James Abbe (1995), Angus McBean Portraits (2006), Vanity Fair: Portraits (2008), (co-curated with David Friend and winner of the Lucie Award for Exhibition of the Year), Beatles to Bowie: the 60s Exposed (2009) and Man Ray: Portraits (2013- 2014) which toured to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (where it was nominated for a Lucie Award) and The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

Pepper joined the National Portrait Gallery as Librarian in October 1975. In 1978, having become Curator of Photographs, he curated and published his first National Portrait Gallery catalogue to mark the centenary of E. O. Hoppé in Camera Portraits by E. O. Hoppé. (He recently co-authored with Prodger the 2011 Hoppé Portraits Catalogue). In 1981 Pepper curated his first major exhibition, Norman Parkinson: 50 Years of Portraits and Fashion.

In 1988 the exhibitions Helmut Newton Portraits and Alice Springs Portraits were followed by research for the first monograph on Lewis Morley: Photographer of the Sixties (1989). A major book written with John Kobal on the MGM photographer Clarence Sinclair Bull: The Man Who Shot Garbo became the template for a further series of successful exhibitions based on the same formula including Horst: Portraits (2001), and Beaton: Portraits (2004). Pepper’s interest in Edwardian photography resulted in High Society: Photographs 1897-1914 and Edwardian Women Photographers. His most visited exhibition, co-curated with Philip Hoare, was Icons of Pop (1999) while his interest in contemporary photographs saw the establishment of the Gallery’s annual Photographic Portrait Prize.

Dr Tarnya Cooper, Chief Curator, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘Terence Pepper has made a remarkable contribution to the Gallery over many decades and has been responsible for a considerable number of important and critically acclaimed exhibitions. During his long period at the Gallery he has also been absolutely instrumental in building our truly outstanding collection of portrait photographs. We are delighted that he will remain at the Gallery in order to continue to share his considerable knowledge and expertise’.

Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘I am very pleased that Phillip Prodger will join the team at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and will be able to lead our important work in photographic portraits, building on the achievements of Terence Pepper in the development of the Collection and in creating outstanding loan exhibitions.’

In the interim period from 1st January to 31st May 2014 the photographs team will be led by the Gallery’s Twentieth Century Curator, Paul Moorhouse.

Additional reporting: Michael Pritchard

A reader has three photographic medals awarded to a Miss M Brightwell in the 1920s by the B.M.T.S.P.S. Does anyone know what the BMTSPS was? The PS presumably stands for Photographic Society. 

David Burder FRPS and Roger Smith will be presenting a replica of what was probably the first camera to be used commercially in England. Wolcott and Johnson’s design was adapted by Johnson and Beard and patented by Beard. The speakers will talk about the project, the making of the camera (made to Beard's patent drawings) and about the daguerreotype process. This is an evening meeting and time will not permit the making of an image but this is an opportunity to see an exceptional camera and learn about the way it was made and used. Places are limited. Promises to be an educational and fun event.

Monday 20 January 2014 at 6.30pm.

Wetherby Preparatory School, Bryanston Square, London, W1H 2EA

Organised by the RPS London DVJ Group jointly with the Historical Group 

Admission £5 (free for RPS Members) Booking essential via RPS website.

BPH publicised this project last year and the results of the first round of discussions and meetings have now been published. The website features case studies with Liz Hingley, Daniel Meadows and Mark Power. Read more here: http://www.photolegacyproject.co.uk/

Image: Mark Power's studio

If you are a Facebook user there is a new group to celebrate and to present information relating to this important anniversary. Search for ,'Birth of Photography' or click here: https://www.facebook.com/birth.of.photography

Photographic negatives left a century ago in Captain Scott’s last expedition base at Cape Evans have been discovered and conserved by New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust. The negatives were found in expedition photographer Herbert Ponting’s darkroom and have been painstakingly conserved revealing never before seen Antarctic images.

The Trust’s conservation specialists discovered the clumped together cellulose nitrate negatives in a small box as part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project which has seen more than 10,000 objects conserved at Scott’s Cape Evans hut.

The negatives were removed from Antarctica by the Trust earlier this year. Detailed conservation treatment back in New Zealand separating the negatives has revealed twenty-two images.  The photographs are from Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, which spent time living in Scott’s hut after being stranded on Ross Island when their ship blew out to sea.  One of the most striking images is of Ross Sea Party member Alexander Stevens, Shackleton’s Chief Scientist, standing on-board the Aurora.

Although many of the images are damaged, the Antarctic Heritage Trust was able to recognise landmarks around McMurdo Sound, although the identity of the photographer remains unknown. “It’s an exciting find and we are delighted to see them exposed after a century. It’s testament to the dedication and precision of our conservation teams’ efforts to save Scott’s Cape Evans hut,” said Nigel Watson, Antarctic Heritage Trust’s Executive Director.

In 2010 the Antarctic Heritage Trust (NZ) discovered three crates of whisky and two crates of brandy under Ernest Shackleton’s 1908 base during conservation work.

See: http://www.ukaht.org/

Image: Alexander Stevens on Aurora deck (NZAHT)