Exhibition: ‘Oscar Rejlander: Artist Photographer’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 12th March – 9th June 2019

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Two Ways of Life (Hope in Repentance)
1857
Albumen silver print
21.8 x 40.8cm (8 9/16 x 16 1/16 in.)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

 

 

Oscar Rejlander, the father of photography, sets in motion many of the later developments of photographic art.

I could wax lyrical about the light, staging and humour of the images; the allegorical, religious and emotional portraits; the influence of photography on painting; the spontaneous act caught on film (Eh!); the combination printing, precursor to digital manipulation (Two Ways of Life); the costume dramas (The Comb Seller); or the presaging of the work of August Sander (The Juggler). But I won’t.

Instead, I just want you to think about the period in which these photographs were made – that Dickensian era of archetypal humanity, intricate narrative. I want you to feel that these reality pictures are alive and how they transcend the time of their creation through the lyricism of the print.

From the mind of the artist to works of art that stare down that cosmic time shift, from cradle to grave.

Marcus

Many thanks to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“It is the mind of the artist, and not the nature of his materials which makes his production a work of art.”

Oscar G. Rejlander

 

 

Oscar Gustav Rejlander is best known for his work “Two Ways of Life,” a masterpiece for which he used over 32 different negatives. It took him around six weeks to create it and over 3 days to produce a final print.

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Infant Photography Giving the Painter an Additional Brush
c. 1856
Albumen silver print
6 × 7.1cm (2 3/8 × 2 13/16 in.)
Courtesy The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

 

After emigrating from Sweden to England in 1839 and taking up photography in 1852, he became one of the first to recognise photography’s potential as a “handmaid of art” – exemplified by early photographs like “The Infant Photography Giving the Painter an Additional Brush.” This tiny print served to demonstrate how photography could preserve an allegorical scene for a painter’s extended study. It also functioned as a self-portrait and hinted at Rejlander’s hidden ambitions: reflected in the convex mirror, he presents himself as a modern-day Jan van Eyck.

Extract from Dana Ostrander. “The Overlooked Legacy of Oscar Rejlander, Who Elevated Photography to an Art,” on the Hyperallergic website April 2, 2019 [Online] Cited 06/06/2019

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Non Angeli sed Angli (Not Angels but Anglos), after Raphael’s Sistine Madonna
c. 1854-1856
Albumen silver print
20.5 x 26.3cm (8 1/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
Princeton University Art Museum
Museum purchase, David H. McAlpin, Class of 1920, Fund

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Mary Constable and Her Brother
1866
Albumen silver print
16.8 x 22.1cm (6 5/8 x 8 11/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection
Purchase, Harriette and Noel Levine Gift, 2005

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Bachelor’s Dream
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
13.9 x 19.6cm (5 1/2 x 7 11/16 in.)
George Eastman Museum, purchase
Photo: Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Hard Times (The Out of Work Workman’s Lament)
1860
Albumen silver print
13.8 x 19.7cm (5 7/16 x 7 3/4 in.)
George Eastman Museum, purchase
Photo: Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Head of St. John the Baptist in a Charger
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
14.1 x 17.8cm (5 9/16 x 7 in.)
George Eastman Museum, purchase
Photo: Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Study of Hands
1856
Albumen silver print
14.8 x 17.6cm (5 13/16 x 6 15/16 in.)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Purchased 2014

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
A “Set To”
1855
In “Prince Albert’s Calotype Album,” vol. 2, about 1860
Salted paper print
15 x 21cm (5 7/8 x 8 1/4 in.)
Royal Collection Trust
© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British, born Sweden, 1813-1875) was one of the 19th century’s greatest innovators in the medium of photography, counting Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron among his devotees. Nevertheless, the extent of Rejlander’s work and career has often been overlooked. Oscar Rejlander: Artist Photographer, on view March 12 – June 9, 2019 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles, is the first exhibition to explore the prolific career of the artist who became known as “the father of art photography,” and whose bold experimentation with photographic techniques early in the medium’s development and keen understanding of human emotion were ahead of their time.

The exhibition features 150 photographs that demonstrate Rejlander’s remarkable range, from landscapes and portraits to allegories and witty commentaries on contemporary society, alongside a selection of his early paintings, drawings, and prints.

“Rejlander tells us in his writings that ‘It is the mind of the artist, and not the nature of his materials, which makes his production a work of art’,” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “While technologies have dramatically changed, some of the fundamental issues that Rejlander grappled with in his photographs still resonate with photographic practice today. His photographs, though made a century and a half ago, are both meticulously of their time and timeless, foreshadowing many later achievements of the medium through to the digital age.”

Oscar G. Rejlander was born in Sweden and moved to England in 1839, working first as a painter before turning to photography in 1852. He made a living as a portrait photographer while experimenting with photographic techniques, most notably combination printing, in which parts of multiple negatives were exposed separately and then printed to form a single picture. Rejlander moved to London in 1862, where his business continued to grow and where his wife, Mary Bull, worked alongside him in his photography studios.

Portraits and Images of Everyday Life

Portraiture, particularly of members of the higher ranks of London society, was Rejlander’s main professional activity and supported his livelihood. Art critics and clients alike admired his skill with lighting as well as the natural and seemingly spontaneous expressions he was able to capture. Rejlander photographed some of the most important figures of the day, including the English scientist Charles Darwin, known for his theory of evolution, and poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry Taylor. He also guided the first photographic efforts of the writer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (known as Lewis Carroll), the creator of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well as photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

From the beginning of his career as a photographer, Rejlander was keenly interested in depicting the activities of ordinary people, particularly the middle and lower classes of society. It was through his staged domestic images that he illustrated familial relationships with tenderness and humour, often using models and props to re-create in his studio the scenes he had witnessed in the streets, from young boys who swept up dirt and debris in exchange for tips, to street vendors such as “flower girls” who offered bouquets for sale to passersby. Like a modern street photographer, Rejlander chose his compositions and subjects based on what he saw and heard, realising the final images in the studio.

In 1863 Rejlander constructed a unique iron, wood, and glass “tunnel studio,” where the sitter, positioned in the open, light-filled part of the studio, would look into the darker part of the room where the camera and operator were situated, nearly invisible. The pupils of the sitters’ eyes expanded, allowing for “more depth and expression,” as a writer observed in Photographic News. In addition to this technique, Rejlander often exploited his own unique ability to enact exaggerated emotions to assist his subjects. Charles Darwin illustrated many of Rejlander’s expressive photographs in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872.

Combination Printing and Two Ways of Life

Rejlander holds an important place in the history of photography primarily because of the groundbreaking way he applied the technique of combination printing. On view in the exhibition is the most ambitious example of the artist’s pioneering experimentation, the epic photograph, Two Ways of Life, or Hope in Repentance (1857). It attracted immediate attention upon its exhibition both for its large size and the ambition of its production, which included the combination printing of over 30 separate wet collodion on glass negatives, a process that took more than three days.

The work represents an intricate allegory of two opposing philosophies of life: Vice and Virtue. In the centre of the picture, a wise man guides a younger man to the right, toward a life of virtue – work, study, and religion. To the left, a second young man is tempted by the call of desire, gambling, idleness, and vice. Prince Albert may have worked with Rejlander on the overall conception of the picture, and he and Queen Victoria purchased three versions for their art collection.

Despite this support from the Royal Family, Two Ways of Life divided the photographic community, with professional photographers considering it a technical tour de force, and amateurs seeing it as not only artificial in production but also immoral in its subject. However, it remains one of finest examples of combination printing to come from this period.

Art and Photography

Today, the debate about photography’s status as an art may be obsolete, but the arts community in 19th-century Britain was passionately divided over Rejlander’s chosen medium. Rejlander strongly advocated the view that photography was an independent art, while he was also convinced that a photograph could help artists by providing an effective substitute for working from live models. He was possibly the first to provide artists with visual references for their work in photographs, creating figure studies in a range of poses and costumes, including close-ups of hands, feet, drapery, and even fleeting facial expressions. Although many painters were reluctant to disclose their reliance on photography, several collected Rejlander’s photographs, including George Frederic Watts (English, 1817-1904) and Henri Fantin-Latour (French, 1836-1904).

Paintings also strongly influenced Rejlander’s choice of subjects, leading him not only to imitate the styles of artists but also to re-create the figures found in their compositions. He frequently photographed actors or models posing as a “Madonna,” a “Devotee,” a “Disciple,” or specific Christian figures such as John the Baptist. He may have intended these studies, as well as others showing figures in classical robes, for artists to consult as well.

“What we hope comes through in the exhibition is Rejlander’s humanity and humour, as well as his humble nature, particularly evident in the fact that he often sent his work to exhibitions under the name ‘amateur’,” says Karen Hellman, assistant curator of photographs at the Getty Museum. “His explanation: ‘When I compare what I have done with what I think I ought to do, and some day hope I shall do, I think of myself as only an amateur, after all – that is to say, a beginner’.”

Oscar Rejlander: Artist Photographer, is on view March 12 – June 9, 2019 at J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. The exhibition is curated by Lori Pauli, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, and Karen Hellman, assistant curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Mr. Collett’s Return
1841
Black chalk, charcoal and white wash highlights on paper (backed)
92.8 × 74.4cm
The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire (Usher Gallery, Lincoln)

 

 

Attributed to Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
[Landscape]
c. 1855
Salted paper print
22.3 × 19.7cm
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Purchased 2014

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Sailor Boy
1855, printed 1873
Carbon print
19 x 16cm (7 1/2 x 6 5/16 in.)
Royal Collection Trust
© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Ariadne
1857
Albumen print from a wet collodion negative
Paul Mellon Fund
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

 

“I believe photography will make painters better artists and more careful draughtsmen. You may test their figures by photography. In Titian’s Venus and Adonis, Venus has her head turned in a manner that no female could turn it and at the same time shows so much of her back. Her right leg also is too long. I have proved the correctness of this opinion by photography with variously shaped female models.” ~ Oscar G. Rejlander 1863

“He was perhaps the first to market photographic nude studies to artists, and he even used them to test the anatomical accuracy of the Old Masters. His photograph “Ariadne” was created, in part, to expose the unnatural pose and elongated feminine proportions in Titian’s “Venus and Adonis.” Many of Rejlander’s contemporaries came to rely on these nude studies, and the exhibition contains at least three originally owned by the painter Henri Fantin-Latour.”

Extract from Dana Ostrander. “The Overlooked Legacy of Oscar Rejlander, Who Elevated Photography to an Art,” on the Hyperallergic website April 2, 2019 [Online] Cited 06/06/2019

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
17.8 × 12.4cm (7 × 4 7/8 in.)
Courtesy The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Young Lady in a Costume
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
Courtesy National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Eh!
negative about 1854-1855; print about 1865
Albumen silver print
8.9 x 5.9cm (3 1/2 x 2 5/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The First Negative
1857
Albumen silver print
29 x 15cm (11 7/16 x 5 7/8 in.)
Musée d’Orsay, Paris Photo
© RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY / Patrice Schmidt

 

In “The First Negative,” Rejlander restages Pliny’s account of the origins of painting, boldly suggesting that the act of tracing a shadow is more akin to creating a photographic negative than a painting.

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Participles, or Grammar for Little Boys: Catching
1857
Albumen silver print
18.7 x 12.7cm (7 3/8 x 5 in.)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Participles, or Grammar for Little Boys: Caught
1857
Albumen silver print
20.3 x 15.7cm (8 x 6 3/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Mr. Coleman as Belphegor
c. 1857, printed later
Platinum print
18.2 x 14.4cm (7 3/16 x 5 11/16 in.)
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund Image
© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Please Give Us a Copper
c. 1866-1868
Albumen silver print
17.9 x 12.6cm (7 1/16 x 4 15/16 in.)
Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase

 

A copper is a brown coin of low value made of copper or bronze.

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Juggler
c. 1865, printed later
Platinum print
19.5 x 14.6cm (7 11/16 x 5 3/4 in.)
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund Image
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Enchanted by a Parrot (Mary Rejlander?)
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
Image (approx.): 50 x 30cm (19 11/16 x 11 13/16 in.)
William Talbott Hillman Collection
Photo: Hans P. Kraus, Jr., New York

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Cup that Cheers
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
19.9 x 15cm (7 13/16 x 5 7/8 in.)
Princeton University Art Museum
Museum purchase, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Max Adler

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Knuckle Bones
1860
Albumen silver print
15.4 x 12.5cm (6 1/16 x 4 15/16 in.)
George Eastman Museum, purchase
Photo: Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum

 

Knucklebones

Knucklebones, also known as Tali, Fivestones, or Jacks, is a game of ancient origin, usually played with five small objects, or ten in the case of jacks. Originally the “knucklebones” (actually the astragalus, a bone in the ankle, or hock) were those of a sheep, which were thrown up and caught in various manners. Modern knucklebones consist of six points, or knobs, projecting from a common base, and are usually made of metal or plastic. The winner is the first player to successfully complete a prescribed series of throws, which, though similar, differ widely in detail. The simplest throw consists in either tossing up one stone, the jack, or bouncing a ball, and picking up one or more stones or knucklebones from the table while it is in the air. This continues until all five stones or knucklebones have been picked up. Another throw consists in tossing up first one stone, then two, then three and so on, and catching them on the back of the hand. Different throws have received distinctive names, such as “riding the elephant”, “peas in the pod”, “horses in the stable”, and “frogs in the well”.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
“Father Times” (Where’s the Cat?)
c. 1860
Albumen paper print
16.5 x 14.2cm (6 1/2 x 5 9/16 in.)
Wilson Centre for Photography

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Night in Town (Poor Jo, Homeless)
before 1862; print after 1879
Carbon print
20.3 x 15.7cm (8 x 6 3/16 in.)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Purchased 1993

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Grief (Hidden Her Face, Yet Visible Her Anguish)
1864
Albumen silver print
19.6 x 14cm (7 11/16 x 5 1/2 in.)
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. Gift of John H. Rubel

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
The Comb Seller (Oscar and Mary Rejlander)
c. 1860
Albumen silver print
20 x 14.9cm (7 7/8 x 5 7/8 in.)
University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque. Gift of Eleanor and Van Deren Coke

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Lionel Tennyson
c. 1863
Albumen print from a wet collodion negative
Image (oval): 18.3 x 14.3cm (7 3/16 x 5 5/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Mental Distress (Mother’s Darling)
1871
Carbon print of a polychrome drawing from a photograph
54 x 43.2cm (21 1/4 x 17 in.)
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund Image
© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
1863
Albumen silver print
8.9 x 5.9cm (3 1/2 x 2 5/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection
Purchase, Sam Salz Foundation Gift, 2005

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Allegorical Study (Sacred and Profane Love)
c. 1860
Albumen paper print
12 x 17.5cm (4 3/4 x 6 7/8 in.)
Wilson Centre for Photography

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Bad Temper
Negative about 1865; print later
Albumen paper print
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund, Image
© Victoria & Albert Museum, London

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Henry Taylor
1863
Albumen silver print
20.2 x 15cm (7 15/16 x 5 7/8 in.)
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. William D. Paden

 

Sir Henry Taylor KCMG (18 October 1800 – 27 March 1886) was an English dramatist and poet, Colonial Office official, and man of letters.

 

 

Oscar G. Rejlander (British born Sweden, 1813-1875)
Self-Portrait with Parrot
c. 1865
In “Album of Photographs by Oscar G. Rejlander,” 1856-72
Albumen silver print
Closed: 37.4 x 27.6 x 0.3cm (14 3/4 x 10 7/8 x 1/8 in.)
Sir Nicholas Mander Collection

 

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5.30pm
Monday closed

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

LIKE ART BLACK ON FACEBOOK

Back to top