I have so many exhibitions to post within the next few weeks that you get two postings this weekend and next weekend!
It’s always a pleasure to see the work of Gregory Crewdson – stylish, stylised, hyperreal, dead pan, cinematic, panoramic large-scale transcendent photographs.
Many thankx to the Albertina Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs for the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Gregory Crewdson. Retrospective
Gregory Crewdson (American, b. 1962) is one of the world’s most renowned photographers. Since the mid-1980s, Crewdson has been using the backdrop of small American towns and film sets to create, like a director, technically brilliant and colourfully seductive photographs that focus on human isolation and the abysses of society. The enigmatic scenes self-reflexively raise questions about the boundary between fact and fiction but can also be related to socio-political developments.
Watch this emotional video of the artist in the middle of his exhibition at the Albertina Museum.
Gregory Crewdson. Retrospektive | Mit Kurator Walter Moser
Curator Walter Moser on Cregory Grewdson’s unique work
Gregory Crewdson | Mit Co-Kuratorin Astrid Mahler
“Gregory Crewdson’s latest series is set in the fictional small town of ‘Eveningside’. It is the last part of a trilogy in which Crewdson addresses the socio-political conditions of his country and the failure of the American Dream,” says co-curator Astrid Mahler about the last part of our major retrospective of the world-famous photographer Gregory Crewdson.
What I am interested in is that moment of transcendence, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.
Gregory Crewdson
Gregory Crewdson (American, b. 1962) is one of the world’s most renowned photographers. Since the mid-1980s, Crewdson has been using the backdrop of small American towns and film sets to create, like a director, technically brilliant and colourfully seductive photographs that focus on human isolation and the abysses of society. The enigmatic scenes self-reflexively raise questions about the boundary between fact and fiction but can also be related to socio-political developments.
The retrospective at the Albertina comprises a total of nine groups of works, created over the last three and a half decades and conceived serially. Starting with his Early Work (1986-1988), the exhibition includes Crewdson’s best-known series such as Twilight (1998-2002), which depicts scenes shaped by cinematic language, with people being confronted by unexplainable phenomena in their everyday lives. The impressive, mysterious large-scale scenes from the Beneath the Roses series (2003‒2008) deal with people’s isolation and alienation from their environment. The most recently completed group of works Eveningside (2021-2022) portrays an unheroic image of a fictional small town of the same name in atmospheric black and white. Following Cathedral of the Pines (2013-2014) and An Eclipse of Moths (2018-2019), Eveningside represents the final part of a trilogy through which the artist examines the social decline of society far removed from the American dream.
Crewdson’s large-scale pictures are preceded by months of planning; they are created with the participation of hundreds of people from casting, wardrobe and art departments, plus technical specialists. Production photographs taken in parallel illustrate the highly elaborate process of design, culminating in an extensive post-production process in which the final photographs are assembled from multiple shots.
As a generous gesture, the exhibition is accompanied by a significant donation to the Albertina’s photo collection. This extensive assimilation of works strengthens the focus of the collection on contemporary photography.
Early Work was created as Crewdson’s final project at Yale University’s School of Art. Among other places, Gregory Crewdson photographed the series in the US state of Massachusetts, mostly in the small town of Lee, which is very close to the family’s summer home. Due to his personal connection to this region, the artist still realises almost all of his photographic projects in the Massachusetts area. In the photographs, Crewdson arranged the town’s residents in the context of their domestic settings. Using relatively modest technical devices at the time, he transformed the real places into mysterious, uncanny scenes with the help of artificial lighting. Introverted protagonists rendered in tightly cropped views present typically American suburbs as places of human isolation and oppression. David Lynch’s surreal masterpiece Blue Velvet, in which the main character encounters human abysses behind the idyllic façade of a small town, served as a major model. The film, which came out in 1986, turned out to be stylistic inspiration for Crewdson and also became an important source of reference for his subsequent series. Crewdson also dealt with more documentary positions, such as those of Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. On their journeys across the United States, they enhanced everyday motifs with symbolic meaning through close-up views and vibrant colours. Especially Eggleston employed these means to allude to disconcerting aspects in society.
Natural Wonder, 1991-1997
Inspired by the dioramas in natural history museums, for Natural Wonder Gregory Crewdson built three-dimensional models in his studio, which he then photographed. The pictures show enigmatic rituals and cruel incidents happening in nature, which take place against the backdrop of the suburbs without people realising. For example, birds sit around a mysterious circle of eggs, or nature takes possession of a decaying animal carcass. As a metaphor for suppressed anxieties and traumas, the depicted landscape functions as a mirror of the unconscious and the human psyche. In Crewdson’s series, autobiographic elements – his father was a psychoanalyst – and overriding social themes characteristically coincide. The symbolism of Natural Wonder has essentially been inspired by cinematography: in Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds (1963), the eponymous animals, suddenly infesting an idyllic world, symbolise dysfunctional relationships and human fears. In Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch eliminates the line between reality and illusion, between the familiar and the eerie, between idyll and violence through the motif of a prepared robin or of a severed human ear covered with ants, which is found in a meadow.
Hover, 1996/1997
In Hover, his third series, Gregory Crewdson abandons the aesthetic achievements of earlier works: he takes pictures in black and white from a bird’s-eye view with the help of a crane. The strategy characteristic of Crewdson’s work to merely adumbrate a narrative while abstaining from resolving it and keeping it in mysterious suspense reaches an early climax in Hover. With a distanced, objectifying gaze he shows familiar occurrences in a small town as they tip over into the unusual. The recurring motif of the circle refers not only to popular science fiction movies and works of land art, but also quotes Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo (1958), in which the circle is considered a metaphor for romantic obsession.
Gregory Crewdson now began to plan his sessions in advance and in great detail. As were other series, Hover was shot in the real place of Lee with the aid of residents performing as protagonists. Occasionally, Crewdson still resorted to improvisation; for example, he called the police for the purpose of integrating the police car into the photograph.
Twilight, 1998-2002
Twilight is one of Gregory Crewdson’s most well-known works. It is informed by cinema even more than earlier series. In its scenes, which are mostly set at dusk, Crewdson resorts to the fantastic as the principal theme. Inexplicable phenomena intrude into everyday life. Familiar objects are repurposed, and people give the impression of being exposed and unprotected because of their nudity.
Similar to a film production, a crew of about sixty took part in Twilight. In this series, Crewdson arrived at his characteristic repertoire of motifs, such as open cars, windows, and mirrors, which he varied and put together like vocabulary and would also use for subsequent works. Crewdson began to fully concentrate on the mise-en-scène, leaving the technical implementation of the shots to Richard Sands for the first time – a practice continued to this day. This high-profile director of photography from the world of cinema has worked with Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola, among others.
The photographs, which Crewdson refers to as “single-frame movies,” contain multiple references to classical painting and popular culture, a telling example of the latter being Steven Spielberg’s science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Gregory Crewdson’s postmodern approach becomes manifest in these images: starting out from the idea that reality is no longer “authentic” but merely experienced through the media, the recognisable references reveal the staging they are based on.
Beneath the Roses, 2003-2008
In Beneath the Roses, the surreal, uncanny atmosphere of earlier series gives way to an essentially melancholic and psychologising key tone. The protagonists, captured in desolate surroundings, are shown frozen and motionless. Lonely, isolated, and without interacting, they appear totally alienated. Especially for his interior shots, Gregory Crewdson borrows from Edward Hopper’s painting. Situations of human introspection in anonymous, everyday architectural settings that both suggest intimacy and accommodate a voyeuristic gaze are unmistakable parallels.
Beneath the Roses is the most elaborate series in Gregory Crewdson’s oeuvre, which he originally developed as an idea for a film and to which more than one hundred specialists from casting, costume design, technical, and art departments contributed over the extensive period during which the series was realised. As in Twilight, he staged the interior shots in studios, whereas outdoor shots were taken in real places he had profoundly transformed according to his ideas. The artist meticulously prepared the shoot with architectural models, storyboards, scene scripts, and location shots. The focus was particularly on the choice of props, which appear both quintessentially American and timeless. Using different aperture settings, Crewdson took multiple photographs of each scene. In postproduction, which lasted over several months, he combined forty to fifty negatives, so that the constant depth of field in the final picture gives a hyperrealist impression.
Sanctuary, 2009
Sanctuary was created after the monumental large-scale project Beneath the Roses (2003-2008). The series marks a period of transition during which Gregory Crewdson put new artistic approaches to the test. When staying in Rome in 2009, he visited the Italian city of cinematography Cinecittà, where, in its film sets, his first group of works was realised outside the United States. He completed the project within two months with a small team and little technical and financial input. In Sanctuary, Crewdson heightened the tension between reality and fiction known from earlier series by making the sets as such the actual subject. The black-and-white photography accentuates the morbid appeal of the sets as ruins. In contrast to Crewdson’s usual practice of conveying loneliness and isolation with the aid of performers, in Sanctuary he creates an essentially melancholic atmosphere through the complete absence of people. In particular, the artist makes palpable the discrepancy between the hustle and bustle of past film shoots and the now ghostly desolation.
Cathedral of the Pines, 2013/2014
Cathedral of the Pines was created after a period of personal and artistic crisis. In the midst of the mighty pine forests near the city of Becket in Massachusetts, where Gregory Crewdson has lived since 2010, he discovered the eponymous path that became the starting point for this series. Cathedral of the Pines is one of the artist’s most personal groups of work. For the first time, he engaged persons from his family and circle of friends as performers. Moreover, he staged his interiors in real houses, working with a comparatively small team and a minimum of artificial light.
Cathedral of the Pines examines the subject of the human condition through the relationship between human beings and landscape. The nocturnal atmosphere of earlier series gives way to cool daylight and cold colours: completely in the nude or only partially covered and staring absent-mindedly, his performers seem frozen and withdrawn into their own emotional worlds. By placing windows prominently, Crewdson contrasts the relationship between interior and exterior space, as well as interior and exterior light. With its references to the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century – such as compositions by Caspar David Friedrich – or seventeenth-century Dutch painting – such as the art of Jan Vermeer – the motif of the window is also in the tradition of a symbol of contemplation and unfulfilled yearning.
An Eclipse of Moths, 2018/2019
Gregory Crewdson photographed An Eclipse of Moths during Donald Trump’s presidency, thus formulating his analysis of society as sociopolitical criticism. In the city where the series was shot, Pittsfield in Massachusetts, the majority of the population had worked for the local General Electric plant and many lost their jobs after the firm had closed down. In addition to high unemployment, the company left behind a devastated environment. Crewdson describes the situation of neglected postindustrial places through the contrast between light atmospheres rendered in vibrant colours and desolate motifs of everyday life. Potholed streets or dilapidated houses symbolise the fragility and frailty of a society that has lost its footing.
Different from Cathedral of the Pines (2013/2014), his previous series, in An Eclipse of Moths Crewdson returned to the cinematographic widescreen format. The artist depicted his protagonists as small figures in proportion to their surroundings and at a distance from one another. He frequently arranged his seemingly disoriented protagonists around street lamps, comparable to the eponymous moths circling around the light in the darkness. Apart from a multitude of props, he also used smoke and artificially sprinkled streets for this series so as to masterfully stage his light effects.
Eveningside, 2021/2022
Gregory Crewdson’s most recent series is set in a fictitious small town called Eveningside. Its imaginary geography is made up of various places in western Massachusetts the artist had used as scenes for earlier works. After Cathedral of the Pines (2013/2014) and An Eclipse of Moths (2018/2019), this atmospheric work in black and white constitutes the final part of Crewdson’s trilogy, which deals with the sociopolitical dark sides of a society removed from the American dream. In Eveningside, the artist often depicts people going about their work. Frozen in absolute standstill, they seem caught in their respective social contexts.
Crewdson’s arrangements ingeniously position the protagonists in space through lighting influenced by film noir and motifs like shopwindow and mirror. The artist shows their faces in reflections from irritating and slightly shifted perspectives with the aid of montage. Windows frame the protagonists as pictures within the picture und underscore the act of image-making as a self-reflexive practice.
Comment on this magnificent Austrian photographer unknown to me until now will be forthcoming in the future posting on the simultaneous exhibition The Poetry of the Everyday. Photographs by Elfriede Mejchar at Museum der Moderne Salzburg.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Wien Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“I am not an artist, I am a photographer.”
Elfriede Mejchar
Installation views of the exhibition On Her Own. The photographer Elfriede Mejchar at Wien Museum musa, Vienna
Elfriede Mejchar (1924-2020) was a major photographic artist, whose richly-varied oeuvre spans more than five decades, from the late 1940s well into the 21st century. The Viennese photographer, who only achieved recognition as an artist towards the end of her career, is now regarded as one of the most important representatives of the Austrian and the international photography scenes. May 10, 2024 marks the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
The exhibition at the Wien Museum presents a broad cross-section of the work of this artistic outsider, and demonstrates how the renewal of postwar Austrian photography was almost “all her own work.” Elfriede Mejchar consciously broke away from the photographic mainstream and the reportage style that was popular at the time. Rather than searching for the so-called “decisive moment,” she approached her subjects in a strongly conceptual and serial manner. She focused not on the extraordinary but on the unspectacular and the commonplace, the everyday and the banal, repeatedly addressing these in new ways in her photographic series.
In an Austria-wide cooperation between the Wien Museum, the State Gallery of Lower Austria, and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Elfriede Mejchar’s extensive oeuvre is being presented in 2024 for the first time, simultaneously, in three locations across the country. The exhibitions in Vienna, Krems, and Salzburg approach the work of Mejchar from different perspectives. And the three presentations are accompanied by a jointly conceived catalog published by Hirmer Verlag.
A cooperation between the State Gallery of Lower Austria, the Wien Museum and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg.
Installation view of the exhibition On Her Own. The photographer Elfriede Mejchar at Wien Museum musa, Vienna showing photographs from Mejchar’s series Simmering Heide and Erdberg Mais(1967-1976, below)
Elfriede Mejchar (1924-2020) was a major photographic artist, whose richly-varied oeuvre spans more than five decades, from the late 1940s well into the 21st century. The Viennese photographer, who only achieved recognition as an artist towards the end of her career, is now regarded as one of the most important representatives of the Austrian and the international photography scenes. May 10, 2024 marks the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
The exhibition in musa presents a broad cross-section of the work of this artistic outsider, and demonstrates how the renewal of postwar Austrian photography was almost “all her own work.” Elfriede Mejchar consciously broke away from the photographic mainstream and the reportage style that was popular at the time. Rather than searching for the so-called “decisive moment,” she approached her subjects in a strongly conceptual and serial manner. She focused not on the extraordinary but on the unspectacular and the commonplace, the everyday and the banal, repeatedly addressing these in new ways in her photographic series.
Elfriede Mejchar revealed her hometown Vienna from the periphery and had little interest in its iconic center, which was already the subject of countless thousands of photographs. As a photographer, she was at home where the city became rural, at the meeting point between urban development zones, derelict sites, green spaces, and post-industrial decay. In her long-term studies she documented the architectural and social textures of Vienna’s suburbs in a way that was both attentive and sober: new buildings advancing ever further onto green land, the monotony of endless arterial roads, derelict industrial complexes, market gardens and ageing gasometers, run-down housing and forgotten areas of landfill and decay. For Mejchar, however, the image of the urban periphery is not grey and the wasteland and its dereliction are repeatedly brightened by moments of unsuspected beauty.
Even if the urban and architectural photography of Vienna plays a major role in Elfriede Mejchar’s oeuvre, the range of subjects addressed in her work is far broader. Just as the photographer sheds a new photographic light on forgotten landscapes and buildings, she also approaches people and plants, places and things, in unexpected and surprising ways. In her incomparable series “Hotels,” she studies the interiors and typologies of Austrian accommodation in great detail, producing fascinating and often brightly coloured still lifes of plants and flowers as a means of aesthetically investigating the intermediate stages between blooming and withering. And in her bold collages and montages, a complex of work that continued to occupy her into her latter years, she created clever fantasy worlds, whose social criticism is only matched by their humour.
In an Austria-wide cooperation between the Wien Museum, the State Gallery of Lower Austria, and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Elfriede Mejchar’s extensive oeuvre is being presented in 2024 for the first time, simultaneously, in three locations across the country. The exhibitions in Vienna, Krems, and Salzburg approach the work of Mejchar from different perspectives:
Landesgalerie Niederösterreich. Elfriede Mejchar. Pushing the Boundaries of Photography April 13, 2024 to February 16, 2025 Tuesday – Sunday, 10am-6pm
musa. On her own. The photographer Elfriede Mejchar April 18 to September 1, 2024 Tuesday – Sunday, 10am-6pm
Museum der Moderne Salzburg. The Poetry of Everyday. Photographs by Elfriede Mejchar April 26 to September 15, 2024 Tuesday – Sunday, 10am-6pm
Biography of Elfriede Mejchar
Elfriede Mejchar (1924-2020) is undisputedly one of the most important personalities in Austrian photography. It was only at an advanced age that she received the public recognition she deserved, and in 2002 she was awarded the Federal Chancellery Prize for Artistic Photography and in 2004 the Lower Austrian Prize for Artistic Photography and the City of Vienna Prize for Fine Arts. In 2013, Elfriede Mejchar donated her entire oeuvre to the Province of Lower Austria. The Provincial Collections of Lower Austria have taken on the task of safeguarding this unique oeuvre for future generations and gradually making it accessible to the public. Her work is also prominently represented in the art collection of the Wien Museum, in the Federal Photography Collection and in the SpallArt Collection.
Installation view of the exhibition On Her Own. The photographer Elfriede Mejchar at Wien Museum musa, Vienna showing text and photographs from the section ‘Allure of the Everyday’
Exhibition texts
“I always marvelled at the wallpaper” (Prologue)
Elfriede Mejchar had two faces as a photographer: one in her day job, and one as an artist. Working for the Federal Monuments Office, she spent many years touring Austria, extensively documenting buildings and artworks in the provinces. On the side, she was a freelance photographic artist. When “at work,” she was bound by the strict criteria of art documentation. As an artist, she forged her own, very different paths.
While in her day job she photographed “great art,” in her free time she focused on the banality of everyday life, for example by taking interior shots of her accommodation over the years. The expenses covered by “the office,” she explained, “were not very generous, and I was always looking for lower-end lodgings. They could be very odd, anything was possible. In particular, I always marvelled at the wallpaper.”
1. Allure of the Everyday
A backlit trash can or advertising column, people waiting on the street, youths in the Bohemian Prater, the geometry of washing lines – even in her early series dating from the 1950s and 1960s, Mejchar’s fascination with scenes from everyday life is clear. She used her camera to record what she saw in the city in a matter-of-fact style, without judgment: the buildings and streets, cars and advertisements, traffic lights and posters. Only occasionally do people feature in her images. Often they seem a little lost. In contrast to many other photographers of her era, Mejchar was not looking for a quick snapshot or the “decisive moment.” “Speed doesn’t suit me,” she once said. Frequently she worked in series, often created over several years. Her focus was not on the extraordinary but on the unspectacular and the commonplace.
Working in Series
“I don’t like single photos very much,” said Elfriede Mejchar, thus describing one of the fundamental features of her photography. For almost 30 years, she explored Vienna’s peripheral zones on the southeast edge of the city. Again and again she returned to these uninviting places on the outskirts, where few people spent much time. In the main she photographed the landscapes, roads, and neighbourhoods in series, usually in parallel, but sometimes as a chronological sequence. For Mejchar as a photographer, the single image could not capture the complexity of this desolate and yet, in her eyes, beautiful landscape. It was the series that allowed her to show the different facets of a subject from ever new perspectives. Through her artistic and conceptual practice, Mejchar forged a completely new path in Austrian photography.
2. Evil Blooms
Throughout her working life, Mejchar photographed art, in other words, things created to last. Her images of flowers were a late counter-project. In these plant studies, some shot in luminous colour, the photographer brought transience and decay into focus, drawing out the fascinating transitions between blooming and withering. “I am not afraid of pathos, nor of kitsch,” Mejchar once said.
Elfriede Mejchar paid no heed to photographic conventions in her freelance work. Unabashed, she took delight in arranging and staging the plants and objects for her photographs in ways that opened up a range of associations. Some of her objects seem almost to come to life under her lens, while others wither away. Yet others invoke images of sexuality and desire.
Putting in a New Light
As a photographic subject, flowers are often dismissed as being romantic, kitsch, or unserious. Mejchar was not afraid of kitsch, but neither was she ever interested in the sweetness of the tulips or amaryllis she photographed. For her, flowers were like sculptures that needed to be shown in a proper light. Mejchar’s “merciless” gaze extended beneath the surface. It drilled into the very substance of the petals, laying bare the skeleton that emerged as the flower withered and capturing the bizarre forms of the dying plant. Yet the artist could not break free entirely of the strong metaphorical imagery of flowers. Sometimes, her shots of them in full bloom or with their inner parts exposed carried a sensual or sexual charge.
3. Measuring the Periphery
New builds encroaching ever further on the countryside, abandoned factories, fields of vegetables, ageing gasometers, the monotony of interminable highways, makeshift housing, wastelands – as a photographer, Elfriede Mejchar was especially keen on these forgotten landscapes on the margins of the Viennese metropolis. “It was the changes that I was concerned with.”
Starting in the 1960s, Mejchar roamed the city’s peripheral zones with her camera. “These were the sites that interested me the most. Where countryside and city collide.” Her long-term series “Simmeringer Heide and Erdberger Mais,” begun in the 1960s and first shown in 1976 in a solo exhibition at the Museum of the 20th Century, established Mejchar’s reputation as leading photo artist.
Constructing Space
Row upon row of plants, damp soil blanketed by the early morning mist, distant greenhouses, lettuces covering the ground, interspaced with sprinklers – Elfriede Mejchar documented every facet of Vienna’s market gardens at the edge of the city, from detached general views to shots that capture the smallest detail. Her images use a deep depth of field, making it seem almost as if the viewer could reach out and touch the clumps of soil or individual leaves in the foreground. But she also regularly translated landscapes, buildings, and spaces into abstract forms by setting up contrasting oppositions between individual motifs, or by reducing an image to monochrome surfaces.
4. Lips and Pistols
Faces ripped from fashion magazines and floral wallpaper, cogs and cigarettes, spools and dressmaking pins, small chains and cables – starting in the 1980s, Mejchar jumbled these found, everyday objects together to create small-scale, theatrical arrangements laced with acerbic wit. “I construct images,” the artist once said of her sarcastic and subversive collages and assemblages. In these composite scenes, Elfriede Mejchar gave free rein to an anarchic desire to assemble and disassemble. At the same time, she used humour and irony to lampoon society’s ideals of perfection, “adorning” beautiful faces with everyday objects, for example, or – with a knowing wink – targeting James Bond’s pistol on the eroticised lips of the beauty industry. Mejchar’s summary: “I like things colourful and crazy.”
Arranging Objects
After retiring from paid employment, Mejchar increasingly concentrated on her work in the studio, which now became a stage for herself and her camera. Here she created ironic, acerbic, and frequently bizarre object combinations, often as an exploration of gender stereotypes. In her collages, she dismantled and critiqued the fashion industry’s preformed ideals of beauty with zest and humour. She took pleasure in experimenting with a whole range of props, rearranging them into new scenes again and again. Fragmented faces from fashion magazines were combined with torn and cut wallpaper, then garnished with cogs, feathers, and cables. She literally nailed the beauty industry to the wall.
5. Remains and Ruins
The innards of a house scheduled for demolition, derelict industrial estates, overgrown railway lines and buildings, gouged landscapes, forgotten piles of bricks – over many years, Mejchar explored these remains of industrial culture. “My work only began,” she said, “when the people were gone.”
“I took myself off to the factories, going from one road to the next.” In her series “Wienerberger Brick Kilns,” which she photographed from 1979 to 1981 following the closure of the Wienerberger brick factory on Vienna’s southern edge, she made deliberate use of colour photography for the first time. Impregnated with brick dust, the ground and the remains of the industrial architecture glow red under an azure sky, assuming an air of unreality. Mejchar: “I am interested in what remains.”
Seeing in Color
During the first decades of her career as a photographer, Elfriede Mejchar worked in black and white because colour photography was too expensive. All the more astonishing, therefore, is the confidence and precision with which she employed colour as an aesthetic element in the photo series “Wienerberger Brick Kilns” in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Similar to the New Color Photography movement in the USA, Mejchar’s photographic explorations focused primarily on the borders between urban and rural spaces. Her main interest was in landscapes subjected to human interventions. She documented these run-down locations using vivid lighting and brilliant colours, producing unsentimental photographs of high aesthetic quality. In doing so, she opened up an entirely new approach to documentary photography in Austria.
Installation view of the exhibition On Her Own. The photographer Elfriede Mejchar at Wien Museum musa, Vienna showing at second right, Mejchar’s Aether and narcosim (1989-1991, below)
“Mayne’s subjects … confront the spectator in vivid and completely natural un/reality. Spirits who still inhabit London’s deliquescent urban spaces.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 14th June – 1st September, 2024
Curator: Jane Alison
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Southam Street Group, North Kensington, London 1956 Vintage gelatin silver print 55.5 x 80.4cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
In vivid and completely natural un/reality
As readers of Art Blart over the years will know, I love a committed social documentary photographer, an artist with a heart and an informed social consciousness, one who is aware of the right or wrong actions (conscience).
Roger Mayne is one such photographer. Others in the pantheon include Helen Levitt, Chris Killip, Don McCullin, Edith Tudor-Hart, Bill Brandt, Tony Ray-Jones, Syd Shelton, Neil Kenlock, Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis, Daniel Meadows, Gordon Parks, Milton Rogovin, Teenie Harris, and Dave Heath to name just a few.
Mayne’s portrait of the working class areas of London life, his gritty black and white images of a “crumbling post-war Britain” and the “modernisation of working class neighbourhoods after the war” picture – as Colin MacInnes author of the “cult 1959 novel Absolute Beginners, a lively account of the emergence of teen culture and attitude in the late 1950s” (wall text) states – “a rotting slum of a sharp, horrible vivacity.”1
What a turn of phrase!
But what MacInnes forgets is that there was community in those very slums, that there was a culture of supporting each other through the tough times, especially after the deprivations of the Second World War and the ongoing rationing which lasted until mid-1954 in the United Kingdom. I vividly remember as a child visiting my grandmother in a small town in suburban Hertfordshire in the 1960s and recall the drabness of the identical houses cheek by jowl, the washing hung in the backyard and the outdoor loo, and the dampness, darkness of the house. And the cold and the rain. But then there were the children playing in the streets, the smiles and the joy of freedom despite the poverty.
Mayne’s photographs push further than mere documentary reportage on these communities. As he himself says, photography becomes art through a “particular mixture of reality and unreality” and the photographers power to select what they are photographing. They become art through the photographers consciousness.
Here I believe that the mixture of reality and unreality and previsualisation (selection of what to photograph and how to frame the image) in Mayne’s photographs can be seen as a form of “magic realism” which is “a style or genre of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.”2 Matthew Strecher (1999) defines it as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.”3
Indeed, if we look at Mayne’s photograph Southam Street Group, North Kensington, London (1956, above) there is something so magical and strange about the atmosphere of this image – the out of focus girl in the foreground, boy with his hand to his neck, self absorbed girl on the steps looking out, peeling paint of the building, young children watching the man holding the bicycle and a second, orphaned larger wheel (what is it doing there?), the small child being propped on the too large bicycle, bulky pram lurking, hunkering at the side of the image – it is as though the image was part of a fable, a story about mythical characters and streetscapes that can never happen again.
This magic realism is repeated again and again in Mayne’s images: that sense of the extra/ordinary, of the super/natural – the spacing of the figures in Southam Street Corner, North Kensington, London (1957, below); the zoomorphic characteristics of the figures in Girls doing a Handstand, Southam Street (1956, below); the contrast between the stiff-legged boy and arms folded screaming girl in Screaming Child, Southam St. (North Kensington) (1956, below); and the lean of the whole photograph … the women, reaching out to touch the man child in Nottingham, St Ann’s (1969, below). And on we could go, each image taking us out of ourselves into strange new (old) worlds.
Roger Mayne was truly a magnificent, poetic artist. His subjects, though never appearing “posed,” confront the spectator in vivid and completely natural un/reality.4 Spirits who still inhabit London’s deliquescent urban spaces.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Colin MacInnes (British, 1914-1976) Poverty and poetry in W.10 c. 1961
3/ Strecher, Matthew C. 1999. “Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki.” Journal of Japanese Studies 25(2): 263–98. p. 267 quoted in “Magic realism,” on the Wikipedia website
4/ Adapted from Colin MacInnes Op. cit.,
Many thankx to the Courtauld Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Colin MacInnes (British, 1914-1976) Poverty and poetry in W.10 c. 1961
Used under fair use for the purposes of education and research
“Photography involves two main distortions – the simplification into black and white and the seizing of an instant in time. It is this mixture of reality and unreality, and the photographer’s power to select, that makes it possible for photography to be an art.”
Roger Mayne
“[Mayne] understood how to compose images in the camera to create what he described to Peace News in 1960 as a “particular mixture of reality and unreality.”
“The photographer’s power to select…makes it possible for photography to be an art,” Mayne continued. “Whether it is good art depends on the power and truth of the artist’s statement.””
Installation views of the exhibition Roger Mayne: Youth at the Courtauld Gallery, London
Acclaimed British photographer Roger Mayne (1929-2014) was famous for his evocative documentary images of young people growing-up in Britain in the mid-1950s and ’60s.
This exhibition, of around 60 almost exclusively vintage photographs, includes many of his iconic street images of children and teenagers, alongside an almost entirely unknown selection of intimate and moving later images of his own family at home in Dorset, as well as those taken on his honeymoon in Spain in 1962.
Self-taught and influential in the acceptance of photography as an art form, Mayne was passionate about photographing human life as he found it. This is the first exhibition of his work since 2017.
Text from the Courtauld website
Playing in the Street
Installation view of the exhibition Roger Mayne: Youth at the Courtauld Gallery, London showing at left, Mayne’s Goalie, Brindley Road, Paddington, London (1956, below); at second left, Southam Street Group, North Kensington, London (1956, above); at centre, Girl on the steps, St. Stephen’s Gardens (1957, below); and at second from right, Southam Street Corner, North Kensington, London (1957, below)
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Southam Street Corner, North Kensington, London 1957 Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board 43 x 58cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Children in a Bombed Building, Bermondsey, London 1954 Vintage gelatin silver print 28 x 19.5cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) The Guv’nors, Finsbury Park, London 1958 Gelatin silver print
Used under fair use for the purposes of education and research
This photograph is not in the exhibition
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Girls doing a Handstand, Southam Street 1956 Modern print (printed in 1987) 30 x 23cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Goalie, Brindley Road, Paddington, London 1956 Modern print (printed in 2002) 38 x 30cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Girl on the steps, St. Stephen’s Gardens 1957 Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board 49.3 x 34.5cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
In the case:
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Screaming Child, Southam St. (North Kensington) 1956 From the ‘Southam Street’ Album 1956-1961, 5 May 1956 Vintage gelatin silver print mounted in an album 36.4 x 54.8cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
Dave Heath (Canadian born United States, 1931-2016) Vengeful Sister, Chicago 1956 Gelatin silver print 7 3/16 x 8 7/8 inches The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Used under fair use for the purposes of education and research
This photograph is not in the exhibition
The summer season at The Courtauld Gallery in London has opened with a major exhibition of photographs by the acclaimed post-war photographer, Roger Mayne.
The first-ever photography exhibition at The Courtauld, Roger Mayne: Youth (14 June – 1 September 2024) reassesses the importance of Roger Mayne (1929-2014), through the lens of his evocative black and white images of young people. The exhibition brings together the works of the 1950s and early 1960s for which he is famous, alongside lesser-known images of his own children. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue positions Mayne as crucially important in the emergence of documentary photography as an art form in Britain in the years after the war.
A self-taught photographer, having discovered the medium while studying chemistry at Balliol College, Oxford, Mayne moved to London in 1953. Inspired by the work of the artist Nigel Henderson, among others, he became passionate about photographing human life as he found it. He quickly achieved widespread recognition for his powerful images of communities struggling with poverty against a backdrop of dereliction in London and across the UK. Renowned for his sustained portrayal of Southam Street, now long gone but then located on the northern fringes of Notting Hill, Mayne’s dedication to photographing this one locale over a six-year period – from 1956 to 1961 – was, and still is, extraordinary in the history of photography.
Mayne’s photography in the 1950s and early ’60s captured an exuberance and an uneasiness that embodied both the scars and hopes of post-war Britain. In documenting the lives of young people growing up in Britain, his images highlight the significance of children’s play and the identity formation of the teenager in the post-war years, revealing the tectonic shifts in society at that time. Highlights include Children in a Bombed Building, Bermondsey, London (1954) and one of his most famous images, A Girl Jiving in Southam Street (Eileen Sheekey), London (1957).
In 1962 a new chapter opened in Roger Mayne’s personal life, when he married Ann Jellicoe, a pioneering and well-established playwright. Their honeymoon in Spain left Mayne feeling creatively nourished by the vitality of the people he encountered there. With children and young people still at the forefront of this fresh strand of image-making, he judged the photographs from this trip to be ‘the best series of photographs I have yet done.’ Following the birth of his own children and a move to the Dorset countryside in the mid-1960s, family life and the local bucolic landscape became a new backdrop for Mayne’s lens. The imagery of the street was replaced by that of a growing and adored family.
This exhibition, curated by Jane Alison in close collaboration with Mayne’s daughter, Katkin Tremayne, features over 60 vintage photographs, some never exhibited before. While the two bodies of work, street and family, have a different tenor, they are united by Mayne’s radical empathy with his youthful subjects and his desire to create photographic images that enjoy a lasting impact, produced with great sensitivity and artistic integrity. With Mayne’s post-war subjects now in their more senior years, and today’s younger generation facing a myriad crises, Mayne’s deliberations on growing up, childhood, adolescence and family feel especially poignant and timely.
Press release from the Courtauld
Society at Large
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Nottingham, St Ann’s 1969 Modern print 16 x 23cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
In the case
Nine Pelican and Penguin paperback books including:
Adolescent Boys of East London, by Peter Willmott, Pelican, 1969 with Roger Mayne’s Street football, Southam St., North Kensington, 1958 (detail) on the cover
Relative Deprivation and Social Justice: A study of attitudes to social inequality in twentieth-century England, W. G. Runciman, Pelican, 1972 book cover
Poverty: The Forgotten Englishman, Ken Coates and Richard Silburn, Pelican, 1970 book cover
The Spanish Honeymoon
Installation view of the exhibition Roger Mayne: Youth at the Courtauld Gallery, London showing at left, Mayne’s Costa del Sol (1962); at centre, Girl in a Market, Almunecar, Costa del Sol (1962, below); at top right, Footballer Jumping, Almuneca, Costa del Sol (1962); and at bottom right, Girls by a Fountain, Almunecar, Costa del Sol (1962)
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Girl in a Market, Almunecar, Costa del Sol 1962 Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board 59.5 x 91.5cm Gelatin silver print
Teenage Takeover
Installation view of the exhibition Roger Mayne: Youth at the Courtauld Gallery, London showing at left, Mayne’s Teenagers, Soho Fair, London (17 July 1958, below); at centre, Teenage Couple, Absolute Beginners photo-shoot (26 April 1959, below); and at right, Men and boys, Southam Street, London (1959, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Roger Mayne: Youth at the Courtauld Gallery, London showing at left, Mayne’s Teenage Couple, Absolute Beginners photo-shoot (26 April 1959, below); at centre, Men and boys, Southam Street, London (1959, below); and at right, Teddy Girls, Battersea Funfair (1956, below)
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Teenagers, Soho Fair, London 17 July 1958 Vintage gelatin silver print 24 x 36cm Courtesy Wilson Centre for Photography
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Men and boys, Southam Street, London 1959 Vintage gelatin silver print 18.5 x 27cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Beaulieu Jazz Festival 1961 Vintage gelatin silver print 18 x 27cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) A Girl Jiving in Southam Street (Eileen Sheekey) London, 1957 Vintage gelatin silver print 36.5 x 25.2cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
The moving girl may have been living her best life, but this wasn’t peak prosperity for her. The street she lived on was the most densely populated street in London (according to a 1961 survey), a place where children played in the streets because there were no green spaces available….
Roger Mayne didn’t foreground this poverty. He photographed Southam Street in a way that was in some ways nostalgic. He wrote, “Empty, the streets have their own kind of beauty, a kind of decaying always great atmosphere… My reason for photographing the love on them, and the life on them. … [I]t may be warm and friendly on a sunny spring weekend when the street is swarming with children playing.”
At the same time, he doesn’t avoid the signs of poverty, the indicators of decay, and not does he romanticism them. When brickwork crumbles, you know it is a sing of neglect and not some kind of shabby working-class chic. His pictures also show the changes these communities are going through. Stephen Brooke wrote that the immediacy of Mayne’s images helped him “capture the dynamism of working-class life and chronicle new actors on the urban stage such as teenagers and African and West Indian immigrants.” …
It’s a world that is nostalgic in some ways, but is also a reminder of what we have lost. The public sites Mayne photographed, the spaces of the street, have been taken over by cars or commodified and securitized. And when we wonder at the nostalgia of it all, it might be a nostalgia tinged with mourning, not at what we have lost in our striving for affluence but at what has been taken from us.”
Colin Pantall. “West London’s Working-Class,” on the Blind Magazine website February 27, 2023 [Online] Cited 23/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Teddy Girls, Battersea Funfair 1956 Vintage gelatin silver print 58.3 x 43.8cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Teenage Couple, Absolute Beginners photo-shoot 26 April 1959 Vintage gelatin silver print 25.6 x 18.2cm Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum
Absolute beginners
26 April 1959
Mayne was commissioned to photograph the cover image for Colin MacInnes cult 1959 novel Absolute Beginners, a lively account of the emergence of teen culture and attitude in the late 1950s. The young Mod couple that Mayne photographed for the book cover effectively announced the birth of “cool” in the UK. One of over 80 images that Mayne took on the day of the shoot, we know that this image was preferred by Mayne to the one on the cover, most likely due to the fact that he thought it looked less staged, which was something that he vehemently disliked.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Wall text from the exhibition
In the case
Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners 1959 book cover
Soho, Notting Hill… a world of smoky jazz clubs, coffee bars and hip hang-outs in the center of London’s emerging youth culture. The young and restless – the Absolute Beginners – were creating a world as different as they dared from the traditional image of England’s green and pleasant land. Follow our young photographer as he records the moments of a young teenager’s life in the capital – sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, the era of the first race riots and the lead-up to the swinging sixties.
A twentieth-century cult classic, Absolute Beginners remains the style bible for anyone interested in Mod culture and paints a vivid picture of a changing society with insight and sensitivity.
The novel is written from the first-person perspective of a teenage freelance photographer, who lives in a rundown yet vibrant part of West London he calls Napoli. The area is home to a large number of Caribbean immigrants, as well as English people on the margins of society, such as homosexuals and drug addicts.
The themes of the novel are the narrator’s opinions on the newly formed youth culture and its fixation on clothes and jazz music, his love for his ex-girlfriend Crêpe Suzette, the illness of his father, and simmering racial tensions in the summer of the Notting Hill race riots.
Plot summary
The novel is divided into four sections. Each details a particular day in the four months that spanned the summer of 1958.
In June takes up half of the book and shows the narrator meeting up with various teenaged friends and some adults in various parts of London and discussing his outlook on life and the new concept of being a teenager. He also learns that his ex-girlfriend, Suzette, is to enter a marriage of convenience with her boss, a middle-aged gay fashion designer called Henley.
In July has the narrator taking photographs by the river Thames, seeing the musical operetta H.M.S. Pinafore with his father, has a violent encounter with Ed the Ted and watches Hoplite’s appearance on Call-Me-Cobber’s TV show.
In August has the narrator and his father take a cruise along the Thames towards Windsor Castle. His father is taken ill on the trip and has to be taken to a doctor. The narrator also finds Suzette at her husband’s cottage in Cookham.
In September is set on the narrator’s 19th birthday. He sees this, symbolically, as the beginning of his last year as a teenager. He witnesses several incidents of racial violence, which disgust him. His father also dies, leaving him four envelopes stuffed with money. Suzette has separated from Henley, but still seems uncertain as to whether she should resume her relationship with the narrator. The narrator decides to leave the country and find a place where racism doesn’t exist. At the airport, he sees Africans arriving and gives them a warm welcome.
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Girls Dancing at Richmond Jazz Festival 1962 Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board 61 x 91.5cm
Installation view of the exhibition Roger Mayne: Youth at the Courtauld Gallery, London showing in the background at left, Girls Dancing at Richmond Jazz Festival (1962, above); and in the case the texts below
The Family Albums
The arrival of Roger Mayne’s own children, Katkin and Tom, prompted an ambitious documentary project entitled ‘Daughter and Son’, 1966-1974, for which he planned a comprehensive book of images accompanied by detailed behavioural observations. An earlier devotion to the youth of Southam Street was here replaced by an adoration of his own family. The images that Mayne took, along with later ones of his grandchildren, are collected in more than a dozen albums, four of which are featured here. A further album, made as a keepsake for the children’s great uncle, juxtaposed photographs with drawings by both children. These are prefigured by a much earlier album, which includes images of families.
Mayne sought to bring an unwavering gaze to the nature of human’s experiences. The act of giving birth and the emergence of new life presented itself to Mayne as an opportunity to bring sensitivity and authenticity as well as compositional flair and originality to these unique moments. As such, the group of images that Mayne took of his wife Ann giving birth to Katkin are unlike other childbirth photographs, which are typically taken from behind the mother’s head and without such a direct view of the emerging baby.
Cabinet display text from the exhibition
Early Work Album Vol II
This album of the photographer’s most important early images was brought together by Mayne and presented tot he Victoria and Albert Museum. The left-hand image of a family friend is marked by a wry humour that came to characterise much of Mayne’s mature work, whereas the image on the right-hand side, with the riot of closely, cropped and tangled bodies, foreshadows some of his best photographs of children in unruly abandon in London’s Southam Street. The right-hand image was taken on a trip to Victoria Park Lido with the artist Nigel Henderson’s family and friends.
Cabinet display text from the exhibition
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Three children at Nigel Henderson’s: Drusilla (Jo) and Justin Henderson, with a friend, Bethnal Green 1953 Vintage gelatin silver print 21 x 20cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
Roger Mayne (British, 1929-2014) Tom, Trafalgar Square 1970 Vintage gelatin silver print 27 x 17cm Courtesy the Roger Mayne Archive
The Courtauld Gallery Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
“I suggest that David Goldblatt was one such artist who was brought up to believe that he had an obligation to make a difference. And it was through the truth of his photographs that he made that difference.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 30th May – 25th August, 2024
Curators: Judy Ditner, Leslie M. Wilson and Matthew S. Witkovsky
To keep this archive relevant I am constantly refreshing the postings to make sure all the links work, all the videos are still available, and all the bibliographic information about the photographers is up to date.
With the switch to the new template I am having to refresh every page that I have published since 2008 which is a mammoth task. Every time I search the Internet for an artist and their dates I say a little “thank you” when I find an artist is still living… for their creativity and energy is still present in the world. Unfortunately what I have found is that so many photographers have passed away since I started Art Blart in 2008, many within the last 8-10 years.
This is not surprising, people die! But we seem to be loosing that generation of photographers who were born in the 1920s-1940s who actually made a difference to the world and how we live in it. How they viewed the world in their own unique way and used photography to advocate for a fairer world free from war, discrimination and injustice. Photographs making a difference. As Lewis Hine observed, “Photography can light up darkness and expose ignorance.”
I find it very sad that every time a creative person dies you can no longer have a conservation with that person about their passion, their vision, their understanding of the world around them and how they photographed it. All we have left are their photographs, their lived consciousness if you like, as to what was important for them to photograph during their lifetime: family, friends, people, environment, spirit, protest, war, whatever … and what values they held fast to in order to picture the “improvised realities of everyday life.”
We are loosing a generation of photographers.
We are loosing a generation of photographers that captured an image of human existence as a reflection of reality, a truth lived in the world (rather than postmodern fragmentation, posthuman or AI).
At a time when the last fighter pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain in 1940 just turned 105 in July 2024 (Group Captain John Allman Hemingway, DFC, AE – one of the few that saved Britain), a large proportion of the artists listed below were born before or in the shadow of the cultural and ideological conflict that was the global conflagration of the Second World War. The grew up suffering the vicissitudes of war, bombing, death, rationing, deprivations, genocide and mass migration. They grew up knowing of the threat to their freedom and survival. They grew up with a heightened sense of the value of human life and the need to record that humanity. As my friend and photographer Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019) eloquently said:
“We believed we had an obligation, neither social nor political, to make a difference. We were brought up as children to believe that we had an obligation to make that difference.
If we can find out what we are… that is the artist. This goes to the core element of your being, and the core element of your enquiry remains the same.
If the core part of your life is the search for the truth then that becomes a core part of your identity for the rest of your life. It becomes embedded in your soul.”1
I suggest that David Goldblatt was one such artist who was brought up to believe that he had an obligation to make a difference. And it was through the truth of his photographs that he made that difference.
Goldblatt was “the grandson of Lithuanian-Jewish migrants, who left Europe for South Africa in the 1890s to escape religious persecution. Goldblatt was born in the small gold-mining town of Randfontein in 1930 and later lived and worked in Johannesburg.”2
“In 1910 Chinese indentured labourers were repatriated and replaced by migrant black labour, many recruited from neighbouring territories. In 1921-1922 The Rand Rebellion/ Revolt saw white mine workers protest the industry’s attempt to replace semi-skilled white men with cheap black labour leaving about 200 people dead, more than 1,000 injured, 15,000 men out of work and a slump in gold production. The government came under pressure to protect skilled white workers in mining and three Acts were passed that gave employment opportunities to whites and introduced a plan for African segregation. In 1948 apartheid was legislated.”3
During the Second World War, “South Africa made significant contributions to the Allied war effort. Some 135,000 white South Africans fought in the East and North African and Italian campaigns, and 70,000 Blacks and Coloureds served as labourers and transport drivers… The war proved to be an economic stimulant for South Africa, although wartime inflation and lagging wages contributed to social protests and strikes after the end of the war. Driven by reduced imports, the manufacturing and service industries expanded rapidly, and the flow of Blacks to the towns became a flood. By the war’s end, more Blacks than whites lived in the towns. They set up vast squatter camps on the outskirts of the cities and improvised shelters from whatever materials they could find. They also began to flex their political muscles. Blacks boycotted a Witwatersrand bus company that tried to raise fares, they formed trade unions, and in 1946 more than 60,000 Black gold miners went on strike for higher wages and improved living conditions.”4
Goldblatt was a first generation migrant who grew up surrounded by the oppression of blacks in a small gold-mining town. He lived through the Second World War and as a human being and a Jew would know of the atrocities of the concentration camps. He started taking photographs when he was a teenager in the late 1940s after the war ended and just after the beginning of apartheid. All of these events – black oppression, Jewish genocide, and apartheid – would have affected his outlook on life and his values. He is quoted as saying, “Apartheid became very much the central area of my work, but my real preoccupation was with our values … how did we get to be the way we are?”5
How does any human being believe that their values are “right” and more valuable than those of another culture? that then leads them into conflict with other people who have different values? or to a belief that they are superior to another race? Such is the case with white supremacy and apartheid, a word used to describe a racist program of tightened segregation and discrimination.
Early in his career, to get subjects for his photographs, David Goldblatt posted “classified advertisements in local newspapers requesting sitters for his portraits. Goldblatt’s ads for his personal work often included a note of reassurance, one of which gave [this] exhibition its title: “I would like to photograph people in their homes in Johannesburg, Randburg and Sandton. There will be no charge and one free print will be supplied. Further copies at cost price. There is no catch andno ulterior motive.””6
The phrase “no ulterior motive” is part misnomer.
Leslie Wilson and Yechen Zhao have observed that while “Goldblatt’s use of “no ulterior motive” was supposed to allay concerns that he was trying to take advantage of his sitters,” Goldblatt was also fully aware of the use he wanted to put his photographs. “Even as he positioned himself as a photographer without an ulterior motive, Goldblatt certainly had an intention for the resulting photographs: to use them in service of understanding and representing South African social relations.”7
Goldblatt was fully aware, fully attentive and informed about the history his country – “the history of South Africa’s mining industry, white middle class, forced segregation of black and Asian communities into townships under the Group Areas Act” – and he used his photographs to objectively document social conditions in South Africa, photographs which were then published in magazines and books for wider distribution.
Unlike the more overtly activist photographs of the legendary Ernest Cole (which led to Cole fleeing South Africa after the publication of his book House of Bondage in 1967), Goldblatt’s photographs are quieter and more insidious in their criticism of the structures of the apartheid system. Through the quietness of everyday photographs, through the dignity of his subjects and through the elision of violence, Goldblatt subtly chisels away at the foundations of oppression and injustice in South African society. As Susan Aurinko observes, “One might argue that in his own silent way, he was an activist, using his camera to expose things that should never have been allowed to happen.”8
With the waning of a generation of social documentary photographers around the world who wrote history through their photographs, we leave ourselves open and vulnerable to the duplicity and misinformation of current media trends (including the viral promulgation of images).9 Photographs of truth and substance can still make a difference. I repeat the quote from Lewis Hine earlier in this text: “Photography can light up darkness and expose ignorance.”
With the rise of the far right around the contemporary world, the forces of darkness must be opposed; truth and justice must, can and will be upheld. Ignorance is not strength.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Here are some of the artists that I have had to update their details:
Abbas (Iranian, 1944-2018) John Baldessari (American, 1931-2020) Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015) Richard Benson (American, 1943-2017) James Bidgood (American, 1933-2022) Geta Brâtescu (Romanian, 1926-2018) Anna Blume (German, 1937-2020) Jimmy Caruso (Canadian, 1926-2021)
Christo (Bulgaria, 1935-2020) John Cohen (American, 1932-2019) Joan Colom (Spanish, 1921-2017) Marie Cosindas (American, 1923-2017) Barbara Crane (American, 1928-2019) Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) Destiny Deacon (Australian, Kuku/Erub/Mer, 1957-2024) Maggie Diaz (American Australian, 1925-2016) Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023) Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019) Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023)
Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019) Vittorio Garatti (Italian, 1927-2023) David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Arlene Gottfried (American, 1950-2017) F. C. Gundlach (German, 1926-2021) Károly Halász (Hungarian, 1946-2016) Dave Heath (American, 1931-2016) Fred Herzog (Canadian born Germany, 1930-2019) Ken Heyman (American, 1930-2019) Thomas Hoepker (German, 1936-2024) Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020) Hillert Ibbeken (German, 1935-2021) Vo Anh Khanh (Vietnamese, 1936-2023) Jean Mohr (Swiss, 1925-2018) Sigrid Neubert (German, 1927-2018) Floris Neusüss (German, 1937-2020) Ranjith Kally (South African, 1925-2017) Sy Kattelson (American, 1923-2018) Chris Killip (British, 1946-2020) William Klein (French born America, 1926-2022) Karl Lagerfeld (German, 1933-2019) Rosemary Laing (Australian, 1959-2024) Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023) Ulrich Mack (German, 1934-2024) Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015) Elfriede Mejchar (Austrian, 1924-2020) Sonia Handelman Meyer (American, 1920-2022) Santu Mofokeng (South African, 1956-2020) Floris Neusüss (German, 1937-2020) Marvin E. Newman (American, 1927-2023) Terry O’Neill (British, 1938-2019) Polixeni Papapetrou (Australian, 1960-2018) Marlo Pascual (American, 1972-2020) Peter Peryer (New Zealand, 1941-2018) Marc Riboud (French, 1923-2016) Robert Rooney (Australian, 1937-2017) Lucas Samaras (American born Greece, 1936-2024) Jurgen Schadeberg (South African born Germany, 1931-2020) Michael Schmidt (German, 1945-2014) Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1935-2016) Michael Snow (Canadian, 1928-2023) Frank Stella (American, 1936-2024) Louis Stettner (American, 1922-2016) Charles H. “Chuck” Stewart (American, 1927-2017) Jerry N. Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022) Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) John F Williams (Australian, 1933-2016) Michael Wolf (German, 1954-2019) Ida Wyman (American, 1926-2019) George S. Zimbel (American-Canadian, 1929-2023)
Footnotes
1/ Joyce Evans in conversation with Marcus Bunyan 2019
2/ Anonymous. “David Goldblatt,” on the MCA website October 2018 [Online] Cited 06/08/2024
4/ Alan S. Mabin and Julian R.D. Cobbing. “World War II in South Africa,” on the Britannica website last updated Aug 5, 2024 [Online] Cited 06/08/2024
5/ David Goldblatt quoted in Anonymous. “David Goldblatt,” on the MCA website October 2018 [Online] Cited 06/08/2024
6/ Leslie Wilson and Yechen Zhao. “In the Room with David Goldblatt,” on the Art Institute of Chicago website December 19, 2023 [Online] Cited 11/07/2024
9/ “… the French philosopher and critic, Paul Virilio, speaking of contemporary images, described them as ‘viral’. He suggests that they communicate by contamination, by infection. In our ‘media’ or ‘information’ society we now have a ‘pure seeing’; a seeing without knowing.”
Paul Virilio. “The Work of Art in the Electronic Age,” in Block No. 14, Autumn, 1988, pp. 4-7 quoted in Roberta McGrath. “Medical Police”, in Ten.8 No. 14, 1984 quoted in Simon Watney and Sunil Gupta. “The Rhetoric of AIDS,” in Tessa Boffin and Sunil Gupta (eds.,). Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology. London: Rivers Osram Press, 1990, p. 143.
Many thankx to Fundación MAPFRE for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“… the kind of photography that I am interested in is much closer to writing than to painting. Because making a photograph is rather like writing a paragraph or a short piece, and putting together a whole string of photographs is like producing a piece of writing in many ways. There is the possibility of making coherent statements in an interesting, subtle, complex way.”
David Goldblatt
“Apartheid became very much the central area of my work, but my real preoccupation was with our values … how did we get to be the way we are?”
David Goldblatt
“While Goldblatt’s style and method vary from one series to the next, the constant impartiality and benevolence of his gaze are perhaps what best describe his unique approach to social documentary photography at the crossroads with fine art. He never judges his subjects, but seeks to expose the most insidious dynamics of discrimination in the everyday – that is, in the simple ways people and their surroundings present themselves before his eyes. His work is all the more subtle in that it doesn’t always engage head-on with politics, or at least at first glance.”
One of Goldblatt’s early methods for accessing such intimate spaces, in addition to word of mouth and fortuitous encounters, was to post classified advertisements in local newspapers requesting sitters for his portraits. Goldblatt’s ads for his personal work often included a note of reassurance, one of which gave our exhibition its title: “I would like to photograph people in their homes in Johannesburg, Randburg and Sandton. There will be no charge and one free print will be supplied. Further copies at cost price. There is no catch andno ulterior motive.”
In the most practical sense, Goldblatt’s use of “no ulterior motive” was supposed to allay concerns that he was trying to take advantage of his sitters. But this message also conveys the promise of a transparent and straightforward photographic encounter, a working method that cuts across his body of work. …
Even as he positioned himself as a photographer without an ulterior motive, Goldblatt certainly had an intention for the resulting photographs: to use them in service of understanding and representing South African social relations. He applied his analysis, captions, and sequencing to the pictures and presented them to a broad public audience. At first, much of Goldblatt’s work appeared in magazines and journals, but he labored to publish his photographs in books, finding them the ideal format to crystallize his perspective on South African people, history, and land.
Leslie Wilson and Yechen Zhao. “In the Room with David Goldblatt,” on the Art Institute of Chicago website December 19, 2023 [Online] Cited 11/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
The renowned South African photographer David Goldblatt (Randfontein, Union of South Africa, British Empire 1930 – Johannesburg, 2018, South Africa) dedicated his life to documenting his country and its people. His photography focused on capturing issues related to South African society and politics, subjects that are essential today for a visual understanding of one of history’s most painful processes: apartheid.
David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive, organised in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and the Yale University Art Gallery, is the first exhibition to delve into the connections and dialogues Goldblatt established with other photographers from different geographical and generational backgrounds who, like him, focused on representing the social and environmental changes taking place in their respective countries. Moreover, this ambitious project abounds in rare, old or unpublished material, and is exceptional in that it presents some series in their entirety. For all these reasons, the exhibition is intended as a fitting tribute to David Goldblatt, as well as the beginning of a new chapter in the study of his work.
Exhibition co-organised by The Art Institute of Chicago and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid.
Text from the Fundación MAPFRE
Installation views of the exhibition David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive at Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid
Goldblatt caught this raucous scene during his initial foray into photography just after high school. The spontaneous interaction of children of different races on a city street clashed with the country’s emerging politics at mid-century. The year before Goldblatt made this image, a white nationalist movement fomented by Afrikaners – an ethnic group descended predominantly from Dutch settlers – had come to political power as the National Party. In 1949 the government passed legislation to authorise new racial classifications and urban racial segregation. They subsequently allocated the neighbourhoods of Fietas (known officially as Pageview) and Mayfair as areas for white residents only, enforcing segregation by fines and compulsory resettlement.
The artistic career of South African artist David Goldblatt (1930, Randfontein – 2018, Johannesburg) embraced both a wide geographical spread of his country and a wide variety of human situations portraying the day-to-day life of his fellow citizens during and after apartheid. From his beginnings in 1950, his work – which he has progressively reflected in numerous books – has gone hand in hand with the historical, political, social and economic evolution of South Africa. From 1999 onwards, Goldblatt adopted colour for his work, which focused on the harsh living conditions of the post-apartheid period.
Goldblatt photographed with great objectivity the “watchmen”, dissidents, settlers and victims of that regime, the cities they lived in, their buildings, the inside of their homes… His images provide an extensive and touching visual record of the racist apartheid regime, a record that never explicitly shows its violence but clearly reveals all that it represented, as he himself pointed out: […] I avoid violence. And I wouldn’t know how to handle it as a photographer if I found myself caught up in a violent scene […] But then I’ve long since realised – it took me a few years to realise – that events in themselves are not so interesting to me as the conditions that led to the events. These conditions are often quite commonplace, and yet full of what is imminent. Immanent and imminent.
David Goldblatt. No ulterior motive gathers together nearly 150 works that show the continuity and strength of his work and also offers, for the first time, connections to other South African photographers from one to three generations later who acknowledge their debt to Goldblatt as a mentor who believed deeply in the value of exchange and debate, as well as in the importance of expressing one’s own opinions.
European settlement began at the Cape in 1652. The oldest modern structure still in existence is, appropriately, the Castle in Cape Town erected between 1666 and 1679 as a fortress to consolidate that settlement against growing opposition by indigenous people. The core of the history of this land in the 333 years since 1666 is its domination by white people, the subjection to them by force and institutionalised economic dependence of black people, and of sporadic and latterly of massively growing opposition by blacks and disaffected whites to the system of domination.
White hegemony approached its ultimate expression in the past thirty-nine years with the emergence of Afrikaner nationalism as the overwhelmingly ascendant social force in this society. The apotheosis of that force is the ideology of apartheid. There is hardly any part of life in this country that has not been profoundly affected by the quest for power, the determination to hold onto it, and the expression of that power through apartheid of the Afrikaner Nationalists and of their supporters and fellow travellers of other origins.
Innumerable structures of every imaginable kind and not a few ruins bear witness to the huge thrust of these movements across our land.
Now, Afrikaner nationalism, though by no means spent, is in decline. Change, probably convulsive, to something as yet unclear has begun. The first structures based in countervailing forces and ideology have made their tentative appearance.
David Goldblatt from the book “Structures,” 1987, p. 42
The fabric of this society permeates everything I do. I don’t know if this is the case with other photographers. I would dearly love to be a lyrical photographer. Every so often I try to branch out and rid myself of these concerns, but it rarely happens. You take your first breath of fresh air and you have compromised.
Recently I became very aware of the people thrown into detention. There is the elementary fact that is lost sight of in this country, that they are put in detention without trial, without recourse to the courts. Has become necessary here to remind ourselves of this fact. I have catalogued the faces fo some fo the people who have been in detention with something of their life and what happened to them in detention. I have also me with some who have been abused in detention. The photographs might in some small way, through their publication, act as a deterrent to further abuse or even to detention without trial itself. As the struggle for the survival of the apartheid system becomes more acute, so the system becomes more restrictive, especially with regard to the flow of information. We are going into a period of long darkness when the restrictions with become more severe. I am aware of photographing things that are disappearing and need to be documented, but in another sense I have a private mission to document what is happening in this country to form a record. There are many other photographers engaged in this. I regard this aspect of our work as very important, so that in the future, when the time comes, people will know what happened here, what transpired.
David Goldblatt from the book “Structures,” 1987, p. 68
Two men lean against one another tenderly as one holds up an identification document called a passbook. under the Pass Laws Act of 1952, all Black South Africans over the age of 16 were required to carry such identification at all times. Passbooks were also known as dompas, a term deriving from the phrase “dumb pass,” used to openly mock this hated tool for enforcing apartheid. Anyone stopped by police without a passbook or official permission to be in a given area could be penalised with arrest or fines. Policies that restricted the movement of Black people throughout the country have a long history in South Africa and were a key target of resistance movements.
In his photographs of office and office workers, Goldblatt often teased out the continuities between professional and private identities. The two women in this photograph are dressed for winter on Earth, but the art on the walls hearkens to a journey to outer space. At this moment in 1972, apartheid was so firmly in place that, for many, change was almost unthinkable – perhaps akin to landing on the moon. The artwork brings the prospect of liberty and the sheer thrill of adventure into an otherwise ordinary setting. Of course, the art might not have been their choice at all, but the photograph holds open the possibility that these women have a stake in missions long thought impossible.
The grandson of Lithuanian refugees, David Goldblatt was born in Randfontein in 1930 and spent most of his life in Johannesburg. From a very young age he showed an interest in photography and took his first images when he was only eighteen. After the death of his father, in 1963 he decided to become a professional photographer.
David Goldblatt scrupulously examined the history and politics of South Africa, where he witnessed the rise of apartheid, its brutal segregationist policies and its eventual disappearance. His sensitive photographs offer a vision of daily life under this regime and in the complex period that followed, when he moved from black and white to colour in his work.
Employing great objectivity, Goldblatt photographed dissidents, settlers and victims of apartheid, the cities where they lived, their buildings, the interior of their homes, etc. His images configure a wide-ranging and moving visual record of this racist regime, a record which, while never explicitly showing its violence, clearly reveals everything it represented, as the artist himself pointed out: “I avoid violence. And I wouldn’t know how to handle it as a photographer if I found myself caught up in a violent scene […] But then I’ve long since realised – it took me a few years to realise – that events in themselves are not so interesting to me as the conditions that led to the events. These conditions are often quite commonplace, and yet full of what is imminent. Immanent and imminent.“
In 1998 David Goldblatt was the first South African to be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. His work has been recognised with the Hasselblad (2006) and Henri Cartier-Bresson (2009) prizes and the International Center of Photography award (2013). In 2016 he was made a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. He died in Johannesburg in 2018 at the age of eighty-eight.
David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive brings together around 150 works from several of the artist’s series with the aim of revealing the continuity of his work while also and for the first time establishing a dialogue with the work of other South African photographers of between one and three generations subsequent to Goldblatt, such as Lebohang Kganye, Ruth Seopedi Motau and Jo Ractliffe. Also on display are three mock-ups of books by Goldblatt, an aspect of his work to which he gave great importance.
The works on display are from the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Art Gallery and include important recent acquisitions of photographs by Goldblatt. Having been shown at The Art Institute of Chicago between December 2023 and March 2024, Fundación MAPFRE is now presenting the exhibition at its venue on Paseo de Recoletos, Madrid, until August this year. It will then be seen next year at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (Connecticut).
David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive is curated by Judy Ditner (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven), Leslie M. Wilson and Matthew S. Witkovsky (The Art Institute of Chicago).
Key themes in the exhibition
Apparent tranquility
Throughout his career Goldblatt avoided the most difficult and shocking incidents that were a daily reality under apartheid. Rather, he considered that depicting everyday life, “the quiet and commonplace where nothing ‘happened'”, allowed the viewer to draw their own conclusions. The content was implicit in the apparent tranquility and in the very precise captions that accompany these images, which show ongoing, daily expressions of racism and the economic, social and political exploitation of the Black population under white rule.
Goldblatt, No Ulterior Motive
Goldblatt’s status as a white man allowed him greater freedom of movement and he took advantage of that privilege to document life in South Africa in the most honest and direct way possible. In the early 1970s he published a classified ad which read: “I would like to photograph people in their homes […]. No ulterior motive.” Nonetheless, this impartiality concealed a critical perspective towards his country’s people, history and geography.
Apartheid
In 1948 the National Party, one of the most visible entities representing Afrikaners (a European, colonising ethnic group mainly comprising descendants of the Dutch, North Germans and French), came to power in South Africa. This minority of European origin then proceeded to institute apartheid as a State policy while promoting the ideology that people of different racial origins could not live together in equality and harmony. Successive governments reinforced the legacy of racist oppression against non-white peoples (indigenous Africans, people of Asian origin and those of mixed race), who made up more than 80% of the population. In 1990 segregation laws began to be eliminated, the activity of the African National Congress was legalised and its most important leader, Nelson Mandela, who was elected president of South Africa in 1993, was released from prison.
“I feel as though my teeth are being pulled out one by one. I run by tongue over the spaces and I try to remember the shape of what was there.” These words, spoken to Goldblatt by shop owner Ozzie Docrat, express what many residents must have experienced during their forced removal from the Johannesburg suburb of Fietas in the 1970s. Throughout the mid-20th century, Fietas was exceptional for the endurance of it multiracial, interfaith community of working- and middle-class people in the face of encroaching segregationist housing policies. In 1977, however, the government forced out Indian families like the Docrats, along with other people of color, to make this area exclusive to whites.
“Over the course of a career that spanned more than six decades, Goldblatt went looking for scenes like this one – quiet and tender, while also deeply revealing of the structures and values that constituted South African society. Though the family appears to be right at home, Goldblatt’s title shares that they were living illegally in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Hillbrow, violating laws that, under the system of segregation known as apartheid, dictated where different racial groups were permitted to reside. The cozy scene is therefore profoundly fragile because the family faced the persistent threat of removal.
This image powerfully presents the tensions that were central to what Goldblatt pursued through photography: soft furnishings and brutal laws, proximity and distance, access and exclusion, and informality and formality.”
Leslie Wilson and Yechen Zhao. “In the Room with David Goldblatt,” on the Art Institute of Chicago website December 19, 2023 [Online] Cited 11/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Throughout South Africa and even across the continent, religion bears a complicated history embroiled in legacies of colonisation, oppression, and apartheid. Religion holds power. It was through the cross and the bullet that the continent was dissected by European powers. It was through the pages of the Bible that apartheid was theologically justified, and it was through the Dutch Reformed Church of white Afrikaners that “the races” were declared separate as mandated by God. Yet, it was also through the World Alliance of Reformed Churches that apartheid was acknowledged as heresy. It was through the Christian ethos and through ubuntu that Archbishop Desmond Tutu guided the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission through ways of healing in a society bifurcated into “European” and “Non-White;” “have” and “have-not;” “believer” and “unbeliever.” Religion has the power to both destroy and heal a nation.
In a discussion about life under apartheid, my South African friend designated as “Coloured” – a category in between “White” and “Black African” – revealed that his parents were once denied communion on Sunday morning due to their sin of attending a “white church” while being of color. Whiteness meant purity and closeness with God; anything less than was deemed as “separate,” “other,” “unworthy” – “impure.” The sharing of bread and wine in the Christian tradition is meant to signify connection between people and between the divine. The denial of such connection, of saying that one was unworthy to drink from the same chalice because of one’s race or ethnicity, is an ultimate denial of humanity. It is an affront to the very word “communion” and an insult to fellowship. Religion was co-opted to subjugate and enforce a system of racial hierarchy. Sunday morning saw no race-mixing amongst God’s children.
Trevor O’Connor. “Religion in South Africa: The Power to Destroy and Heal a Nation,” on the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs website November 16, 2018 [Online] Cited 11/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Goldblatt’s photographs of churches were so beautiful. They were wonderful architectural images, but they were deep with meaning capturing the issues of a missionary religion in a nonnative land. They symbolise the conflicts within the country which mirrored issues throughout other parts of the world. When I thought about South Africa it was about apartheid and relationships between blacks and whites, I had not considered the impact of western religion on the indigenous population (I should have because it is an issue still in our country today), nor did I know about the issues with the Muslim population in the country. In researching the issue of religion further, it appears the conflicts and violence in South Africa related to it appear to be ongoing to this day.
David Goldblatt (1930-2018) scrupulously examined the history and politics of South Africa, where he witnessed the rise of apartheid, its divisive and brutal policies, and its eventual demise. His sensitive photographs offer a view of daily life under the apartheid system and its complex aftermath. Goldblatt was drawn, in his own words, “to the quiet and commonplace where nothing ‘happened’ and yet all was contained and immanent.” Accompanied by precise captions, his images expose everyday manifestations of racism and point to Black dispossession – economic, social, and political – under white rule.
The grandson of Lithuanian Jews who had fled Europe in the 1890s, Goldblatt spent most of his life in Johannesburg. Although not part of the ascendant Dutch Protestant community, his position as a white man allowed him greater freedom of movement and he leveraged this privilege to document life in South Africa as honestly and straightforwardly as possible. In the early 1970s, he placed a classified ad: “I would like to photograph people in their homes […]. No ulterior motive.” Yet this professed impartiality masked a critical perspective toward South Africa’s people, history, and geography.
Goldblatt first took up the camera in 1948, the year the apartheid system was introduced, and over the next seven decades he assiduously photographed South Africa’s people, landscape, and built environment. Recognising the layered connections in his oeuvre, this exhibition proceeds thematically rather than chronologically: here, black-and-white photographs taken during the period of institutionalised segregation are interwoven with his work in colour from the 1990s on. Six thematic sections explore Goldblatt’s engagement with apartheid, its contradictions, and its multifaceted legacy.
Installation view of the exhibition David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive at Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid showing at left, wall text from the section ‘Informality’ (see below)
1/ Informality
Goldblatt’s photographs, especially his portraits, ask us to consider the informal and often idiosyncratic ways people resist oppression. Attuned to how his status and relative freedom as a white man influenced all social encounters, Goldblatt gained access to intimate moments of South Africans’ everyday lives by thoughtfully avoiding behaviour that might suggest an exercise of authority. Instead, he observed how frequently people segregated by law engaged in unsanctioned social and economic exchanges. Whether photographing descendants of Dutch colonists farming in the rural Cape in the early 1960s for the series Some Afrikaners Photographed, or a young Black couple in Johannesburg, Goldblatt emphasised the improvised realities of everyday life. This interest shifted in later years to the housing and mercantile arrangements dubbed South Africa’s “informal economy,” as well as to unofficial monuments to historical figures and events.
2/ Working people
Even as the architects of apartheid sought to separate South Africans, the system functioned through an economic structure that placed people into tense proximity on a daily basis. White families hired Black workers to raise their children and clean their homes; mines owned and managed by whites depended on people of color to perform the most dangerous labor. Government-dictated racial categories profoundly shaped the jobs that people could hold, creating strict hierarchies in workplaces. Goldblatt highlighted these inequalities with pictures like one of a domestic worker rushing to meet her employer. At the same time, he attended to how people retained a sense of self and dignity in their labor, as in his portraits of mineworkers who chose to pose for his camera in their traditional clothing.
3/ Extraction
Born in the mining town of Randfontein, Goldblatt began his career by looking at the extractive economy built by colonial ventures to exploit its natural resources. Goldblatt created his earliest series, On the Mines (1964–73), while working as a photographer for the country’s biggest mining corporations. The series showed how a predominantly Black migrant labor force performed the most dangerous work in gold and platinum mines, work that primarily enriched their white bosses. Decades later, the photographer found similar manifestations of inequality while recording the toxic legacy of asbestos mining and its disproportionate impact on Black communities.
4/ Near/Far
The white supremacist National Party, led by Afrikaners (descendants of predominantly Dutch settlers) and English-speaking whites, attempted to impose distance between people of different racial categories in South Africa. Goldblatt looked at how the National Party government pulled people from their homes to realise its vision of racial segregation, dispossessing and dispersing Black and Indian residents to make room for new white neighbourhoods.
However, the exclusive urban centres the party sought to create could not function without a daily influx of labourers and domestic workers from the country’s diverse population. Goldblatt was interested in the ways closeness continued to manifest even when distance was dictated by law, a status quo that also affected his relationship with the people he photographed. These images wryly register the constant collision of segregated groups in public and private spaces throughout the country.
5/ Disbelief
The illogic of apartheid led to widespread skepticism and practices of self-delusion among those who actively perpetuated the system. The photographs in this section capture the sense of disbelief with the labyrinthine, endlessly rewritten laws intended to legitimise a morally bankrupt system of abuse and oppression. Goldblatt rendered this state of affairs in brilliant deadpan, giving visual form to the incredulity that all but the most cynical and opportunistic beneficiaries of apartheid must have felt. Fortress-like churches of the Dutch Reformed Protestant faith mix with absurd scenes of suburban leisure in whites-only areas, while stony or stoic gazes meet moments of sudden demolition. Even after the official end of apartheid, Goldblatt continued to photograph sites that inspired feelings of disbelief as seen in his photographs of incomplete housing developments.
6/ Assembly
How do people come together in a country divided by segregation? In everything, from the bench they could sit on to where they could live, South Africans were physically separated by race. In the 1950s, protests against these new policies were common, but in the decades that followed, the government introduced increasingly brutal tactics to repress dissent and severely curtailed the right to assemble.
Goldblatt avoided straightforward depictions of open rebellion, seeing his country’s political struggles as clearly in the routine occasions that brought people together by choice or necessity. In later decades, he engaged more with overtly political subjects, turning his camera to newly elected lawmakers and young South Africans openly protesting colonial legacies in their post-apartheid society.
7/ Connections
Beyond his own work, Goldblatt was committed to aiding future generations of South African photographers. He helped found the Market Photo Workshop in 1989 to offer instruction and support to emerging, socially engaged photographers, hoping the school would be “a small counter to the ethnic surgery that had so successfully separated South Africans under apartheid.” Today, it remains a centre of education and community for photography in Johannesburg. Lebohang Kganye, Sabelo Mlangeni, Ruth Seopedi Motau, and Zanele Muholi are alumni with close ties to Goldblatt, who was a friend and mentor. All have explored themes of belonging, loss, memory, migration, and representation while uncovering original, often deeply personal ways to examine South Africa’s people, places, and policies.
Like Goldblatt, the artists in this gallery – Ernest Cole, Santu Mofokeng, and Jo Ractliffe – use the camera to reflect critically on their country’s society and politics. Cole used his camera to confront sweeping social, political, and environmental change from the 1950s to the 1980s. Mofokeng was a member of the Afrapix collective of South African documentary photographers throughout the 1980s. A former student of Goldblatt, he received his first long-term position in photography in part through Goldblatt’s recommendation. Ractliffe’s landscape photographs address issues of displacement and conflict, capturing the traces of often violent histories. She knew Goldblatt as a friend and colleague and has taught at the Market Photo Workshop, a vitally important school for photography in Johannesburg whose alumni are featured in gallery 3.
One might argue that in his own silent way, he was an activist, using his camera to expose things that should never have been allowed to happen. A single color image seems to define the show – in it, a housekeeper sits in her employer’s dining room with her two children on her lap. Behind her a round window forms a halo around her wrapped head, Madonna-like. The didactic tells us that all three of them died of AIDS within months. Such is the inequity of South Africa, quietly portrayed by David Goldblatt over seven decades.
Installation view of the exhibition David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive at Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid showing at right, Goldblatt’s Near Brak Pannen on the Beaufort West-Fraserburg road, Nuweveld, Karoo, 30 May 2004 (2004, below)
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) Near Brak Pannen on the Beaufort West-Fraserburg road, Nuweveld, Karoo, 30 May 2004 2004 Pigmented inkjet print The Art Institute of Chicago, promised gift of Cecily Cameron and Derek Schrier
Next to a road that shoots arrow-straight to the horizon, a pool of water evaporates from the intense sunlight of the Karoo, the semi-arid region that separates Cape Town from South Africa’s interior. The scarcity of water and the harsh climate in this enormous area impeded white settlers from centuries, an the lack of grand natural or manmade features confounded their desire to assimilate it into their idea of a beautiful landscape. From the 2000s onward Goldblatt made much of his new work by driving great distances through the Karoo. He appreciated the way it resisted easy aestheticisation, calling it the “fuck-all landscape.”
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) At Kewin Kwaneles Takwaito Barber, Landsdowne Road, Cape Town in the time of AIDS, 16 May 2007 2007 Pigmented inkjet print The Art Institute of Chicago, promised gift of Cecily Cameron and Derek Schrier
Here, Goldblatt joined a mass of onlookers recording the removal of the statue of 19th-century British mining magnate Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Rhodes vastly expanded European colonial rule on the African continent and exploited local labour to amass immense wealth. Disgusted by what they viewed as a symbol of white supremacy, student activists successfully campaigned to take down the statue honouring Rhodes.
UCT responded to this and related student protests by forming a committee to evaluate art on campus, intending to remove or hide problematic works from view. While Goldblatt had promised his archive to the university, he became concerned that this committee might censor art ad free speech. He ultimately withdrew his offer in 2017, bequeathing his archive to Yale University instead. In response to this decision, scholar Njabulo S. Ndebele has asked. “Was Goldblatt worried that the photographs would not survive the tests of freedom, even after they had survived those of oppression?”
Wall text from the exhibition
Fundación MAPFRE Recoletos Exhibition Hall Paseo Recoletos 23, 28004 Madrid
Opening hours: Mondays (except holidays): 2pm – 8pm Tuesday to Saturday: 11am – 8pm Sunday and holidays: 11am – 7pm
Exhibition dates: 22nd April, 2023 – 4th August, 2024
Curator: Jan Brazier
James Elliott (British) ‘A Week after the Derby’ c. 1855-1860 Hand-coloured stereograph (single image) Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
A short text this week as I’m not well.
What a delightful exhibition – a clean installation showcasing some beautiful, contemplative, witty and humorous images on an interesting subject.
The pathos of A Week after the Derby (c. 1855-1860, above); the gruesome humour of A Pair of Drawers (c. 1895, below); the Australian humour of The Great Australian Bite (Bight) (c. 1895, below). Staged for the camera, posed for the viewer, possessed of innocence, national pride and the delightful joy of living.
To flesh out the posting I have added bibliographic information for the artists and publishers where possible.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Chau Chak Wing Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
From costume portraits to comic and sentimental stereographs
This exhibition presents staged photographs taken between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, illuminating the popular culture of the time.
These photographs were created in the photographic studio, with its painted backgrounds and props, where people came to have fancy dress or special outfits captured. Studio photographers also created tableaux, using posed models to stage scenes to tell stories, sentimental or comic. The most popular format was the stereograph. Even the home backyard became a stage for family portraits, posed in the manner of the studio.
Featuring enlarged reproductions, and original examples of glass negatives and stereographs from the historic photograph collection, The Staged Photograph is a fascinating delve into an unfamiliar photographic history.
Text from the Chau Chak Wing Museum website
Installation views of the exhibition The Staged Photograph at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney with the exhibition texts in the bottom photograph to be seen below…
The Staged Photograph
Created in the theatrical space of the 19th century photographic studio, a staged photograph used the artifice of painted backgrounds and props against which to pose costumed sitters or models arranged in a tableau.
Sitters often used this studio stage to capture a special fancy dress or other costume worn to be photographed either on the way to, or sometimes after, the ball. From the time of the popular cartes-de-visite of the 1860s into the early 20th century, these private memories, storied in albums or framed on walls, give us rare visuals of the costumes worn.
The studio photographer also found a business line in selling staged fictional scenes, which told a story or posed a humorous moment. The most popular were the genre or narrative stereographs, featuring scenes of everyday life, sentimental or comic. Beginning in the late 1850s, this market changed from a middle-class parlour entertainment to a broader popular entertainment, and the views depicted reflect this change as a new century began.
With the advent of easier amateur photography through the Kodak revolution, rather than visiting the studio, the home photographer found a stage in the backyard. Family members were posed in the manner of the studio, with a suspended curtain on the washing line or a pot plant on a stand, often still capturing a special fancy dress costume.
This exhibition explores a range of these staged photographs, a window into popular culture of the time, revealing cultural and social values.
Costume Portraits
Photographers’ studios were theatrical spaces, with props and backgrounds that could give context to a fancy dress or other costume. In Sydney in 1879, photographer E. Riisfeldt advertised that he had ‘specially painted 12 SCENES by one of the finest scenic artists, suitable for any fancy costume’. (Sydney Morning Herald, 24 February 1879)
Costume balls were a popular feature of Sydney life from the 1830s. Balls were held to raise money for charities, including children’s fancy dress balls and poster balls, popular from 1900 in Australia where costumes featured in advertisements.
While there are long accounts in newspapers of the attendees, with lists of names and costumes worn, photography offered the possibility of capturing what an outfit looked like.
Wall text from the exhibition
James Elliott (British) ‘Broken Vows’ c. 1857 Hand-coloured stereograph (single image) Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
James Elliott operated in London from approximately 1856 to 1861 and produced stereocards. According to Michael Pritchard’s Directory of London Photographers 1841-1908 he operated from two London addresses simultaneously: 9, Albany Court Yard and 48, Piccadilly.
Most famous for several hundred outstanding genre, usually beautifully tinted, on SCMs; most were elaborate studio sets, with large casts and complex accessories; several were in sets, such as “The Eve of Waterloo”; “The Wedding”, etc.; made views of England, esp. London on SCMs, which are much rarer and fairly ordinary. Often but not always used label with his name, or blind-stamp; views were extensively pirated both in England and US; he also pub. photos by W.M. Grundy.
Credit: National Stereoscopic Association with corrections and additions by Alan Griffiths and others.
Mark Anthony (Marc Antoine Gaudin) (French, 1804-1880)(attributed) [Staged scene featuring five women, their fingers pointing upwards] England c. 1855-1865 Half stereograph (single image) Macleay Collections, Chau Chak Wing Museum Donated by Alison Skeels, 1982
Freeman Brothers, Sydney (Australian) [Portrait of two girls in fancy dress] c. 1855-1865 Carte-de-visite Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney
One of the largest and most celebrated Sydney photographic studios was run by the Freeman Brothers, whose skilful portraits were much admired. This pair of entrepreneurial photographers used the latest processes, building a large, well-appointed studio and actively promoting their work through display in international exhibitions. James Freeman was also extremely well versed in the potential uses of the medium, delivering a comprehensive lecture on the topic to a Sydney society in 1858.
Freeman and Co was established by the professional photographers William and James who arrived in Sydney from London in 1853 and 1854 respectively. Trading as Freeman Brothers, the pair opened Freeman’s Sydney Gallery of Photographic Art in 1855, specialising initially in daguerreotype portraits. James Freeman is credited with introducing the ambrotype process to the colony in 1856, and the company adopted this medium after this date. By the 1860s, the studio was busy producing carte de visite portraits, amassing nearly 30,000 negatives by 1870. In 1866 the brothers collaborated with the renowned English photographer Victor Prout, capitalising on his fine reputation in the colony and advertising themselves as ‘photographers to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales and His Excellency the Governor.’ After William Freeman retired around 1890, the company passed into the hands of employee William Rufus George. Under George’s management in the 1890s the firm targeted a wealthy clientele, producing expensive platinum prints. The company still operates in Sydney, specialising in corporate, wedding, architectural and portrait photography.
G.H. Nicholas, Sydney (Australian) [Portrait of a child holding a stereoscope] c. 1870 Carte-de-visite Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Judith Mackinolty, 1982
These unique photos offer an intriguing insight into pop culture history
The Chau Chak Wing Museum presents The Staged Photograph, an exhibition exploring images from the mid-19th and early 20th centuries from Australia, Britain and the United States.
Australians embraced photography long before smartphone cameras enabled us to capture and curate every moment of our lives.
A new exhibition of rarely seen images at the Chau Chak Wing Museum transports us to a time when costumes had to be captured in a studio, and when fictional photographs, posing models in a story or comic scene, were sold and bought for home entertainment.
The Staged Photograph presents images taken between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, by professional and amateur photographers, from Australia, Britain and the United States.
Exhibition curator Jan Brazier said: “The Staged Photograph is a fascinating dive into an unfamiliar photographic history. Its images are a diverse and intriguing insight into the role staged photographs played in our lives and the popular culture of the time.”
Studio: from the ballroom to bath soap
Costume balls were immensely popular from the 1830s. From the 1860s, families in their fancy dress costumes or special outfits could be professionally photographed in a studio complete with props and a painted background.
“These photos were private memories kept in frames or the family album, where undoubtedly many are still to be found,” said Jan Brazier.
Communities held balls to raise money for good causes and from 1900 they included the ‘poster ball’ when businesses would pay fundraisers to have someone wear a costume festooned with advertisements for their products. These balls were as popular in high society as in country towns and suburbs. Costumes for Sunlight Soap, Silver Starch laundry powder, Jelline jelly crystals and Silver Drop self-raising flour can be seen in the exhibition.
Stereograph, mass home entertainment
The ‘online’ experience of the 19th century, the stereograph used two nearly identical photographs to create a 3D image when seen through a viewer called a stereoscope. Originally a middle-class activity, with the family gathering in the parlour to enjoy the images, it became more affordable by the 1890s and the mass home entertainment of its time. Its transformation saw millions of stereographs in use worldwide.
Views of exotic locations were by far the most popular stereographs for ‘armchair travelling’, but commercial photographers also created fictional scenes using actors and props to tell highly theatrical stories. Sentimental and comical scenes were big sellers.
Some of the most popular themes are still familiar – love, courtship, marriage, children and drunkenness – but others are of their time, taken from vaudeville jokes or the prejudices of the age. Both Irish servant women and African American plantation workers were held up to racist ridicule. One popular genre was college girls taking part in dormitory ‘larks and pranks’. Another was financial ruin from horse racing.
“The visual humour revealed in these stereographs provides a way for us to understand and interrogate a previous era’s cultural and social values,” said Jan Brazier.
The Home Studio
Home photography took off when smaller, more portable cameras became available, and the Kodak revolution arrived in the early 20th century. Amateur photographers captured special family moments using the backyard as a set. Family members posed as if in a studio, with a suspended curtain on the washing line or a pot plant on a stand, often still capturing a special costume. There was also a practical reason to work outdoors: better light.
Our photographic collection
All photographs are drawn from the Macleay Collections of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. These photographs are some of the more than 60,000 in the University’s social history photograph collection. The majority were donated and cover the mid-19th to 20th century.
“It doesn’t surprise me the Museum’s historical photographic exhibitions are so popular as people make a direct connection with our past ways of seeing ourselves. Anyone interested in Australia’s photography, history and early pop culture will enjoy this current exhibition,” Jan Brazier said.
Text from the Chau Chak Wing Museum website
Rose Stereograph Company, Melbourne (Australian)(publisher) ‘A Pair of Drawers’ c. 1895 Stereograph (single image) Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
Rose Stereograph Company, Melbourne (Australian)(publisher) ‘You Hussy, let my Husband alone’ c. 1895 Stereograph (single image) Macleay Collections, Chau Chak Wing Museum Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
The Rose Stereograph Company
The publishing output of this long-lived firm (which operated from about 1880 until it went into liquidation in 2017) was phenomenal, and when the remains of what must have been a vast photographic archive went on sale in June 2021 with Lloyds Auctions…
According to a brief history by postcard collector Leo Fitzgerald, the Rose story began when Cornish sea captain William Rose came to the Victorian Ballarat gold fields from California and married Grace Ash at Ballarat in 1861. The couple’s son, George, was born in 1862 at the town of Clunes. He worked in his father’s shoe shop in Chapel Street, Prahran, between 1877 and 1880 (apparently producing his earliest photos from those premises) and began spending his Sundays selling photos to picnic parties in the Dandenong hills. Finding his niche in photography, he moved to a new address at Armadale and founded his own firm publishing stereographic views. Over the years he travelled to many countries and recorded numerous important historic events with his stereographic camera equipment, opening offices in Sydney, Wellington and London. His images from Korea have become especially celebrated in Korea, where they represent an extremely rare glimpse of the nation in 1904, before the onset of the destruction wrought by the wars of the 20th century. …
Collector and researcher Ron Blum, whose excellent books built on Leo Fitzgerald’s work, wrote that George’s son Walter took over the business sometime before 1931, selling it in that year to long-time employees Edward Gilbert and Herbert Cutts… George’s wife, Elizabeth, died in 1929, and both George’s sons died before him. With no longer any legal interest in the company he had founded, George kept on taking photographs for the old firm, travelling around Australia in a mobile darkroom and camping along the way. He worked almost until his death in 1942, aged 80… The Rose Stereographic Company continued under the stewardship of Herbert “Bert” Cutts, who brought his son Neil into the business in the 1950s.
Greg Ray. “The Rose Stereograph Company: a snapshot,” on the Photo Time Tunnel website July 16, 2021 [Online] Cited 23/09/2023. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Rose Stereograph Company, Melbourne (Australian)(publisher) ‘The Great Australian Bite (Bight)’ c. 1895 Stereograph (single image) Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
George Rose was born in Clunes, Victoria, in 1861. He did not follow his father into boot-making, but was interested in astronomy and natural history. He was unconventional, of rather eccentric and Bohemian character. After moving to Melbourne in 1876, George developed his skills as a photographer, especially in the stereoscopic field – what is known as 3D photography today. He founded the Rose Stereographic Company in 1880. In 1901 George recorded the celebrations for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York, and in the following years travelled across Australia and over 35 countries taking three-dimensional photos. By 1907 his business employed six people – two males and four females; at its peak, staff numbered around 20. In 1913 the Rose Stereographic Company began manufacturing “real photo” postcards. George’s son Walter managed the company, allowing his father to concentrate on taking the photographs. In 1931 the business was sold to two long-time employees, Edward Gilbert and Herbert (Bert) Cutts. George Rose died of cancer in 1942, having outlived both his sons, but the business remained in the Cutts family for many years before it finally closed down in March 2017.
Information from the book George Rose – The Postcard Era by Ron Blum.
C.H. Graves, Universal Photo Art Co (American) ‘How Bridget served the POTATOES UNDRESSED. ‘I’ll not take off another STITCH if I lose me JOB’ ‘ c. 1897 Stereograph (single image) Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
The Universal Photo Art Company was one of several business titles under which photographer Carlton Harlow Graves sold his photographs late in his career. He was the son of Jesse Albert Graves, an important early worker who was based in the Delaware Water Gap area of Pennsylvania in the 1860-1880 time frame and produced some 500 generally fine scenic views of the western part of the state. Carlton learned the photographic art from his father and moved to Philadelphia to began producing on his own in about 1880. In his early years, he seems to have taken all the views which he published, but he soon began to buy or pirate images from others. Stereoviews issued under his own name are extremely rare.
At its peak, The Universal Photo Art Company seems to have been a rather substantial outfit. In addition to the headquarters offices and production facilities in Philadelphia, there was a western branch in Naperville, Ill., under F. A. Messerschmidt as general manager. There are numbers listed to almost to 5,000, although the number of individual photos actually used is only about 1,300. By the late 1890’s, C. H. Graves company became a major publisher offering “Art Nouveau Stereographs” on light gray curved mounts. His trade list offered excellent views of hunting scenes, Jamaica, Japan, Java, New York City, Palestine and others. To compete with low priced lithographs and copies, Graves offered his “Universal Series” or “Universal Views” on black mounts with no credit to himself. These have the number and the title in the negative and were sold at a reduced price from the regular “Art Nouveau” issues. Graves also offered boxed sets but they were not sold in the quantities of Underwood and Underwood, the Keystone View Company and H. C. White. The company seems to have been active until about 1910 when its stock of negatives were sold to Underwood & Underwood and presumably went from there to the Keystone View Company with the rest of the Underwood photos.
Paul Rubinstein. “Universal Photo Art Company,” on the Yellowstone stereoviews website Nd [Online] Cited 07/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
C.H. Graves, Universal Photo Art Co (American) ‘Rocky Mountain telephone line’ 1895-1905 Stereograph (single image) Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
Keystone View Company (American) ‘Bliss disturbed’ c. 1903 Stereograph Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by Sandra Savides, 2014
The Keystone View Company was founded in 1892 in Meadville, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. by amateur photographer B. L. Singley (Benneville Lloyd Singley). The trade list at the end of 1892 consisted of only a hundred titles but by 1940 they had commercially produced more than 40,000 titles. …
The views sold by the company in the U.K. from 1898 to 1906 were distributed under the name ‘The Fine-Art Photographers’ Publishing Co.’ and included instructions on how to view them with a ‘Realistiscope’; the company were manufacturing and selling stereoscopes from 1898 onwards.
There was an increased popularity of stereographs between 1898 and 1906, during which Keystone (like Underwood & Underwood) entered the box-set market. Along with topographical, nature, events and genre-view scenes, Keystone also began an Educational department in 1898 which issued sets illustrating geography, commerce, technology, history and natural studies.
After 1920 the Keystone View Company was the major global publisher of stereoviews, between 1915 and 1921 they had bought the negatives of nearly all of their competitors. With offices all over the world at this time the company was successful, especially from the sales of World War I stereoview sets.
The Keystone View Company maintained regular production right up until 1939 but continued to manufacture views for optometric purposes, with individual orders for stereoviews being filled up until the early 1970s.
Rebecca. “Keystone View Company,” on The Stereoscopy Blog 3rd January 2021 [Online] Cited 07/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Lorna Studios, Glebe (Australian) [Sunlight Soap Girl] 1905-1915 Cabinet card Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated from Lydia Bushell, 1983
George Henry Hawkins, Sydney (Australian) [Four children in fancy dress featuring the products, Jelline and Silver Drop Flour] 1910-1930 Glass negative, half-plate Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by R. Hawkins, 1988
George Henry Hawkins, Sydney (Australian) [Lily dressed in costume as ‘Victoria’] 1910-1930 Glass negative, quarter-plate Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by R. Hawkins, 1988
J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) [Portrait of a young Jean Cunningham and Master Hurlstone in English court costumes] c. 1914-1920s Glass negative Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by J. Park, 1981
Scottish-born John Gartly Park (1878-1945) established his photographic studio at his home in Francis Street, Leichhardt around 1914. He was active in the local community, a member of the Loyal Orange Lodge, and a choir and orchestra conductor for the lodge and church.
His collection of glass negative portraits includes a small number of sitters in costume. Posed against Park/s decorative studio background during and after the First World War years, we are reminded of the popularity of fancy dress events, of which these images are rare photographic evidence. Surnames of his sitters are scratched into the edge of the negatives providing clues as to the identities.
The Park Collection was donated by his son, John Park in 1981.
Wall text from the exhibition
J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) [Portrait of Miss Orr in fancy dress as Britannia] c. 1914-1920s Glass negative Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by J Park, 1981
J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) [Portrait of Miss Larsen wearing a Silver Star Starch costume] c. 1914-1920s Glass negative Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by J. Park, 1981
Oliver Emery, Sydney (Australian) [Three boys posed outside against a makeshift backdrop] c. 1914-1930 Glass negative, half-plate Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney Donated by O. Emery, 1983
Chau Chak Wing Museum – The University of Sydney Level 1, University Place, Camperdown, NSW 2006 Phone: 02 9351 2812
Opening hours: Monday to Friday (until 9pm Thursdays) 9am – 5pm Saturday and Sunday 12 – 4pm Closed public holidays
“These photographs awaken in the consumer a desire to possess the object of the camera’s attention, the aesthetisication of the object as a form of “readymade” available for immediate consumption.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 11th March – 4th August, 2024
Curator: Virgina McBride, Research Associate in the Department of Photographs at The Met
Meticulously staged by the pioneering colour photographer Anton Bruehl, this work was part of a series showing the whiskey in many exciting scenarios: the glass appeared to travel by train and cruise liner, as well as hot air balloon. Bruehl’s pictures ran as ads in LIFE and Newsweek, conjuring worldly associations for his client, the Kentucky distiller Four Roses.
Against all odds, these eye-catching scenes were not darkroom fabrications – Bruehl arranged them by hand, with the help of miniaturists, set dressers, and a celebrity florist.
Testing appetites for novelty, illusion, and abundance against the limits of good taste, he wagered that this crisp construction would quench your thirst, then melt into hot air.
Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Instagram page
Anton Bruehl was born in 1900 of German émigré parents in the small town of Hawker, Australia. By 1919, when he moved to the United States to work as an electrical engineer, he was a skilled amateur photographer. A show of student work from the Clarence H. White School of Photography at the Art Center, New York, in 1923 convinced Bruehl to quit his engineering job to become a photographer. White taught Bruehl privately for six months and then asked him to teach at his school, including its summer sessions in Maine. White’s sudden death, in 1925, prompted Bruehl to open a studio, at first partnering with photographer Ralph Steiner and then with his older brother, Martin Bruehl; it was immediately successful. Specializing in elaborately designed and lit tableaux, Bruehl won top advertising awards throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s. A favourite of Condé Nast Publications, he developed the Bruehl-Bourges colour process with colour specialist Fernand Bourges, which gave Condé Nast a monopoly on colour magazine reproduction from 1932 to 1935.
What a thoughtful, stimulating and well presented exhibition which contains some absolutely beautiful product photographs. These photographs awaken in the consumer a desire to possess the object of the camera’s attention, the aesthetisication of the object as a form of “readymade” available for immediate consumption.
It’s such a pity that for some of sections – such as “The Array”, “The Montage”, and “The Ideal user” – I only have one or two media image to illustrate the theme.
I have included in the posting a wonderful photograph from my own collection – a postcard with a real photograph on the front by an unknown photographer, showing a proprietor standing by the front door of his shop advertising the wares for “Howard, Watchmaker & Jeweller”, no date – probably British from 1890s-1910s due to his attire, the typeface on the front of the shop, and how “jewellery” is spelt. In the window there is an effusive display of clocks, watches, rings and Prince Albert watch chains.
My favourite photographs in the posting are the portrait of The Silver Merchants (c. 1850, below); the photograph of a tombstone from the Vermont Marble Tombstone Catalogue (1880s, below); the hand-coloured photograph by the Schadde Brothers of High Grade Jelly Eggs, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue (c. 1915, below); and the sublime Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co. photograph Automotive Component (February 22, 1927, below)
Through these product photographs we begin to understand how, “The conventions of the past inform these norms and explain the advertisements that we see in our daily lives.” And how we have lost that spark of creativity, use of colour and form and appreciation of beauty in product photography that was the essence of what has gone before.
For those that are interested, I have included some expressive quotations on the complexity of the relationship between the construction of the self, commodities and consumer culture at the bottom of the posting.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Consumer capitalism, with its efforts to standardise consumption and to shape tastes through advertising, plays a basic role in furthering narcissism. The idea of generating an educated and discerning public has long since succumbed to the pervasiveness of consumerism, which is a ‘society dominated by appearances’. Consumption addresses the alienated qualities of modern social life and claims to be their solution: it promises the very things the narcissist desires – attractiveness, beauty and personal popularity – through the consumption of the ‘right’ kinds of goods and services. Hence all of us, in modern social conditions, live as though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search for the appearance of an unblemished, socially valued self.”
Anthony Giddens. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 172.
Unknown photographer (Brtish?) Howard – Watchmaker and Jeweller (front and verso) 1890s-1910s? Silver gelatin photograph on postcard Collection of Marcus Bunyan
This photograph is not in the exhibition
“”Product photography is, now, completely inescapable – it follows you around and stalks you on social media – and that condition is very interesting,” said [curator] McBride. The conventions of the past inform these norms and explain the advertisements that we see in our daily lives…
When I visited the exhibition, I was lucky enough to meet Drew, an advertisement photographer who spoke to me about her impressions of The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography. “As someone who works in advertising photography, I find it quite interesting how I think we’ve lost some of the creativity that I see here in this imagery, as far back as the 1920s. It makes me wonder about how I could implement or think about new ways of composition or exploring basic objects in a more exciting way. I’m curious about how these objects were received as advertisements back then. Now, I think we see them more as fine art, so it is interesting to think about what our advertising images could look like twenty years from now.” Drew was strong in her belief that much of the beauty and wonder of advertisement photography has been lost over the decades.
In the 1920s, rising industrial output and consumer demand led executives to seek ways to make their products stand out in a crowded market. Applied psychology shifted managers’ focus to the consumer’s mind, emphasizing the need to persuade consumers that they could find individuality and personal meaning in standardized goods. Consumers “believe what the camera tells them because they know that nothing tells the truth so well.” …
The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography exposes the truth in an entirely new way. It exposes the secrets of photography and how the truth shifted through years of capitalism and consumerism, demanding different sales strategies from producers… [By the 1950s] As the American capitalist market demanded printed ads and mass consumption increased, photographers lost their creative control, with advertisement directors taking up the mantle. There is a straightforward appeal and very little left to the imagination.”
The photographs in this exhibition do not depict rare or special things. They show toothpaste, tombstones, and hats. But these familiar trappings of everyday life will be, at times, unrecognisable – so altered by the camera as to constitute something entirely new. Enticing consumers with increasingly experimental approaches to the still life genre, the photographs featured transform everyday objects into covetable commodities. The camera abstracts them from functional use, at times distorting them through dizzying perspectives and modulations of scale. Spanning the first century of photographic advertising, the exhibition will illustrate how commercial camerawork contributed to the visual language of modernism, suggesting new links between the promotional strategies of vernacular studios and the tactics of the interwar avant-garde. Corporate commissions by celebrated innovators, including Paul Outerbridge, August Sander, and Piet Zwart, will appear alongside obscure catalogues and trade publications, united by a common cause: to snatch the ordinary out of context, and sell it back at full price.
The exhibition is made possible by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.
Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website
Installation views of the exhibition The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York showing at right in the bottom image, introductory wall text to the exhibition (below) and F. D. Hampson’s Panama Hats, from a Sloan-Force Co. Catalogue (c. 1916, below)
Introduction to the exhibition
The photographs in this exhibition do not depict rare or special things. They show toothpaste, tombstones, and hats. But here these familiar trappings of everyday life are, at times, unrecognisable – so altered by the camera as to constitute something entirely new. The Real Thing charts these tactics across the first century of photographic advertising.
If functional objects can be difficult to see, the camera is uniquely equipped to bring them into focus. Excised from mundane contexts and ushered into the studio, they assume new allure, independent of their value or means of production. For early retailers and ad agencies, photography bolstered consumer confidence; the medium offered unprecedented realism, and better still, an aura of truth. Beginning in the late 1850s, new demand for manufactured goods subsidised commercial photography, and the industry grew quickly, spurred by evolving technologies of image reproduction. In the decades that followed, photographers’ increasingly experimental still lives adapted modernism for the mass market.
In the spirit of early photo manuals and how-to guides, the exhibition unfolds thematically, exploring a range of approaches to what is today termed product photography. Pictures from across the commercial section – made in storerooms, corporate studios, and avant-garde ateliers – entice buyers and invent needs, transforming everyday objects into covetable commodities. Works by celebrated innovators appear here alongside obscure catalogues and trade publications, united by a common cause to snatch the ordinary out of context and sell it back at full price.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation views of the exhibition The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York showing at right, Irving Penn’s Theatre Accident, New York (1947)
The Inventory
Installation view of the exhibition The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York showing the section The Inventory including at second left, Fashions 1837-1887, by William Charles Brown (1888, below); and at third right, Vermont Marble Tombstone Catalogue (1880s, below)
William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Articles of Glass before June 1844 Salted paper print from paper negative Image: 13.2 x 15.1 cm. (5 3/16 x 5 15/16 in.) Frame: 14 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, and Harrison D. Horblit Gift, 1988 Public domain
Talbot’s negative-positive photographic process, first made public in 1839, would change the dissemination of knowledge as had no other invention since movable type. To demonstrate the paper photograph’s potential for widespread distribution – its chief advantage over the contemporaneous French daguerreotype – Talbot produced The Pencil of Nature, the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs. With extraordinary prescience, Talbot’s images and brief texts proposed a wide array of applications for the medium, including portraiture, reproduction of paintings, sculptures, and manuscripts, travel views, visual inventories, scientific records, and essays in art.
This photograph and the plate preceding it, “Articles of China,” were offered as examples of photography’s usefulness as a tool for creating visual inventories of unprecedented accuracy. Talbot wrote: “The articles presented on this plate are numerous: but, however numerous the objects – however complicated the arrangement – the Camera depicts them all at once.”
Unknown photographer (American) Case manufactured by Hiram Studley (American, active 1840s) The Silver Merchants c. 1850 Daguerreotype Image: 2 3/16 × 2 3/4 in. (5.5 × 7cm) Case: 3 1/8 × 3 11/16 × 9/16 in. (8 × 9.3 × 1.5cm) Approx. 6 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. open The Metropolitan Museum of Art Purchase, Joyce F. Menschel Gift, 2017 Public domain
The first product photographs doubled as portraits. Posing with their wares, peddlers demonstrated a standard of work and an assurance of quality. The daguerreotype, a direct-positive image on silver-plated copper, offered all manner of workers an increasingly affordable likeness. Here, silver dealers make the most of the medium, modelling careful attention to their inventory. They examine pocket watches, pendants, and fobs splayed in a sales case. Plying their trade before the camera, they mirror the work of the era’s newest silver merchants: photographers themselves.
Ludwig Belitski (German, 1830-1902) Pitcher and Two Glasses, Venetian, 15th Century 1854 Salted paper print from glass negative 8 3/4 × 6 15/16 in. (22.2 × 17.7cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2016 Public domain
Charles Nègre (French, 1820-1880) [Plaster Casts of Bishops’ Miters, South Porch, Chartres] c. 1855 Salted paper print from paper negative Image: 22 x 32.5cm (8 11/16 x 12 13/16 in.) Frame: 18 1/2 x 22 1/2 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Howard Gilman Foundation Gift, 2002 Public domain
When early photographers turned to the material world of things, it was often to document property or record cultural heritage. Their efforts reveal the camera’s remarkable capacity to abstract and transform the objects before its lens. In 1855, Charles Nègre accepted a commission to make architectural studies of Chartres Cathedral as part of a larger initiative to preserve and promote French patrimony. A complement to his sweeping views of sculpted facades, this still life monumentalises the site’s smaller details. It shows plaster replicas of ecclesiastical headgear, taken from the cathedral exterior. These are simulacra of simulacra, yet Nègre recasts them anew, registering their textured surfaces in a splendid study of shadow and mass.
Unknown maker (American) Man Demonstrating Patent Model for Sash Window Late 1850s-1860s Tintype with applied colour 4.8 x 3.6cm (1 7/8 x 1 7/16 in.) Metropolitan Museum of Art Bequest of Herbert Mitchell, 2008 Public domain
Pine & Bell (photographic studio) (American, active 1860s, Troy, New York) William H. Bell (American born England, Liverpool 1831-1910 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) George W. Pine (American, active 1860s, Troy, New York) [Display of Hats and Accessories of 1868] 1868 Albumen silver print from glass negative Image: 3 9/16 × 2 1/8 in. (9 × 5.4 cm) Mount: 3 11/16 in. × 2 3/8 in. (9.3 × 6 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown photographer [E. Adkins Gun Merchant] c. 1874 Ambrotype 6.3 x 7.5cm (2 1/2 x 2 15/16 in.) visible The Metropolitan Museum of Art Gift of Charles Wilkinson, 1965 Public domain
Unknown maker (American) Rock Island Stove Company Catalogue 1878-1883 Albumen silver prints The Metropolitan Museum of Art Joyce F. Menschel Photography Library Fund, 2003 Public domain
Unknown maker (British) Fashions 1837-1887 by William Charles Brown (British, active late 19th century) 1888 Woodburytypes 22.5 x 17cm (8 7/8 x 6 11/16 in.) Approx. 9 x 14 in. open The Metropolitan Museum of Art Joyce F. Menschel Photography Library Fund, 2011
In the back of this catalogue from Queen Victoria’s milliner, a disclaimer confirms that no British songbirds were sacrificed for its production. Nevertheless, a flock of hats in fine feather fills this page spread, flaunting designs fit for the royal family. The deluxe volume is illustrated with woodburytypes, an early photomechanical process with a rich tonal range to register varied velvets, silks, straws, and plumes. Hatstands and supports have been edited out of these images to suspend the specimens midair. Surreal to modern eyes, the effect accentuates the hats’ commodity status and implies inventory soaring out of stock.
Frank M. Sutcliffe (British, 1853-1941) [Display of Whitby Seascape Photographs] c. 1888 Albumen silver print Image: 4 1/4 × 5 1/2 in. (10.8 × 14 cm) Sheet: 6 15/16 × 9 1/2 in. (17.7 × 24.1 cm) Frame: 11 x 14 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 2023 Public domain
“Choose one subject, anything will do,” Frank Sutcliffe advised aspiring photographers. If his career-spanning preoccupation with the British seaside town of Whitby seemed myopic to some peers, it allowed him to cultivate a distinctive brand. This typology of seascapes testifies to his years of work along the town harbour, where he weathered storms and punishing wind in pursuit of the perfect view. Pinned up for purchase at an exhibition, his photographs here become products. This rudimentary style of display seems to have served him well; at one such showcase, he counted the Prince of Wales among his customers.
Unknown (American) [Vermont Marble Tombstone Catalogue] 1880s Albumen silver prints Approx. 17 1/4 x 4 in. open The Metropolitan Museum of Art Jefferson R. Burdick Bequest, 1972 Public domain
“When you are met with a flood of tears, the best thing to do is politely say that you will call again,” advised one traveling salesman in the tombstone trade. For Cyrus Creigh, a thirty-something Virginian who sold stones from this annotated catalogue, such considerations were part of the job. In each new town, he might solicit names of bereaved families from undertakers and local cemetery staff. Slipped from a suit pocket and proffered door-to-door, his book of bluntly descriptive photographs sold surviving relatives a modicum of consolation. The stones, posed in a corporate studio and silhouetted in darkness, assume a solemn universality, as if any of their blank faces might soon bear a familiar name.
Schadde Brothers (American, active Minneapolis, 1890s-1910s) Alvin J. Schadde (American, 1872-1937) Herman T. Schadde (American, 1874-1937) [High Grade Jelly Eggs, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue] c. 1915 Gelatin silver print with applied colour Image: 8 1/4 × 9 3/4 in. (21 × 24.8cm) Frame: 18 x 20 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2013
Schadde Brothers (American, active Minneapolis, 1890s-1910s) Alvin J. Schadde (American, 1872-1937) Herman T. Schadde (American, 1874-1937) [Satinettes, Filled Confections and Ye Old Style Stick Candy, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue] c. 1915 Gelatin silver print with applied colour Image: 8 1/2 × 10 5/8 in. (21.6 × 27cm) Frame: 18 x 20 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2013
This trade catalogue tricks the eye to tempt the tongue. An artisan has coloured its black-and-white prints, illustrating each sugar stripe and speckled bean. Philadelphia confectioner Brandle & Smith understood that their candy was its own best advertisement, and at one point even induced a museum to accession it for display. Wider distribution was achieved by the salesmen who carried catalogues across the country, taking bulk orders from local shops. Here, the limitations of hand-colouring work to their advantage. Because sweets in jars proved too tricky to tint, the satinettes and candy sticks seem to burst into brilliant colour as they spill from their packaging, satiating the viewer and assisting the sale.
F. D. Hampson (American, 1871-1947) Panama Hats, from a Sloan-Force Co. Catalogue c. 1916 Gelatin silver print Image: 18.5 x 23.4 cm (7 5/16 x 9 3/16 in. ) Frame: 16 x 20 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2001
Like satellites, these straw hats hover in a void. Their absence of context invites imaginative projection: how easy to envision this or that model touching down on one’s head. Popularised by association with the new Panama Canal, the hats were photographed for a St. Louis sales catalogue. Their spare, surreal configuration anticipates an avant-garde approach; in the coming years, disembodied hats would pop up in works by Max Ernst and Hans Richter, evoking the callous consumer – a bourgeois icon ripe for critique. Here, such premonitions of modernism serve practical ends. Suspended together, their varied brims and bands elicit comparison, demanding scrutiny. In an era of exponentially increasing consumer choice, such photographic displays could make anyone into a connoisseur.
If mouthwatering soap seems a contradiction in terms, commercial photographer Ralph Bartholomew Jr. confounds the senses with eye candy to rival the confections nearby. Photographed two decades later, this work did not depend on paint for its delectable palette. It is an example of the early carbro process – a complex tricolor printing technique that gained popularity in the 1930s, as art directors courted Depression-era audiences. Brilliant colour is essential here, in a photograph likely commissioned to sell not the soap but its packaging. Marketed to producers in an array of trade publications (including Modern Packaging, and the industry-specific standby Soap), fine paper wrappers were a booming industry unto themselves. Here, Bartholomew parades his bedecked bars across a page of newsprint showing stock prices to suggest that in this market, even cleanliness was a commodity.
Bartholomew was a successful commercial photographer best known for his innovative use of stop-action and multiple exposure techniques in advertising and editorial work. He made this photograph while he was a student at the Clarence H. White School of Photography.
Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) RCA Speakers 1933 Gelatin silver print Image: 33.3 x 23.3 cm (13 1/8 x 9 3/16 in.) Frame: 22 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Warner Communications Inc. Purchase Fund, 1976
In a single voice, the assembled speakers broadcast the scope and influence of American radio. Commissioned by audio manufacturer RCA Victor, this photograph is one component of a monumental photomural for the NBC rotunda at Rockefeller Center. Amplified to a height of ten feet, this and other views of radio technology comprised a work of corporate propaganda to rival those public projects Margaret Bourke-White had recently seen on tours of the Soviet Union. She completed the mural at breakneck speed, often working through the night to photograph equipment at regional stations (lest she risk electrocution during daytime transmission hours). Seeking a visual analogue to audio, she captured the speakers in staccato sequence, their scalloped shapes reverberating beyond the frame.
On March 11, 2024, The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography, an exhibition exploring how commercial camerawork contributed to the visual language of modernism. The photographs featured depict the familiar trappings of everyday life – from toothpaste to tombstones to hats – but at times these subjects will be unrecognisable, so altered by the camera as to constitute an entirely new view.
Spanning the first century of photographic advertising, The Real Thing unites more than 60 works from across the commercial sector. In these photographs, artists – some famous, some forgotten – transform common objects into covetable commodities. Corporate commissions by celebrated innovators, such as Paul Outerbridge, August Sander, and Piet Zwart, appear alongside obscure catalogues and trade publications. Bringing these photographs together, the exhibition reveals links between the promotional strategies of vernacular studios and the radical tactics of the interwar avant-garde.
“This dynamic exhibition looks anew at the commercial history of photographs in the Museum’s collection,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “By embracing this discerning lens, we gain a renewed appreciation of the intricacies and aesthetics of our everyday surroundings.”
“Not many of the photographers in this exhibition would have identified as fine artists, but their inventive commercial work harnesses the artistic potential of the camera to persuade and enchant,” added the show’s curator, Virginia McBride, Research Associate in the Department of Photographs. “Now that photography’s place in museums no longer needs defending, The Real Thing considers how working photographers, in corporate studios and industrial storerooms, advanced modern art’s visual revolution.”
The first advertising photographs were published in albums and used to peddle products door to door. For early retailers and ad agencies, photography offered unprecedented realism and, better still, an aura of truth; the medium’s perceived objectivity bolstered consumer confidence. Beginning in the late 1850s, new demand for manufactured goods subsidised commercial photography, spurred by evolving technologies of image reproduction. In the decades that followed, increasingly inventive approaches to the still life, from dizzying perspectives to extreme modulations of scale, adapted modernism for the mass market. Historically framed as avant-garde experimentation, this work is rarely acknowledged in its original context of commercial enterprise. This exhibition resituates such innovation within the realm of advertising and investigate its unlikely origins.
Drawn entirely from The Met collection and featuring many photographs from The Ford Motor Company Collection of modernist European and American photography, the exhibition brings together a wide range of photographic media. Included are proof prints, tear sheets, and sample books used by travelling merchants, along with photomontages and rare examples of early colour printing. Such masterworks as André Kertész’s elegant study of a fork and Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach’s surrealist-inflected advertisements for hair dye and gloves are presented together with the projects of overlooked studios and anonymous makers. Debuting dozens of objects from the Department of Photographs that have never before been shown, and introducing timely new acquisitions, the exhibition considers photography in an expanded field of commercial practice.
The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography is organised by Virgina McBride, Research Associate in the Department of Photographs at The Met.
Press release from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grit Kallin-Fischer (German, 1897-1973) KPM Ceramics 1930 Gelatin silver print 6 5/8 × 4 3/16 in. (16.8 × 10.7cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art Funds from various donors, 2023
The Isolated Object
Paul Outerbridge Jr. (American, 1896-1959) Ide Collar 1922 Platinum print Image: 11.8 x 9.3 cm (4 5/8 x 3 11/16 in.) Frame: approx. 14 x 17 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
“I have attempted to interpret the beauty of the simplest and humblest of objects,” Paul Outerbridge Jr. wrote in 1922. Inspired by his teacher Clarence H. White’s artistic vision for applied photography, Outerbridge regarded the aperture as a kind of canvas in which to arrange compositions with absolute balance. In this, his first commercial assignment, he achieved such equilibrium by custom-cutting a grid of linoleum squares to the scale of his subject. When published as an ad in Vanity Fair, the photograph was ensnared in a scrollwork frame. Such a Victorian flourish seems incongruous today, but at the time, a picture as stark as this seemed to need dressing up. Nevertheless, Marcel Duchamp was said to have clipped the ad and pinned it to his studio wall, apprehending the mass-market collar’s readymade style.
Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co. (American) Automotive Component February 22, 1927 Gelatin silver print 7 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (19 × 24.1 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art Purchase, David Hunter McAlpin Fund, by exchange, 2024
Fay Sturtevant Lincoln (American, 1894-1975) Pass & Seymour Switch Plate c. 1949 Gelatin silver print Image: 23.8 x 17.9 cm (9 3/8 x 7 1/16 in.) Frame: approx. 20 x 16 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
Please resist the urge to flip this light switch. Photographed at close range, the switch plate is so crisply articulated that it tempts touch. Fay Sturtevant Lincoln captures the sculptural quality of this mundane fixture, revealing a keen eye for the texture and detail of domestic life. Now coveted for their retro cachet, molded Bakelite furnishings like this one were ubiquitous in the late 1940s. Though Lincoln was better known for views of glamorous art deco interiors, his attention to the vernacular architecture of homes and offices offers an intimate view of everyday design.
Installation view of the exhibition ‘The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York showing the section The Unfamiliar Thing including at third left, August Sander’s Osram Light Bulbs (c. 1930, below); and at third right, H. Raymond Ball’s Pocket Comb (1930s, below)
For a project promoting not sugar but silk, Edward Steichen devised textile patterns from photographs of everyday objects. His arrangements of sugar cubes, matches, and mothballs were printed onto Stehli’s “Americana” line of dress fabrics. The success of these designs speaks to the proliferation and popularity of object photography – a genre so culturally ingrained that, by the late 1920s, it could become a fashion phenomenon. Steichen helped shape these conditions in his influential role as chief photographer for Condé Nast. The Stehli project reflected his populist vision for commercial photography, at least insofar as these chic silks ever reached the mainstream.
Photography itself makes the case for artificial light in this commission for the German manufacturer Osram. Leveraging the camera’s codependence on their products, the lightbulb company sought out experimental practitioners, including August Sander, to promote the transformative potential of illumination. Sander is best known as the great portraitist of German society between the wars, but the commercial projects that supported his studio remain obscure. With a simple shift in perspective, he radically reorients viewer and subject, abstracting a spiral staircase into a swirl of pearls. His hypnotic image reveals how the shock and pleasure of modernist aesthetics – of looking for its own sake – could seamlessly convey the joys of consumption.
H. Raymond Ball (American, 1903-1983) Pocket Comb 1930s Gelatin silver print Image: 25.2 x 19.8 cm (9 15/16 x 7 13/16 in.) Frame: 20 x 16 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
Unknown (American) [Montage for Packard Super Eight] c. 1940 Gelatin silver print Image: 22.9 x 18.6 cm (9 x 7 5/16 in.) Frame: 17 x 14 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
The Tableau
Installation view of the exhibition The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York showing photographs from the section The Tableau including at left, André Kertész’s Fork (1928, below); and at second and third right, ringl + pit’s Dents (c. 1934) and Komol (1931, below)
As a dinner party wound down in his friend Fernand Léger’s Paris studio, André Kertész found an unlikely tableau left on the table. In this chance encounter between fork and plate, he locates an incidental elegance. The photograph was never intended as an ad – Kertész instead chose it to represent his work in a series of European photography shows. On the exhibition circuit, it came to exemplify a strain of New Vision photography characterised by its clear-eyed reassessment of ordinary things. Only after this did Kertész grant permission for its use in a German silverware campaign. In the ad layout, the photograph was credited and uncropped – atypically presented as a true work of art. The truth of the ad was another question: despite its German rebranding, this fork remained a French department-store product.
Grancel Fitz (American, 1894-1963) Ipana Toothpaste c. 1937 Gelatin silver print Image: 12.9 x 32.5cm (5 1/16 x 12 13/16 in.) Frame: approx. 12 x 20 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
The Ideal User
Paul Outerbridge Jr. (American, 1896-1959) The Coffee Drinkers 1940 Carbro print Image (overall): 27 x 38cm (10 5/8 x 14 15/16 in.) Mount: 40.7 x 50.7cm (16 x 19 15/16 in.) Frame: 18 1/2 x 22 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
With a background in staging and an unwavering belief in the power of images to inspire a better life, Paul Outerbridge Jr. was well suited to the directorial tasks of advertising photography. For A&P Grocery’s Eight O’Clock Coffee, he orchestrated this scene in the display kitchen of a department store, painstakingly diagramming the setup in advance.
“How’d you learn to make such swell coffee, Dick?” the copy teased, when the ad ran in LIFE magazine. Such work exceeds the sum of its parts, selling more than just a jolt of caffeine. The after-dinner air of repose courts camp, conjuring an intimate blend of leisure and power. With it, Outerbridge offers the consumer the chance to be a man among men, all for the price of a can of coffee.
Some expressive quotations about the construction of the self, commodities and consumer culture
“Although the value of commodities is materially embodied in them, it is not visible in the objects themselves as a physical property. The illusion that value resides in objects rather than in the social relations between individuals and objects Marx calls commodity fetishism. When the commodity is fetishized, the labour that has gone into its production is rendered invisible.”
Rosemary Hennessey. “Queer Visibility in Commodity Culture,” Chapter 6 in Nicholson, Linda and Seidman, Steven (eds.,). Social Postmodernism – Beyond Identity Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 161-162.
“When the commodity is dealt with merely as a matter of signification, meaning, or identities, only one of the elements of its production – the process of image making it relies on – is made visible. The exploitation of human labour on which the commodities appearance as an object depends remains out of sight.”
Rosemary Hennessey. “Queer Visibility in Commodity Culture,” Chapter 6 in Nicholson, Linda and Seidman, Steven (eds.,). Social Postmodernism – Beyond Identity Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 162.
“The processes of capitalist relationships reproduce themselves in the consciousness of man and, in turn, reproduce a society that reflects an image of man as the seller and buyer of work, talent, aspiration and fantasies.”
Frankl, G. The Failure of the Sexual Revolution. Hove: Kahn and Averill, 1974, p. 26 quoted in Evans, David. Sexual Citizenship, The Material Construction of Sexualities. London: Routledge, 1993, p. 47.
“What was achieved was unprecedented scientific and technical progress and, eventually, the subordination of all other values to those of a world market which treats everything, including people and their labour and their lives and their deaths, as a commodity.”
John Berger and Jean Mohr. Another Way of Telling. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982, p. 99.
“Consumption produces production … because a product becomes a real product only by being consumed. For example, a garment becomes a real garment only in the act of being worn; a house were no one lives is in fact not a real house; thus the product, unlike a mere natural object, proves itself to be, becomes, a product only through consumption. Only by decomposing the product does consumption give the product the finishing touch.”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. On Literature and Art. New York: International General, 1973, p. 91 quoted in Wolff, Janet. The Social Production of Art. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, p. 95.
“… the propaganda of consumption turns alienation itself into a commodity. It addresses itself to the spiritual desolation of modern life and proposes consumption as the cure. It not only promises to palliate all the old unhappiness to which flesh is heir; it creates or exacerbates new forms of unhappiness – personal insecurity, status anxiety …”
Christopher Lasch. The Culture of Narcissism. New York: W.W.Norton and Company, 1978, p.73.
“Consumer culture is notoriously awash with signs, images, publicity. Most obviously, it involves an aestheticization of commodities and their environment …
Firstly, problems of status and identity … promote a new flexibility in the relations between consumption, communication and meaning. It is not so much that goods and acts of consumption become more important in signalling status (they were always crucial) but that both the structure of status and the structure of meaning become unstable, flexible, and highly negotiable. Appearance becomes a privileged site of strategic action in unprecedented ways.
Secondly, the nature of market exchange seems intrinsically bound up with aestheticization. As indicated above, commodities circulate through impersonal and anonymous networks: the split between producer and consumer extends beyond simple commissioning (where a personal relationship still exists) to the production for an anonymous general public … Haug (1986) theorizes this in the notion of ‘commodity aesthetics’: the producer must create an image of use value in which potential buyers can recognize themselves. All aspects of the product’s meaning and all channels through which its meaning can be constructed and represented become subject to intense and radical calculation.
This gives rise to some of the central issues of sociological debate on consumer culture. On the one hand, the eminently modern notion of the social subject as a self-creating, self-defining individual is bound up with self-creation through consumption: it is partly through the use of goods and services that we formulate ourselves as social identities and display these identities. This renders consumption as the privileged site of autonomy, meaning, subjectivity, privacy and freedom. On the other hand, all these meanings around social identity and consumption become objects of strategic action by dominating institutions. The sense of autonomy and identity in consumption is placed constantly under threat.”
Don Slater. Consumer Culture and Modernity. London: Polity Press, 1997, p. 31.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street New York, New York 10028-0198 Phone: 212-535-7710
Henriette Theodora Markovitch (22 November 1907 – 16 July 1997), known as Dora Maar, was a French photographer, painter, and poet. Maar is very well known for her role as Picasso’s lover, subject, and muse. He abused her. Maar photographed the successive stages of the creation of Guernica. It is the gelatin silver works of the surrealist period that remain the most sought after by admirers: Portrait of Ubu (1936), 29 rue d’Astorg, black and white, collages, photomontages or superimpositions.
Man Ray is hailed as one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, but I admit I have no real liking for most of his work.
I remember seeing the first large-scale exhibition of Man Ray’s photography to have been presented in Australia at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004. In text about the exhibition the NGV states, “Man Ray produced some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century: eloquent portraits, dreamy solarised nudes, divine fashion photography and enigmatic images that continue to delight and astonish… A superb technician and a highly inventive artist, Man Ray always denied that he had any ability with the camera or in the darkroom. However, as the exhibition reveals, this is clearly not the case. The exhibition emphasises Man Ray’s techniques of framing, cropping, solarising and use of the photogram to present a new ‘surreal’ way of seeing, which continues to fascinate audiences today.”1
I came away from that exhibition thinking what a great technician Man Ray was, almost like a photographic scientist, an alchemist from another world conjuring small, intense images of clinical focus, but where was the emotional power of the images, where was their … what am I trying to enunciate … where was their vibrational energy. They were ice cold.2
I feel that Man Ray’s greatest artistic expression, his greatest music, were his photograms, “which he coined “rayographs” after himself. He explained that working with light in the darkroom allowed him to free himself from painting.” (Press release) As Man Ray himself said of his rayographs, “Like the undisturbed ashes of an object consumed by flames these images are oxidised residues fixed by light and chemical elements of an experience, an adventure, not an experiment. They are the result of curiosity, inspiration, and these words do not pretend to convey any information.”3
“What the rayographs do not deny, however, is the subjectivity of the artist, his skill at placing the objects on the photographic paper, expressed in their dream-like nature, both a subjective ephemerality (because they could only be produced once) and an ephemeral subjectivity (because they were expressions of Man Ray’s fantasies, and therefore had little substance). Through an alchemical process the latent images emerge from the photographic paper, representations of Man Ray’s fantasies as embodied in the ‘presence’ of the objects themselves, in the surface of the paper.”4
(See a section of my paper “The Delicious Fields: Exploring Man Ray’s Rayographs in a Digital Future” (2004) below in the posting).
On a final note, while it is fantastic to see such a large group of Man Ray’s photographs together in one space I am amazed, flabbergasted even, at the blue and yellow colour scheme on the floor of the gallery. What were they thinking? How can you appreciate black and white images, which are never actually black and white but always have subtle colours of either brown and blue, warm and cool, which need to be appreciated in a neutral colour space … when throughout the gallery your eye is constantly overwhelmed (by reflection from the gallery lights or subconsciously, even) by a sea of blue and yellow tiles. It makes no sense aesthetically, empirically or emotionally.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Anonymous. “Man Ray,” on the National Gallery of Victoria website Nd [Online] Cited 18/07/2024
2/ This coldness can be seen in the photographs from the book at the bottom of the posting, where borders frame faces and are inverted, where objects in rayographs are paired opposite objective portraits, surface representations and human visage.
3/ Man Ray quoted in Janus (trans. Murtha Baca). Man Ray: The Photographic Image (London: Gordon Fraser, 1980), 213 quoted in Marcus Bunyan. “The Delicious Fields: Exploring Man Ray’s Rayographs in a Digital Future,” published in The University of Queensland Vanguard Magazine: ‘Man Ray: Life, Work and Themes’, 2004, Triad series #2, pp. 40-46. ISBN 0-9756043-0-9
4/ Bunyan, op cit.,
Many thankx to the Photo Elysee for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“There is no eggshell, no thermometer or metronome, no brick, bread or broom that [Man Ray] cannot and does not change into something else. It is as if he discovers the soul of each conventional object by liberating it from its practical function…. [Man Ray] just cannot help to discover and reveal things because his whole person is involved in a process of continuous probing, of a natural distrust in things being “just so”.”
“To be totally liberated from painting and its aesthetic implications” was the first avowed aim of Man Ray (United States, 1890-1976), who began his career as a painter. Photography was one of the major breakthroughs of modern art and led to a rethinking of notions of representation. In the 1920s and 30s, the photographic medium came to the forefront of the avant-garde movement, and Man Ray soon made a name for himself with his virtuosity. As a studio portraitist and fashion photographer, but also as an experimental artist who explored the potential of photography with the people around him, Man Ray was a multi-faceted figure. Considered one of the 20th century’s major artists, close to Dada and then Surrealism, he photographed Paris’ artistic milieu between the wars.
Exhibition
Curated from a private collection, the exhibition explores the artist’s extensive social contacts while presenting some of his most iconic works. In addition to providing a dazzling who’s who of the Parisian avant-garde, the works also highlight the innovations in photography made by Man Ray in Paris in the 1920s and 30s.
Artist
He took his first photographs in New York in the 1910s, but it was in Paris that his career took off. Even before opening his studio in Montparnasse in 1922, Man Ray worked for a year in his hotel room. The photographer’s reputation grew, and before long, the artist’s studio was flourishing. Fashion photographs alternated with portraits of the artistic figures of the day who had made Paris’ notoriety: Marcel Duchamp, whom he met in New York in 1915 and who introduced him to the Parisian artistic elite, as well as Robert Delaunay, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso, among others, who posed for the photographer. His portraits also included Ballets Russes dancers and guests at the Count de Beaumont’s ball.
As soon as he arrived in Paris in the summer of 1921, Man Ray immediately became part of the Parisian intelligentsia of the Roaring Twenties. He met Jean Cocteau, who was himself a fixture of the Parisian art scene, André Breton, Francis Picabia, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse and Max Ernst. He also met Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Hemingway, Arnold Schoenberg and James Joyce, whom he photographed for the Anglo-American bookshop Shakespeare and Company. But Man Ray was not merely content to have celebrities pose in his studio or to explore the female nude genre by working with those he considered his muses, such as Lee Miller, Kiki de Montparnasse, Meret Oppenheim and Adrienne Fidelin.
Creative Process
Man Ray also experimented in the darkroom, transforming the photographic medium into a powerful tool of artistic expression, even going so far as to do away with the camera when, in 1921-1922, he began creating photograms, which he coined “rayographs” after himself. He explained that working with light in the darkroom allowed him to free himself from painting, so convinced was he of the visual power of his experiments. Also in the 1920s, he experimented with the moving image and produced four films. The rhythm and freedom offered by the cinema complemented his photographic work, in which he saw a close relationship between film and poetry. This is why he gave his film Emak Bakia (1926) the subheading of “cinépoème”. Without ever abandoning portraiture, he experimented with other techniques in the 1930s: solarisation, overprinting and other distortions.
From the outset, photography has been more than a simple process of reproduction. For him, images were not taken fleetingly, but meticulously realised indoors. Unlike Henri Cartier-Bresson who opted for the spontaneous gesture and saw the street as a privileged playground, Man Ray composed and staged his photographs. The studio provided him with a space in which to explore his imagination. Some of the themes dear to the Surrealists can be found in his work: femininity, sexuality, strangeness, the boundary between dream and reality. His nude studies were part of his artistic research, which he developed in close collaboration with his companions who were part of the Parisian art scene. Kiki de Montparnasse – the woman with the f-holes of a violin on her back – whose real name was Alice Prin, was a dancer, singer, actress and painter who posed for artists such as Chaïm Soutine and Kees van Dongen. Lee Miller, a fellow New Yorker like him, had begun a modelling career in the United States but wanted to move to the other side of the camera. She met the photographer in Paris in 1929 when she was 22-years old, and became active in the Surrealist movement. More than a muse, she became his collaborator, learning photography at his side. Together, they discovered the technique of solarisation. Another artist with whom Man Ray had a professional and romantic relationship was the Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim, who was close to the Surrealist scene before pursuing an independent career as an artist.
Man Ray loved the freedom his photographic creations afforded him, and portraits and fashion photography enabled him to earn a living. It was in his studio that he embarked on a series of visual experiments. His portraits, which are relatively classical in style, testify not only to his commercial success, but also to his great sociability. Artists from Montparnasse, Surrealists, fashion and nightlife celebrities, patrons of the arts, Americans in Paris – the entire artistic elite – passed through his studio, as was the case with Nadar in the 19th century. Almost 50 years after Man Ray’s death, his photographs continue to fascinate us. His impact on the history of the medium is undeniable, and he served as an inspiration to photographers of the caliber of Berenice Abbott, Bill Brandt and Lee Miller. Man Ray remains one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century. He never stopped creating, without prejudice or constraint.
Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the 20th century’s most distinguished writers and artists, including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, Ezra Pound and Louis Aragon – who were among her lovers – as well as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Constantin Brâncuși, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams. MI5 documents reveal that she was involved with Indian diplomat, orator, and statesman V. K. Krishna Menon.
Jacqueline Goddard, née Barsotti (1912-2003), was a favourite model of the Surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray in Paris during the 1930s.
As Jacqueline Barsotti, she had arrived in Montparnasse at the age of 17, a tall beauty with unruly fair hair. She was soon frequenting La Coupole and other haunts of the fashionable artists of the day. Many years later, by which time she was living on the Isle of Wight, she wrote a personal memoir in which she recalled her experiences and offered some piquant observations about the personalities she had come to know. …
Jacqueline Barsotti became a close friend of Man Ray, and of his former mistress, Kiki de Montparnasse. Of Man Ray she reported, “He was not handsome, his nose had no opinion and went all over the place. He always seemed to be meditating, and was seldom light-hearted. It was a great pity that he did not smile a lot. That little grin of his changed him altogether.” Kiki, without makeup, “looked like a potato”.
Another of Man Ray’s mistresses was the American photographer, Lee Miller. On the night that Lee Miller left Man Ray, Jacqueline Barsotti walked with him in the rain through Montparnasse cemetery before they returned to his studio, where he arranged a table with a bottle of poison, a gun and a rope. Then, as Man Ray sat at the table, Jacqueline herself took the picture of the artist contemplating suicide.
When Man Ray presented her with a book of his photographs, he proposed the inscription, “To the most beautiful girl I have ever photographed”; she demurred. So he suggested, “To the only one I did not sleep with”; Jacqueline Barsotti said that this would compromise his other models. Likewise, she rejected “To the most inspiring one” as “a compliment for me, but rude to others”. In the end he had to settle for “With all my love, Man Ray”.
She insisted that she and Man Ray were never lovers: “He was 50 when I was merely 17. I was tall, he was short. I was supposed to be very nice to look at, he was not.” After his death, Man Ray’s wife Juliette gave Jacqueline a lithograph of his self-portrait, inscribing it, “To Jacqueline that did not”.
Anonymous. “Jacqueline Goddard,” obituary on The Telegraph website, 25 July 2003 [Online] Cited 01/05/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Few names in the history of photography are as illustrious at that of Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzsky (1890-1976) in the United States. Studio portraitist, fashion photographer and experimental artist, he explored the many potentialities of photography at a time when the medium was asserting itself as the very expression of modernity. Mingling with the Paris art scene of the early 20th century, and a close friend of Marcel Duchamp and André Breton, he was one of the few photographers to be mentioned among the Dada artists and Surrealists.
When Man Ray decided to become a professional photographer, it was primarily because he saw it as a way to earn a living. His studio rapidly became a gathering place for the entire Parisian art scene of its day: Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Robert Delaunay, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst, among others. His work includes portraits of the artists, writers and intellectuals in his circle, including Coco Chanel, Paul Éluard, James Joyce, Elsa Schiaparelli, Igor Stravinsky and Virginia Woolf. Not just content to have celebrities pose in his studio, he tried his hand at staging and photographing his female models – Lee Miller, Kiki de Montparnasse and Meret Oppenheim – in a variety of different settings. Following his encounter with the famous fashion designer Paul Poiret, Man Ray also worked as a fashion photographer for French and American Vogue, as well as for Harper’s Bazaar.
Man Ray, whose career spanned more than 60 years, saw the medium as a creative tool that would allow him to go beyond the representation of reality. While always exploring abstraction, he also made relatively traditional portraits of the artists who surrounded him – a circle to which he was introduced by Marcel Duchamp just after he arrived in Paris. He is the creator of Violon d’Ingres [Ingres’s Violin] – the iconic photograph taken in 1924 that can be found in every art history book published in the 20th century. Man Ray remains an important name in the worlds of art, fashion and pop culture, with so many artists referring to the photographs of this iconic figure of modern art.
Curated from a private collection, the exhibition explores the artist’s extensive social contacts while presenting some of his most iconic works.
1. PROOF AND PRINT, A QUESTION OF VOCABULARY
The question of Man Ray’s prints has remained a source of fascination throughout the history of photography. His work went through a series of successive generations of prints over the course of the 20th century, starting with prints made shortly after the photograph was taken: contact prints and more refined prints that highlight his artistic choices. From the 1950s onwards, Man Ray reinterpreted certain photographs to produce new prints, sometimes changing the framing. He also enlisted the services of various photographic laboratories such as Picto, and, in particular, the renowned printer Pierre Gassman, whose lab produced many posthumous prints.
The prolific nature of Man Ray’s work is reflected by some 12,000 negatives from his studio archive that were added to the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The experimental and pioneering nature of Man Ray’s work raises a number of particular questions, especially in relation to the photograms that he produced and reproduced, contradicting their primary characteristics as unique works. All these elements make it more difficult to determine the artist’s intention as well as the aesthetic and historical value of his works, compared to other, more linear authors. The way we refer to Man Ray’s photographs is therefore important, and the notions of proof, print and original are paramount.
Proof
A term from the world of printmaking and sculpture, it was adopted at the birth of photography by François Arago in his 1839 lecture. It designates the object obtained from a matrix, in photography, from a negative.
Original proof
Any copy made under the control of the artist or the holders of his or her moral rights and whose history can be traced. In the absence of this relationship, the object is considered a reproduction and not an original work.
Contact print
A print obtained by placing the negative directly on photosensitive paper. It is generally for the photographer’s use only and is used as a reference for an archiving system and as a tool to read newly printed photographs for the first time. A distinction must be made between contact prints, which are the same size as the negative and on which Man Ray generally cropped his photographs, and contact sheets, which allow the viewer to see the entire photographic film.
Vintage print
A print made during the period when the photograph was taken, and whose formal characteristics (format, tonality, contrast, inscriptions) reflect the artist’s intention. Sometimes, authors – as in the case of Man Ray – revisit their archives and produce new prints from an old negative, years after it was produced. This is known as a late print, or even a posthumous print when made by the artist’s beneficiaries after his or her death. All the posthumous prints in this exhibition are by Pierre Gassman.
Countertype
Countertype is obtained by re-photographing a photographic image. Man Ray often countertyped his original photograms for distribution and even sale.
2. STUDIO
‘To be totally liberated from painting and its aesthetic implications’ was the first avowed aim of Man Ray, who began his career as a painter.
Photography was one of the major breakthroughs of modern art and led to a rethinking of representation. In the 1920s and 30s, the photographic medium came to the forefront of the avant-garde movement, and Man Ray soon made a name for himself with his virtuosity. His photographs were not taken fleetingly, but rather meticulously produced in the studio. Unlike some photographers who see the street as a privileged playground, Man Ray composed and staged his photographs. The studio provided him with a space in which to explore his imagination.
3. ELITE
From the moment he arrived in Paris in the summer of 1921, Man Ray was part of the Parisian intelligentsia of the Roaring Twenties. Even before opening his studio in Montparnasse in 1922, he worked from his hotel room. His reputation as a photographer grew rapidly. He photographed Marcel Duchamp, whom he had met in New York in 1915, and who introduced him to the Parisian artistic elite and to many other painters such as Robert Delaunay, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. He met Jean Cocteau, who was himself a fixture of the Parisian art scene, as well as André Breton, Francis Picabia, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse and Max Ernst, plus many intellectual figures of his day, including Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Hemingway, Arnold Schönberg and James Joyce.
4. MUSES
Through photography, a medium with multiple possibilities, the Surrealists sought not to reproduce reality, but to sublimate it. Love, as seen primarily by men, was an example of this idea of transformation. An essential notion for Luis Buñuel and Paul Éluard, love was a means of escaping reality and evoking the extraordinary. Femininity, sexuality and the fine line between dream and reality were dominant themes in Man Ray’s work when he was exploring the female nude, having those he considered to be his muses pose for his camera. He photographed Lee Miller, a fellow New Yorker who had begun a career as a model but wanted to move to the other side of the camera; Alice Prin, known as Kiki de Montparnasse, the woman with the fholes of a violin on her back, dancer, singer, actress and painter; and the Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim, who was close to the Surrealist scene before pursuing an independent career as an artist, and with whom he also had a professional and romantic relationship. In the late 1930s, Man Ray had his partner, Adrienne Fidelin, known as Ady, a dancer from Guadeloupe, pose for him.
5. EXPERIMENTATIONS
Man Ray also experimented in the darkroom, transforming the photographic medium into a powerful tool of artistic expression, even going so far as to do away with the camera when, in 1921-1922, he began creating photograms, which he coined ‘rayographs’ after himself. He described this darkroom work as a way of freeing himself from painting, so convinced was he of the visual power of his experiments. By placing objects directly onto photosensitive paper, he could play with shadows and light, fascinated by the abstractions created by this technique and that produced a unique work of art. He experimented with other techniques in the 1930s: solarisation, double exposures and different forms of distortion.
6. CINEMA
For the Surrealists, cinema, an art form that had emerged 20 years earlier, represented a means of transcending reality. Silent, dreamlike and highly suggestive, it resisted interpretation. In the 1920s, Man Ray tried his hand at the moving image, making four films. The rhythm and freedom offered by cinema complemented his photographic production, in which he saw a close relationship between film and poetry. For this reason, he gave his film Emak Bakia (1926) the subheading of ‘cinépoème’.
Texts: Nathalie Herschdorfer, Sarah Bourget and Wendy A. Grossman English translation: Gail Wagman Proofreading: Hannah Pröbsting
After his arrival in Paris Man Ray started experimenting in his darkroom and discovered the technique for his rayographs by accident. With the help of his friend the Surrealist poet Tristan Tzara, he published a portfolio of twelve rayographs in 1922 called ‘Les champs délicieux’ (The delicious fields). “This title is a reference to ‘Les champs magnétiques’, a collection of writings by André Breton and Philippe Soupault composed from purportedly random thought fragments recorded by the two authors.”1 The rayographs are visual representations of random thought fragments, “photographic equivalents for the Surrealist sensibility that glorified randomness and disjunction.”2 Man Ray, “denied the camera its simplest joy: the ability to capture everything, all the distant details, all the ephemeral lights and shadows of the world”3 but, paradoxically, the rayographs are the most ephemeral of creatures, only being able to be created once, the result not being known until after the photographic paper has been developed. In fact, for Man Ray to create his portfolio ‘Les champs délicieux’ (The delicious fields), he had to rephotograph the rayographs in order to make multiple copies.4
Man Ray “insisted in nearly every interview that the rayograph was not a photogram in the traditional sense. He did something that a photogram didn’t; he introduced depth into the images,”5 which denied the images their photographic objectivity by depicting an internal landscape rather than an external one.6 What the rayographs do not deny, however, is the subjectivity of the artist, his skill at placing the objects on the photographic paper, expressed in their dream-like nature, both a subjective ephemerality (because they could only be produced once) and an ephemeral subjectivity (because they were expressions of Man Ray’s fantasies, and therefore had little substance). Through an alchemical process the latent images emerge from the photographic paper, representations of Man Ray’s fantasies as embodied in the ‘presence’ of the objects themselves, in the surface of the paper. …
Finally, within their depth of field the rayographs can be seen as both dangerous and delicious, for somehow they are both beautiful and unsettling at one and the same time. As Surrealism revels in randomness and chance these images enact the titles of other Man Ray photographs: ‘Danger-Dancer’, ‘Anxiety’, ‘Dust Raising’, ‘Distorted House’. The rayographs revel in chance and risk; Man Ray brings his fantasies to the surface, an interior landscape represented externally that can be (re)produced only once – those dangerous delicious fields.7
1/ Greenberg, Mark (ed.,). In Focus: Man Ray: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1998, p. 28 quoted in Bunyan, op cit.,
2/ Perl, Jed (ed.,). Man Ray: Aperture Masters of Photography. New York: Aperture, 1997, pp. 11-12 quoted in Bunyan, op cit.,
3/ Ibid., pp. 5-6 quoted in Bunyan, op cit.,
4/ Greenberg, Mark (ed.,). In Focus: Man Ray: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1998, p. 28 quoted in Bunyan, op cit.,
Published in connection with an exhibition opening at Photo Elysée in spring 2024, this book presents more than one hundred and fifty of Man Ray’s portraits, primarily from the 1920s and ’30s.
Man Ray (1890-1976) was a man both of and ahead of his time. With his conceptual approach and innovative techniques, he liberated photography from previous constraints and opened the floodgates to new ways of thinking about the medium.
A close friend of Marcel Duchamp and André Breton, he was one of the few photographers to be mentioned among the Dada artists and surrealists. He also worked as a fashion photographer, first for Vogue and later for Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair. Renowned as the creator of Ingres’s Violin – a photograph from 1924 that broke records when it was sold for $12.4 million in 2022 – Man Ray remains an influential figure in the worlds of art, fashion, and pop culture, with many other artists referencing his work.
Published in connection with an exhibition at Photo Elysée and in the centennial year of the publication of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, Man Ray presents more than one hundred and fifty of Man Ray’s portraits, primarily from the 1920s and ’30s. It includes portraits of the leading lights of the Paris art scene, among them Marcel Duchamp, Robert Delaunay, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti, and Pablo Picasso, as well as a selection of his fashion work. As an innovator of photographic techniques and compositional form, Man Ray found the studio portrait – be it of the artists and writers with whom he had longstanding friendships or of the objects and sculptures he collected – to be the playground in which he could express the visual wit and experimentation for which he is renowned.
Format: Hardcover Pages: 224 Artwork: 153 black-and-white illustrations Size: 7.75 in x 9.5 in Forthcoming: September 10th, 2024 ISBN-10: 0500028117 ISBN-13: 9780500028117
Exhibition dates: 29th April, 2023 – 4th August 2024
Curator: Katrina Liberiou
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at left, photographs by Michael Riley including at second left bottom, Moree women (1991, below)
It’s great to see another Australian museum taking up the mantle of staging challenging photography exhibitions after the ball has been so gloriously dropped by both national and state galleries in recent years.
Of course, photography and performance have been associated with each other since the birth of photography. The very act of posing for the camera is a performative act. Indeed, one of the earliest self-portraits in the history of photography, Hippolyte Bayard’s famous Le Noyé [The Drowned Man] (1840) is a performance by the artist protesting against the lack of recognition for him as one of the inventors of photography. His humorous, yet biting text reads:
“The corpse of the gentleman you see here…. is that of Monsieur Bayard, inventor of the process that you have just seen…. As far as I know this ingenious and indefatigable experimenter has been occupied for about three years with perfecting his discovery…. The Government, who gave much to Monsieur Daguerre, has said it can do nothing for Monsieur Bayard, and the poor wretch has drowned himself. Oh! The precariousness of human affairs!”
With interesting sections such as ‘Photography as witness’, ‘Performative document’ and ‘Performing spaces’ – any one of which could have provided the basis of a large exhibition in their own right – the only problem with this exhibition is that it’s too small, particularly in the limited number of works that illuminate each section. For example, having a small body of early Bill Henson Untitled crowd photographs (1980/82), a small body of Mark Ellen Mark’s photographs of Ward 81 (1979), and one Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook photograph to illustrate the section ‘Photography as witness’ is barely adequate to begin a conversation on the subject.
Even as the exhibition tries to cover too much ground with too little resources one must congratulate the museum for even attempting such an insightful examination of how photography records performative actions in fields such as visual, architectural, spatial, gestural and gendered. The problem is that it needed to be either a/ focused on one section, or b/ much larger with more resources in order to encompass the breadth of the subject being investigated.
I wish other galleries around Australia had such get up and go, such inquisitiveness vis a vis the history of photography and its place and influence in the modern world. I’ve not heard of any recent photographic exhibitions in Australia which attempt such a complex visual and intellectual investigation into one subject, which says a lot about the state of photographic exhibitions in Australia.
I have added hopefully interesting referenced texts to provide information on some of the art works and artists in the posting.
The exhibition is held at the same time as the exhibition The Staged Photograph at Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney (finishes 4th August 2024).
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Chau Chak Wing Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
An exhibition exploring the intersection between photography and performance.
This exhibition examines recent ideas and theories that frame performance as a phenomenon that is everywhere. Performative actions may include the manifestation of ideas, whether literal, oral, spoken, or written. Such forms can be visual, architectural, spatial, gestural and gendered. This exhibition looks at how these different modes may be ‘recorded’ via the medium of photography.
Since the 1960s, photography and performance have experienced a shared history. Artists have embraced the possibilities of this time-based medium by deploying a documentary mode – capturing the fleeting, the happening, the ephemeral. The camera becomes an extension of the artist’s body, documenting their actions and interventions.
Text from the Chau Chak Wing Museum website
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at front, Polaroids from Imants Tillers’ If I close my eyes (2021)
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at left photographs from Bill Henson’s Untitled 1980/82 (1980/82, below); at centre, photographs from Mary Ellen Mark’s Ward 81 (1979, below); and at right, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’s Untitled, and Thai Villagers (2011, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at back left, photographs from Bill Henson’s Untitled 1980/82 (1980/82, below); at back centre, photographs from Mary Ellen Mark’s Ward 81 (1979, below); at back right, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’s Untitled, and Thai Villagers (2011, below); and at front, Polaroids from Imants Tillers’ If I close my eyes (2021)
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at back centre, photographs from Mary Ellen Mark’s Ward 81 (1979, below); and at front, Polaroids from Imants Tillers’ If I close my eyes (2021)
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at left, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s State Theatre, Sydney (1997, below); at second left, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seagram Building – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1997, below); at third left, Olive Cotton’s Clarence Street, Sydney (c. 1942, below); at third right, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Packed public building, project for Sydney (1969, below); and at right, Grant Mudford’s From Ocean boulevard, Long Beach (1979-1980, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Photography and the Performative at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at The University of Sydney showing at left, Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Eye to Eye (c. 1973, below); at fourth left, Guilio Paolini’s Incipit (1975, below); at fourth right, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s State Theatre, Sydney (1997, below); at third right, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seagram Building – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1997, below); at second right, Olive Cotton’s Clarence Street, Sydney (c. 1942, below); and at right, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Packed public building, project for Sydney (1969, below)
How photography captures performance
Some of photography’s best-known luminaries feature in a new Chau Chak Wing Museum exhibition examining the interaction between photography and performance.
From Olive Cotton’s Clarence Street, Sydney (c. 1942) to Imants Tillers’ If I Close My Eyes (2021), the images in Photography and the Performative capture performers, performance spaces and audiences over an 80-year period. The punk aesthetic of 1980s New York, Hollywood B-grade movies and generational discrimination faced by Aboriginal communities are among the diverse phenomena examined in this exhibition. Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bill Henson, Barber Kruger and Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook are among the featured artists.
“Performance as a concept is everywhere,” said Chau Chak Wing curator Katrina Liberiou. “This exhibition conveys performative elements from the widest imaginable range of settings including streets, studios, villages, institutions and performance spaces.”
“Since the 1960s, photography and performance have experienced a shared history. The camera became an extension of the artist’s body, documenting their actions and interventions.”
Rather than record performances, works in Photography and the Performative look at the supporting roles of space, the human body and ideas in performance. International works include disturbing images from the hospital where Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed. Mary Ellen Mark spent 36 days living at the Oregon State Hospital to document the lives of women incarcerated there, a year after she worked as the Oscar-winning film’s set photographer.
Closer to home, Christo’s Packed public building, project for Sydney (1969) imagines wrapping Sydney’s Australia Square, then a new skyscraper designed by architect Harry Seidler. This work was a precursor to the artists’ epic Wrapped Coast, created with support from Harry and Penelope Seidler. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s long exposures of the State Theatre and Seagram Building, also in Sydney, play homage to mid-twentieth century modernism. Imants Tillers If I close my eyes (2021, on display until August 2023) is a grid of Polaroid photographs interspersing portraits of Tillers’ friends, family and fellow artists with images of Sydney’s harbour. The latter depict the same view, from Tillers’ home in Mosman, captured over a three-year period.
The photographs in Photography and the Performative range from vintage black and white prints to alternative processes (including solarisation and photograms) to early colour photography and digital prints. All featured works have been selected from the University of Sydney Art Collection.
Photography and the Perfomative is one of two photographic exhibitions currently on show at the Chau Chak Wing Museum. The second, The Staged Photograph, presents a range of staged images taken in Australia between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.
Anonymous. “From Henson to Christo,” on The University of Sydney website 24 April 2023 [Online] 12/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) Clarence Street, Sydney c. 1942 Gelatin silver print Chau Chak Wing Museum
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (American born Bulgaria, 1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (American born Bulgaria, 1935-2009) Packed public building, project for Sydney 1969 Synthetic polymer paint, cotton fabric, cotton thread, pencil, coloured pencil, pressure-sensitive tape on photographs, synthetic polymer weave and staples on cardboard 72.0 x 76.9cm Donated by Chandler Coventry, 1972 J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Optronic Kinetics (active c. 1970-72) Cubed Tree 1971 Black and white photograph 61 x 42cm Donated by the artist 1973 J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Optronic Kinetics (active c. 1970-72) Feathered Office c. 1973 Black and white photograph 61 x 42cm Donated by the artist 1973 J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Optronic Kinetics
Optronic Kinetics was an art collective that emerged from the University of Sydney’s infamous Tin Sheds Art Workshop in the early 1970s. At this time, the Tin Sheds was a hotbed for radical thought, student activism and a celebrated ‘alternate art space’, where ideas about conceptual and post-object art were explored and put into practice. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the Tin Sheds gave rise to some of Australia’s most progressive and political creative practitioners.
Renowned sculptor and artist Bert Flugelman (1923-2013) was the Tin Sheds’ coordinator from 1968 to 1973, and under his guidance encouraged students from across the University’s disciplines to explore the Art Workshop’s offerings. Combined with the enthusiasm of artist, critic and theorist Donald Brook (1927-2018), a University of Sydney academic at the time, a small cohort of medical and engineering students began to investigate and experiment with electronics and movement. Initially the students had wanted to create ‘very conservative paintings’, so in response Flugelman gave them an introduction to sculpture and convinced them to push the boundaries of their own studies and skills. Flugelman and Brook believed that you did not need to master a creative discipline in order to understand it, but you had to be familiar with its ideas and processes. It was this guiding principle that brought Optronic Kinetics into being.
Spurred by the desire to amalgamate science and technology with art, the collective’s founding members included Fine Arts student Julie Ewington, now a recognised writer and curator, and electrical engineering students David Smith and Jim McDonnell. Together with Flugelman they created conceptually ambitious and humorous works such as Cubed tree, Feathered office and Flashing boob. Other works such as Electronic colour organ and Reflector employed cutting edge technological innovations and theories to bridge the perceived divide between art and science.
Black and white photographs (template and typed documentation not exhibited)
25.5 x 20.4cm
Donated by the artist 1973
J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Cecile Abish (born 1930) is an American artist known primarily for her works in sculpture and photography.
“Field Coil was specifically made for the lower level space at 112, with its unobstructed linear run and uncluttered cement floor. The work consisted of 104 separate coiled kraft paper units that were placed one next to the other. Each section before being rolled measures 36 × 46″, the slits were 36″ long, cut at 1″ intervals and parallel to the 46″ length. The 104 separate units lost their intrinsic apartness as the coils were placed one next to the other, leaving only the uppermost part of each unit exposed to form an extended field. The dimensions of the entire work were 7″ high x 3′ wide x 49′ long.”
Excerpted from Brentano, R., & Savitt, M. (1981). 112 Workshop, 112 Greene Street: History, artists & artworks. New York: New York University Press cited on the White Columns website Nd [Online] Cited 21/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Petr Stembera (Czech, b. 1945) Mail-Art: (rolling a sleeve; 8 parts) (detail) c. 1973 Black and white photographs 24.0 x 17.8 cm Donated by the artist 1973 J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
His [Stembera’s] Daily Activities, a series of performances for a camera from the early 1970s, dealing with routine actions, such as rolling up sleeves, typewriting, tying shoelaces, or fastening buttons are mainly found in collections outside Czechoslovakia and, thus, virtually absent from Czech collections, as the artist stopped displaying his photographic works after he turned to live performance in 1974. …
[Petr] Rezek wrote about photographic documentation as a basis for communication. Speaking about the Czech context and leaving aside the different financial and technical possibilities, Štembera’s use of photographic documentation was not especially innovative. Photography served for many as an easily reproducible medium, as the lingua franca of performance art. Its importance was rooted in its utility rather than its aesthetics. However, the specific form of the use of this almost universally understood language depended on many factors. If we look more closely at its uses and direct our focus towards the various dialects, idiolects, and sociolects it encompasses, we can also learn more about the nature of the art it transmitted.
The fact that the Daily Activities series was crucial for Štembera at the time is confirmed, for example, by a reproduction of a photograph showing him buttoning his shirt, which was used on the poster for his solo exhibition in Antwerp organized by D’Hondt in 1974. Such low-quality reproductions, which appeared in non-profit publications in the West as well as in unofficial and semi-official publications in the East were one of the typical outputs of these exchanges. In addition to gelatin silver prints, photomechanical reproductions played a crucial role in facilitating international transfers. Besides the posters and invitation cards, the reproductions in exhibition catalogues and in foreign magazines were seminal in distributing the original art piece to a wide audience. Through the catalogs, some of the exhibited works reached a secondary audience but also returned to the archives of the authors and to libraries, where they continue to serve as a source of information to this day.
Hanna Buddeus. “Photography: The Lingua Franca of Performance Art?” on the Art Margins website 14th March 2024 [Online] Cited 21/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Krzysztof Wodiczko (Polish, b. 1943) Eye to Eye c. 1973 Gelatin silver photograph 47.6 x 59cm Donated by the artist 1973 J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Giulio Paolini (Italian, b. 1940) Incipit 1975 Torn photograph, canvas, wood, in Perspex frame 91.0 x 61.5cm Purchased with funds from the J W Power Bequest 1976 J W Power collection
Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015) Untitled 1976-1978 From the series Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon Silver gelatin photograph 20.3 x 30.5cm Purchased with funds from the JW Power Bequest 1978 W Power Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
In 1975, photographer Mary Ellen Mark was assigned by The Pennsylvania Gazette to produce a story on the making of Milos Forman’s film of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, shot on location at the Oregon State Hospital, a mental institution. While on set, Mark met the women of Ward 81, the only locked hospital security ward for women in the state: The inmates were considered dangerous to themselves or to others. In February of 1976, just before the ward closed (it ceased to exist in November of 1977, when it became the female section of a coeducational treatment ward), Mark and Karen Folger Jacobs, a writer and social scientist, were given permission to make a more extended stay, living on the ward in order to photograph and interview the women. They spent 36 days on Ward 81, photographing and documenting. Jacobs recalls their slow, inevitable assimilation: “We felt the degeneration of our own bodies and the erosion of our self-confidence. We were horrified at the thought of what we might become after a year or two of confinement and therapy on Ward 81.”
Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015) Untitled 1976-1978 From the series Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon Silver gelatin photograph 20.3 x 30.5cm Purchased with funds from the JW Power Bequest 1978 JW Power Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944) From Ocean boulevard, Long Beach 1979-1980 Black and white photograph on paper 60.3 x 50.3cm Purchased with funds from the J W Power Bequest 1980 J W Power collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Bill Henson (Australian, b. 1955) Untitled 1980/82 1980-1982 Gelatin silver photograph 43.1 x 39cm Donated by University of Sydney Union 2019 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
“A selection of photographs from the Crowd Series (1980-1982) by Bill Henson. Snapped in secret these black and white journalistic surveillance photographs (‘taken’ in an around Flinders Street railway station in Melbourne) have a brooding intensity and melancholic beauty. Henson uses a flattened perspective that is opposed to the principles of linear perspective in these photographs. Known as The Art of Describing6 and much used in Dutch still life painting of the 17th century to give equal weight to objects within the image plane, here Henson uses the technique to emphasise the mass and jostle of the crowd with their “waiting, solemn and compliant” people.
“When exhibiting the full series, Henson arranges the works into small groupings that create an overall effect of aberrant movement and fragmentation. From within these bustling clusters of images, individual faces emerge like spectres of humanity that will once again dissolve into the crowd … all apparently adrift in the flow of urban life. The people in these images have an anonymity that allows them to represent universal human experiences of alienation, mortality and fatigue.”7
Marcus Bunyan. “Un/aware and in re/pose: the self, the subject and the city,” review of the exhibition ‘In camera and in public’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne on the Art Blart website October 16, 2011 [Online] Cited 12/06/2024
6/ See Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. University Of Chicago Press, 1984
7/ Anon. BILL HENSON: early work from the MGA collection. Education Resource. A Monash Gallery of Art Travelling Exhibition [Online] Cited 14/10/2011. No longer available online
Todd Watts (American, b. 1949) On the 21st century 1982 Silver gelatin photograph 49.0 x 59.2cm Purchased with funds from the JW Power Bequest 1986 JW Power Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1948) State Theatre, Sydney 1997 Silver gelatin photograph 42.3 x 54.6cm Purchased with funds from the Dr M J Morrissey Bequest Fund in memory of Professor A L Sadler 2017 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
I loved Sugimoto’s time lapse movie screens, where the exact length of a movie was captured by the open lens of the camera, the substance of time and space evidenced by a seemingly empty screen. There was something wonderfully poetic and transformational about that gesture, about the notion of compressing the narrative, reality and action of a movie into a single frame of light: “the ‘annihilation of time and space’ as a particular moment in a dynamic cycle of rupture and recuperation enables a deliberate focus on the process of transition.”1 The process of transition in the flow of space and time.
Marcus Bunyan on the exhibition “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense” at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles on the Art Blart website June 3, 2014 [Online] Cited 21/06/2024
Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1948) Seagram Building – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe 1997 Silver gelatin photograph University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Michael Riley (Australian / Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi, 1960-2004) Moree women 1991 Gelatin silver print 40.0 x 56.5cm Donated by University of Sydney Union, 2019 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Anne Ferran (Australian, b. 1949) Untitled (Bodice) 1998 Gelatin silver photogram 82.0 x 93.5cm Donated by University of Sydney Union 2019 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
In 1998 Australian artist Anne Ferran was offered an artist-in-resident’s position at an historic homestead not far from Sydney that had been occupied by successive generations of the same family since 1813. Ferran spent six months systematically making contact prints using the dresses, bodices, skirts, petticoats, and collars still contained in the house. Hovering in a surrounding darkness, softly radiating an inner light, the ghostly traces of these translucent garments now act as residual filaments for a century of absorbed sunshine. Many of them have been patched over the years and their signs of wear and repair are made clear. This allows us to witness a history of the use of each piece of clothing, seeing inside them to those small and skilful acts of home economy – the labour of women – usually kept hidden from a public gaze.
Wall text from the exhibition “Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph” at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery / Len Lye Centre, New Plymouth, New Zealand on the Art Blart website July 31, 2016 [Online] Cited 21/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954) Untitled #131 1983 C-type photograph 139.9 x 100cm University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum Purchased with funds from the J W Power Bequest 1984 JW Power Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
The Twilight Girls (Helen Hyatt-Johnston and Jane Polkinghorne) (active 1997 – present) The Power and the Glory i (detail) 2004 Colour photographic print 75.9 x 50.5cm Donated by University of Sydney Union 2019 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Hyatt-Johnston and Polkinghorne’s work is a hilarious celebration of the endless potential to personalise Hollywood fantasy so as to enjoy the vicarious glamour and tack without foreclosing either individual expression or the subversion of mainstream codes. The artists confuse genres and disciplines, feminist aspirations and sacred cows, in a mad comic brew that speaks more of the pleasure of play and friendship than of the construction of sexed identities. And this is the point, to evade the strictures of accepted feminist strategies by putting inclusive play back on the map.
Polit-Sheer-Form Office (PSFO) (active 2005-2009) Mr Zhang 2008 C-type print 170.4 x 135.5cm Donated by Gene and Brian Sherman through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2021 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Polit-Sheer-Form-Office (PSFO) is a China-based art group established in 2005 by artists Hong Hao, Xiao Yu, Song Dong, Liu Jianhua and curator / critic Leng Lin. Born in the mid-1960s, as children they all experienced the late Cultural Revolution, a period of Communist ideological orthodoxy that powerfully affected the preceding generation.
Drawing on this personal history, PSFO’s artistic practice strives to create a collective way of life while removing the political content historically associated with it. In its activities and artworks, PSFO attempts to create a framework – albeit tongue-in-cheek – for collective life in today’s consumer-oriented China. Within this framework, individuals may find the ties that bind them to others. At the same time, “sheer form” without content allows room for the individual to grow. By eating, drinking and playing together, the PSFO members revive a collective way of life associated with the Communist era of their youth, reawakening a long-lost state of being, by which they contend with contemporary China’s ideology of consumerism. But this is not nostalgia for one of the most controversial periods of Chinese history. The very emptiness of the political rhetoric of their childhood is what inspires the group’s name. Instead of political content, we have sheer, unadulterated political form – hence “Polit-Sheer-Form-Office.” The fact that the group calls itself an “Office” is another ironic reference to officialdom. …
Mr. Zheng is a digital amalgam of the faces of the five PSFO members in the form of a generic identification photo. This artwork straightforwardly embodies the union of the group’s five members, each sacrificing his individuality to become this new single entity. As a nod to the so-called “leader portraits” of Chairman Mao that were hung over buildings in China during the Socialist era… This virtual leader combines the characteristics of all five members, and is therefore not a portrait of authoritarianism, but of collectivism.
In American culture, individualism is a core value, yet a new understanding of the need for the collective has emerged. Similarly, while collectivism has been a core Chinese value, there has been increasing interest in individual pursuits. Is doing a good deed human nature’s need or a need for ideology? What is the real content and meaning of collectivism?
Ruijin Shen, curator, Guangdong Times Museum. “Polit-Sheer-Form-Office (PSFO) Polit-Sheer-Form!,” on the Queens Museum website 2014 [Online] Cited 07/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (Thailand, b. 1957) The Two Planets: Van Gogh’s The Midday Sleep 1889/90, and the Thai Villagers 2008 Digital print 75.7 x 75.7cm Purchased with funds from the Dr M J Morrissey Bequest Fund in memory of Professor A L Sadler 2014 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
Araya explores the relational potential of the tableau most fully in two video installation series: The Two Planets (2008) and Village and Elsewhere (2011), both of which are composed of short audiovisual vignettes that are usually exhibited as multichannel video and photographic installations. The individual works in each series are almost identical in terms of visual composition. Araya re-situates one or two large-scale, ostentatiously gold-framed reproductions of famous western paintings in outdoor or neighborhood spaces in the rural outskirts of the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. The video camera frames these reproductions and their visually associative physical surroundings in a straight-on shot. On-screen, the framed reproductions are frontally displayed in the background. In the foreground, small groups of people are visible from the back, and their murmurings, chatter, gossip, speculations, and digressions as they look at the reproductions audible. …
In each of these audiovisual vignettes, the duration of the scene displayed approximates the duration of spectatorship by a figural group whose faces we do not see. The visualization of the group signifies “Thai Villagers,” or “Thai Farmers,” transfiguring people who, in everyday life, live in the same suburb as the artist. In each tableau, the group is sitting on the ground, their backs to us, facing the framed reproduction. The shortest of these videos are nearly ten minutes, and the longer ones about twenty-five. Someone comments on a detail that strikes them about the picture in the frame. Another person observes something about this face or that body, this plant, that tool, this hat, or that dish. The group amuses itself, speculating wildly on the backstory in the displayed scene. Sometimes they prod one another to dart up to the framed picture and point out a small detail – or to caress the image of a face, the skin, a body part. With the van Gogh reproduction, the group contemplates the placement of the sickle, the number of wheels on the wooden cart, the total number of oxen legs visible, and the casting of the sunlight on the haystack, all in order to decipher winning lottery numbers. Their conversation flows easily, often straying from the framed reproduction to random neighborhood gossip. Each video is unscripted and staged as a one-take piece using a static shot. The editing is minimal, involving discreet jump cuts to crop out of parts of the conversation without changing the visual composition, giving the impression that the vignettes are displaying spectatorial experiences in real time.
May Adadol Ingawanij. “Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s Relational Tableaux,” on the MoMA Post website August 9, 2023 [Online] Cited 21/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (Thailand, b. 1957) Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading, Holofernes Jeff Koons’s Untitled, and Thai Villagers 2008 Purchased with funds from the Dr M J Morrissey Bequest Fund in memory of Professor A L Sadler 2014 University Art Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum
The tableau display of the gold-framed reproductions references and aggrandizes museum conventions of hanging and presenting artworks on walls, an exhibition apparatus that lays claim to addressing everyone. Yet the spectators in The Two Planets and Village and Elsewhere exceed the boundary of that universalizing assertion with their actualization of what, following Elaine Castillo, we might call the spectatorship of the unintended.14 At the same time, their encounters with the reproductions take place in spaces that do not cohere with the museological value of suspending the time and space of daily life. The “Thai Villagers” and “Thai Farmers” in Araya’s tableaux are shown engaging with framed reproductions of art in neighborhood spaces – the local field, temple, and bamboo forest. The spectatorship of the unintended that they enact is a kind of unruly hosting, an extending of hospitality to the foreign, an unpredictable engagement with mobile artifacts from distant lands, cultures, and times.
May Adadol Ingawanij. “Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s Relational Tableaux,” on the MoMA Post website August 9, 2023 [Online] Cited 21/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purpose of education and research
Chau Chak Wing Museum – The University of Sydney Level 1, University Place, Camperdown, NSW 2006 Phone: 02 9351 2812
Opening hours: Monday to Friday (until 9pm Thursdays) 9am – 5pm Saturday and Sunday 12 – 4pm Closed public holidays
“Here is one the world’s top ten photographers of all time – a woman, taking photographs within the first twenty five years of the birth of photography” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 3rd May – 28th July, 2024
Organiser: Kristen Gaylord, the Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts
Julia Margaret Cameron made this portrait of Annie Philpot, the daughter of a family staying on the Isle of Wight, within a month of receiving her first camera. She inscribed some prints of it ‘My first success’. She later recounted, ‘I was in a transport of delight. I ran all over the house to search for gifts for the child. I felt as if she entirely had made the picture.’
Text from the V&A website
“Nothing is scared but beauty.”1
Since the establishment of Art Blart in November 2008, Julia Margaret Cameron appears in a select and esteemed group of photographic artists who each have over 6 postings in the archive: Eugène Atget, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Dorothea Lange, Robert Mapplethorpe, László Moholy-Nagy and August Sander.
I am always ecstatic when I see Cameron’s work. Nobody has ever taken portraits like JMC before or since.
As I have written on JMC in earlier exhibitions:
“When you think about it, here is one the world’s top ten photographers of all time – a woman, taking photographs within the first twenty five years of the birth of commercial photography, using rudimentary technology and chemicals – whose photographs are still up there with the greatest ever taken. Still recognisable as her own and no one else’s after all these years. That is a staggering achievement – and tells you something about the talent, tenacity and perspicacity of the women… that she possessed and illuminated such a penetrating discernment – a clarity of vision and intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight into the human condition.”2
“As with any genius (a person who possesses exceptional intellectual or creative power) who goes against the grain, full recognition did not come until later. But when it does arrive, it is undeniable. As soon as you see a JMC photograph… you know it is by her, it could be by no one else. Her “signature” – closely framed portraits and illustrative allegories based on religious and literary works; far-away looks, soft focus and lighting, low depth of field; strong men (“great thro’ genius”) and beautiful, sensual, heroic women (“great thro’ love”) – is her genius.
There is something so magical about how JMC can frame a face, emerging from darkness, side profile, filling the frame, top lit. Soft out of focus hair with one point of focus in the image. Beautiful light. Just the most sensitive capturing of a human being, I don’t know what it is… a glimpse into another world, a ghostly world of the spirit, the soul of the living seen before they are dead.
Love and emotion. Beauty, beautiful, beatified.”3
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ “The line runs from Winckelmann’s Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works of Art in Painting and Sculpture, first published in 1755, to the end of the 19th century and beyond; see Walter Pater’s “Winckelmann,” written in 1867 and published in The Renaissance.
Margaret Walters. “The Classical Nude,” in Margaret Walters. The Nude Male: A New Perspective. New York & London: Paddington Press, 1978, p. 34. Footnote 2.
~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, August 2013 – January 2014
Many thankx to the Milwaukee Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.”
Julia Margaret Cameron
One of the most influential photographers in the medium’s history, Julia Margaret Cameron made portraits of transcendent beauty in close-up, soft-focus photographs. Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron – a major traveling exhibition the Milwaukee Art Museum partnered with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, to bring to the Midwest – highlights the renowned photographer’s pioneering style.
Cameron (English b. India, 1815-1879) received her first camera at the age of 48, making her career even more impressive for its brevity. Her portraits depict family and friends; contemporary scientists, scholars, and artists; and scenes staging allegorical, biblical, historical, and literary stories. For over a decade, she produced thousands of photographs and built a career, selling and exhibiting her work internationally. Her distinct style set her apart, and her legacy positions her as an artist who broke ground for future photographers.
The Museum’s unique presentation of this celebratory exhibition features more than 90 objects and includes works of art from its collection to provide historical context for the art that influenced, and was influenced by, Cameron.
Just as she modelled her Madonna photographs on Renaissance art, Julia Margaret Cameron looked to painting and sculpture as inspiration for her allegorical and narrative subjects. Some works are photographic interpretations of specific paintings by artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo. Others aspired more generally to create ‘Pictorial Effect’.
This depiction of a sibyl, a prophetess from classical mythology, is based on Michelangelo’s fresco of the Erythraean Sibyl on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome (1508-1510). The model’s braided hair, bare arms and profile pose with a large book are all copied from Michelangelo’s version. Cameron’s good friend and neighbour Tennyson had prints of the Sistine Chapel frescoes decorating his home.
Cameron’s friend and mentor, the painter G.F. Watts, wrote to Cameron, ‘Please do not send me valuable mounted copies … send me any … defective unmounted impressions, I shall be able to judge just as well & shall be just as much charmed with success & shall not feel that I am taking money from you.’ This photograph is one of approximately 67 in the V&A’s collection that was recently discovered to have belonged to him. Many are unique, which suggests that Cameron was not fully satisfied with them. Some may seem ‘defective’ but others are enhanced by their flaws. All of them contribute to our understanding of Cameron’s working process and the photographs that did meet her standards.
Julia Margaret Cameron looked to painting and sculpture as inspiration for her allegorical and narrative subjects. Some works are photographic interpretations of specific paintings by artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo. Others aspired more generally to create ‘Pictorial Effect’.
Cameron’s harshest critics attacked her for using the supposedly truthful medium of photography to depict imaginary subject matter. Some suggested that at best her photographs could serve as studies for painters. The South Kensington Museum mainly acquired ‘Madonnas’ and ‘Fancy Subjects’, and exhibited them as pictures in their own right.
Cameron considered her close friend, the painter and sculptor G. F. Watts, to be her chief artistic advisor. She wrote of this period, ‘Mr. Watts gave me such encouragement that I felt as if I had wings to fly with.’ Here she transforms him into a musician, perhaps to symbolise the arts in general, rather than showing him specifically as a painter. Kate Keown, the girl on the right, whispers inspiration.
Many of the photographs purchased by the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) from Julia Margaret Cameron were ‘Madonna Groups’ depicting the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ. Her housemaid Mary Hillier posed as the Virgin Mary so often she became known locally as ‘Mary Madonna’.
Like many of her contemporaries, Cameron was a devout Christian. As a mother of six, the motif of the Madonna and child held particular significance for her. In aspiring to make ‘High Art’, Cameron aimed to make photographs that could be uplifting and morally instructive.
Julia Margaret Cameron’s earliest photographic subjects were family and friends, many of whom were eminent literary figures. These early portraits reveal how she experimented with dramatic lighting and close-up compositions, features that would become her signature style.
Cameron made numerous studies of her grandson, both as himself and in the guise of the Christ child. He features in eight of the photographs the South Kensington Museum acquired in 1865.
In the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel is a virtuous maiden who is put under a spell by an evil sorceress. Cameron wrote of photographs such as this, ‘When coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful, I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insist upon’.
In late 1865, Julia Margaret Cameron began using a larger camera. It held a 15 x 12 inch glass negative, rather than the 12 x 10 inch negative of her first camera. Early the next year she wrote to Henry Cole with great enthusiasm – but little modesty – about the new turn she had taken in her work.
Cameron initiated a series of large-scale, closeup heads that fulfilled her photographic vision. She saw them as a rejection of ‘mere conventional topographic photography – map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form’ in favour of a less precise but more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture. Cameron also continued to make narrative and allegorical tableaux, which were larger and bolder than her previous efforts.
Cameron based the model’s pose, drapery and sad expression on a painting attributed to Guido Reni that was famous at the time. The subject is the 16th-century Italian noblewoman Beatrice Cenci, executed for arranging the murder of her abusive father. One review admired Cameron’s soft rendering of ‘the pensive sweetness of the expression of the original picture’ while another mocked her for claiming to have photographed a historical figure ‘from the life’.
In late 1865, Julia Margaret Cameron began using a larger camera. It held a 15 x 12 inch glass negative, rather than the 12 x 10 inch negative of her first camera. Early the next year she wrote to Henry Cole with great enthusiasm – but little modesty – about the new turn she had taken in her work.
Cameron initiated a series of large-scale, closeup heads that fulfilled her photographic vision. She saw them as a rejection of ‘mere conventional topographic photography – map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form’ in favour of a less precise but more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture. Cameron also continued to make narrative and allegorical tableaux, which were larger and bolder than her previous efforts.
In this image, Cameron concentrates upon the head of her maid Mary Hillier by using a darkened background and draping her in simple dark cloth. The lack of surrounding detail or context obscures references to narrative, identity or historical context. The flowing hair, lightly parted lips and exposed neck suggest sensuality. The title, taken from a line in the poem ‘Lancelot and Elaine’ from Alfred Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King’, transforms the subject into a tragic heroine.
When Julia Margaret Cameron photographed her intellectual heroes, such as Tennyson, her aim was to record ‘the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man’. Another motive was to earn money from prints, since her family’s finances were precarious. Within her first year as a photographer she began exhibiting and selling through the London gallery Colnaghi’s. She used autographs to increase the value of some portraits.
In March 1868 Cameron used two rooms at the South Kensington Museum as a portrait studio. Her letter of thanks makes clear her commercial aspirations, mentioning photographs she had sold and asking for help securing more sitters, including, she wrote hopefully, any ‘Royal sitters you may obtain for me’.
Sir John Herschel was an eminent scientist who made important contributions to astronomy and photography. Cameron wrote of this sitting, ‘When I have such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavoured to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer.’
Text from the V&A website
Milwaukee Art Museum Presents Major Exhibition of Renowned Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron’s Pioneering Portraits
The only Midwestern presentation of the internationally touring exhibition Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron showcases the 19th-century artist’s explorations of transcendent beauty through portraiture.
The Milwaukee Art Museum partners with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, to present Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron, an exhibition illuminating the transcendent beauty of the renowned photographer’s pioneering style. Featuring more than 90 works, including photographs, paintings, and archival objects, the exhibition will be on view May 3 – July 28, 2024, in the Museum’s Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts.
“We are honoured to bring this significant selection of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs from the V&A’s collection to the Milwaukee Art Museum,” said Marcelle Polednik, PhD, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director. “As the only Midwest venue for Arresting Beauty, our visitors will have a unique opportunity to view these rare and groundbreaking prints that will likely not be brought back together again in our generation.”
Julia Margaret Cameron (English born India, 1815-1879) is distinguished as one of the most innovative and influential photographers in the medium’s history. In 1863, at 48 years old, she received her first camera as a gift from one of her children. Cameron refined her artistic practice, creating a distinct style that set her apart from other photographers: close-up, soft-focus portraits often with scratches and smudges she thought enhanced the images’ beauty. Though her style was criticised and considered aesthetically radical for her time, Cameron’s legacy positions her as an artist who broke ground for future photographers. For over a decade, she made photographs from her home in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight and her studio at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in London. She is best known for sensitive, spiritual portraits of her contemporaries and scenes staging allegorical, biblical, historical, and literary stories. Sitters for Cameron’s photographs include Charles Darwin and Alfred Tennyson, as well as her family members, friends, neighbours, and domestic workers.
“Julia Margaret Cameron found beauty in the everyday – both in the people around her and in the photographic ‘mistakes’ she made,” said Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Her artistic pursuit of such beauty left an enduring impact on the field, and I’m thrilled we can bring this major internationally touring exhibition to our community.”
Arresting Beauty travels from Jeu de Paume, Paris, to the Milwaukee Art Museum and comprises three sections: Cameron’s early photography experiments, her portraits of her contemporaries, and her allegorical compositions and artistic tableaux.
Exhibition highlights include:
~ Annie, 1864, a portrait of Cameron’s neighbour, deemed by the artist as her “first success”; ~ The Whisper of the Muse, 1865, an early allegorical photograph featuring artist George Watts as a musician with two local girls as muses; ~ John Frederick William Herschel, 1867, a striking portrait of the prominent scientist and photographic inventor who was a friend of Cameron’s; ~ The Rosebud Garden of Girls, 1868, a composition featuring five women surrounded by flowers, its title inspired by a line from one of Alfred Tennyson’s poems.
Accompanying Cameron’s prints are archival treasures, such as rarely exhibited, handwritten pages from her influential memoir Annals of My Glass House; her camera lens; and a photograph of Cameron taken by her son, Henry Herschel Hay Cameron. To provide historical context for the art that influenced, and was influenced by, Cameron, the Milwaukee Art Museum will present pieces from its collection alongside those from the V&A, including its own photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, three paintings from its European collection, and three prints never before exhibited.
Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron was organised by Lisa Springer, Curator of Photography Touring Exhibitions, and Marta Weiss, Senior Curator of Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Milwaukee Art Museum presentation was organised by Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts.
When Julia Margaret Cameron photographed her intellectual heroes such as Alfred Tennyson, Sir John Herschel and Henry Taylor, her aim was to record ‘the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man.’ Another motive was to earn money from prints of the photographs, since her family’s finances were precarious. Within her first year as a photographer she began exhibiting and selling through the London gallery Colnaghi’s. She used autographs to increase the value of some portraits.
The naturalist Charles Darwin and his family rented a cottage on the Isle of Wight from the Camerons in the summer of 1868. By 27 July, Colnaghi’s was advertising, ‘We are glad to observe her gallery of great men enriched by a very fine portrait of Charles Darwin’. Due to the sitter’s celebrity, Cameron later had this portrait reprinted as a more stable carbon print.
Her husband, Charles Hay Cameron, a retired reformer of Indian law and education, frequently posed for Cameron. Cameron’s husband, Charles, was two decades older than Julia.
In this image, Cameron concentrates upon the head of her maid Mary Hillier by using a darkened background and draping her in simple dark cloth. The lack of surrounding detail or context obscures references to narrative, identity or historical context. The flowing hair, lightly parted lips and exposed neck suggest sensuality.
“New technologies, new aesthetics, new dispositions. The shock of the new.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 9th April – 7th July, 2024
Co-curators: Karen Hellman, former associate curator at the Getty Museum, and Carolyn Peter, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the Getty
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Cover of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Shock of the new
At the moment the archive is going through a veritable feast of wonderful exhibitions on 19th century photography, this exhibition at the Getty a companion to last week’s posting on the exhibition Nineteenth-Century Photography Now also at the J. Paul Getty Museum. What a delight!
This posting on the important photographer and inventor Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) – one of the pioneers of photography who was finally acknowledged as such during his lifetime and received due recognition – offers the visitor the opportunity to view fragile photographs from the Getty’s treasured Bayard album, one of the first photographic albums ever created, before the leaves of the album are reassembled after restoration.
“The album includes 145 of Bayard’s experiments with different photographic processes on paper, primarily salted paper prints from paper negatives from about 1839 to the late 1840s… Bayard divided the album into four sections: still lifes, portraits, urban and rural landscapes, and an assortment of miscellaneous images. The inclusion of twenty-two photographs by British photographers, including William Henry Fox Talbot, provides evidence of Bayard’s interactions with his fellow pioneers across the English Channel. …
Inscriptions found on the Getty album pages and versos of its photographs support the theory that the artist himself – or someone with firsthand knowledge of the chemicals he used – compiled this volume. Thus, this treasure offers intriguing insights into Bayard’s practice, aesthetic choices, and strategies for presenting himself through the order and arrangement of the photographs.”1
The full album and layout can be viewed on the Getty’s website.
What I find delightful about this “album of experiments” – other than Bayard’s perceptive, inquisitive self-portraits and delicate, atmospheric cyanotype and salted paper print photograms – is the colour (including hand coloured), size and placement of the photographic prints on the pages of the album. Sometimes gridded, sometimes singular in grand isolation, sometimes asymmetrical with empty pages between images, the album seems to flow allow like a river… only for the viewer then to have to change orientation, as vertical images on one page are then abutted next to a page of images that need to be viewed in a horizontal format but turning the album through 90 degrees.
It’s as if the compiler of the album, probably Bayard himself, applied this prick of consciousness to the viewing of the album, to stop the viewer skimming over the images but forcing them to be attentive, to be aware, of the progression of the story that the artist was telling, to be aware of a certain “disposition” in the viewer in order to – a/ disrupt the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances and b/ impinge on a person’s inherent quality of mind and character. To offer a new dispensation on reality.
In other words, the artist challenges the viewer as to how photographs are read and interpreted through changes to the perception and point of view said “reader”. I don’t think I have ever seen such an early photo book that proposes such a daring reorientation of consciousness as does this album.
New technologies, new aesthetics, new dispositions.
The shock of the new.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs, 2024
Many thankx 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.
Parisian bureaucrat by day and tireless inventor after hours, Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) was one of the most important, if lesser-known, pioneers of photography. During his thirty-year career, he invented the direct positive process and several other photographic techniques on paper. This exhibition presents an extraordinarily rare opportunity to view some of Bayard’s highly fragile photographs dating from the 1840s – the first decade of the new medium. The exhibition journeys back to the 19th century to unveil a collection of Bayard’s delicately crafted photographs, offering an extraordinarily rare glimpse into his unique processes, subjects, and persistent curiosity. He brought an artistic sensitivity into capturing the first staged self-portraits and set precedents for photography as we know it today. It highlights Getty’s treasured Bayard album, one of the first photographic albums ever created.
This exhibition is presented in English and Spanish.
Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Title page of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] with Hippolyte Bayard’s [Self-Portrait in the Garden] June 1845 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Text above the photograph: Bromure d’argent vapeurs de Mercure (Silver bromide Mercury vapors)
Hippolyte Bayard’s self-portrait at his garden gate [Self-Portrait in the Garden] introduces the contents of this 184-page album, one of the earliest photographic albums ever created…
Titled Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Receuil No. 2 [Photographic Drawings on Paper. Collection No. 2], the album includes 145 of Bayard’s experiments with different photographic processes on paper, primarily salted paper prints from paper negatives from about 1839 to the late 1840s. Twenty-two photographs by six of his British peers are also interspersed through the album. With its green-and-black marbled covers, it is similar in style to the other known album devoted to Bayard – Album d’essais [Album of Experiments] – owned by the Société française de photographie (SFP) in Paris. Inscriptions found on the Getty album pages and versos of its photographs support the theory that the artist himself – or someone with firsthand knowledge of the chemicals he used – compiled this volume. Thus, this treasure offers intriguing insights into Bayard’s practice, aesthetic choices, and strategies for presenting himself through the order and arrangement of the photographs.
Bayard divided the album into four sections: still lifes, portraits, urban and rural landscapes, and an assortment of miscellaneous images. The inclusion of twenty-two photographs by British photographers, including William Henry Fox Talbot, provides evidence of Bayard’s interactions with his fellow pioneers across the English Channel.
This album has passed through several owners over its 180-plus year life. While gaps still exist, we have traced much of its provenance, or history of ownership. Working back in time, the Getty Museum purchased the album in 1984 from the American collector Arnold Crane (1932-2014) as part of its foundational photography collection. Crane had acquired it in 1970 from Alain Brieux (1922-1985), a Parisian book dealer. By the early 1950s, the album was in the possession of the commune of Breteuil-sur-Noye, Bayard’s hometown, or its mayor, François Monnet (1890-1970). A member of Bayard’s extended family may have given or sold the album to Breteuil. Moving further back into the nineteenth century, Bayard’s family likely chose to keep the album at the time of his death in 1887. We believe that Bayard possessed the album from its creation until he passed away.
Over time different individuals have added inscriptions, numbering systems, correspondence, a biography, and a souvenir from a 1959-1960 exhibition on Bayard in Essen, Germany. At the top left corner of pages, an early inventory system notes the page number, the number of images on the page, and total number of photographs in the album up to that point. Numbers under each photograph represent a second system. At the bottom of the pages, Getty Museum staff and Crane each assigned an accession number to identify the album within their collections. Note that Getty numbers begin with “84.XO.968.” and Crane numbers with “A58.”.
With each change of hands, the album has adopted new meanings. It started as an artist’s notebook and portfolio. Upon Bayard’s death it became a family memento and then a symbol of a commune’s pride. Later in the twentieth century, it shifted from an antiquarian book dealer’s curious commodity to a collector’s treasure. Today it is a museum object valued for what it tells us about processes, subject matter, and sophisticated lines of communication between photographers during the earliest years of photography.
Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs, 2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
For more information see:
~ Hellman, Karen and Carolyn Peter, eds. Hippolyte Bayard and the Invention of Photography. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2024.
~ Peter, Carolyn. “The Many Lives of the Getty Bayard Album.” Getty Research Journal 15 (2022): 67-86.
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] showing at top left Hippolyte Bayard’s [Three Feathers] About 1842-1843 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Three Feathers] About 1842-1843 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Cyanotype 13.8 x 11.1cm (5 7/16 x 4 3/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] showing at top right, Hippolyte Bayard’s Arrangement of Flowers about 1839-1843 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) Arrangement of Flowers About 1839-1843 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Salted paper print 17.5 x 21.3cm (6 7/8 x 8 3/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] showing at bottom right, Hippolyte Bayard’s [Portrait of a Man] 1843-1845 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Portrait of a Man] 1843-1845 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Salted paper print Image: 15.3 x 11.6 cm (6 x 4 9/16 in.) Sheet: 15.7 x 12 cm (6 3/16 x 4 3/4 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [In Bayard’s Studio] About 1845 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Salted paper print 23.5 x 17.5cm (9 1/4 x 6 7/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard is one of the earliest photographers to explore self-portraiture using a camera. The Getty Museum’s collection includes seven of Bayard’s self-portraits (see 84.XO.968.1, 84.XO.968.166, 84.XO.968.20).* While Bayard is not present in this image, it too can be considered a self-portrait of sorts as it offers the viewer a window onto his artistic world. The seemingly casual composition shows a make-shift photographic studio with wood doors leaning up against a brick wall to form the principal back wall. The floor is rough; it isn’t clear whether it is made of tile, wood, or simply dirt. Bayard featured the tools of his trade – glass bottles filled with chemicals, a beaker, a funnel, a dark canvas backdrop, and a light curtain or coverlet as well as some of his favourite subjects – three plaster casts and a porcelain vase. The Société française de photographie (SFP) collection in Paris has two versions of this image; one of them is hand-coloured. The overpainting with watercolour heightens the various patterns and adds colours that the photographic process was unable to capture.
Many of these same props can be found in a number of Bayard’s photographs. The vase with its elaborate floral design as well as the small figure with arms extended, the coverlet, backdrop, and bench are integral parts of Bayard’s most famous self-portrait, Le Noyé [The Drowned Man], now housed at the SFP.
*Four of the Getty’s Bayard self-portraits are part of a portfolio printed in 1965 by M. Gassmann and Son from Bayard’s original negatives that are housed in the SFP collection. (See: 84.XO.1166.1, 84.XO.1166.2, 84.XO.1166.8, and 84.XO.1166.25).
Carolyn Peter. J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs 2019. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] showing at bottom right, Hippolyte Bayard’s [Galerie de la Madeleine with Scaffolding, Place de la Madeleine] 1843 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Galerie de la Madeleine with Scaffolding, Place de la Madeleine] 1843 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Salted paper print Image: 16.5 x 22cm (6 1/2 x 8 11/16 in.) Sheet: 16.8 x 22.3cm (6 5/8 x 8 3/4 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] showing at top right, Hippolyte Bayard’s [Rue des Batignolles] about 1845 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Rue des Batignolles] About 1845 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Salted paper print 15.4 x 11 cm (6 1/16 x 4 5/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Bitch in profile] About 1865 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Albumen silver print Mount: 10 x 6.1cm (3 15/16 x 2 3/8 in.) J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Unidentified woman standing, leaning against a credenza] About 1861 Albumen silver print Mount: 10.4 x 6.1 cm (4 1/8 x 2 3/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Two Men and a Girl in a Garden] About 1847 Part of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The “Bayard Album”] 1839-1855 Albumenised salted paper print 12.9 x 15.6cm (5 1/16 x 6 1/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Hippolyte Bayard
Frenchman Hippolyte Bayard was one of the earliest experimenters in photography, though few will recognise his name today. While working as a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance in the late 1830s and early 1840s, he devoted much of his free time to inventing processes that captured and fixed images from nature on paper using a basic camera, chemicals, and light. The announcement of the inventions of his fellow countryman Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre’s daguerreotype on January 7, 1839, and Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot’s photogenic drawing soon after greatly diminished opportunities for recognition of Bayard’s contributions. He was most likely persuaded by François Arago, the head of the French Academy of Sciences, to keep quiet about his own distinct process until after the announcement of Daguerre’s process and subsequent celebration in August of 1839.
Bayard nonetheless continued his investigations and submitted letters detailing three photographic recipes to the Academy of Sciences. Though he exhibited examples of his work in what has been recognised as the first public exhibition of photography in July 1839 and presented his direct positive process at the Academy of Fine Arts in November of 1839, where it was lauded as an important tool for artists, he remained in the shadows of Daguerre and Talbot.
Bayard is best known today for his 1840 self-portrait as a drowned man, to which he added text protesting the lack of recognition for his invention. The humorous, yet biting text read:
The corpse of the gentleman you see here…. is that of Monsieur Bayard, inventor of the process that you have just seen…. As far as I know this ingenious and indefatigable experimenter has been occupied for about three years with perfecting his discovery…. The Government, who gave much to Monsieur Daguerre, has said it can do nothing for Monsieur Bayard, and the poor wretch has drowned himself. Oh! The precariousness of human affairs! …
In reality, of the three inventors, it was Bayard who actively continued to photograph the longest. He was a founding member in the 1850s of the Société héliographique and its successor, the Société française de photographie. He kept up with the latest developments in the world of photography and integrated new processes into his practice. He was one of only five photographers selected to be part of the Missions héliographiques in 1851, charged with the task of documenting France’s historic architecture for the Commission des Monuments historiques. He exhibited regularly in the universal expositions and, in the 1860s after his retirement from the Ministry of Finance, opened a photographic portrait studio in Paris with Charles Albert d’Arnoux, known as Bertall (1820-1882). During his lifetime, Bayard was described as the “Grandfather of Photography” by several commentators. The Légion d’honneur (still considered today the highest order of military and civil decoration in France) awarded him the first level of merit – Chevalier – in 1863. In the late 1860s he left Paris and moved to Nemours near his lifelong friend, the actor and painter Edmond Geffroy (1804-1895). Bayard died there in 1887.
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Self-Portrait in the Garden] 1847 Salted paper print Image: 16.5 × 12.3cm (6 1/2 × 4 13/16 in.) Sheet: 17.1 × 12.5cm (6 3/4 × 4 15/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
By October 1840, a little over a year after several competing photographic processes had been made public, Hippolyte Bayard began staging elaborate self-portraits in his garden and other locations. His best known, Le Noyé [The Drowned Man], was made on October 18, 1840 (three variants are now part of the collection of the Société française de photographie in Paris).
The Getty Museum’s collection includes six other self-portraits by Bayard in addition to this 1847 Self-portrait in the Garden (See: 84.XO.968.1, 84.XO.968.166).* In five of the seven self-portraits, he placed himself in garden settings. This was, in part, a practical decision since natural light was required to make photographs at the time. However, his choice of setting also reflects his passion for plants. He came from a family of gardeners – his maternal grandfather worked in the extensive grounds of the abbey in Breteuil, the village where Bayard grew up. His father, a justice of the peace, was a passionate amateur gardener who grew peaches in an orchard attached to the family home. The garden(s) featured in Bayard’s self-portraits may indeed be part of the family property in Breteuil or his own home in Batignolles – an area that was just on the outskirts of Paris.
The setting becomes an integral aspect of these portraits; Bayard, the man, merges with his environment. In this particular image, he is surrounded by vegetation and is seated in a wooden chair whose arms and legs resemble vine branches. The lower portion of his legs merges into the darkened lower foreground as if he too is rooted in the earth and has sprouted from it. He shares the foreground with a tall leafy plant that bursts into blossoms at the top. The artist’s choice of clothing, including his cravat, brimmed cap, as well as his direct gaze, all combine to convey a sense of confidence.
Another image found mounted on a separate page in the same album in which this one appears offers a slightly more distant view of almost all the same elements. Bayard is no longer part of the composition, which instead features a watering can and an extra pot (See 84.XO.968.85). Perhaps this photograph was a study in preparation for this self-portrait.
*Four of the Getty’s Bayard self-portraits are part of a portfolio printed in 1965 by M. Gassmann and Son from Bayard’s original negatives that are housed in the SFP collection. (See: 84.XO.1166.1, 84.XO.1166.2, 84.XO.1166.8, and 84.XO.1166.25).
Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photograph 2019. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Self-Portrait in the Garden] June 1845 Hand-coloured Salted paper print 12 1/4 × 9 13/16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
The 19th-Century Selfie Pioneer
Before Instagram influencers, there was Hippolyte Bayard
More than 160 years before smartphones and selfie sticks allowed even the most inexperienced shutterbug to snap a photo of themselves, Hippolyte Bayard was turning his camera on himself.
The year was 1840. Several competing photographic processes had just been made public for the first time the year before, effectively introducing the medium of photography to the world. Bayard, a bureaucrat who worked at the Ministry of Finance in Paris and took pictures on weekends or his lunch hour, was one of the first photographers to practice the art of the self-portrait. Examples of these are on view in the new Getty Center exhibition Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer.
With himself as the subject, Bayard could experiment with new photographic processes, set a scene, and pose in front of the camera, creating images that represented his hobbies, frustrations, and achievements. Sound familiar?
“The earliest photographers wanted to capture people in photographs. Bayard was one of the first to actually succeed,” says Carolyn Peter, the exhibition’s co-curator. He also demonstrated that photography was a new art form. “The public was so taken by the realistic depictions of the world in photography, but he was saying that you can also make things up. You can stage things.”
Bayard in the Garden
Self-portraits were an appealing solution in those early days of photography largely because taking a picture required a long, labor-intensive process, explains Peter. Photographers had to set their cameras in front of their (motionless) subjects for anywhere between 20 minutes and three hours – a daunting ask for any human being – to expose the sensitised surface (metal, paper, or glass) to enough light to create the image.
“He probably didn’t want to subject others to this endurance test, but he still wanted to try and work on his photography techniques. Gradually, the amount of time it took to make a photo shortened, maybe down to around 10 minutes, and finally down to seconds,” Peter said.
In a series of self-portraits from the 1840s, Bayard posed himself in his or his family’s gardens, among plants and tools, emphasising his passion for horticulture. The outdoor setting was a necessity as it offered plenty of natural light. He adopted several different configurations of items and positions in each portrait. Notice how in one image (above left) he hid his feet behind greenery, as if he were planted in the earth.
“Today artists, along with the rest of us, still try a lot of different positions and poses with slight variations when we are making self-portraits,” Peter says.
Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) [Self-Portrait in the Garden] About 1845-1849 Salted paper print Image: 15.9 x 12.7 cm (6 1/4 x 5 in.) Sheet: 16.3 x 13.1 cm (6 7/16 x 5 3/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Public domain
Bayard as Dramatist
Perhaps Bayard’s best-known photo is his Drowned Man (1840), in which he slumps over, partially covered by a sheet, eyes closed, as if he had perished. Bayard created three versions of the image, changing the pose and props in each one, and eventually added this over-the-top lament to the back of the final version:
“The corpse of the gentleman that you see here… is that of M. Bayard, inventor of the process you have just seen…. To my knowledge, for about three years this ingenious and indefatigable researcher has been working to perfect his invention…. The Government, which has given so much to M. Daguerre, said it could do nothing for M. Bayard, and the unfortunate man drowned himself. Oh! The precariousness of human affairs!”
Clearly, Bayard had a few frustrations about his position in the photography world and about how little respect he felt he had been given in comparison to fellow photographer Louis Daguerre. This self-portrait allowed him to express his woes in a humorous and, yes, dramatic way, perhaps inspired by his connections to the theater.
“One of his very best friends from childhood on was Edmond Geffroy, a famous actor, so Bayard hung out with actors and theater people as well as fine artists and writers,” Peter says. “He had this connection to theatricality and theater. He attended a lot of plays. So I think that influenced him.”
A Special Effects Pioneer
In the 1860s, Bayard opened a portrait studio where customers could pay to have their pictures taken. Exposure times had been dramatically reduced, making it significantly easier for ordinary folks to sit for photographs. Bayard continued to experiment, using himself as a subject. Here he combined two negatives to make it look as though he is having a conversation with himself (or an imaginary identical twin?). This is 100 years before The Parent Trap was released!
“He’s just got this sense of humour and this desire to keep playing around,” says Peter.
A Self-Portrait of Pride
Bayard might have felt profoundly under acknowledged for his work in the 1840s, but it turns out he just needed to wait a little to get his due. In 1863 he was awarded the cross of the French Legion of Honor, a prestigious award bestowed in recognition of his contributions to photography. He took the portrait above while wearing the badge, showing off what must have been one of his proudest achievements. Bayard retired from photography soon after.
Bayard’s selfies are now more than 160 years old, but selfie-takers of today seem to be (unconsciously) following the same principles Bayard experimented with. He was one of the first to show that photography could represent not just the literal world but also how you wanted to present yourself. While selfies may appear to be a new phenomenon spawned by the reverse-camera button on smartphones, selfie aficionados should pay proper homage to Bayard for pioneering this art form.
“Today, selfies often include humour. Photographers invest a lot of strategic thought into how they want to present themselves. Selfies are performative and create something that isn’t fully realistic. Bayard was also conscious of the power of photography to visually imagine other worlds and invent different versions of himself.”
Erin Migdol. “The 19th-Century Selfie Pioneer,” on the J. Paul Getty Museum website Apr 09, 2024 [Online] Cited 12/04/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
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![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'The son of an ostrich farmer waits with a labourer for the day's work to begin, near Oudtshoorn, Cape Province (Western Cape)' [El hijo de un criador de avestruces espera junto a un jornalero a que comience la jornada de trabajo, cerca de Oudtshoorn, Provincia del Cabo Occidental] 1966](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/01.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'The son of an ostrich farmer waits with a labourer for the day's work to begin, near Oudtshoorn, Cape Province (Western Cape)' [El hijo de un criador de avestruces espera junto a un jornalero a que comience la jornada de trabajo, cerca de Oudtshoorn, Provincia del Cabo Occidental] 1966")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Gang on surface work, Rustenberg Platinum Mine, Rustenburg, North-West Province' [Cuadrilla en trabajos de superficie, mina de platino de Rustenberg, Provincia del Noroeste] 1971](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/02.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Gang on surface work, Rustenberg Platinum Mine, Rustenburg, North-West Province' [Cuadrilla en trabajos de superficie, mina de platino de Rustenberg, Provincia del Noroeste] 1971")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'In the office of the funeral parlour, Orlando West, Soweto' [En la oficina de la funeraria, Orlando West, Soweto] 1972](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/03.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'In the office of the funeral parlour, Orlando West, Soweto' [En la oficina de la funeraria, Orlando West, Soweto] 1972")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Lulu Gebashe and Solomon Mlutshana, who both worked in a record shop in the city, Mofolo Park' [Lulu Gebashe y Solomon Mlutshana, que trabajaban en una tienda de discos de la ciudad, Mofolo Park] 1972](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/04.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Lulu Gebashe and Solomon Mlutshana, who both worked in a record shop in the city, Mofolo Park' [Lulu Gebashe y Solomon Mlutshana, que trabajaban en una tienda de discos de la ciudad, Mofolo Park] 1972")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Miriam Diale, 5357 Orlando East, Soweto, 18 October 1972' [Miriam Diale, Orlando East n.º 5357, Soweto, 18 de octubre de 1972] 1972](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/05.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Miriam Diale, 5357 Orlando East, Soweto, 18 October 1972' [Miriam Diale, Orlando East n.º 5357, Soweto, 18 de octubre de 1972] 1972")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) ;Sylvia Gibbert in her apartment, Melrose, Johannesburg; [Sylvia Gibbert en su apartamento, Melrose, Johannesburgo] 1974](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/06.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) ;Sylvia Gibbert in her apartment, Melrose, Johannesburg; [Sylvia Gibbert en su apartamento, Melrose, Johannesburgo] 1974")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Ozzie Docrat with his daughter Nassima in his shop before its destruction under the Group Areas Act, Fietas, Johannesburg' [Ozzie Docrat con su hija Nassima en su tienda antes de ser destruida en virtud de la Ley de Agrupación por Áreas, Fietas, Johannesburgo] 1977](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/07.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Ozzie Docrat with his daughter Nassima in his shop before its destruction under the Group Areas Act, Fietas, Johannesburg' [Ozzie Docrat con su hija Nassima en su tienda antes de ser destruida en virtud de la Ley de Agrupación por Áreas, Fietas, Johannesburgo] 1977")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Sunday morning: A not-White family living illegally in the "White" group area of Hillbrow, Johannesburg' [Domingo por la mañana: una familia no blanca viviendo ilegalmente en la zona "blanca" de Hillbrow, Johannesburgo] 1978](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/08.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Sunday morning: A not-White family living illegally in the \"White\" group area of Hillbrow, Johannesburg' [Domingo por la mañana: una familia no blanca viviendo ilegalmente en la zona \"blanca\" de Hillbrow, Johannesburgo] 1978")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Saturday morning at the hypermarket: Semifinal of the Miss Lovely Legs Competition, 28 June 1980' [Sábado por la mañana en el hipermercado: semifinal del concurso Miss Piernas Bonitas, 28 de junio de 1980] 1980](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/09.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Saturday morning at the hypermarket: Semifinal of the Miss Lovely Legs Competition, 28 June 1980' [Sábado por la mañana en el hipermercado: semifinal del concurso Miss Piernas Bonitas, 28 de junio de 1980] 1980")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Apostolic Faith Mission (AGS), Birchleigh, Kempton Park, 28 December 1983' [Misión de la Fe Apostólica (AGS, en afrikáans), Birchleigh, Kempton Park, 28 de diciembre de 1983] 1983](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/10.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Apostolic Faith Mission (AGS), Birchleigh, Kempton Park, 28 December 1983' [Misión de la Fe Apostólica (AGS, en afrikáans), Birchleigh, Kempton Park, 28 de diciembre de 1983] 1983")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Thirteen kilometres of this coastline were a White Group Area, Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, 9 January 1986' [Trece kilómetros de esta costa eran una zona reservada para blancos, Bloubergstrand, Ciudad del Cabo, 9 de enero de 1986] 1986](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/11.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Thirteen kilometres of this coastline were a White Group Area, Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, 9 January 1986' [Trece kilómetros de esta costa eran una zona reservada para blancos, Bloubergstrand, Ciudad del Cabo, 9 de enero de 1986] 1986")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Swerwers, nomadic sheep shearers and farmworkers descended from the San hunter-gatherers and Khoi pastoralists. Without work for four months they lived in the gang, the corridor between farms, fences and roads, hunting, fishing when they could, and eating roadkill, near Nuwe Rooiberg, Northern Cape, 18 September 2002' [Swerwers, esquiladores de ovejas y trabajadores agrícolas nómadas, descendientes de los cazadores-recolectores san y de los pastores khoi. Sin trabajo durante cuatro meses, vivían en el paso, el corredor que hay entre las vallas de las granjas y las carreteras, cazando, pescando cuando podían y comiendo animales atropellados, cerca de Nuwe Rooiberg, Cabo Septentrional, 18 de septiembre de 2002] 2002, printed 2005](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/12.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Swerwers, nomadic sheep shearers and farmworkers descended from the San hunter-gatherers and Khoi pastoralists. Without work for four months they lived in the gang, the corridor between farms, fences and roads, hunting, fishing when they could, and eating roadkill, near Nuwe Rooiberg, Northern Cape, 18 September 2002' [Swerwers, esquiladores de ovejas y trabajadores agrícolas nómadas, descendientes de los cazadores-recolectores san y de los pastores khoi. Sin trabajo durante cuatro meses, vivían en el paso, el corredor que hay entre las vallas de las granjas y las carreteras, cazando, pescando cuando podían y comiendo animales atropellados, cerca de Nuwe Rooiberg, Cabo Septentrional, 18 de septiembre de 2002] 2002, printed 2005")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Incomplete houses, part of a stalled municipal development of 1,000 houses. The funding allocation was made in 1998, building started in 2003. Officials and a politician gave various reasons for the stalling of the scheme: Shortage of water, theft of materials, problems with sewage disposal, problems caused by the high clay content of the soil, and shortage of funds. By August 2006, 420 houses had been completed, Lady Grey, Eastern Cape, 5 August 2006' [Casas sin terminar, parte de una promoción municipal de 1.000 viviendas paralizada. La financiación se consignó en 1998 y la construcción empezó en 2003. Los funcionarios y un político dieron varias razones para la paralización del proyecto: escasez de agua, robo de materiales, problemas con la evacuación de aguas residuales, problemas causados por el alto contenido de arcilla del suelo y escasez de fondos. En agosto de 2006 se habían terminado 420 viviendas, Lady Grey, Cabo Oriental, 5 de agosto de 2006] 2006](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/13.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'Incomplete houses, part of a stalled municipal development of 1,000 houses. The funding allocation was made in 1998, building started in 2003. Officials and a politician gave various reasons for the stalling of the scheme: Shortage of water, theft of materials, problems with sewage disposal, problems caused by the high clay content of the soil, and shortage of funds. By August 2006, 420 houses had been completed, Lady Grey, Eastern Cape, 5 August 2006' [Casas sin terminar, parte de una promoción municipal de 1.000 viviendas paralizada. La financiación se consignó en 1998 y la construcción empezó en 2003. Los funcionarios y un político dieron varias razones para la paralización del proyecto: escasez de agua, robo de materiales, problemas con la evacuación de aguas residuales, problemas causados por el alto contenido de arcilla del suelo y escasez de fondos. En agosto de 2006 se habían terminado 420 viviendas, Lady Grey, Cabo Oriental, 5 de agosto de 2006] 2006")
![David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'The dethroning of Cecil John Rhodes, after the throwing of human feces on the statue and the agreement of the university to the demands of students for its removal, the University of Cape Town, 9 April 2015' [El derrocamiento de Cecil John Rhodes después de arrojar heces humanas contra la estatua y de que la universidad accediera a las demandas de los estudiantes para su retirada, Universidad de Ciudad del Cabo, 9 de abril de 2015] 2015](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/14.jpg "David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018) 'The dethroning of Cecil John Rhodes, after the throwing of human feces on the statue and the agreement of the university to the demands of students for its removal, the University of Cape Town, 9 April 2015' [El derrocamiento de Cecil John Rhodes después de arrojar heces humanas contra la estatua y de que la universidad accediera a las demandas de los estudiantes para su retirada, Universidad de Ciudad del Cabo, 9 de abril de 2015] 2015")
![Mark Anthony (Marc Antoine Gaudin) (French, 1804-1880)(attributed) '[Staged scene featuring five women, their fingers pointing upwards]' England c. 1855-1865](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/mark-anthony-staged-scene.jpg "Mark Anthony (Marc Antoine Gaudin) (French, 1804-1880)(attributed) '[Staged scene featuring five women, their fingers pointing upwards]' England c. 1855-1865")
![Freeman Brothers, Sydney (Australian) '[Portrait of two girls in fancy dress]' c. 1855-1865](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp2012.23.5-web.jpg "Freeman Brothers, Sydney (Australian) '[Portrait of two girls in fancy dress]' c. 1855-1865")
![G.H. Nicholas, Sydney (Australian) '[Portrait of a child holding a stereoscope]' c. 1870](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp82.17.1-web.jpg "G.H. Nicholas, Sydney (Australian) '[Portrait of a child holding a stereoscope]' c. 1870")
![Lorna Studios, Glebe (Australian) '[Sunlight Soap Girl]' 1905-1915](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp2023.8.1-web.jpg "Lorna Studios, Glebe (Australian) '[Sunlight Soap Girl]' 1905-1915")
![George Henry Hawkins, Sydney (Australian) '[Four children in fancy dress featuring the products, Jelline and Silver Drop Flour]' 1910-1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp88.21.165-web.jpg "George Henry Hawkins, Sydney (Australian) '[Four children in fancy dress featuring the products, Jelline and Silver Drop Flour]' 1910-1930")
![George Henry Hawkins, Sydney (Australian) '[Lily dressed in costume as 'Victoria']' 1910-1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp88.21.767-web.jpg "George Henry Hawkins, Sydney (Australian) '[Lily dressed in costume as 'Victoria']' 1910-1930")
![J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) '[Portrait of a young Jean Cunningham and Master Hurlstone in English court costumes]' c. 1914-1920s](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp80.49.319-web.jpg "J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) '[Portrait of a young Jean Cunningham and Master Hurlstone in English court costumes]' c. 1914-1920s")
![J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) '[Portrait of Miss Orr in fancy dress as Britannia]' c. 1914-1920s](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp80.49.696-web.jpg "J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) '[Portrait of Miss Orr in fancy dress as Britannia]' c. 1914-1920s")
![J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) '[Portrait of Miss Larsen wearing a Silver Star Starch costume]' c. 1914-1920s](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp80.49.965-web.jpg "J.G. Park, Leichhardt (Australian) '[Portrait of Miss Larsen wearing a Silver Star Starch costume]' c. 1914-1920s")
![Oliver Emery, Sydney (Australian) '[Three boys posed outside against a makeshift backdrop]' c. 1914-1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hp83.43.26-web.jpg "Oliver Emery, Sydney (Australian) '[Three boys posed outside against a makeshift backdrop]' c. 1914-1930")
![Charles Nègre (French, 1820-1880) '[Plaster Casts of Bishops' Miters, South Porch, Chartres]' c. 1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/negre-plaster-casts.jpg "Charles Nègre (French, 1820-1880) '[Plaster Casts of Bishops' Miters, South Porch, Chartres]' c. 1855")
![Pine & Bell (photographic studio) (American, active 1860s, Troy, New York) William H. Bell (American born England, Liverpool 1831-1910 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) George W. Pine (American, active 1860s, Troy, New York) '[Display of Hats and Accessories of 1868]' 1868](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/pine-bell-display-of-hats-and-accessories-of-1868.jpg "Pine & Bell (photographic studio) (American, active 1860s, Troy, New York) William H. Bell (American born England, Liverpool 1831-1910 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) George W. Pine (American, active 1860s, Troy, New York) '[Display of Hats and Accessories of 1868]' 1868")
![Unknown photographer. '[E. Adkins Gun Merchant]' c. 1874](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/unknown-photographer-e.-adkins-gun-merchant.jpg "Unknown photographer. '[E. Adkins Gun Merchant]' c. 1874")
![Frank M. Sutcliffe (British, 1853-1941) '[Display of Whitby Seascape Photographs]' c. 1888](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/sutcliffe-display-of-whitby-seascape-photographs.jpg "Frank M. Sutcliffe (British, 1853-1941) '[Display of Whitby Seascape Photographs]' c. 1888")
![Unknown (American) '[Vermont Marble Tombstone Catalogue]' 1880s](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/unknown-vermont-marble-tombstone-catalogue.jpg "Unknown (American) '[Vermont Marble Tombstone Catalogue]' 1880s")
![Schadde Brothers (American, active Minneapolis, 1890s-1910s) Alvin J. Schadde (American, 1872-1937) Herman T. Schadde (American, 1874-1937) '[High Grade Jelly Eggs, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue]' c. 1915](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/schadde-brothers-high-grade-jelly-eggs.jpg "Schadde Brothers (American, active Minneapolis, 1890s-1910s) Alvin J. Schadde (American, 1872-1937) Herman T. Schadde (American, 1874-1937) '[High Grade Jelly Eggs, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue]' c. 1915")
![Schadde Brothers (American, active Minneapolis, 1890s-1910s) Alvin J. Schadde (American, 1872-1937) Herman T. Schadde (American, 1874-1937) '[Satinettes, Filled Confections and Ye Old Style Stick Candy, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue]' c. 1915](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/schadde-brothers-satinettes.jpg "Schadde Brothers (American, active Minneapolis, 1890s-1910s) Alvin J. Schadde (American, 1872-1937) Herman T. Schadde (American, 1874-1937) '[Satinettes, Filled Confections and Ye Old Style Stick Candy, from a Brandle & Smith Co. Catalogue]' c. 1915")
![Ralph Bartholomew Jr. (American, 1907-1985) '[Soap Packaging]' 1936](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bartholomew_soap-packaging.jpg "Ralph Bartholomew Jr. (American, 1907-1985) '[Soap Packaging]' 1936")
![Edward J. Steichen (American born Luxembourg, Bivange 1879 - 1973 West Redding, Connecticut) '["Sugar Lumps" Pattern Design for Stehli Silks]' 1927](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/steichen-sugar-lumps.jpg "Edward J. Steichen (American born Luxembourg, Bivange 1879 - 1973 West Redding, Connecticut) '[\"Sugar Lumps\" Pattern Design for Stehli Silks]' 1927")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) '[Osram Light Bulbs]' c. 1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/august-sander_osram-light-bulbs.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) '[Osram Light Bulbs]' c. 1930")
![César Domela (Dutch, 1900-1992) '[Ruthsspiecher Tanks]' 1928](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/domela-ruthsspiecher-tanks.jpg "César Domela (Dutch, 1900-1992) '[Ruthsspiecher Tanks]' 1928")
![Unknown (American) '[Montage for Packard Super Eight]' c. 1940](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/unknown_montage-for-a-packard-super-eight.jpg "Unknown (American) '[Montage for Packard Super Eight]' c. 1940")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Cover of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"]' 1839-1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/the-bayard-album-cover.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Cover of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"]' 1839-1855")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Title page of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"] with Hippolyte Bayard 's [Self-Portrait in the Garden] June 1845' 1839-1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/title-page-of-the-bayard-album-with-bayards-self-portrait-in-the-garden.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Title page of Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"] with Hippolyte Bayard 's [Self-Portrait in the Garden] June 1845' 1839-1855")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"]' 1839-1855 showing at top left Hippolyte Bayard's '[Three Feathers]' about 1842-1843](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-album-a.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"]' 1839-1855 showing at top left Hippolyte Bayard's '[Three Feathers]' about 1842-1843")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Three Feathers]' About 1842-1843 from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, April - July, 2024](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/gm_10846601_web.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Three Feathers]' About 1842-1843 from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, April - July, 2024")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"]' 1839-1855 showing at top right, Hippolyte Bayard's 'Arrangement of Flowers' about 1839-1843](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-album-b.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"]' 1839-1855 showing at top right, Hippolyte Bayard's 'Arrangement of Flowers' about 1839-1843")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"] showing at bottom right, Hippolyte Bayard's [Portrait of a Man] 1843-1845' 1839-1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-album-d.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"] showing at bottom right, Hippolyte Bayard's [Portrait of a Man] 1843-1845' 1839-1855")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Portrait of a Man]' 1843-1845](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-portrait-of-a-man.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Portrait of a Man]' 1843-1845")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[In Bayard's Studio]' About 1845](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-in-bayards-studio.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[In Bayard's Studio]' About 1845")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"] showing at bottom right, Hippolyte Bayard's [Galerie de la Madeleine with Scaffolding, Place de la Madeleine] 1843' 1839-1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-album-e.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"] showing at bottom right, Hippolyte Bayard's [Galerie de la Madeleine with Scaffolding, Place de la Madeleine] 1843' 1839-1855")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Galerie de la Madeleine with Scaffolding, Place de la Madeleine]' 1843](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-galerie-de-la-madeleine-with-scaffolding.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Galerie de la Madeleine with Scaffolding, Place de la Madeleine]' 1843")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"] showing at top right, Hippolyte Bayard's [Rue des Batignolles] about 1845' 1839-1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-album-f.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"] showing at top right, Hippolyte Bayard's [Rue des Batignolles] about 1845' 1839-1855")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Rue des Batignolles]' about 1845](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/gm_04476001_web.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Rue des Batignolles]' about 1845")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Bitch in profile]' about 1865](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/gm_09531001_web.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Bitch in profile]' about 1865")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Unidentified woman standing, leaning against a credenza]' about 1861](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/gm_09860801_web.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Unidentified woman standing, leaning against a credenza]' about 1861")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The "Bayard Album"]' 1839-1855](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-album-c.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) Samuel Buckle (British, 1808-1860) Nicolaas Henneman (British, 1813-1893) Reverend Calvert Jones (British, 1804-1877) David Kinnebrook (English, 1819-1865) M.H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne (British, 1823-1911) Unknown maker. 'Dessins photographiques sur Papier. Recueil No. 2. [The \"Bayard Album\"]' 1839-1855")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Two Men and a Girl in a Garden]' About 1847](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-two-men-and-a-girl-in-a-garden.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Two Men and a Girl in a Garden]' About 1847")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Self-Portrait in the Garden]' 1847](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-self-portrait-in-the-garden1.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Self-Portrait in the Garden]' 1847")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Self-Portrait in the Garden]' June 1845](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-self-portrait-in-the-garden-june-1845.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Self-Portrait in the Garden]' June 1845")
![Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Self-Portrait in the Garden]' About 1845-1849](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bayard-self-portrait-in-the-garden.jpg "Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887) '[Self-Portrait in the Garden]' About 1845-1849")
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