Exhibition dates: 19th February – 30th May 2016
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Historic Spanish Record of the Conquest, South Side of Inscription Rock
1873
From the album Geographical Explorations and Surveys West of the 100th Meridian
Albumen silver print
George Eastman Museum, purchase
In 1873 O’Sullivan joined Lieutenant George Wheeler’s Geographic Survey in New Mexico and Arizona. At El Morro, a sandstone promontory covered with ancient petroglyphs and historic-era inscriptions, the photographer singled out this handsomely lettered sentence to record and measure. It states: By this place passed Ensign Don Joseph de Payba Basconzelos, in the year in which he held the Council of the Kingdom at his expense, on the 18th of February, in the year 1726. Nearby, the rock record now bears another inscription that reads T. H. O’Sullivan.
This looks to be a fascinating exhibition. I wish I could see it.
While Sight Reading cuts across conventional historical and geographic divisions, with the exhibition being organised into nine “conversations” among diverse sets of works, we must always remember that these “themes” are not exclusory to each other. Photographs do cross nominally defined boundaries and themes (as defined by history and curators) so that they can become truly subversive works of art.
Photographs can form spaces called heterotopia, “a form of concept in human geography elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault, to describe places and spaces that function in non-hegemonic conditions. These are spaces of otherness, which are neither here nor there, that are simultaneously physical and mental, such as the space of a phone call or the moment when you see yourself in the mirror… Foucault uses the term “heterotopia” (French: hétérotopie) to describe spaces that have more layers of meaning or relationships to other places than immediately meet the eye.”1
In photographs, there is always more than meets the eye. There is the association of the photograph to multiple places and spaces (the histories of that place and space); the imagination of the viewer and the memories they bring to any encounter with a photograph, which may change from time to time, from look to look, from viewing to viewing; and the transcendence of the photograph as it brings past time to present time as an intimation of future time. Past, present and future spacetime are conflated in the act of just looking, just being. Positioning this “‘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.”2 And that transition, Doreen Massey argues, ignores often-invisible contingencies that define spaces those relations that have an effect upon a space but are not visible within it.3
Photographs, then, form what Deleuze and Guattari call assemblages4, where the assemblage is “the processes by which various configurations of linked components function in an intersection with each other, a process that can be both productive and disruptive. Any such process invovles a territorialization; there is a double movement where something accumulates meanings (re-territorialization), but does so co-extensively with a de-territorialization where the same thing is disinvested of meanings. The organization of a territory is characterized by such a double movement … An assemblage is an extension of this process, and can be thought of as constituted by an intensification of these processes around a particular site through a multiplicity of intersections of such territorializations.”5 In other words, when looking at a photograph by William Henry Fox Talbot or Timothy H. O’Sullivan today, the meaning and interpretation of the photograph could be completely different to the reading of this photograph in the era it was taken. The photograph is a site of both de-territorialization and re-territorialization – it both gains and looses meaning at one and the same time, depending on who is looking at it, from what time and from what point of view.
Photographs propose that there are many heterotopias in the world, many transitions and intersections, many meanings lost and found, not only as spaces with several places of/for the affirmation of difference, but also as a means of escape from authoritarianism and repression. We must remember these ideas as we looking at the photographs in this exhibition.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Footnotes
1/ Heterotopia (space) on the Wikipedia website [Online] Cited 27/05/2016.
2/ McQuire, Scott. The Media City. London: Sage Publications, 2008, p. 14.
3/ Massey, Doreen. Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994, p. 5 in Wood, Aylish. “Fresh Kill: Information technologies as sites of resistance,” in Munt, Sally (ed.,). Technospaces: Inside the New Media. London: Continuum, 2001, pp. 163-164.
4/ Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolisand London: University of Minneapolis Press, 1987.
5/ Wood, Aylish. “Fresh Kill: Information technologies as sites of resistance,” in Munt, Sally (ed.,). Technospaces: Inside the New Media. London: Continuum, 2001, p.166
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Many thankx to the Morgan Library & Museum for allowing me to publish the text and photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Sight Reading: Photography and the Legible World exhibition sections
As its name declares, photography is a means of writing with light. Photographs both show and tell, and they speak an extraordinary range of dialects.
Beginning February 19 the Morgan Library & Museum explores the history of the medium as a lucid, literate – but not always literal – tool of persuasion in a new exhibition, Sight Reading: Photography and the Legible World. A collaboration with the George Eastman Museum of Film and Photography, the show features more than eighty works from the 1840s to the present and reveals the many ways the camera can transmit not only the outward appearance of its subject but also narratives, arguments, and ideas. The show is on view through May 30.
Over the past 175 years, photography has been adopted by, and adapted to, countless fields of endeavour, from art to zoology and from fashion to warfare. Sight Reading features a broad range of material – pioneering x-rays and aerial views, artefacts of early photojournalism, and recent examples of conceptual art – organised into groupings that accentuate the variety and suppleness of photography as a procedure. In 1936, artist László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) defined “the illiterate of the future” as someone “ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen.” The JPEG and the “Send” button were decades away, but Moholy-Nagy was not the first observer to argue that photography belonged to the arts of commentary and persuasion. As the modes and motives of camera imagery have multiplied, viewers have continually learned new ways to read the information, and assess the argument, embodied in a photograph.
“Traditional narratives can be found throughout the Morgan’s collections, especially in its literary holdings,” said Colin B. Bailey, director of the Morgan. “Sight Reading encourages us to use a critical eye to read and discover the stories that unfold through the camera lens and photography, a distinctly modern, visual language. We are thrilled to collaborate with the Eastman Museum, and together unravel a rich narrative, which exemplifies photography’s deep involvement in the stories of modern art, science, and the printed page.”
The exhibition
Sight Reading cuts across conventional historical and geographic divisions. Featuring work by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), John Heartfield (1891-1968), Lewis Hine (1874-1940), Harold Edgerton (1903-1990), John Baldessari (1931-2020), Sophie Calle (b. 1953), and Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931-2007; 1934-2015), among many others, the exhibition is organised into nine “conversations” among diverse sets of works.
I. The Camera Takes Stock
Photography’s practical functions include recording inventory, capturing data imperceptible to the human eye, and documenting historical events. In the first photographically illustrated publication, The Pencil of Nature (1845), William Henry Fox Talbot used his image Articles of China to demonstrate that “the whole cabinet of a … collector … might be depicted on paper in little more time than it would take him to make a written inventory describing it in the usual way.” Should the photographed collection suffer damage or theft, Talbot speculated, “the mute testimony of the picture … would certainly be evidence of a novel kind” before the law.
A century later, Harold Edgerton, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used the pulsing light of a stroboscope to record states of matter too fleeting for the naked eye. Gun Toss, an undated image of a spinning pistol, is not a multiple exposure: the camera shutter opened and closed just once. But during that fraction of a second, seven bright flashes of light committed to film a seven-episode history of the gun’s trajectory through space.
William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800-1877)
Articles of China
c. 1843, printed c. 1845
Salted paper print from calotype negative
Collection of Richard and Ronay Menschel
In The Pencil of Nature (1845), the first photographically illustrated publication, Talbot used Articles of China to demonstrate that “the whole cabinet of a … collector … might be depicted on paper in little more time than it would take him to make a written inventory describing it in the usual way.” Should the collection suffer damage or theft, Talbot added, “the mute testimony of the picture … would certainly be evidence of a novel kind” before the law.
Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
Gun Toss
1936-1950
Gelatin silver print
Collection of Richard and Ronay Menschel
Edgerton, an electrical engineer, used the rapidly pulsing light of a stroboscope to record states of matter too fleeting to be perceived by the naked eye. This image of a spinning pistol is not a multiple exposure: the camera shutter opened and closed just once. But during that fraction of a second, seven bright flashes of light committed to film a seven-episode history of the gun’s trajectory through space.
John Pfahl (American, b. 1939)
Wave Theory I-V, Puna Coast, Hawaii, March 1978
1978
From the series Altered Landscapes
Chromogenic development (Ektacolor) process prints, 1993
George Eastman Museum, purchase
In this sequence, Pfahl twisted the conventions of photographic narrative into a perceptual puzzle. The numbered views appear to chronicle a single event: a wave breaking on the shore. Close inspection, however, reveals that the numeric caption in each scene is made of string laid on the rock in the foreground. The exposures, then, must have been made over a span of at least several minutes, not seconds – and in what order, one cannot say.
II. Crafting A Message
The camera is widely understood to be “truthful,” but what photographs “say” is a product of many procedures that follow the moment of exposure, including page layout, captioning, and cropping of the image. During World War I, military personnel learned to interpret the strange, abstract looking images of enemy territory made from airplanes. Their specialised training fundamentally altered the nature of wartime reconnaissance, even as the unusual perspective unique to aerial photography introduced a new dialect into the expanding corpus of modern visual language. An Example of an Annotated Photograph with Local Names of Trenches Inserted (1916), on view in the exhibition, shows that the tools of ground strategy soon included artificial bunkers and trenches, designed purely to fool eyes in the sky.
In László Moholy-Nagy’s photocollages of the late 1920s, figures cut out of the plates in mass market magazines appear in new configurations to convey messages of the artist’s devising. Images such as Massenpsychose (Mass Psychosis) (1927) propose a new kind of visual literacy for the machine age. To contemporary eyes, Moholy’s collages seem to foreshadow cut-and-paste strategies that would later characterise the visual culture of cyberspace.
László Moholy-Nagy (American born Hungary, 1895-1946)
Massenpsychose (Mass Psychosis)
1927
Collage, pencil, and ink
George Eastman Museum, Purchased with funds provided by Eastman Kodak Company
To make his photocollages of the late 1920s, Moholy-Nagy cut figures out of photographs and photomechanical reproductions and arranged them into new configurations that convey messages of his own devising. By extracting the images from their original context and placing them into relationships defined by drawn shapes and volumes, he suggested a new visual literacy for the modern world. In this world – one in which images course through mass culture at a psychotic pace – a two-dimensional anatomical drawing acquires sufficient volume to cast a man’s shadow and a circle of bathing beauties cues up for a pool sharp. To contemporary eyes, the language of Moholy-Nagy’s photo collages seems to foreshadow strategies common to the visual culture of cyberspace.
Unidentified maker
An Example of an Annotated Photograph with Local Names of Trenches Inserted
c. 1916
Gelatin silver print
George Eastman Museum
During World War I, aerial photography progressed from a promising technological experiment to a crucial strategic operation. As advances in optics and engineering improved the capabilities of cameras and aircraft, military personnel learned to identify topographic features and man-made structures in the images recorded from above. Such training fundamentally altered the significance and practice of wartime reconnaissance. At the same time, the unusual perspective unique to aerial photography introduced a new dialect into the expanding corpus of modern visual language.
PhotoMetric Corporation, 1942-74
PhotoMetric Tailoring
c. 1942-1948
Gelatin silver prints
George Eastman Museum
In an effort to streamline the field of custom tailoring, textile entrepreneur Henry Booth devised a method for obtaining measurements by photographing customers with a special camera and angled mirrors. The system was said to be foolproof, making it possible for any sales clerk to operate it. The resulting slides were sent to the manufacturer along with the customer’s order. A tailor translated the images into physical measurements using a geometric calculator, and the company mailed the finished garment to the customer.
III. Photographs in Sequence
Photography’s debut in the late 1830s happened to coincide with the birth of the modern comic strip. Ultimately the narrative photo sequence would lead to the innovations that gave rise to cinema, another form of storytelling altogether. Exact contemporaries of one another, Eadweard J. Muybridge in the United States and Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) in France both employed cameras to dissect human movement. Muybridge used a bank of cameras positioned to record a subject as it moved, tripping wires attached to the shutters. The result was a sequence of “stop-action” photographs that isolated gestures not otherwise visible in real time. Beginning in 1882, Marey pursued motion studies with a markedly different approach. In the works for which he is best known, he exposed one photographic plate multiple times at fixed intervals, recording the arc of movement in a single image.
Étienne Jules Marey (French, 1830-1904)
Chronophotographic study of man pole vaulting
c. 1890
Albumen silver print
George Eastman Museum, Exchange with Narodni Technical Museum
Exact contemporaries, Muybridge and Marey (the former in the United States, the latter in France) both employed cameras to dissect human movement. Muybridge used a bank of cameras positioned and timed to record a subject as it moved, tripping wires attached to the shutters. The result was a sequence of “stop-action” photographs that isolated gestures not otherwise visible in real time. Beginning in 1882, Marey took a markedly different approach. In the works for which he is best known – such as the image of the man pole-vaulting – he exposed a single photographic plate multiple times at fixed intervals, recording the arc of movement in a single image. In Marey’s chronophotograph of a man on a horse, the action reads from bottom to top. The convention of arranging sequential photographic images from left to right and top to bottom, on the model of written elements on a page, was not yet firmly established.
William N. Jennings (American, b. England, 1860-1946)
Notebook pages with photographs of lightning
c. 1887
Gelatin silver prints mounted onto bound notepad paper
George Eastman Museum, Gift of 3M Foundation; Ex-collection of Louis Walton Sipley
With his first successful photograph of a lightning bolt on 2 September 1882, Jennings dispelled the then widely held belief – especially among those in the graphic arts – that lightning traveled toward the earth in a regular zigzag pattern. Instead, his images revealed that lightning not only assumed an astonishing variety of forms but that it never took the shape that had come to define it in art.
Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007)
Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015)
Industriebauten
1968
Gelatin silver prints in presentation box
George Eastman Museum, Purchase
The photographs in this portfolio were made only a few years into what would become the Bechers’ decades-long project of systematically documenting industrial architecture in Europe and the United States. The straightforward and rigidly consistent style of their work facilitates side-by-side comparison, revealing the singularity of structures that are typically understood to be generic.
IV. The Legible Object
Some photographs speak for themselves; others function as the amplifier for objects that can literally be read through the image. In her series Sorted Books, American artist Nina Katchadourian (b. 1968) composes statements by combining the titles of books drawn from the shelves of libraries and collections. Indian History for Young Folks, 2012, shows three books from the turn of the twentieth century that she found in the Delaware Art Museum’s M.G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings. The viewer’s eye silently provides punctuation: “Indian history for young folks: Our village; your national parks.” Though at first glance it appears merely to arrange words into legible order, Katchadourian’s oblique statement – half verbal, half visual – would be incomplete if divorced from the physical apparatus of the books themselves.
David Octavius Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870)
Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848)
The Artist and the Gravedigger (Denistoun Monument, Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh)
c. 1845
Salted paper print from calotype negative
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Alvin Langdon Coburn
Hill, his two nieces, and an unidentified man pose for the camera at the tomb of Robert Denistoun, a seventeenth-century Scottish ambassador. Contemplative poses helped the sitters hold still during the long exposure, even while turning them into sculptural extensions of the monument. Hill puts pen to paper, perhaps playing the part of a graveyard poet pondering mortality. Above him, the monument’s Latin inscription begins: “Behold, the world possesses nothing permanent!”
Robert Cumming (American, b. 1943)
Submarine cross-section; feature film, “Gray Lady Down” – Stage #12, March 14, 1977
1977
Inkjet print
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Nash Editions
In the Studio Still Lifes he photographed on the backlots of Universal Studios, Cumming sought to portray the mechanisms behind cinema vision “in their real as opposed to their screen contexts.” Admiring yet subversive, his documents use strategies native to the still camera – distance, point of view, and clear-eyed testimony – to translate Hollywood’s familiar illusions into worksites where “marble is plywood, stone is rubber, … rooms seldom have ceilings, and when the sun shines indoors, it casts a dozen shadows.”
Nina Katchadourian (American, b. 1968)
Indian History for Young Folks
2012
From Once Upon a Time in Delaware / In Quest of the Perfect Book
Chromogenic print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchase, Photography Collectors Committee
In her ongoing series Sorted Books, Katchadourian composes statements by combining the titles of books from a given library – in this case, the M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings at the Delaware Art Museum. Though her compositions are driven by the need to arrange words in a legible order, Katchadourian’s oblique jokes, poems, and koans would be incomplete if divorced from the cultural information conveyed by the physical books themselves.
V. The Photograph Decodes Nature
As early as 1840, one year after photography’s invention was announced, scientists sought to deploy it in their analysis of the physical world. Combining the camera with the microscope, microphotographs recorded biological minutiae, leading to discoveries that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain by observing subjects in real time. Similarly, the development of X-ray technology in 1895 allowed scientists to see and understand living anatomy to an unprecedented degree. Such innovations not only expanded the boundaries of the visible world but also introduced graphic concepts that would have a profound impact on visual culture. In other ways, too, nature has been transformed in human understanding through the interpretive filter of the lens, as seen in Sight Reading in the telescopic moon views of astronomers Maurice Loewy (1833-1907) and Pierre Henri Puiseux (1855-1928) and in the spellbinding aerial abstractions of William Garnett (1916-2006).
William Garnett (American, 1916-2006)
Animal Tracks on Dry Lake
1955
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
After making films for the U.S. Signal Corps during World War II, Garnett used GI-Bill funding to earn a pilot’s license. By the early 1950s, he had the field of artistic aerial landscape virtually to himself. This print, showing the ephemeral traces of wildlife movement on a dry lake bed, appeared in Diogenes with a Camera IV (1956), one in a series of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art that highlighted the great variety of ways in which artists used photography to invent new forms of visual truth.
William Henry Jackson (American, 1843-1942)
“Tea Pot” Rock
1870
Albumen silver print
George Eastman Museum, Purchase
Jackson made this photograph as a member of the survey team formed by Ferdinand V. Hayden to explore and document the territory now known as Yellowstone National Park. Hayden’s primary goal was to gather information about the area’s geological history, and Jackson’s photographs record with precision and clarity the accumulated layers of sediment that allow this natural landmark to be fit into a geological chronology. The human figure standing at the left of the composition provides information about the size of the rock, demonstrating that photographers have long recognised the difficulty of making accurate inferences about scale based on photographic images.
Dr Josef Maria Eder (Austrian, 1855-1944)
Eduard Valenta (Austrian, 1857-1937)
Zwei Goldfische und ein Seefisch (Christiceps argentatus)
1896
From the book Versuche über Photographie mittelst der Röntgen’schen Strahlen
Photogravure
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Eastman Kodak Company; Ex-collection of Josef Maria Eder
As early as 1840 – a year after photography’s invention was announced – scientists sought to deploy it in their analysis of the physical world. Combining the camera with the microscope, microphotographs recorded biological minutiae, leading to discoveries that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain by observing subjects in real time. Similarly, the development of x-ray technology in 1895 allowed doctors to study living anatomy to an unprecedented degree. Such innovations not only expanded the boundaries of the visible world but also introduced graphic concepts that would have a profound impact on visual culture.
Dr James Deane (American, 1801-1858)
Ichnographs from the Sandstone of Connecticut River
1861
Book illustrated with 22 salted paper prints and 37 lithographs
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Alden Scott Boyer
These photographs, which depict traces of fossils discovered in a sandstone quarry, illustrate a book written by Massachusetts surgeon James Deane, who was the author of texts on medicine as well as natural history. Published posthumously using his notes and photographs as a guide, the volume is an early demonstration of photography’s potential as a tool of scientific investigation.
VI. The Photograph Decodes Culture
The photograph not only changed but to a great extent invented the modern notion of celebrity. Modern-age celebrities live apart from the general public, but their faces are more familiar than those of the neighbors next door. Since the mid-nineteenth century, viewers have come to “know” the famous through accumulated photographic sightings, which come in formats and contexts that vary as much as real-life encounters do. In four images that would have communicated instantly to their intended viewers in 1966, Jean-Pierre Ducatez (b. 1970) portrayed the Beatles through closeups of their mouths alone. The graphic shorthand employed by Jonathan Lewis in his series The Pixles is of a more recent variety, but he, too, relies on the visual familiarity conferred by tremendous celebrity. Each print in the series reproduces the iconic art of a Beatles album cover at life size (12 x 12 inches) but extremely low resolution (12 x 12 pixels). Like celebrities themselves, perhaps, the images look more familiar to the eye at a distance than close-up.
Unidentified maker
U. S. Grant
c. 1862
Albumen silver print
George Eastman Museum, Purchase
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
A Council of War at Massaponax Church, Va. 21st May, 1864. Gens. Grant and Meade, Asst. Sec. of War Dana, and Their Staff Officers
1864
From the series Photographic Incidents of the War
Albumen silver print stereograph
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Albert Morton Turner
Modern celebrities live apart from the general public, yet their faces are more familiar than those of the neighbors next door. Since the mid-nineteenth century, viewers have come to “know” the famous through accumulated photographic sightings, which come in formats and contexts that vary as much as real-life encounters do. First as a Union hero in the American Civil War and later as president, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) lived in the public imagination through news images, popular stereographs, campaign buttons, and ultimately the (photo-based) face on the $50 bill. Grant was even a subject for Francois Willème’s patented process for generating a sculpted likeness out of photographs made in the round – an early forerunner to the technology of 3-D printing.
Jonathan Lewis (British, b. 1970)
Abbey Road
2003
From The Pixles
Inkjet print
George Eastman Museum, By exchange with the artist
Jonathan Lewis (British, b. 1970)
Please Please Me
2003
From The Pixles
Inkjet print
George Eastman Museum, By exchange with the artist
Jonathan Lewis (British, b. 1970)
Rubber Soul
2003
From The Pixles
Inkjet print
George Eastman Museum, By exchange with the artist
Synecdoche is a poetic device in which a part stands in for the whole. (In the phrase “three sails set forth,” sails mean ships.) In four images that would have communicated instantly to their intended viewers in 1966, Ducatez portrayed the Beatles solely through close-ups of their mouths. The graphic shorthand Lewis employs in his series The Pixles is of a more recent variety, though he, too, relies on the visual familiarity conferred by tremendous celebrity. Each print in the series reproduces a Beatles album cover at life size (12 x 12 inches) but extremely low resolution (12 x 12 pixels).
VII. Meaning is on the Surface
Photographs are not just windows onto the world but pieces of paper, which can themselves be inscribed or otherwise altered in ways that enrich or amend their meaning. The group portrait Joint Meeting of the Railway Surgeons Association, Claypool Hotel, Indianapolis (1920) is contact printed, meaning that the negative was the same size as the print. After the portrait sitting, the photographer appears to have presented the developed film to the sixty-four sitters for signing during the three days they were assembled for their convention. The result is a document that unites two conventional signifiers of character: facial features and the autograph.
Gravelle Studio, Indianapolis (American, active 1920)
Joint Meeting of the Railway Surgeons Association, Claypool Hotel, Indianapolis
1920
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased as the gift of Peter J. Cohen
Panoramic group portraits such as this are made using a banquet camera, which admits light through a narrow vertical slit while rotating on its tripod. This image was contact printed, meaning the negative was the same size as the print. The photographer appears to have presented the developed film to the sixty-four sitters for signing during the three days they were assembled. The result is a document that unites two conventional signifiers of character: facial features and the autograph.
Keith Smith (American, b. 1938)
Book 151
1989
Bound book of gelatin silver prints, thread, and leather
Collection of Richard and Ronay Menschel
This unique object unites the arts of photography, quilting, and bookmaking. The composite image on each right-hand page appears to be made of prints cut apart and sewn together. In fact, Smith began by printing patchwork-inspired photomontages in the darkroom. He then stitched along many of the borders where abutting images meet, creating the illusion of a photographic crazy quilt.
VIII. Photography and the Page
News of the world took on a newly visual character in the 1880s, when the technology of the halftone screen made it practical, at last, to render photographs in ink on the printed page.
Among the earliest examples of photojournalism is Paul Nadar’s (1820-1910) “photographic interview” with Georges Ernest Boulanger, a once-powerful French politician. The article’s introduction explains that the photographs were printed alongside the text in order to provide evidence of the encounter and to illustrate Boulanger’s dynamic body language during the conversation.
Stephen Henry Horgan (American, 1854-1941)
Shanty Town
April 1880
Photomechanical printing plate A Scene in Shantytown, New York, c. 1928
Lithograph
George Eastman Museum, Gift of 3M Foundation; Ex-collection of Louis Walton Sipley
Paul Nadar (French, 1856-1939)
Interview with Georges Ernest Jean Marie Boulanger
1889
Le Figaro, 23 November 1889
Photomechanical reproduction
George Eastman Museum, gift of Eastman Kodak Company; ex-collection Gabriel Cromer
Among the earliest examples of photojournalism is Nadar’s “photographic interview” with Georges Ernest Boulanger, a once-powerful French politician who had fallen out of public favour by the time this was published. The article’s introduction explains that the photographs were printed alongside the text in order to provide evidence of the encounter and to illustrate Boulanger’s body language during the conversation.
Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874-1940)
Italian Family Looking for Lost Baggage, Ellis Island
1905
Ellis Island Group, 1905
Gelatin silver print
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Photo League Lewis Hine Memorial Committee
In an effort to counter American xenophobia in the early years of the twentieth century, Hine photographed immigrants as they arrived at Ellis Island, composing his images to stir sympathy and understanding among viewers. He understood the importance of disseminating his photographs and actively sought to publish them in newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets. The white outline in the photograph on the right instructs the designer and printer where to crop the image for a photomontage featuring figures from multiple portraits.
Claude Cahun (French, 1894-1954)
La Poupée (Puppet)
1936
Gelatin silver print
Collection of Richard and Ronay Menschel
John Heartfield (German, 1891-1968)
Hurrah, die Butter ist alle! (Hooray, the Butter Is Finished!)
1935
Rotogravure
George Eastman Museum, purchase
This is one of 237 photomontages that Heartfield created between 1930 and 1938 for the antifascist magazine Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (Worker’s Pictorial Newspaper). It is a parody of the “Guns Before Butter” speech in which Hermann G.ring exhorted German citizens to sacrifice necessities in order to aid the nation’s rearmament. The text reads: “Iron ore has always made an empire strong; butter and lard have at most made a people fat.” Heartfield combined details from several photographs to conjure the image of a German family feasting on tools, machine parts, and a bicycle in a swastika-laden dining room, complete with a portrait of Hitler, a framed phrase from a popular Franco-Prussian war-era song, and a throw pillow bearing the likeness of recently deceased president Paul von Hindenburg.
Unidentified maker
Certificate of Marriage between Daniel W. Gibbs and Matilda B. Pierce
c. 1874
Tintypes in prepared paper mount
George Eastman Museum, Purchase
Graphic cousins to one other, these wedding certificates are equipped with precut windows for photographs of the bride, groom, and officiant. The portraits, in partnership with the printed and inscribed text on the forms, contribute both to the documentary specificity of the certificates and to their value as sentimental souvenirs.
IX. Empire of Signs
The plethora of signs, symbols, and visual noise endemic to cities has attracted photographers since the medium’s invention. Their records of advertisers’ strident demands for attention, shopkeepers’ alluring displays, and the often dizzying architectural density of metropolitan life chronicle sights that are subject to change without notice. The photographer’s perspective on contemporary social life – whether it is anecdotal, as in John Thompson’s (1837-1921) Street Advertising from Street Life in London (1877), or haunting, as in Eugène Atget’s (1857-1927) Impasse des Bourdonnais (c. 1908) – is embedded in each image.
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921)
Street Advertising
1877
From Street Life in London, 1877
Woodburytype
George Eastman Museum, Gift of Alden Scott Boyer
Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Impasse des Bourdonnais
c. 1908
Albumen silver print
George Eastman Museum, Purchase
Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
At the Time of the Louisville Flood
1937
Gelatin silver print
George Eastman Museum
The plethora of signs, symbols, and visual noise endemic to cities has attracted photographers since the medium’s invention. Their records of advertisers’ strident demands for attention, shopkeepers’ alluring displays, and the often dizzying architectural density of metropolitan life chronicle sights that are subject to change without notice. The photographer’s perspective on contemporary social life – whether it is ironic, as in Margaret Bourke-White’s image of a line of flood victims before a billboard advertising middle-class prosperity, or bemused, as in Ferenc Berko’s photograph of columns of oversized artificial teeth on the street – is embedded in each image.
Ferenc Berko (American born Hungary, 1916-2000)
Rawalpindi, India
1946
Gelatin silver print
George Eastman House, Gift of Katharine Kuh
Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
New York 6
1951
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Richard and Ronay Menschel
Alex Webb (American, b. 1952)
India
1981
Chromogenic development print
George Eastman Museum, Purchased with funds from Charina Foundation
The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street
New York, NY 10016-3405
Phone: (212) 685-0008
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Thursday, Saturday – Sunday: 10.30am – 5pm
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The Morgan Library & Museum website
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Art Blart 
Exhibition: ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Transportation Photographs from the National Galleries of Scotland’ at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
Tags: 49 Jets, aerial photographer, aerial photography, Aerial view of Edinburgh, Alfred G Buckham, Alfred G. Buckham Aerial view of Edinburgh, Alfred G. Buckham Cloud Turrets, Alfred G. Buckham R100, Alfred G. Buckham Sunshine and Showers, Alfred G. Buckham The Forth Bridge, Alfred Stieglitz, Alfred Stieglitz The Steerage, Black Camel, Brian Souter, British art, British photographer, British photography, Cloud Turrets, David Williams, David Williams Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Dieter Appelt, Dieter Appelt Forth Bridge - Cinema. Metric Space, Edinburgh Bus Queue, Eugene Clutterbuck Impey, Eugene Clutterbuck Impey Riding Camel with trappings, Evelyn George Carey, Evelyn George Carey The Forth Bridge, Evelyn George Carey Two Seated Men Raising a Boy up to Demonstrate the Cantilever Principle, Forth Bridge, Forth Bridge - Cinema. Metric Space, Glasgow, Humphrey Spender, Iain Mackenzie, Iain Mackenzie Man on the Metro Glasgow, Iain Mackenzie Radiator of Vehicle, Iain Mackenzie Ticket Office Glasgow Metro, Inchgarvie South Cantilver, inge morath, Inge Morath Mrs Eveleigh Nash, Jeffrey Milstein, Jeffrey Milstein 49 Jets, Man on a Bicycle, Man on the Metro, Man on the Metro Glasgow, modernist composition, Mrs Eveleigh Nash, New York Subway 1975, Planes Trains & Automobiles, Planes Trains & Automobiles Transportation Photographs from the National Galleries of Scotland, R100, Radiator of Vehicle, Richard Hough, Richard Hough Edinburgh Bus Queue, Riding Camel with trappings, Ross Gillespie, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scottish art, Scottish artist, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Scottish photography, Sean Hudson, Sean Hudson New York Subway 1975, Sir Benjamin Baker, Sir John Fowler, social commentary, Sunshine and Showers, The Forth Bridge, The Steerage, Ticket Office Glasgow Metro, transport photography, Transportation Photographs from the National Galleries of Scotland, Tricia Malley, Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie, Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie Brian Souter, Two Seated Men Raising a Boy up to Demonstrate the Cantilever Principle
Exhibition dates: 2nd June 2018 – 13th January 2019
Iain Mackenzie (Scottish, b. 1950)
Man on the Metro, Glasgow
c. 1980
Silver gelatin print
36.5 x 24.6cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Scottish Arts Council Gift 1997
© Iain Mackenzie
The highlights for me in this posting, and probably in the exhibition if I actually saw it, are the works of Alfred G. Buckham and Iain Mackenzie.
The first, a daredevil, crash-prone pilot who trained as a painter and then became the leading aerial photographer of his day, renowned for his atmospheric shots of the landscape. “Over the years Buckham amassed a vast collection of photographs of skies which he could integrate with a separate landscape photograph to enhance the drama and create a more impressive composition. He also often manipulated his images further by adding hand painted aircraft… which heightens the viewer’s awareness of the dominating power and scale of the natural world.”
These ever so romantic constructions are, in effect, flights of fancy. Buckingham wanted them to be as accurate as possible to ‘the effect that I saw’ through effect – he “collaged or hand-painted the form of a tiny aircraft to enhance the vertiginous effect” and also to enhance the surreal nature of nature. Just imagine the skill needed to combine multiple negatives and then hand-paint aircraft and airships, such as the R100 below, at the correct scale and delicate composition into the photographic image. Impressive not just from a technical perspective (the taking of the photographs; the montaging of the negatives) – but also from an aesthetic, sensual and spiritual perspective of the land and the air, the clouds and the sky. The stuff we breathe and the clouds that we observe everyday.
Speaking of the everyday, the second artist that I admire in this posting for his down to earth photographs of everyday life, is Iain Mackenzie. You can see many more of his photographs than are in this posting on the National Galleries of Scotland website. Notice the isolated figures in the brittle, urban landscape – the large, empty white-washed windows, the large signs, the “weight” of the heavy space that hangs above the grounded figures: The Cabin Restaurant, Shoe Repairs, The Govan Restaurant, Enjoy Your Seafood in Comfort!
The desolate streets of downtown Glasgow where the Shoe Repair Shop man stares straight at the camera, while his sign proclaims ~ Long Life ~ Repair Specialist. I absolutely love this type of photography, it washes over me and refreshes me, it seeps into my bones and lives there. Because I grew up belonging to this “working class”; they are me when I was young. We had no hot water when I was a child, my mother used to boil the kettle on the stove and fill a bath tub on the kitchen floor to bathe us kids, we were that poor. There is a grittiness about these people, resilience and fortitude, charm on occasion, that Mackenzie captures perfectly. Just look at the faces of the people on the Glasgow Metro. It’s a tough life.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
.
Many thankx to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Planes, Trains & Automobiles is the third in a series of thematic exhibitions exploring the exceptional permanent collection of photography at the National Galleries of Scotland.
Navigating land, sea and air, this exhibition takes a look at the variety of modes of transport used around the world from the 1840s onwards. This is a truly global look at travel, from pedal power to commercial airliners, via cars, horse-drawn carriages, sleighs, buses, and the occasional camel!
Through work by the likes of Alfred G. Buckham, Humphrey Spender and Alfred Stieglitz we examine how photography has been used to chart the technological innovations created by the desire to travel and the impact that transportation has on society. The exhibition shows how transport is part of our everyday lives, from the daily grind of commuting to the pleasure of holidays away.
Evelyn George Carey (British, 1858-1932)
The Forth Bridge. Two Seated Men Raising a Boy up to Demonstrate the Cantilever Principle
September 17th 1885 (print by Michael and Barbara Gray 2007)
Digital inkjet print from negative
46.40 x 58cm
© National Records of Scotland
During the construction of the Forth Bridge, the young engineer Evelyn George Carey was given privileged access to the site in order to make a comprehensive photographic record of the bridge’s development. It was hoped that this visual documentation would restore public confidence in British engineering following the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. In this photograph Carey uses volunteers, possibly the architects of the bridge Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, to demonstrate the cantilever principle. If you look closely you can see that the boy’s weight is sufficiently supported for his feet to rise off the ground – just as the cantilevers support the central girder of the bridge.
Evelyn George Carey (British, 1858-1932)
The Forth Bridge. Inchgarvie South Cantilver
September 21st 1889 (print by Michael and Barbara Gray 2007)
Digital inkjet print from negative
46.40 x 58.00cm
Commissioned 2007
© National Records of Scotland
The building of the Forth Bridge was celebrated in its day as “a triumph of engineering skill to eclipse the Ship Canal which has turned Africa into an island and a work which will reduce the pyramids to mere child’s play”. Following the disastrous collapse of the Tay Bridge in 1879, the engineers, John Fowler and Benjamin Baker, proposed a revolutionary design. The project was observed and controlled through photography. The official photographer was Evelyn George Carey, who was the assistant engineer from 1883-1890. His pictures express the labour, tensions and hazards of the project. Together, his photographs create a sequence, following and examining the course of the construction with a critical eye, and offer an understanding of the later, Modernist fascination with such structures.
Dieter Appelt (German, b. 1935)
Forth Bridge – Cinema. Metric Space, 2004
2004
312 silver gelatin prints, framed in eight panels
150 x 400cm (individual framed panels: 48 x 150 x 4cm)
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased 2006
© Dieter Appelt
It was during a journey through Scotland in 1976 that Appelt first saw the Forth Rail Bridge. It made an immediate impact and he began to imagine a film work based on its construction. He returned to the project in 2002, producing a precisely composed photographic montage of the Rail Bridge comprising 312 separate black and white prints. Appelt then began by making a 35mm film, running the camera along the parallel Road Bridge. For the artist, the piece “emerges like a musical score from the filmic frame”, constructing a formal complexity as intricate as the physical laws that govern the original structure. This work lends an expressive weight both to photography and the conceptualisation of one of Scotland’s iconic monuments.
Dieter Appelt (born Niemegk, 3 March 1935) is a German photographer, painter, sculptor and video artist.
He studied music from 1954 to 1958 in the Mendelssohn Bartholdy Akademie in Leipzig. There, he discovers and develops a strong interest for Impressionism, Fauvism, and Russian constructivism. In 1959, he leaves East Germany and settles in West Berlin to study in the music school of Berlin until 1964. That same year, he decides to study fine art and he takes his first steps in painting, photography, etching, and sculpture. In the 1970s, he makes his appearance on the public stage, with his first exhibition at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1974. In 1976 he focuses on visual arts and his career as an artist takes off. Appelt is also known for his works on the mechanics and techniques of photography that he made in the 1980s. In 1990 and 1999, he took part in the Venice Biennale. During this decade, Dieter Appelt exhibited in several major capitals of the world including: Tokyo, New-York, Berlin, Moscow, Budapest, Montreal, and Edinburgh. He lives and works in Berlin.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Eugene Clutterbuck Impey (1830-1904)
Riding Camel with trappings. The figure on foot is a Rajpoot Thakoor
1858-1865
Albumen print
15.4 x 20.4cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Gift of Mrs. Riddell in memory of Peter Fletcher Riddell, 1985
The British Government began to build a photographic record of India in 1855. At first this was a random selection of images of important architectural and archaeological sites, produced by amateur photographers working as government officials and amateurs alike. From the 1860s images of Indian society were also added to this archive. Impey, a government colonial official as well as a skilled photographer, made numerous portraits illustrating characteristic Indian types and activities. This scene of a royal court invokes a sense of a timeless Indian past. Such ‘exotic’ scenes were popular with Victorian Britons.
Unknown photographer
Man on a Bicycle
c. 1910
Silver gelatin print
15.30 x 10.80cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Gift of Mrs. Riddell in memory of Peter Fletcher Riddell 1985
In the late nineteenth century cycling became a popular leisure activity. This was in part due to the introduction of the pneumatic tyre, patented in 1888 by the Ayrshire-born John Dunlop. This made bicycles more reliable and less expensive. Cycling clubs formed across Europe and America and for many women cycling provided unprecedented mobility and freedom. In recent years cycling has seen a resurgence in popularity amongst both sports enthusiasts and commuters.
Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Steerage
1907
Photogravure
19.5 x 15.7cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Presented by Mrs Elizabeth Uldall in memory of her sister, Ruth Anderson 1998
© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / DACS 2017
Stieglitz was sailing to Europe in 1907 and found the company of other first class passengers unbearable. One day as he was trying to avoid them, he walked to the end of his deck and looked down into the part of the ship which accommodated the poor passengers. He perceived the ordinary men and women as flashes of colour dotted in among the geometric shapes of ‘iron machinery’. Moved and fascinated by this sight, he raced to his cabin and returned with his camera to take a picture that to him constituted a step in his ‘own evolution’.
The extraordinary advances in the technology of travel over the past 170 years, and their wide-ranging impact on our lives are the subject of a dramatic and inspiring new exhibition of photographs at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery this summer. Planes, Trains and Automobiles draws upon the outstanding collection of the National Galleries of Scotland to consider the rapid expansion of transportation from the end of the Industrial Revolution to the present day. It features 70 outstanding images, including key images by Alfred G Buckham and Alfred Stieglitz, which demonstrate how the technologies of photography and transport have evolved in tandem, each of them broadening our horizons and radically altering our perception of our ever-shrinking world.
The exhibition includes iconic photographs such as The Steerage, a career-defining image by the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), made in 1907, while he was travelling to Europe by sea; and Inge Morath’s striking portrait Mrs Eveleigh Nash, The Mall, London (1953). Walking on the first-class deck, Stieglitz looked down into the third-class steerage area below him. Immediately struck by the strength of the composition created by the group of travellers gathered there, he quickly retrieved his camera, and captured the jarring class divide. Celebrated both for its modernist composition and its social commentary, the resulting photograph is one of the most recognisable images in the history of photography. Similarly, Morath (1923-2002), one of the first female photographers to work for renowned photo agency Magnum, used the door frame of an open-topped car to artfully divide her composition, suggesting the social gulf between the wealthy Mrs Nash and her chauffeur.
One of aerial photography’s pioneers was Alfred G. Buckham (1879-1956) who took breath-taking photographs in the skies above Edinburgh. Just as fascinating as his photographs, are Buckham’s dare-devil techniques to capture the perfect shot. He gave this sage advice to budding aerial photographers: ‘It is essential to stand up, not only to make the exposures but to see what is coming along ahead. If one’s right leg is tied to the seat with a scarf or a piece of rope, it is possible to work in perfect security’. Buckham also pioneered early layering of multiple negatives to create the perfect shot giving his photographs an ethereal, otherworldly quality.
The Industrial Revolution led to the rapid expansion of the railways, which had a huge impact on the way that people lived and worked and led to the expansion of many towns and cities. As early as 1845, the railway line in Linlithgow was photographed by David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848), who travelled by train to document the main sights of the town.
The Forth Bridge was the longest bridge in the world when it opened in 1890 and it is now widely regarded as a symbol of Scottish innovation and cultural identity. Radical in style, materials and scale, it marked an important milestone in bridge design and construction during the period when railways came to dominate long-distance land travel. Evelyn George Carey (1858-1932), a young engineer working on the construction of the bridge, made an incredible series of photographs as the building work progressed. In one of these photographs Carey records the amusing sight of two men demonstrating the cantilever principle – resulting in the boy sitting at the centre of the ‘bridge’ being lifted into the air. This series of photographs inspired the German contemporary photographer Dieter Appelt (b. 1935) to make Forth Bridge – Cinema. Metric Space – a photographic montage of 312 separate silver gelatine prints which together offer a beautiful, lyrical interpretation of an engineering masterpiece.
Another innovation explored in Planes, Trains and Automobiles is the Victorian phenomenon of the stereograph. Made of two nearly identical scenes, which when viewed together in a special device, create a single three-dimensional image, this new photographic technology essentially mimicked how we see the world. It sparked curiosity and encouraged the public to view images of far-flung places from the comfort of their own home. The natural association between travel and transport meant that modes of transport were one of the most popular themes for stereographs. This exhibition features over 100 stereographs from the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection in a dynamic wall display, alongside digital interpretations.
524 million journeys were made by public transport in Scotland last year and Planes, Trains and Automobiles explores this common form of travel. Photographers have been repeatedly drawn to the theme of commuting, fascinated by its ability to show humanity in movement, following regulated routes to work. Among these are documentary photographers Humphrey Spender (1910-2005) and Larry Herman (b. 1942) who both made work observing Glasgow and Glasweigians on their the daily commute. From photographs of the iconic Forth Bridge to images of commuting, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a photographic celebration of transportation in all its forms.
“his is the third in a hugely popular series of thematic exhibitions drawn entirely from the outstanding collection of photography held by the National Galleries of Scotland. The carefully selected photographs on display show how technology and transport have impacted on so many aspects of our lives and provided such a rich and thought-provoking focus for outstanding Scottish and international photographers, from very earliest days of the medium to today’s innovators.” ~ Christopher Baker, Director, European and Scottish Art and Portraiture, National Galleries of Scotland
Press release from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Alfred G. Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
R100
c. 1920
Silver gelatin print
38.50 x 46cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund 2008
© Richard and John Buckham
Buckham was the leading aerial photographer of his day and was renowned for his atmospheric shots of the landscape. He felt that the most spectacular cloud formations and theatrical light could be captured on “stormy days, with bursts of sunshine and occasional showers of rain”. This is an example of one of his shots of an impressive cloud formation. It features the R100 airship, noted for its more oval, aerodynamic shape in comparison to the traditional Zeppelin. The R100 embarked on its maiden flight in 1929 but in 1930 it was deflated and removed from service following the crash of her sister ship, the R101, with the loss of forty-eight lives. Buckham painted the airship into the scene by hand.
Alfred G. Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Cloud Turrets
c. 1920
Silver gelatin print
38 x 45.7cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund 2008
© Richard and John Buckham
This dramatic, and almost surreal photograph, shows the diversity of cloud formations during a fierce thunderstorm. Over the years Buckham amassed a vast collection of photographs of skies which he could integrate with a separate landscape photograph to enhance the drama and create a more impressive composition. He also often manipulated his images further by adding hand painted aircraft, such as in this image, which heightens the viewer’s awareness of the dominating power and scale of the natural world.
Alfred G. Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Sunshine, and Showers
c. 1920
Silver gelatin print
45.5 x 37.7cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund 2008
© Richard and John Buckham
This image shows Captain Jordan flying his ‘Black Camel’ biplane at very close proximity to Buckham’s aircraft. Taken over the landscape around Rosyth, this was near to where Buckham crashed for the ninth time in 1918 and sustained serious injuries.
Alfred G. Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
The Forth Bridge
c. 1920
Silver gelatin print
46 x 38cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund 2008
© Richard and John Buckham
Over the years he amassed a vast collection of photographs of skies which he integrated with a separate landscape photograph to enhance the drama and create a more impressive composition. This image over the Firth of Forth, encapsulates the romantic fusion of man’s engineering achievements against the dramatic beauty of nature. The three steel arches of the Forth Rail Bridge are mirrored in the three biplanes, which Buckham added later by hand, silhouetted against the spectacular sky.
About Alfred G. Buckham’s art
From the earliest days of manned flight, photographers sought to capture the strange and unfamiliar beauty of the view from above. Whether it was from balloons, airships or later, fixed-wing aircraft, enterprising pioneers overcame formidable technical obstacles to create striking new images of the world below. It was, however, through warfare in the twentieth century that aerial photography came to prominence. Alfred Buckham’s remarkable body of work in the air had its origins in a brief, eventful career with the Royal Navy in the last phase of the First World War, but he was also able to develop a highly personal approach that combined his skills in documentary reconnaissance with an artist’s feeling for mood and atmosphere.
Born in London, Buckham’s first ambition was to become a painter but after seeing an exhibition of work by J.M.W. Turner at the National Gallery he apparently destroyed all his own work. He turned instead to photography and in 1917 was enlisted into the photographic division of the Royal Navy. He was stationed first at Turnhouse near Edinburgh and was later transferred to the Grand Fleet based at Rosyth on the Firth of Forth. On his missions he took two cameras, one for his technical photography for the Navy and the other for personal use. Flying over Scotland he took numerous photographs of cloud formations, hilly landscapes and views of towns, often seeking out extremes of weather to add drama to his subject matter.
Buckham’s aerial view of Edinburgh has become one of the most popular photographs in our collection. The view is taken from the west, with the castle in the foreground and the buildings of the Old Town along the Royal Mile gradually fading into a bank of mist with the rocky silhouette of Arthur’s Seat just visible in the distance. Buckham was always keen to capture strong contrasts of light and dark, often combining the skies and landscapes from separate photographs to achieve a theatrical effect. As he does here, he sometimes collaged or hand-painted the form of a tiny aircraft to enhance the vertiginous effect. Yet accuracy remained a concern; Buckham later professed a particular fondness for his view of Edinburgh, ‘because it presents, so nearly, the effect that I saw’.
In the early days of flight, aerial reconnaissance was a hazardous task. Buckham crashed nine times and in 1919 was discharged out of the Royal Navy as one hundred per cent disabled. However, he continued to practise aerial photography through the 1920s, and in 1931 he travelled to Central and South America to take photographs for an American magazine, a commission that resulted in a remarkable series of views of mountain ranges and snow-rimmed volcanoes. In his journals and in various magazine articles, Buckham conveyed a spirit of adventure and derring-do that is not for the faint-hearted or those with a fear of flying. In an article dating from 1927 he wrote:
“It is not easy to tumble out of an aeroplane, unless you really want to, and on considerably more than a thousand flights I have used a safety belt only once and then it was thrust upon me. I always stand up to make an exposure and, taking the precaution to tie my right leg to the seat, I am free to move about rapidly, and easily, in any desired direction; and loop the loop and indulge in other such delights, with perfect safety.”
This text was originally published in 100 Masterpieces: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2015.
Alfred G. Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Aerial view of Edinburgh
c. 1920
Silver gelatin print
45.80 x 37.8cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased 1990
© Richard and John Buckham
Photo: Antonia Reeve
Buckham had crashed nine times before he was discharged from the Royal Naval Air Service as a hundred per cent disabled. Continuing to indulge his passion for aerial photography, he wrote that “If one’s right leg is tied to the seat with a scarf or a piece of rope, it is possible to work in perfect security”. Presumably these were the perilous conditions in which the photographer took this dazzling picture of Edinburgh.
Inge Morath (Austrian, 1923-2002)
Mrs Eveleigh Nash, The Mall, London, 1953
1953
Silver gelatin print
40.6 x 50.8cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased 2001
© Inge Morath / Magnum Photos
This is a very elegant composition, with an element of surrealism. It seems to have two perspectives and two vanishing points – the avenue of trees and the little figures on the left inhabit another world from the terrace of the houses on the right. The wealthy Mrs Eveleigh Nash in the foreground is, unexpectedly, shown as a shy woman. The two men in conversation walking by and the distant figures on the left are not so much a background as other lives being lived at the same time.
Sean Hudson (British, 1935-1997)
New York Subway 1975
1975
Silver gelatin print
25.4 x 38.4cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Presented by Robin Gillanders
© Sean Hudson
The New York subway was officially opened in 1904, forty-one years after the London Underground and eight years after the Glasgow Subway. It is now one of the largest underground systems in the world. In this atmospheric photograph, Hudson captures the often claustrophobic experience of travelling underground with hundreds of other people.
Iain Mackenzie (Scottish, b. 1950)
Ticket Office, Glasgow Metro
1980s
Silver gelatin print
24.4 x 36.5cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Scottish Arts Council Gift 1997
© Iain Mackenzie
In the 1980s Mackenzie made a series of photographs depicting life in Glasgow, several of which show Glaswegians navigating the subway on their way to work. The Glasgow Subway opened in 1896, making it one of the world’s first underground systems.
Iain Mackenzie (Scottish, b. 1950)
Radiator of Vehicle, Glasgow
Nd
Silver gelatin print
24.8 x 37cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Scottish Arts Council Gift 1997
© Iain Mackenzie
Ian MacKenzie & the School of Scottish Studies
The internationally renowned archives of the School of Scottish Studies, based at the University of Edinburgh, were established in 1951 for the collection, research, archiving and publication of materials relating to the cultural life and traditions of Scotland. …
The Photographic Archive contains thousands of images from all over Scotland and beyond. Notable collections include work by Werner Kissling in the Hebrides and Galloway and Robert Atkinson’s images of the Western Isles. Ian MacKenzie’s extensive ethnological record, containing both still and video footage of local customs, festivals and working life, resides alongside his portfolio of fine art photography, of which the School of Scottish Studies Archives is custodian.
MacKenzie was born in Inverness and grew up in the distillery village of Tomatin, Strathdearn. He graduated from Napier College and went on to London to obtain a masters degree in photography from the Royal College of Art. Throughout his life, his devotion to the Highlands inspired him to capture the essence of Scottish culture in his artwork, even when travelling abroad. He came to work at the School of Scottish Studies in 1985, where he was curator of the Photographic Archive for nearly twenty-five years. Aside from maintaining the existing collections, he travelled all over Scotland capturing scenes and customs on the edge of extinction.
His photos reflect his belief that there is always room for the appreciation of the important things in life that are so often overlooked. His project ZenBends reflected this philosophy by focusing on the quality of day-to-day life rather than the constant pursuit of a final goal.
The Ian MacKenzie Memorial Fund was established after his passing in 2009 and all proceeds go to the School of Scottish Studies Archives.
Talitha MacKenzie. Broadsheet Issue 22, January 2013 on the Scottish Council on Archives website [Online] Cited 20/06/2018. No longer available online
More Iain Mackenzie photographs
Richard Hough (Scottish born America, 1945-1985)
Edinburgh Bus Queue
Nd
Silver gelatin print
20.2 x 30cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Presented by the Scottish Arts Council 1997
© The Estate of the Artist
Richard Hough (Scottish born America, 1945-1985)
Edinburgh Bus Queue
Nd
Silver gelatin print
20.2 x 30cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Presented by the Scottish Arts Council 1997
© The Estate of the Artist
David Williams (Scottish, b. 1952)
Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
1980
Silver gelatin print
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased 1997
© David Williams
For many of us, being pushed in a pram is the first mode of transport we will experience. In this carefully composed photograph it appears that the baby is joined in the pram by a statue of the Madonna and Child and an elderly man – prompting us to contemplate the different stages of life. In 1980, when this photograph was taken, Inverleith House in the Royal Botanic Garden was home to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The collection was moved to its current location on Belford Road in 1984. The sculpture seen in this photograph, La Vierge d’Alsace (The Virgin of Alsace) by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, can now been found in the grounds of Modern Two.
Tricia Malley (Scottish, b. 1955) and Ross Gillespie (Scottish, b. 1958)
Brian Souter
1998
Colour inkjet print
38.3 x 50.8cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, purchased 2009
© Tricia Malley & Ross Gillespie
Sir Brian Souter (born 5 May 1954) is a Scottish businessman and philanthropist. With his sister, Ann Gloag, he founded the Stagecoach Group of bus and rail operators. He also founded the bus and coach operator Megabus, the train operating company South West Trains, his investments company Souter Holdings Ltd and the Souter Charitable Trust. (Wikipedia)
Jeffrey Milstein (American, b. 1944)
49 Jets
2007
Archival pigment print
101.6 x 101.6cm
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland
© Jeffrey Milstein
Jeffrey Milstein is a photographer, architect and pilot. His photographic work reflects both his lifelong passion for flight (he received his pilot’s licence when only seventeen years old) and his love of architecture. Milstein utilises small planes and helicopters to create stunning aerial photographs which display a graphic designer’s eye for geometry and design. In addition to photographing from aircraft Milstein has also produced a body of work in which aircraft are the subject of the photograph. For these Milstein positions himself below the aircraft and photographs them as they pass overhead, preparing to land. In the resulting prints Milstein removes the background to better focus on the colours and design of the aircraft. Milstein’s photographs have been exhibited and published worldwide.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh EH2 1JD
Phone: +44 131 624 6200
Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery website
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