Exhibition: ‘Martin Parr: Global Warning’ at Jeu de Paume, Paris

“Through his surreal, dream sequences captured in pop colour, punctum laden reality, Parr observed the absurdities of life on this planet…” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 30th January – 24th May, 2026

Curators: Quentin Bajac, in collaboration with Martin Parr and Clémentine de la Féronnière

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
United Arab Emirates, Dubai
2007
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

“Life is an act of consumption.

To consume is to live.”

From the film Jupiter Ascending 2015

“We are living in a time when, to borrow a phrase and book title of Sigmund Freud’s, civilization and its discontents are becoming painfully evident to us all. Our machine age technology with its private greed, ecologically disastrous policies, crass materialism, human alienation, incessant strife and conflict, and the portent of man’s destroying himself by his own recklessness, is taking its toll in terms of our confidence and optimism about life. …

John Anson Warner. “Introduction” to The Life & Art of the North American Indian. London: Hamlyn, 1975, p. 6.

A bewitching eye / the unfolding moment

A bewitching eye refers to eyes that are so powerfully, seductively attractive or charming that they appear to cast a spell, mesmerising or enchanting an onlooker. They possess an irresistible, magnetic allure that captivates the viewer, having an almost magical ability to draw someone in. This description could metaphorically be applied to the photographs of the legendary (and I don’t use that word lightly) contemporary British photographer Martin Parr (1952-2025).

Parr was an observer of life with a socially critical eye. Through his surreal, dream sequences captured in pop colour, punctum laden reality, Parr observed the absurdities of life on this planet – human, animal, inanimate – with curiosity and a sense of wonder even while questioning our path to destruction. While this exhibition is split into various sections – Leisure & waste lands; Last Chance To Buy; Small World; The Animal Kingdom; and Technological Addictions – in reality most of his images from each of the sections could fit into any other, for the whole world is interconnected in the excesses and grotesqueness of modern life, of civilization and its discontents.

Parr’s exploration of the pyschogeography of the urbanscape, the exploration of urban environments that emphasises interpersonal connections to places, is damming in its technicolor coat of glory. Mass tourism takes us to leisure spaces like the beach where technology is used to take selfies and mountains of waste pile up near the water’s edge. Mass human, mass cultivation (of palm oil or eucalyptus trees for example) is causing mass extinction of species across the planet. Mass consumption means that we are using the Earth’s resources indiscriminately to fuel (ha!) our desire for the latest, larger four-wheel drive we can get our hands on, the latest fashions that end up in landfill every 6 month cycle when they are not bought, or the brightest, pinkest, must luscious cup cakes you have ever seen in your life.

Parr’s colour saturated photos draw us into this consumptive world where the body is racked by disease, where the patient will soon be on life support. Through his mesmerising, enchanting, multilicious photographs he pokes a great big subversive stick at our follies, excesses, self-destructive desires. Unfortunately, while Parr’s photos seep into our subconscious, most images have little power to change public and personal opinion – all they can do is proffer alternate visions and interpretations of the world and hope that some glimmer of recognition of the environmental damage we are doing will permeate the mind of the viewer.

Of course, Parr’s famous photographs did not appear out of thin air. He was a dedicated photographer whose art practice required years of hard work, talent and skill to obtain his images. He emphasises that, “you have to look at the history of photography and learn what they have done and achieved and apply that, think about it and have it in the back of your head and then you can apply that to your own work.” By doing that, “you may have the rare opportunity actually to develop your own voice, and you can become a photographer with a particular voice.”

“What you are going to do, of course, is to find a good connection to the world out there. It is the quality of that connection that is really important. So, you find a subject you feel strongly about. Then work out how to articulate that and that hopefully will give you momentum for you to get good work.”

Nothing comes without hard work and perseverance.

In the video below where he is giving advice to young photographers he states that he might get only ten great photographs a year, sometimes only one, but he shoots heap of photographs and then discards the dross. What he also says that is really important is that he is attentive to the unfolding moment, he is aware and ready for what the energy of the world puts in front of his eye and his camera. If only the human race was so aware.

Parr was a human being that I would have really liked to have met. To have a conversation about the energy of the world, the passion and commitment of human beings to do good things, to see things differently, to make a difference.

We have his images for as long as the human race exists. But I miss him already.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Ireland 1980-1983

While living in Ireland, Martin Parr became interested in the abandoned morris Minors – the emblematic car of the post-war British middle classes – found throughout the Irish countryside. Through his lens, the vehicles become a new motif of contemporary ruin: modern vanities symbolising the inevitable decline of progress, a subtle criticism of pollution linked to the automotive industry, an homage to the beauty of Irish landscapes, an almost optimistic meditation on the resilience of nature, and a celebration of human ingenuity. In this sense, the series offers an implicit history of both pollution and adaptation.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left the wall text “Leisure & Waste Lands” and at centre, Martin Parr’s Mar del Plata, Argentina (2014, below)

Leisure & Waste Lands

Beginning in the 1980s, Martin Parr relentlessly documented how contemporary landscapes are periodically or permanently reshaped by the expansion of mass leisure. Many of these works capture the coexistence and constant intermingling of natural and man-made elements.

Parr’s photography explores the interests of ordinary people, with whom he identified. Although he never learned to swim – unlike his wife Susie, who is an excellent swimmer – he spent a great deal of time on beaches, which feature prominently in his work. His first major colour series, ‘The Last Resort’, focuses on the popular seaside resort, New Brighton, near Liverpool. Parr would go on to pursue this theme across all five continents, producing some of his most incisive social critiques, from ‘Benidorm’ – capturing life at a sprawling resort on Spain’s Costa Blanca – to ‘Playas’ – a survey of Latin America’s most frequented beaches.

‘You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviour can be found,’ he wrote in 2013. For Parr, the beach setting became a field of experimentation, rarely appearing in his work as exotic or pristine, but instead as spaces rife with the contradictions of the leisure industry. At once convivial and chaotic, beaches are places of relaxation, paradoxically crowded with bodies, colours and – on might even say – noise. They are sites where we reproduce our ordinary urban habits, and where consumerism is inextricably bound up with trash and waste in every imaginable form: a highly photogenic subject that Parr faithfully captured from the very beginning of his career.

Wall text from the exhibition

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Mar del Plata, Argentina
2014
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

‘I first came to Mar del Plata, the largest Argentine seaside resort, way back in 2007 when I was shooting images for my ‘Playas’ project, a survey of Latin American beaches. I was amazed then at the scale of the resort. It has two thousand hotels, sixteen kilometres of beaches, and welcomes over seven million visitors a year. In terms of scale, Mar del Plata dwarfs other well-known resorts across the globe, including Copacabana, Blackpool and benidorm, yet it is virtually unknown beyond Argentina.’

From Martin parr’s blog, Mar del Pata, 2004
Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below); and at second left, Benidorm, Spain (1997)

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Tokyo, Japan (2000, below); at second left, Melbourne, Australia (2008); and at right, New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Tokyo, Japan
2000
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, United Kingdom
1983-85
From Last Resort
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photograph New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below); at at right, Mar del Plata, Argentina (2014)

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'New Brighton, England' 1983-1985 from the series 'The Last Resort'

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, United Kingdom
1983-85
From Last Resort
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Spending Time, Salford, England
1986
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at right, Martin Parr’s photograph Untitled (Hot Dog Stand), United Kingdom (1983-85, below) from Last Resort

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Untitled (Hot Dog Stand), United Kingdom
1983-85
From Last Resort
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition 'Martin Parr: Global Warning' at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January - May, 2026 showing from left to right, 'Benidorm, Spain' (1997); 'Magaluf, Majorca, Spain' (2003); 'Benidorm, Spain' (1997); and at right, 'Tenby, United Kingdom' (2018)

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing from left to right, Benidorm, Spain (1997); Magaluf, Majorca, Spain (2003); Benidorm, Spain (1997); and at right, Tenby, United Kingdom (2018)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Martin Parr: Global Warning' at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January - May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr's 'Benidorm, Spain' (1997) and at right, 'Tenby, United Kingdom' (2018)

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Benidorm, Spain (1997, below) and at right, Tenby, United Kingdom (2018)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Benidorm, Spain
1997
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

This exhibition invites the public to revisit the work of Martin Parr. Through different bodies of work created from the late 1970s to the present day, Parr’s photographs capture the absurdities and malfunctions of our contemporary world. Over 50 years, in locations all round the globe, the photographer has built up a corpus of work that portrays the inequalities and excesses of our modern lifestyle. A number of themes recur throughout. These include: the ravages of tourism, the prevalence of car culture, our dependence on technology, consumer excess, and even our ambivalent relationship with the living world. Martin Parr brings his unique, off-beat perspective to several major causes of climate change and environmental damage: unchecked global travel, reliance on fossil fuels, and world-wide overconsumption. Seemingly light-hearted and humorous, Parr’s work is in fact deeply serious. The ironical nature of his work places Parr firmly within the traditions of British satire and offers an indirect yet profound critique of contemporary life.

Through some 180 images spanning fifty years of work – from his early black
and white images to more recent output – this exhibition addresses the chaos of modern society. Five main sections, organised according to recurring themes, motifs and obsessions, convey the range and depth of Parr’s work. These sections explore the way in which our leisure pursuits impact the environment. Despite being a non-swimmer, Parr is repeatedly drawn to the beach as a site where the natural and artificial worlds coexist and pleasure leads to waste. In the section ‘Everything Must Go!’ our obsessive consumerism is explored. Parr draws up a crude inventory of sought-after objects and modes of consumption. Supermarkets, shopping malls, fairs and exhibitions provide the setting for a frantic materialistic race that is common to all classes of society. Sometimes even human beings become a form of merchandise.

In the ‘Small World’ section, named after one of his most celebrated series, Parr explores the joys, contradictions and dead ends of the tourism industry. In some of the world’s most iconic destinations, he focuses on the habits, behaviours, expectations and disappointments of the global tourist, against the backdrop of North/South, West/East imbalances. In ‘The Animal Kingdom’ he looks at the ambiguous relationship between humans and animals, from fascination and indulgence to neglect and exploitation. The final section – ‘Technological Addictions’ addresses our relationship with machines of all kinds: phones, cars, planes and computers as through them we navigate space, time and reality on a daily basis.

I create entertainment that contains a serious message if you are willing to look for it, but I’m not trying to convince anyone, I’m simply showing people what they think they know’ declared Martin Parr in 2021. Tireless photographer, frequent flyer, beach-lover, Martin Parr never tries to be a moral authority. He has often acknowledged that he himself is fully part of the world he documents and is clear-sighted about the environmental impact of his own lifestyle, particularly his significant carbon footprint: ‘We are heading towards catastrophe but we are all going there together. Who would dare ban cars or air travel?’

Aware that images alone are not enough to change the world, he advocates a form of discreet activism, a subtle visual guerilla warfare. If Parr uses humour it is always in the service of a commentary, often critical and satirical, that seeks to de-stabilise the idealised visions conveyed in the media by the cultural and tourism industries. Many of his images play with cliches, highlighting their inherent absurdity in order to subvert and deconstruct them. Tourist postcards, wildlife photography, foodie habits, selfies, all these and more provide the material that enables him to question, critique and occasionally mock the lifestyles and imagination of large sections of the world population. This exhibition is indeed a global warning.

Press release from Jeu de Paume

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Moscow (1992) ; and at right, the wall text to “Last chance to buy”

Last chance to buy

Beginning in the 1980s, Martin Parr began documenting a subject that relatively few photographers were exploring at the time: the myriad dimensions of consumer culture in Britain under Margaret Thatcher, and in particular the tastes, aspirations and attitudes of the middle class. Parr would sustain this interest throughout his career, later extending his investigation across Europe and the United Sates as well as to countries in Asia and the Middle East shaped by Westernised or Americanised lifestyles.

Today, Parr’s work offers a blunt and often humorous inventory of our consumer goods and ways of life – from food and art to luxury items and useless trinkets – framing consumption as a kind of new religion. In several series, parr deliberately subverted the visual vocabulary of advertising photography. In ‘Common Sense’, one of his most incisive critiques of consumer culture, close-ups and saturated colours produce a grotesque caricature of a world dominated by kitsch. Through his lens, supermarkets, hypermarkets, shopping malls, fairs, and trade shows become stages on which all social classes take part in a frenzied and absurd rush to accumulate goods of every kind. In this world, which seems ultimately to offer little pleasure, human beings themselves are at times turned into commodities.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at centre, photographs from Martin Parr’s series Common Sense (1999)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Martin Parr: Global Warning' at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January - May, 2026 showing photographs from Martin Parr's series 'Common Sense' (1999)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025) From 'Common Sense ' 1999

Installation views of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing photographs from Martin Parr’s series Common Sense (1999, below)

In his playfully titled Common sense series, British photographer Martin Parr confronts and amuses us in a similar way. Each image in the series is an isolated detail revealing one ghastly aspect of excessive consumerism and consumption after another. The images jostle for our attention like billboards on the side of a freeway, employing many of the tactics of advertising, using large-scale, saturated colour and shock value to attract our gaze.

In his photographs of food, Martin Parr pointedly examines the gross indulgence that is encouraged by manufacturers and their advertisers. Shown here as just another commodity, generic and mass-produced food becomes obscene in its abundance…. When seen in such lurid detail, the overblown details on the person’s hands, such as the ring with blue stone, a Band-Aid, and the imperfect application of the gaudy nail polish, become repulsive images of the ordinary. …

The Common sense series is a major body of work within Parr’s ongoing exploration of globalisation, mass tourism, class culture and consumerism. In common with much of his work, this series presents images critical of the contemporary culture with a distinctive sense of irony and British humour. There is something uncomfortable in all these photographs. We laugh at them while being slightly embarrassed by their familiarity and are acutely aware of the gulf between a dream of glamour and the sad synthetic reality.

Susan van Wyk, Curator, Photography, National Gallery of Victoria

Susan van Wyk. “Martin Parr’s Common Sense,” in Art Journal 46, 29 Jan 14 on the National Gallery of Victoria website [Online] Cited 16/04/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'England. Bristol. Car boot sale. 1995' 1994-1995 from the series 'British Food'

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
England. Bristol. Car boot sale. 1995
1994-1995
From Common Sense
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Ramsgate, England
1996
From Common Sense
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Tokyo, Japan
1998
From Common Sense
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Zurich, Switzerland
1997
From Common Sense
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Fairy Cakes, Glasgow, Scotland
1999
From Common Sense
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Zurich, Switzerland
1997
From Common Sense
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Florida, USA
1998
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Cozumel, Mexico (2002, below); and at right, the wall text for “Small World”

Small World

Martin Parr maintained that he belonged fully to the world he documented and critiqued. He readily acknowledged the environmental impact of his own lifestyle – not least his substantial carbon footprint – and near positioned himself above his subjects. Although fully aware that images alone could never change the world, he nevertheless engaged in a form of subtle, visual guerrilla warfare that questioned dominant representations, particularly those promoted by the tourism industry.

Beginning in the 1990s, tourism emerged as one of his favourite subjects. He would explore it the world over, in all its pleasures, contradictions, and even dead ends, documenting the rituals and behaviours of the global tourist in the world’s most visited destinations. The sameness of gestures, attitudes and clothing encountered in every corner of the planet provides a humorous, slightly wistful counterpoint to the diversity of the sites and monuments photographed. Parr takes particular pleasure in overturning the codes of postcard perfect aesthetics, especially in his images of iconic landmarks, which he presents in degraded forms caught between over crowding, scenes of anxiety, and crude replicas. Through his lens, the quest for authenticity is a thing of the past.

Wall text from the exhibition

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Cozumel, Mexico
2002
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Amer Fort, Jaipur, India
2019
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Parr’s photograph Cannes, France (2018, below)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Cannes, France
2018
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

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Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photograph Sorrento, Italy (2014, below); and at right, The Matterhorn, Alps, Switzerland (1990)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Sorrento, Italy
2014
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025) 'The Artificial beach inside the Ocean Dome' 1996

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
The Artificial beach inside the Ocean Dome, Seagaia Ocean Dome, Miyazaki, Japan
1996
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Machu Picchu, Peru
2008
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

‘Between the hours of 10am and 2pm the site is at its busiest with up to 4,000 visitors arriving each day. Knowing how inaccessible the place is, it is staggering where and how they emerge. It is also not a cheap visit as each foreign tourist has to pay 122 soies (roughly $40) to enter the site. I am convinced that this entrance payment, together with the cost of the journey and the trekking are probably keeping the Peruvian economy afloat, as 70% of all visitors are foreigners.’

From Martin Parr’s blog, Machu Picchu, 2008
Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at bottom left, Martin Parr’s photograph Notre Dame, Paris, France (2012, below); and at right, Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland (1994, below)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Notre Dame, Paris, France
2012
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland
1994
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Ooty, India
2018
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
2012
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Las Vegas, USA
2000
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

The Animal Kingdom

Installation view of the exhibition 'Martin Parr: Global Warning' at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January - May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr's 'West Midlands Safari Park, United Kingdom' (1990); and at right, 'Longleat Safari Park, United Kingdom' (1994)

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s West Midlands Safari Park, United Kingdom (1990); and at right, Longleat Safari Park, United Kingdom (1994)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
West Midlands Safari Park, United Kingdom
1990
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Unlike zoos, safari parks are designed to let animals roam freely, almost as if they were “in the wild”, while human visitors are meant to experience a sense of closeness to the animals natural state. In his images of safari parks, Martin Parr mocks this idea by deliberately including exactly what such photographs usually try to exclude: cars. The resulting images resemble absurd collages of two disjointed realities, in which – in typical Par-like fashion – he plays with the incongruous encounter between the natural world and a human-made, artificial dimension

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at second left, Martin Parr’s photograph Snow Polo World Cup, St Moritz, Switzerland (2011, below) from the series Luxury; and at second right, Venice Beach, California, USA (1998, below)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Snow Polo World Cup, St Moritz, Switzerland
1998
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Venice Beach, California, USA
1998
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

“I am not saying that tourism is bad – far from it as it brings a livelihood for many people. Organisations like Tourism Concern in the UK make a very important contribution to a better understanding of the yin and yang of tourism. This charity highlights the problems caused by tourism – from water shortages in newly developed sites to the pure rape of our ever decreasing natural habitats – and tries to ensure that local people benefit from the fruits of tourism. We need to adopt a better understanding of the issues surrounding this huge business. These photographs, I hope, will offer a good starting point. For remember we, in the wealthy West, are the ones that seek out the pleasures of tourism, so we’re all in this together.”

Martin Parr

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Lake Garda, Italy
1999
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Venice, Italy
2005
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing the wall text “Technological Addictions” with at bottom left, Martin Parr’s Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai, India (2018, below); at second right, Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below) and at right, New York, USA (1999, below)

Technological Addictions

Even in his exploration of technology, Parr remains a humanist in both his practice and overarching project: what interests him is our relationship to the technology rather than the object or machine itself. As a keen observer of behaviour and constantly on the lookout for unexplored for unexplored topics, Parr examined how the human body interacts differently with each new technological object. He also probes technology’s growing role in daily lives and imagination, and the dependency it engenders. At the same time, he implicitly explores the way technology profoundly alters our perception of reality and our relationship to space and time.

Wall text from the exhibition

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai, India
2018
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below); and at top right, England, United Kingdom (1994) and at bottom right, England, United Kingdom (1994)

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Martin Parr’s Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England
2022
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s New York, USA (1999, below); and at right top, Salford, United Kingdom (1986) and right bottom, Dublin, Ireland (1986)

‘I was hanging around a petrol station like a pervert. Photographers at the time would have said that this was the craziest place to take a picture. Because it’s a very unglamorous subject matter. Boring. There’s no drama here. But there’s something really interesting about boring. Something that seems very ordinary at the time becomes interesting when you look back at it later, almost 40 years later: the pump has changed, the clothes have changed, the car has changed. It tells us something about consumerism, and how we depend on fuel, oil and petrol.

From Martin Parr’s interview, ‘”There’s something very interesting about boring” Martin Parr on his life in pictures.’ The Guardian, 24 August 2025
Wall text from the exhibition

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
New York, USA
1999
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Photograph from Martin Parr’s first-ever fashion commission for the Italian magazine Amiga

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025) 'Venice, Italy' 2015 (installation view)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
Venice, Italy (installation view)
2015
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

‘Although many museums have now banned the selfie stick, outside in the street, especially in front of that iconic monument or landmark the stick comes into its own. Getting the photo of you and your loved one(s) with the landmark in the background is de rigueur. The tourism industry, which is the biggest in the world, now dictates that the first requirement of any trip is to prove you were there with the necessary photo. It connects you to the world that we know and understand, and it is a vital part of any successful holiday experience. We used to have to ask a passing tourist to take the photo, but thanks to the selfie stick those days are over and we are now self sufficient.’

From Martin Parr’s blog, The Selfie Stick, 2015
Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photographs Advertisement for Sony PlayStation, England, United Kingdom (2003); and at right, Ooty, India (2018, above)

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at right, Martin Parr’s photograph from The Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (2016, below)

Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)
The Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
2016
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

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Exhibition: ‘Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer’ at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Exhibition dates: 18th October, 2025 – 19th April, 2026

Curator: Louise Pearson

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
R100
about 1930
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008
© Richard and John Buckham

This is an example of one of his shots of an impressive cloud formation. It features the R-100 airship, noted for its more oval, aerodynamic shape in comparison to the traditional Zeppelin. The R-100 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 R-101, with the loss of forty-eight lives. Buckham painted the airship into the scene by hand.

Flights of fancy

What a man, what a daredevil, what an artist!

Member of the Royal Photographic Society and lecturer in photography before the First World War.

Joined the Royal Naval Air Service (precursor to the Royal Air Force) in 1916 and taught young recruits the basics of photography before requesting a transfer to active service. He became a pioneer in aerial reconnaissance over France when the pilots and observers/camera operators of biplanes over the trenches had no parachutes.

Invalided out of the service in 1918 after multiple crashes. After his ninth crash he had to undergo a tracheotomy and spent the rest of his life breathing through a tube.

Determined to continue his love affair with flying and photography, he rented planes and, strapping himself in and leaning over the side with his heavy plate camera, he captured romantic, rugged, aerial landscape photographs which combined dramatic, atmospheric shots of the landscape with photographic manipulation inside and outside the darkroom.

Rather than scratching in the original negative and/or making a composite negative (a la the Australian photographer Frank Hurley, 1885-1962) or using photomontage (the cutting and pasting physical photographs together), Buckham used combination printing – the use of multiple negatives to create seamless, “perfect” images, such as adding detailed skies to landscapes and biplanes to the skies, planes that were photographed on the ground – in the final, unique print. He often scratched the final print to emphasise highlights, and then used watercolour paints to blend in the areas where the different negatives overlapped in the print or to paint in details of aircraft wheels or bridge supports.

Buckham’s photographs of the landscape are truly beautiful. I love them.

The final prints are a heady mixture of romantic landscape (with their underlying nod to Pictorialism, emotional, romantic, and atmospheric scenes over realistic documentation) and modernist elements, of cutting edge machines, bridges, aeroplanes, airships and flying boats added through photographic manipulation in the darkroom, further enhanced by hand, through scratching and painting on the actual print.

To finally reveal what Buckham felt of the physical thrill of flying and the deeply felt emotional reaction to the landscape beneath him – can you imagine being him! – creating these photographs with deep, inward feelings impinging on his mind, his imagination, his memory. To perfectly present “so nearly, the effect that I saw” when in the air. Clouds in a sea of air.

These. These were his flights of fancy.

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.

“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… If you stand erect you will not have to resist the fatal tendency to rest your arms on the side of the aeroplane whilst making the exposure, for if you do so your photograph will surely be spoiled by the vibration of the engine.”

“Unfortunately, Nature does not always surmount her landscapes with clouds such as will compose well, as a whole, in the picture space, consequently I have provided a store of over 2,000 cloud negatives for such contingencies and from this suitable clouds for combination purposes are selected. And here is just where the hasty or unobservant worker may go badly astray, producing incredible or even appalling results. For the lighting of the landscape must be in correct relation to the light coming down from the sky, and heavy cloud masses insist that they shall have corresponding shapes upon the earth. Selection for the right negative for the purpose may entail the inspection of fifty or more, and on the print some handwork with a chemical reducer and stumping chalk, or other medium, is usually required to bring the whole into harmony. So before venturing upon combination work it is surely wise to serve some years of apprenticeship sketching and painting in the open air, which happens to have been my own way of approach to photography.”

“The open cockpit of a not-too-speedy airplane affords better facilities for working than a cabined plane. When the best weather conditions prevail for pictorial photography, the skyroad is disposed to be bumpy, descending and ascending currents of air moving beneath the big banks of cumulus cloud. A sudden drop of 300 or 400ft may be a little alarming if one is not prepared for it.”

Alfred Buckham

Installation view of the exhibition 'Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer' at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Installation views of the exhibition Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
Photos: Aly Wight

Installation view of the exhibition Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh showing Buckham’s photograph Edinburgh (about 1920, below)
Photo: Aly Wight

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Edinburgh
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
45.80 x 37.80 cm
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Purchased 1990
© Richard and John Buckham

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, one of the city’s most popular aerial views.

Installation view of the exhibition Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh showing Alfred Buckham wearing googles by an unknown photographer (1918, below)
Photo: Aly Wight

Unknown photographer
Alfred Buckham wearing googles
1918
Gelatin silver print
Collection of Richard and John Buckham
© Richard and John Buckham

Unknown photographer
Alfred Buckham’s aeroplane hanging in a tree after a crash during the First World War
1916
Gelatin silver print
Collection of Richard and John Buckham
© Richard and John Buckham

Unknown photographer
Alfred Buckham in an aeroplane
1918
Gelatin silver print
Collection of Richard and John Buckham
© Richard and John Buckham

Unknown photographer
Camera belonging to Alfred G. Buckham
about 1920
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased from Richard and John Buckham, 2019
© Richard and John Buckham

Take to the skies and discover the world from above the clouds through the remarkable work of Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer.

A trailblazer in his field, Alfred Buckham soared above the realms of what was thought to be possible in 20th century photography and aviation. Meet the man behind some of the most iconic aerial photographs, marvel at the death-defying lengths he took to capture the perfect image and explore how his innovative techniques paved the way for modern technologies such as Photoshop and AI.

Text from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery website

Alfred Buckham’s first ambition was to be a painter, but after seeing JMW Turner’s pictures in the National Gallery in London, he returned home and made a bonfire of his own work. He was the first head of aerial reconnaissance for the Royal Navy in the First World War and later a captain in the Royal Naval Air Service. After crashing nine times he was obliged to undergo a tracheotomy and was discharged as a hundred per cent disabled. While recovering from surgery Buckham started making photo-montages, combining two or three photographs he had taken to compose a single image. He would look for a sky which complemented the city or landscape below, and even add tiny planes to create the look of a one-shot photograph. He continued to take aerial photographs with a heavy plate camera, leaning perilously out of the aeroplane, where his delight in picture making greatly increased the risk of accident.

Text from the National Galleries website

Secrets of the Darkroom | Alfred Buckham

Transcript

Narrator: Lucy Armitage
Video duration: 00:03:43

[This film consists of animations illustrating the photographic techniques described in the narration]

Narrator

How would you have combined multiple photographs into one image in the days before Photoshop? From wartime aerial reconnaissance photographer to intrepid explorer, Alfred Buckham was a true daredevil.

But when he entered the darkroom, he was a meticulous and innovative artist. Let’s take a look at one of his most iconic composite photographs: Edinburgh, which was made using three separate negatives.

The first stage would have been to select one of the negatives he captured while literally dangling from his cockpit at death-defying heights.

He would then select a second negative from his impressive library of over 2,000 negatives of clouds. Selecting the right clouds sometimes required inspecting 50 or more options, and occasionally, he created new cloud formations by taping two negatives together.

He also built up a library of plane negatives, masking each plane from the background. All these planes were photographed from the ground, because it would have been impossible to capture a clear image of a plane, mid-flight, from another moving vehicle.

To make a photographic print, the negative would be placed into a device called an enlarger. Think of it like a top-down projector, shining light through the negative to project its image onto a sheet of light-sensitive photographic paper.

This paper would become a canvas for combining multiple negatives into one image. Buckham would first expose the image of Edinburgh onto the lower half of the paper for just the right amount of time. Next, he would expose the image of the sky onto the upper half. The longer the light projected the negative onto the paper, the darker the final image would be.

Throughout the exposure process, he used dodging and burning techniques to soften the horizon where the two negatives met. Dodging involves using your hand, or a piece of card, to block light on specific areas of the paper during exposure, making them appear lighter in the final print. Burning works in the opposite way, where you block light on the areas you’re happy with, and expose for longer the areas you want to darken.

Buckham used a pin mark to identify his chosen spot for the aeroplane. He would have to adjust the height of the enlarger to change the apparent size of the aeroplane. In this case, he also inserted the negative into the enlarger back to front to reverse the plane’s direction. Did you spot the backwards tail number?

After all three exposures, he would then place the paper into a shallow chemical bath called a developer for a set time. Slowly, as if by magic, the composite image would begin to appear on the paper. Subsequent chemical baths stopped the development process before fixing the image in place.

After washing and drying the paper, the print was ready for final adjustments. Buckham rarely edited negatives directly, as was common for photographers using glass plates. Instead, he made all his final adjustments in the print.

Here, he has used black watercolour to enhance the contrast between the brooding castle and the rest of the city. He would sometimes scratch away dark areas of the print to reveal the lighter colour of the paper beneath. Using this method, he could create the impression of spinning propeller blades or light glinting on key landmarks.

These artistic interventions resulted in each print being truly unique. Buckham’s photographs not only capture breathtaking moments at daring, dizzying heights, but are also the meticulous creations of a pioneering visionary artist.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
RAF Turnhouse Christmas Card
1918
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Gift of the Bartholomew Family, Edinburgh, 2022
© Richard and John Buckham

A negative of The Forth Bridge, looking north towards Fife, was used as the basis for several prints. It was also used to produce this Christmas card for RAF Turnhouse in 1918. Showing an aeroplane flying towards the Forth Bridge, this is probably one of the first composite photographs Buckham created as it was made while he was still serving in the air force.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Cloud Turrets
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
38.00 x 45.70cm
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008

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 a 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 Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Clouds Massing Before a Thunderstorm
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
37.80 x 30.00cm
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008

Buckham 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’. Over the years Buckham built up 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. This is an example of one of his shots of an impressive cloud formation before a thunderstorm.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Sunset over the Pentlands Range
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
46 x 38.6cm
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 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 dramatic light could be captured on “stormy days, with bursts of sunshine and occasional showers of rain”. 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. This photograph of the landscape over the Pentlands Hills near Edinburgh demonstrates this technique. It also illustrates another feature of Buckham’s photographs in the perfectly positioned silhouette of a biplane against the broken clouds, which Buckham would have painted on later.

Crafting an image | The photographic techniques of Alfred Buckham

Louise Pearson

Alfred Buckham created some spectacular photographs of the earth from the air. In 2018 curator Louise Pearson looked at how these images were created through a unique combination of daring escapades in the air and clever photographic manipulation on the ground.

Alfred Buckham was a passionate enthusiast of both photography and flight. By 1914 he was already an established photographer and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. During the First World War he was involved in the relatively new discipline of aerial reconnaissance, both as a teacher and a practitioner. It was a dangerous occupation and his military career ended as a result of the injuries sustained to his throat during his ninth crash. Despite this, his wartime activities had sparked a love of flying and on leaving the Royal Naval Air Service it seemed natural that he would continue to take photographs from the sky. Buckham subsequently created an astonishing series of photographs, ranging in subject from the Forth Bridge to the skyscrapers of New York and the volcanoes of South America.

The National Galleries of Scotland holds a group of Buckham’s photographs including Edinburgh, which has become one of the most popular works of art in the collection. When we decided to have a photography exhibition on the theme of transport it was clear that Buckham’s aerial photographs would take centre stage. I selected several of Buckham’s photographs for inclusion, including Edinburgh and The Forth Bridge, and started to look at the photographs in more detail with conservator James Berry. We also started planning a blog to explain how Buckham was able to create such dramatic images.

From previous research, and the work James was doing on conserving the photographs ahead of the exhibition, we knew that Buckham was using a technique called combination printing. This is when a photographer uses a number of different negatives to create a single photographic print. In order to fully understand his working methods, we needed to see the negatives he was using. Fortunately, Alfred Buckham’s entire archive of around 1400 negatives, nearly 300 prints, camera and associated archive material has remained with his family and is currently in the care of his grandsons Richard and John Buckham. Richard kindly allowed me to spend a day at his home in London, looking through this fascinating collection. Being able to compare the negatives to the prints in our collection, and read Buckham’s accounts of his photographic work, helped us to piece together how he would have made the atmospheric photograph Edinburgh.

The first stage in taking an aerial photograph is to select the right plane. Buckham took photographs around the world and would have used a number of different planes flown by various pilots to take his photographs. However he recorded that he always preferred to use older planes with open cockpits that travelled at the fairly sedate speed of 60 to 80 miles per hour. Through trial and error he discovered that flying between 1,000 and 2,000 ft gave the best results, as at that height the landscape could be captured with just the right level of detail. …

The other essential piece of equipment was the camera. Happily, as Buckham’s camera survives, we know exactly what he was using to make his exposures. In an article written for the benefit of prospective aerial photographers, he advised using the kind of cameras used by newspaper reporters, which operated at eye-level, rather than the cumbersome cameras which had originally been developed for aerial photography. ‘The camera best suited to the purpose and the one I usually employ has a F4.5 lens and a large direct vision view-finder the same size as the plate, fitted on the top of the lens panel’. He cautioned however that the leather bellows needed to be reinforced with cardboard or aluminium, as the otherwise delicate bellows could not withstand the force of the winds encountered at altitude.

The kind of camera favoured by Buckham used glass plate negatives, which was a conscious decision by Buckham at a time when photographic film was becoming readily available. He favoured double-coated panchromatic plates made in the USA, with dimensions of 10.0cm x 12.5cm. Throughout his career he reiterated that despite their bulk and delicacy, plates gave a far superior result to film.

Extract from Louise Pearson. “Crafting an image | The photographic techniques of Alfred Buckham,” on the National Galleries of Scotland website Nd [Online] Cited 11/02/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Aeroplane Negative
About 1920
© Richard and John Buckham

Buckham built up a library of negatives depicting only aeroplanes, where the original background was masked out. This meant that when the negative was exposed on top of an existing print the plane would appear to be part of the chosen landscape. Buckham would have also been able use an enlarger to match the scale of the plane to the landscape, making the scene appear realistic. While in most cases this technique produces a believable, if slightly incredible, final image there are examples where the planes appear too close together, or at impossible angles.

For Buckham, the final stage of creating a finished image was to use watercolour paints and sometimes ink to add detail to the final print and soften the areas where the two negatives meet. In some of his photographs these hand-drawn elements are easily visible, though in the case of Edinburgh they are more subtle. The clouds on the horizon have been softened to make the join where the two negatives meet less noticeable in the finished print, highlights have been added to the clouds to make them more dramatic and the light below Arthur’s Seat has been adjusted to better match the clouds above. In addition, some areas have been highlighted and others darkened to sharpen the details of key landmarks and make them more recognisable. The use of black watercolour or ink to strengthen and define specific areas of the photographs shows Buckham’s ingenuity. Whilst other photographers would alter the negatives and perhaps scratch out an area that they wished to appear darker, Buckham added the darker tone to the photographic print itself. He also used a scratching out technique, similar to Turner, where a dark area of the photograph is scratched revealing the lighter colour of the paper beneath. This artistic intervention results in each photograph being a unique piece of work. No two can be exactly the same.

It is clear then that Buckham’s photographs are not the result of a single, breath-taking moment in time but instead are a carefully crafted piece of art. He was using known photographic techniques, but created a style which was very much his own. As a result it is easy to see why Edinburgh has become one of the most popular artworks in the collection.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Uplands Snowstorm Passing
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008
© Richard and John Buckham

In this image the undulations of the snow covered hills are mirrored in the cloudy sky. Buckham introduces a sense of scale through the lone plane silhouetted against a cloud.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
The Forth Bridge
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008
© Richard and John Buckham

Buckham 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 creativity led to him being regarded as the leading aerial photographer of his day and he was renowned for his atmospheric shots of the landscape. 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 an imposing composition. This image over the Firth of Forth, Scotland, 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.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Sunshine, and Showers
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 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, Fife, Scotland this was near to where Buckham crashed for the ninth time in 1918 and sustained serious injuries.

This autumn at the Portrait gallery in Edinburgh, take to the skies and see the world from above the clouds through the remarkable work of Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer. From 18 October 2025 – 19 April 2026, meet the man behind some of the most iconic aerial photographs ever taken, marvel at the death-defying lengths he took to capture the perfect image and explore how his innovative techniques in the darkroom paved the way for modern technologies such as Photoshop and AI. Free to visit at the National Galleries Scotland: Portrait, this will be the first major exhibition dedicated to Alfred Buckham and can only be seen in Scotland.

This exhibition will bring together over 100 photographs and objects including popular works from the Scottish national collection, alongside extensive archival material generously loaned by Alfred Buckham’s grandsons, Richard and John Buckham. Thanks to the support of the Buckham family, personal objects including letters, photographs and even the passport Alfred Buckham used will be put on public display for the first time.

A maverick of early aviation, Alfred Buckham (1879-1956) created his own unique style of photography by combining daring exploits in the air with innovation in the darkroom. Born in London, Buckham learned his craft by teaching photography before joining the Royal Naval Air Service in 1916, a predecessor to the Royal Air Force. Hailed as an exceptionally skilled flyer, he combined his talent for aviation with his passion for photography, resulting in remarkable endeavours and trailblazing images. Based for most of his military career at RAF Turnhouse, now Edinburgh Airport, central Scotland became a natural playground for Buckham to refine his photographic techniques and let his imagination soar. Daredevil Photographer will chart his phenomenal story from his early photographic experiments in Scotland to exciting adventures in South America and look closer at the skilled and inventive ways he created his work.

Explore Scotland from the air and get a new perspective of well-known sights, just as Buckham himself would have. Daredevil Photographer celebrates the impact Scotland had on Buckham’s work through his images of recognisable landmarks including St Andrews Golf Links, Linlithgow Palace and the Wallace Monument in Stirling. The exhibition will also feature several images of the Forth Rail Bridge, Buckham’s most photographed landmark. The iconic bridge was the subject of one of his first composite photographs and appeared on the 1918 RAF Turnhouse Christmas card, which will go on display alongside the original photography.

Daredevil Photographer will delve into the darkroom and uncover more about the creative processes used to bring Buckham’s unique images to life. After the First World War, Buckham began experimenting with composite photography; a technique where several negatives are used to create one photographic print. While this wasn’t a new concept, composite photography added a layer of creative freedom to Buckham’s work, much like a very early form of Photoshop. From his vast collection of glass negatives – he had over 2000 cloud images alone in his ‘cloud library’ – Buckham had the means to create images which became immersive, giving a unique sense of flying alongside these incredible aircraft while viewing the world below.

It was through the technique of composite photography that some of Buckham’s most famous works were born, including the iconic aerial view of Edinburgh (about 1920). This striking photograph shows a bi-plane hovering amongst wispy clouds above Edinburgh Castle, with Arthur’s Seat visible through the mist in the background, and the bustling city below. For the first time, Edinburgh will be displayed alongside the camera and original glass negatives Buckham used to capture and create this much-loved image. Visitors will also be encouraged to get inspired and try their hand at creating their own composite creations through interactive exhibits.

Telling Buckham’s story through his own words and memories, Daredevil Photographer allows visitors to meet the courageous and humorous man behind the camera. Firsthand accounts of his incredible exploits in the air and ingenious creative methods on the ground will enhance his story and highlight his adventurous spirit: Ah! One was a rare daredevil in those days! (Alfred Buckham, The New York Times, 1930). A free and unique immersive audio experience will bring Buckham’s world of flight and imagination to life through his own words. Hear Buckham’s grandson Richard give a voice to his grandfather’s memories and reflections on his daredevil persona.

Daredevil in every sense of the word, Buckham went to incredible feats to capture the perfect shot, which the exhibition will explore. His preferred methods included standing in an open cockpit while mid-air, with his leg tied to the seat as a nod to safety. As a result, he experienced no less than nine crashes in his lifetime, one ending in a serious throat injury that cut his military career short. However, he would not be deterred, describing his eccentric photography methods in a surprisingly relaxed way:

“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 rapidly, and easily, in any desired direction; and loop the loop; and indulge in other such delights, with perfect safety” – Alfred Buckham, The Camera, January 1927.

Daredevil Photographer will celebrate Buckham’s skill in the air through a range of his mesmerising photographs. Encounter stunning images of the leading aircraft of the day, such as the Bristol Fighter, a two seated bi-plane designed for aerial reconnaissance, and the bizarre airships of the 1920s. See them soaring through the skies in all weathers, amongst an array of remarkable landscapes. The exhibition will include one of his most well-known works, The Heart of the Empire (1923), on loan from the V&A Museum in London and displayed in Edinburgh for the first time. The photograph follows a bi-plane as it glides across the London skyline, with landmarks such as Tower Bridge and the River Thames in view. Exhibited by the Royal Photographic Society in 1925, The Heart of the Empire secured Buckham’s position as one of Britain’s leading aerial photographers.

Experience the golden age of travel through Buckham’s portfolio of images spanning across the globe. In 1931, a commission from Fortune Magazine took Buckham on an epic fifteen-week trip across the Americas, covering 19,000 miles and setting a world record. Starting in New York City and taking the opportunity to capture the newly built Empire State Building, Buckham photographed his intrepid journey from the United States to the tip of South America to share with the world. Daredevil Photographer will chart Buckham’s incredible journey, from expansive views of Christ the Redeemer in Rio De Janeiro and the snowy caps of the Andes Mountains to perilous scenes of smoking volcanic creators in Guatemala and Mexico. Through his death-defying adventures and stunning photographs, Buckham expanded public understanding of the world, creating an exciting legacy which continues to capture imaginations today.

Louise Pearson, curator of photography at the National Galleries of Scotland says: “Alfred Buckham’s eye-catching photograph of Edinburgh is one of the most popular artworks in the National Galleries of Scotland collection. This enthralling image becomes even more intriguing when you learn that it is a darkroom jigsaw – a composite photograph made through a combination of technical skill and creative vision. Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer tells the remarkable story of this maverick of early aviation whose adventures took him from aerial reconnaissance photographer to intrepid explorer via numerous loop the loops.”

Press release from National Galleries of Scotland

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Castle Island Loch Leven (Where Mary Queen of Scots was Imprisoned)
about 1920
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008
© Richard and John Buckham

This photograph of Castle Island, where Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned in 1567, shows the vast expanse of the rolling countryside around Loch Leven, Scotland. The cloudy sky enhances the depth of the image and the small biplanes, which Buckham added later by hand, reinforce the dramatic scale.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Flying Boat Over Sea
1930
Gelatin silver print
45.5 x 37.6cm
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008

This photograph captures the stormy ocean with its swelling crests of the waves illuminated white. Silhouetted against the threatening sky is a flying boat. This specialised form of aircraft was purposely designed to take off from, and land on, water. This feature was exploited during the World Wars but its use rapidly declined thereafter. Buckham was aware of the flying boat from his time in the Royal Naval Air Service and, specifically, his involvement in photographing the alterations required that allowed planes to take off from, and land on, a ship.

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
The Loop
about 1930
Gelatin silver print
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased in recognition of over 40 years of work on the National Galleries of Scotland photography collection by James Berry, Senior Paper Conservator
© Richard and John Buckham

Alfred Buckham (British, 1879-1956)
Volcano Crater of Popocatepetl
about 1930
National Galleries of Scotland
Purchased with Art Fund support, 2008
© Richard and John Buckham

In 1930 Buckham was commissioned by Fortune magazine to produce a portfolio of aerial photographs of his chosen area of the Americas. Buckman opted for central and South America and this dramatic photograph captures the centre of Mexican volcano, Popocatepetl. The snow covered edge of the crater contrasts against the ominous dark sky, creating a shot which captures the awe-inspiring power of an active volcano. Buckham described the journey of the flight as his aeroplane turned down into the crater: ‘Almost at once the aeroplane dropped about two hundred feet… Beneath us the circular lake of boiling lava emitted numerous spouts of smoke and steam, whilst round its edge played occasional fires which, suddenly springing up and flickering awhile, as suddenly disappeared.’

Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer

Paperback – 12 Nov. 2025 by Louise Pearson (Author), James Crawford (Other Contributor)

Buy on Amazon

'Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer' paperback November 2025, book pages

Alfred Buckham: Daredevil Photographer paperback November 2025, book pages

Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh,
EH2 1JD, Scotland

Opening hours:
Daily, 10am – 5pm

National Galleries of Scotland website

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Vale Martin Parr (English, 1952-2025)

December 2025

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, England
From the series The Last Resort
1983-1985
Pigment print

From life, the absurd, the (un)familiar

The death of the English photographer Martin Parr is very sad news 😦

I feel like I have known his intimate photographs from life for a very long time. Through his beautifully observed and humorous photographs Martin Parr became a national treasure.

Incisive and insightful, his best photographs shone a light on the British class system, British rituals and everyday conversations – “candid and often humorous depictions of everyday life” – captured with visual deftness and containing a wry sense of humour mirroring the British character.

“Parr’s work was at its best when he concentrated on the volume of space within the image plane and the details that emerge from such a concentrated visualisation – whether it be the tension points within the image, assemblage of colour, incongruity of dress, messiness of childhood or philistine nature of luxury.” (MB, 2102)

His photographs have a wonderful frisson about them, a genuine love of and resonance with the things he was imaging. The dirt under the fingernails of the child eating a doughnut, the lurid colours of the popsicle and jacket of the kid with dribble on his face, all fantastic. Images full of incongruity, humour, and pathos. The absurd and the (un)familiar.

And so it goes… we loose another great photographer.

Vale Martin Parr and thank you!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Read my text “Out in the midday sun” on the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF), September 2024 – February 2025

“Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.”

“I think the mindset you require is stamina, discipline, and just sheer hard work. There are basically very few shortcuts. You’ve either got that ability to apply yourself to a given situation or a given idea and explore it and resolve it, or you haven’t. Most people are just lazy. The danger with photography is that it looks very easy but in fact, it’s a very difficult medium to really excel well in because basically, people don’t work hard enough – they’re lazy. Don’t be lazy!”

Martin Parr

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, England
From the series Last Resort
1983-1985
Pigment print

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, England
From the series The Last Resort
1983-1985
Pigment print

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'New Brighton, Merseyside' 1984

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, Merseyside, England
1984
From the series The Last Resort
Pigment print

Martin Parr (British, b. 1952)
England. Bristol. Car boot sale. 1995
From the series British Food
1994-1995
Traditional C-type print

Martin Parr (British, b. 1952)
From A to B. Tales of Modern Motoring series
1994
Pigment print

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Exhibition: ‘Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 7th March – 15th June, 2025

Curator: Shoair Mavlian, the Director of The Photographers’ Gallery

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943) 'Opticians, London, 1975' 1975 from the exhibition 'Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever' at the Photographers' Gallery, London, March - June, 2025

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Opticians, London, 1975
1975
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

I absolutely adore these Peter Mitchell 1970s colour photographs made from Hasselblad two and a quarter square negatives.

There is something so …. well, British about them.

The wit, the humour (pigeons sitting outside the racing pigeon shop), the stiff upper lip, the carry on regardless, the working class pantomime of life and death – the public commission flats where people formed caring communities that were destroyed through redevelopment – the integrity of an existence that has largely come and gone pictured with warmth and empathy.

The people, growing up during the Second World War the privations of which lasted well into the 1950s, now during a period of change in the 1970s standing behind the fish ‘n chip counter wondering where their lives had gone and how they had got there, but still with that British sense of spirit and grit.

Peter Mitchell, “a chaser of a disappearing world” pictures these “goners” – buildings, people (and a way of life) near the end of existence soon to be demolished – in an almost painterly manner.

His use of colour, perspective and form is very fine. Witness, the flow of the photograph ‘Edna, George & Pat, H.E. Greenwood Butcher, Waterloo Road, Leeds, 1977’ (below) as, in the shot, the camera allows the eye to pan from one vanishing point at left to the other at right, with the patchwork of colours and panels of the building creating an almost Mondrian-like texture – blue to black to beige to white sign to pale blue to yellow to green to pale green, surmounted by the dark blue of the threatening sky highlighting the jagged form of the building. Superb.

My favourite photograph in the posting is The Chair, Priestly House Interior, Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, 1978 (below). This photograph is from what I believe to be Mitchell’s strongest body of work on the demolition of the Quarry Hill Flats in Leeds. ‘One of those doomed deserts was Quarry Hill flats, irresistible both as a symbol of the fate of all architecture and of the great clock in the heavens signalling everybody’s life span’ (Peter Mitchell quoted on The Guardian website)

A drab, beige, wallpapered room with double aspect window, an art deco chair with mirror reflecting nothing, an electrical socket, a ceiling light sprouting malignant plant and trapped in the window panes, little birds fluttering against their capture, trapped forever inside an abandoned flat, this abandoned life.

Yes, there’s a sense of nostalgia and melancholy in these photographs but their restrained, formal, representation of life does much to ennoble the people and buildings contained within them which, through osmosis, ennobles the mind of the viewer.

As I myself sense the great clock in the heavens signalling my life span, the pleasure and comfort I get from feeling the spirit of Peter Mitchell’s photographs is immeasurable.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Photographers’ Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943) 'Mrs Clayton and Mrs Collins, summer 1974' 1974 from the exhibition 'Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever' at the Photographers' Gallery, London, March - June, 2025

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Mrs Clayton and Mrs Collins, summer 1974
1974
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943) 'Mr and Mrs Hudson, Newsagents, Seacroft, Leeds, 1974' 1974 from the exhibition 'Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever' at the Photographers' Gallery, London, March - June, 2025

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Mr and Mrs Hudson, Newsagents, Seacroft, Leeds, 1974
1974
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

‘Mr and Mrs Hudson in Seacroft Green, Leeds. I took this photograph on the 14 August 1974 at about 11am. I like the way the ladder is propping up the shop. They had just moved into a new shop on the same spot, with the church getting a facelift to match’

Peter Mitchell quoted on The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Mrs. McArthy & her daughter, Sangley Road, Catford, London, 1975
1975
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Kingston Racing Motors, Olinda Terrace, Leeds 1975
1975
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Is the man with the wrench a mechanic? Why is the woman with the clapped-out Porsche looking so naughty? Will James C Gallagher, whose business it is, always have his back to the camera? And after painting the wall, why did Barry have to leave Leeds? The council demolished the lot shortly after this snap.

Text from The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Two anonymous ladies, Tivoli Cinema, Acre Road from Sisson’s Lane, Leeds, 1976
1976
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Sir Yank’s Records (& Heavy Disco), Gathorne Street, Leeds 1976
1976
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Concorde Wallpaper, Devon Road, 1970s
1970s
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Alea Stony Rock, Westlock Grove, 1970s
1970s
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Beetham’s, Church Street, Leeds, 1970s
1970s
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

A retrospective of work by one of the leading early colour photographers of the 20th century opens this March at The Photographers’ Gallery.

Peter Mitchell (b. 1943, UK) is widely regarded as one of the most important early colour photographers of the 1970s and 1980s. A powerful storyteller and social historian, Mitchell’s photography unfolds a longstanding and poetic connection with Leeds. He has chronicled the people and fortunes of the city with warmth and familiarity for over 40 years.

Described as ‘a narrator of who we were, a chaser of a disappearing world’ (Val Williams), his work reveals his love, and at times quirky, off-beat vision, of the people and changing face of Leeds.

The retrospective explores the breadth of Mitchell’s photographic practice. It brings together his famous series ‘A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission’, which imagines England as seen through the eyes of an alien from Mars, demolished flats, shopkeepers and their shops, and boarded-up and disused buildings, as well as his portraits of scarecrows. The exhibition marks a return to The Photographers’ Gallery for Mitchell – he first exhibited at the Gallery in 1984.

A chronicler of a changing city, he said of his work photographing the demise of the iconic Quarry Hills Estate in Leeds, ‘I know there was no point in keeping Quarry Hill flats. But what it stood for might have been worth keeping.’

Calling himself ‘a man of the pavement’, Mitchell continues to regularly walk the streets of Leeds to photograph his beloved hometown today.

Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever will include rarely seen works from Mitchell’s own collection, personal ephemera and found objects.

Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever is in collaboration with Leeds Art Gallery. Nothing Lasts Forever, published by RRB Photobooks, is available now.

Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell was born in Manchester in 1943. He studied at Hornsey College of Art in London, then moved north to look for work and never left. Living and working in Leeds for much of his life, Mitchell treats his surrounding with a unique sense of care. An essential part of the colour documentary scene in the 1970s and 80s, Mitchell’s landmark show A New Refutation of the Space Viking 4 Mission at Impressions Gallery in York in 1979 was the first colour photography show in the UK.

Press release from The Photographers’ Gallery

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Ready mixed Concrete Ltd., Elland Road, Leeds, 1977
1977
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Edna, George & Pat, H.E. Greenwood Butcher, Waterloo Road, Leeds, 1977
1977
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
‘How many Aunties?’, Back Hares Mount, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
The Sir Yank’s Heavy Disco, Harehills Avenue, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Priestly House, Quarry Hill Flats, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
The Kitson House telephone, Quarry Hill Flats, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

‘It was obvious to me that they were something special. York House was one side of the football pitch, Thoresby House opposite’

Peter Mitchell quoted on The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
The Garden of Rest, Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Thoresby House, Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

‘I photograph dying buildings and Quarry Hill was terminal by the time I got to it. Times change and I know there was no point in keeping Quarry Hill flats. But what it stood for might have been worth keeping’

Peter Mitchell quoted on The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Nielson House interior, Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
The Chair, Priestly House Interior, Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

‘One of those doomed deserts was Quarry Hill flats, irresistible both as a symbol of the fate of all architecture and of the great clock in the heavens signalling everybody’s life span’

Peter Mitchell quoted on The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Abandoned car, Wright House, Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds, 1978
1978
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Frances Gaven. Leeds, 1979
1979
From A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Francis Craven on Woodhouse Moor, Leeds in April 1979. He’d built this apparition himself but was having trouble with its arms – the pulleys had given out

Text from the Guardian website

Peter Mitchell’s A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission features photos and portraits, taken in Leeds in the 1970s. The pictures show the traditional urban landscape presented on a background of space charts, the concept being that an alien has landed from Mars and is wandering around Leeds with a degree of surprise and puzzlement.

In the Earthly vernacular these photographs are of Nowheresville. Yet, for some people, they are the centre of the universe. Usually they call it Home.

Text from the Martin Parr Foundation website [Online] Cited 25/05/2025

Mitchell’s series documents backstreets, corner shops, factories, churches and cemeteries in Leeds and Sheffield, as well as other locations in Cumbria and London, building a compelling picture of these cities during the late 1970s. Many of the portraits show the city inhabitants standing outside their homes or places of work. Equal attention is paid to the entirety of the setting, the figures often appearing dwarfed in the composition by their surroundings. The majority of the subjects gaze directly at the camera adopting stiff, frontal poses giving the images a formal impression and sense of stillness. Describing the distinctive style and subject matter of the photographs, historian David Mellor has commented, ‘it is as if Alan Bennett had met Diane Arbus in an urban picaresque’ (Mellor 2005, accessed 12 June 2017).

Ruins, crumbling facades, abandoned shops and cemeteries punctuate the series, pointing to themes of life, death, memory and loss. For example, Mitchell’s pictures includes shots of Mrs Lee’s dress shop – which burnt down the day after closure – a decayed synagogue and a defunct station in Sheffield, where the trains pass through but never stop. The 1970s were a time of great change in Britain as it struggled with widespread social unrest as well as the collapse of heavy industries. Commenting on this aspect of the series, Mellor noted, ‘NASA’s 1976 Viking Landers were a triumph of robotics, of remote sensing and imaging – that very culture of digitised information which was to supplant the manual world of industrial era Leeds.’ (Ibid.)

Text is a crucial element in Mitchell’s work, and each image in this series is accompanied by a caption to be displayed alongside. These idiosyncratic snippets of text are excerpted from Mitchell’s diary, and range from deadpan descriptions of place, to short anecdotes and humorous musings. Historian Val Williams has likened the artist’s distinctive combination of photography and text across his different bodies of work to the Situationist writing of the French theorist Guy Debord. …

Mitchell’s work occupies an important position within the history of colour photography specifically. He was photographing in colour at a time when black and white was the predominate medium for documentary photography in Britain, and before colour photography was fully embraced by museum collections. His work thus evidences an alternate history of colour photography distinct from the predominant narrative of the emergence of colour photography in the United States in the work of photographers such as William Eggleston (born 1939) and Stephen Shore (born 1947).

Sarah Allen
June 2016

Collection text on the Tate website [Online] Cited 24/05/2025

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Max Babbin, Vulcan Street, Leeds, 1979
1979
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
ABC (Aerated Bread Company offices), Camden Road, London, 1979
1979
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Old Kent Road, London, 1979
1979
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

His early photographs were made in the 1970s and 80s, when he was working as a truck driver. His vantage point removed him from the immediacy of the street, and he developed his distinctive graphic framing of the buildings and landscapes, which reveal the layers of urban and social history

Text from The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Mr Costas, Stroud Green Road, London, 1979
1979
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Mr Costas on Stroud Green Road, London in May 1979. He was thinking to himself: ‘If only this was Athens instead of Finsbury Park’

Text from The Guardian website

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Nosey ‘Twat, Sackville Street, Leeds, 1980s
1980s
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Kirkstall Road, Leeds, 1980s
1980s
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Francis Gavan, Ghost Train Ride, Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, Spring 1986
1986
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Racing Pigeon Shop (ii), Blake Grove, Leeds, Summer 2009
2009
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

John Murray owned the Racing Pigeon Shop and remembers “great times” on Blake Grove.

The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street
London
W1F 7LW

Opening hours:
Mon – Wed: 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday – Friday: 10.00 – 20.00
Saturday: 10.00 – 18.00
Sunday: 11.00 – 18.00

The Photographers’ Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Lucia Moholy – Exposures’ at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 8th February – 9th June, 2025

Curator: Jan Tichy

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989) 'Roof of the Atelier-House, Bauhaus Dessau' 1926 from the exhibition 'Lucia Moholy – Exposures' at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Feb - June, 2025

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Roof of the Atelier-House, Bauhaus Dessau
1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

I love Bauhaus design and photographs of the Bauhaus School and these are excellent photographs of both by Lucia Moholy: powerful, graphic, minimalist, modernist, echoing the ethos of the school itself. The strong portraits are pretty damn good as well…

It’s interesting to note then that Moholy was not particularly enamoured of this new modernist vision: “From her diaries, we know that Moholy didn’t like living in Dessau and her photos of the school, which are very alluring, also hint at her despair and dislike of being there.”

Then to learn that Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School, “had taken the negatives with him when he emigrated to the USA via London leading to years of negotiation with lawyers to get the negatives back.”

Why would you take the negatives of another artist, use them without credit and then refuse to give them back for many years without lawyers being involved? It’s incredible what human beings especially males will do (power and control), all because Gropius found the images useful for him to use! (see below)

While it is wonderful to be able to publish the first posting on Art Blart on the artist, I wish galleries and museums would stop making claims such as, Moholy “was one of the 20th century’s most internationally recognised and important female photographers.”

Let’s be frank: she wasn’t, not anywhere close.

Even in Europe in the 1930s we think of Florence Henri, Germaine Krull, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Ilse Bing, Edith Tudor-Hart, Dora Maar etc etc… without even considering American female photographers of the era, or indeed the rest of the century. Today, many have more significance in the history of photography than Lucia Moholy ever will have.

This is in no way denigrating her work at all which I like tremendously, but just to assert that statements not thought through by marketing and media departments may come back to bite you on the arse.

Best just to say that Lucia Moholy was an accomplished artist who made focused, thoughtful, beautiful photographs of an era now nearly a century past. What more do you need to say.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Fotostiftung Schweiz for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“In 1938, while Moholy lived in London, Walter Gropius used about fifty of Moholy’s images from the Bauhaus years – from her negatives that he still had in his possession – in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition and the accompanying catalogue, without giving her any credit. …

Gropius had been using her photographs without crediting her. She repeatedly reached out to Gropius to reclaim her images and he would continuously protest. Moholy resorted to hiring a lawyer to retrieve her work^.

Some relevant letters between Walter Gropius and Lucia Moholy are displayed on the website 99% Invisible. Moholy stated, “These negatives are irreplaceable documents which could be extremely useful, now more than ever” to which Gropius replied, “[…] long years ago in Berlin, you gave all these negatives to me. You will imagine that these photographs are extremely useful to me and that I have continuously made use of them; so I hope you will not deprive me of them.” Lucia Moholy responded, “Surely you did not expect me to delay my departure in order to draw up a formal contract stipulating date and conditions of return? No formal agreement could have carried more weight than our friendship. It is a friendship I have always relied on, and which, also, I am now invoking.^“

Moholy did not get physical possession of her original material until 1957, but even then she only could recover a portion of them, 230 out of the 560 Bauhaus-era negatives she took, while 330 negatives, according to Moholy’s own card catalogue, are still missing.”

Anonymous. “Lucia Moholy,” on the Wikipedia website [Onloine] Cited 30/05/2025

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989) 'Workshop wing, design by Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau' around 1926 from the exhibition 'Lucia Moholy – Exposures' at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Feb - June, 2025

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Workshop wing, design by Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau
around 1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lucia Moholy (1894-1989) was one of the 20th century’s most internationally recognised and important female photographers. Her architectural photographs and portraits from her years at the Bauhaus in Dessau, which have become icons of photographic history, still shape how that institution is perceived today. However, Moholy was not just a photographer, but also an art historian, critic, writer and archivist; she described herself as a ‘documentalist’ and made a name for herself in the field of information science.

The exhibition Lucia Moholy – Exposures is the first to show the broad scope of her work from the 1910s to the 1970s. Her photographic oeuvre is presented together with numerous documents, some of them newly discovered, which shed light on Moholy’s role in the avant-garde during the interwar period, as well as her youth in Prague, her editorial work in Germany, her activity as a portraitist in London, and her involvement with early microfilm technology in England and Turkey.

Finally, the exhibition also invites visitors to encounter Lucia Moholy in the context of Zurich, where she spent the last thirty years of her life. During that time, she also maintained a relationship with the then fledgling Fotostiftung Schweiz, which today is home to a large collection of her photographs.

Text from the Fotostiftung Schweiz website

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Gropius House in Dessau
1925
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

“This street view of Gropius’s house in Dessau is glimpsed through a line of birch trees that conjures a feeling of entrapment, almost like prison bars. It reinforces this sense of being fenced in or fenced off – a feature of many of Moholy’s images of the Masters’ Houses, which provided accommodation for Bauhaus teachers.

“The photograph really captures the modernist style of Gropius’s buildings, with the rectilinear geometric shapes and the dark windows inserted into the white facades. While living in Dessau, Moholy’s relationship with Gropius and his wife Isa was amiable and continued to be so when the Gropiuses emigrated to the United States.

“It was only in the 1950s, when she learned how the negatives she left behind in Berlin in 1933 had been used to build the legacy of the school without her knowledge, that the relationship turned sour and she engaged a lawyer to help her recover the images.”

Meghan Forbes, co-curator of the exhibition when it was at Kunsthalle Praha quoted in Alyn Griffiths. “Lucia Moholy’s photographs provide a different perspective on the Bauhaus,” on the Dezeen website, 9th August, 2024 [Online] Cited 10/05/2025

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Workshop wing from south-west, Bauhaus Dessau
1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Bauhaus Dessau: Workshop building from the southwest
c. 1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Workshop wing of the Bauhaus Building in Dessau
c. 1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

“To me, this photograph of Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus building with a muddy, unpaved road in the foreground shows the messier, dirtier aspects of constructing a new modernist vision. From her diaries, we know that Moholy didn’t like living in Dessau and her photos of the school, which are very alluring, also hint at her despair and dislike of being there.

“Moholy’s photographs documenting the Bauhaus buildings and design objects already appeared – with and without credits – in books at the time, as well as in the popular press. In the 1950s, she discovered that at least 40 of her images were used in the catalogue of the seminal 1938 Bauhaus exhibition held at MoMA in New York.

“It kickstarted a life-long campaign of letter-writing to try to obtain both the possession of her glass negatives from the Bauhaus years and appropriate author credit and compensation for the publication of her images.”

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Dining room Moholy-Nagy, Meistersiedlung Bauhaus Dessau
1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

In the exhibition Lucia Moholy – Exposures, Fotostiftung Schweiz is honouring the oeuvre of a versatile 20th-century pioneer. The famous Bauhaus photographs taken by Lucia Moholy (1894-1989) still shape how that institution is seen today. She also left a significant legacy via her work as an art historian, critic, writer and microfilm expert. The exhibition shines a spotlight on this long-underestimated figure, who spent the last 30 years of her life in Zollikon, near Zurich.

Lucia Moholy – Exposures presents, for the first time, the full breadth of her work from the 1910s to the 1970s. Photographs, letters, diaries, publications and microfilms are shown, spread across three exhibition rooms. The focus is on key periods of her life: her youth in Prague, her time at the Bauhaus, her exile in London and her pioneering work on microfilm technology. One point of emphasis is her connection with Zurich and with Fotostiftung Schweiz, which holds many of her images. Works by the contemporary Czech artist and curatorJan Tichy will also be on display. The exhibition is realised in cooperation with Kunsthalle Praha.

Photographer of the Bauhaus

Lucia Moholy left Prague in 1915 to work for various German publishers. In Berlin, she met Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy, whom she married in 1921. Together, they explored new reproduction technologies and the possibilities of the photogram. When Moholy-Nagy was appointed as a master at the Bauhaus, Moholy accompanied him and began to take photographs: Between 1923 and 1928, she documented Bauhaus design objects and Walter Gropius’s famous Dessau buildings. Her clearly composed shots still characterise the visual legacy of that institution to this day. Moholy’s portraits of Bauhaus figures like Anni Albers, Walter Gropius and Florence Henri are particularly impressive, and have been made central to the exhibition.

Exile and a new beginning

In 1928, Lucia Moholy and László Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus and moved to Berlin, where they soon separated. Moholy took charge of the photography class at Johannes Itten’s art school, while simultaneously trying her hand at photojournalism. Her flight from the Nazis in 1933 took her to London. There, she opened a photo studio and wrote the bestseller A Hundred Years of Photography, 1839-1939. After her studio was destroyed by bombing in 1940, she turned to microfilm technology. She founded her own documentation service and set up a microfilm centre in Ankara as a UNESCO expert.

The search for the glass negatives

After the end of the Second World War, Moholy noticed many of her Bauhaus photographs appearing in newly released publications. After extensive research, she eventually learnt that Walter Gropius had taken the negatives with him when he emigrated to the USA via London. It was not until 1957, after years of legal negotiations, that Lucia Moholy was able to get a large number of her negatives back, which are now in the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin.

Late recognition of the photographer

Moholy moved to Zurich in 1959. Here, she wrote about Zurich exhibitions for English magazines and was a prominent figure on the art scene. During the 1970s and 1980s, interest in Moholy’s photographic works finally grew. They were shown in exhibitions and published in magazines. In 1981, a solo exhibition was held in her honour at Gallery Ziegler in Zurich. Four years later, her first monograph was published, with in-depth analysis of her work by art historian Rolf Sachsse. Moreover, two founding members of Fotostiftung Schweiz, Rosellina Burri-Bischof and Walter Binder, maintained contact with Lucia Moholy. Thanks to a purchase and a donation from Moholy’s estate, Fotostiftung Schweiz now holds 146 of her prints, which can be accessed via the Online Image Archive and constitute the largest collection outside the Bauhaus Archive.

Jan Tichy – Weight of Glass

The exhibition at Fotostiftung Schweiz is supplemented with contemporary works by the artist and curator Jan Tichy, who has been engaging with Moholy’s legacy for almost 20 years. His microfilm installation can be seen in the passage leading to the photo library. In addition, contemporary video works, installations and photographs are being shown at oxyd-Kunsträume from the 7th of February to the 2nd of March 2025, including the impressive Installation no. 30 (Lucia), for which Tichy arranges and illuminates 330 glass plates in the size of the original negatives. Set up in a dark room, the installation creates a fleeting and fragile memorial to an important protagonist of the 20th century.

Lucia Moholy – Exposures is a Kunsthalle Praha exhibition project, organised in cooperation with Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, and the Bauhaus Archive, Berlin.

Press release from Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989) 'Metal workshop, design by Marianne Brandt, Bauhaus Dessau' 1924 from the exhibition 'Lucia Moholy – Exposures' at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Feb - June, 2025

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Metal workshop, design by Marianne Brandt, Bauhaus Dessau
1924
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

“Marianne Brandt is a really important Bauhaus designer who ended up living in East Germany in relative obscurity, although her work is now also receiving due attention. The somewhat static composition of the two objects side by side is dynamised by the diagonals produced by the larger vessel’s slender spout and the decision to slant in the ashtray’s top, emphasizing the use value.

“It also shows how Moholy played with reflective surfaces when photographing metal objects, evoking the work of Florence Henri who was at the Bauhaus at the same time. Henri was known for capturing her own portrait as she played with glass and metal in her photographs.

“We can also occasionally catch a glimpse of Moholy in some of her metal studies. But in other instances, she focuses on highlighting the lustrous quality of the objects in isolation. These images of metal objects are perhaps the best-known of her Bauhaus product photographs. But she also took pictures of pieces made from ceramics or wood that indicate the evolution of design thinking at the school.”

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Edith Tschichold, Bauhaus Dessau
1926
© ProLitteris, Zürich

Edith Tschichold was the wife of Bauhaus typographer and graphic designer Jan Tschichold (German, 1905-1986)

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
László Moholy-Nagy, Bauhaus Dessau
1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

~ European art research tour exhibition: ‘László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929’ at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, August – September 2019, posted November 2020
~ Exhibition: ‘Moholy-Nagy: Future Present’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February – June 2017
~ Exhibition: ‘Moholy-Nagy: Future Present’ at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, May – September 2016
~ Exhibition: ‘László Moholy-Nagy. The Art of Light’ at the Ludwig Museum, Budapest, June – September 2011
~ Exhibition: ‘László Moholy-Nagy – Art of Light’ at Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin, November 2010 – January 2011
~ Exhibition: ‘László Moholy-Nagy  Retrospective’ at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, October 2009 – February 2010

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau
1926
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Ingeborg Lebert
1927
Gelatin silver print
22 x 29.8cm
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Lou Scheper
1927
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp née Hermine Luise Berkenkamp (German, 1901-1976) was a painter, colour designer, the avant-garde author of children’s books, fairy-tale illustrator and costume designer.

More information on the Wikipedia website

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Florence Henri, Bauhaus Dessau
1927
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

“Henri’s sophisticated, avante-garde, sculptural compositions have an almost ‘being there’ presence: a structured awareness of a way of looking at the world, a world in which the artist questions reality. She confronts the borders of an empirical reality (captured by a machine, the camera) through collage and mirrors, in order to take a leap of faith towards some form of transcendence of the real. Here she confronts the limitless freedom of creativity, of composition, to go beyond objectivity and science, to experience Existenz (Jaspers) – the realm of authentic being.*

These photographs are her experience of being in the world, of Henri observing the breath of being – the breath of herself, the breath of the objects and a meditation on those objects. There is a stillness here, an eloquence of construction and observation that goes beyond the mortal life of the thing itself. That is how these photographs seem to me to live in the world. I may be completely wrong, I probably am completely wrong – but that is how these images feel to me: a view, a perspective, the artist as prospector searching for a new way of authentically living in the world.”

Marcus Bunyan commenting on the exhibition Florence Henri. Compositions at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, March – September 2014

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Gypsy, Jugoslavia
1930-1931
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Ruth Fry
1936
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Anna Ruth Fry (British , 1878-1962), usually known as Ruth Fry, was a Quaker writer, pacifist and peace activist.

More information on the Wikipedia website

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Emma, Countess of Oxford and Asquith, London
1937
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich

Hans Peter Klauser (Swiss, 1910-1989)
Lucia Moholy in her studio in Zollikon
1972
© Hans Peter Klauser/Fotostiftung Schweiz

Fotostiftung Schweiz
Grüzenstrasse 45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zürich)
Phone: +41 52 234 10 30

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 6pm
Wednesday 11am – 8pm
Closed on Mondays

Fotostiftung Schweiz website

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Exhibition: ‘Martin Parr. Early Works’ at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

“I am always fascinated with the early work of an artist. In essence, the photographs tell you what are the primary concerns for the artist and these themes usually remain with them for the rest of their career.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 13th September, 2024 – 16th February, 2025

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Elland, West Yorkshire, England, 1978' 1978 from the series 'Bad Weather' from the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF), September 2024 - February 2025

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Elland, West Yorkshire, England, 1978
1978
From Bad Weather
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Out in the midday sun

I watch a lot of the TV program Antiques Roadshow and in the early episodes you see British people of a certain age, people who lived through the Second World War and their children, salt of the earth people who inherited objects from their mother-in-law or father-in-law because they couldn’t dust them anymore. These are British people who have a down-to-earthness and ordinariness about them… people who went to church on Sunday, went to working-class seaside resort Butlins with their family for a holiday (as I did as a child) and loved the royal family. These people project a certain consciousness, a wonderful quirky character, sense of humour and regional dialect that is uniquely British.

People such as these have always been pictured in British photography, historically through the lineage of artists such John Thomson (1837-1921) and Richard Jenkins (1890-1964) through Christina Broom (1862-1939) in the 1920s and on to Edith Tudor-Hart (1908-1973) and Bill Brandt (1904-1983) in the 1930s-1940s. These photographers were followed in the 1950s-1990s by a pantheon of strong, gritty and revelatory social documentary photographers. Indeed, this aspect of British photography has been particularly blessed by talented artists whose work focuses on “ordinary people and their surroundings – often in suburban or working-class environments.”

Artists I can mention include, but are not limited to, photographers such as Chris Killip (1946-2020), Brenda Prince (b. 1950), Roger Mayne (1929-2014), Anna Fox (b. 1961), Tony Ray-Jones (1941-1972), Colin Jones (1936-2021), Graham Smith (b. 1947), Paul Graham (b. 1956), Paul Trevor (b. 1947), James Barnor (b. 1929), Colin Jones (1936-2021), Syd Shelton (b. 1947), John Bulmer (b. 1938), Peter Mitchell (b. 1943), Don McCullin (b. 1935), Daniel Meadows (b. 1952), Neil Kenlock (b. 1950), Bandele Ajetunmobi (1921-1994), Dennis Morris (b. 1960) to name but a few: apologies if I have missed anybody for I am still learning about the many and various photographers in this field.

Into this heady mix can be added the name of that legendary British photographer Martin Parr (b. 1952). Better known for his later colour photographs of British rituals and everyday conversations – “candid and often humorous depictions of everyday life” captured with visual deftness and containing a wry sense of humour mirroring the British character – these early black and white photographs proffer the path of development for this artist.

“Shot between 1970 and 1985, the images document the subtleties and eccentricities of everyday British life from that era, spanning local traditions, holiday resorts and of course the weather, among many other things.”1 As Val Williams has insightfully observed, “Martin Parr’s early black and white photographs of the North of England are a remarkable record of an all-but disappeared society.”2

I am always fascinated with the early work of an artist. In essence, the photographs tell you what are the primary concerns for the artist and these themes usually remain with them for the rest of their career. These early black and white photographs provide a window into that ongoing investigation, that golden path. They are more subtle in their modulation of British life than in the later colour work – it’s as though the artist had to change gears with the use of colour developing a more ironic way of seeing British life through a different spatial relationship to his subjects – but in these photographs there is still that deprecating humour that is often missing in the work of his contemporaries: the barren tree emerging from the seemingly abandoned, frost covered, three-wheeler “bubble car” parked on the pavement; the seemingly abandoned Jubilee street party destroyed by rain in a desolate mining town; the contortions and consequences of grasping for food at the mayor’s inaugural banquet; the incongruity of man balancing at the top of a ladder to reach around to clean the outside of his front door window; or the implied racism as a coloured British family observes the “whites” of a different generation from afar, the space between them as wide as an ocean.

Through his beautifully observed and humorous photographs Martin Parr has become a national treasure.

My only wish… why I didn’t have more media images to show you!?

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Text from the Martin Parr Studio Instagram page

2/ Val Williams. “The Ordinary Made Extraordinary: Martin Parr in Black and White,” on the Magnum website Oct 14, 2019 [Online] Cited 30/12/2024

Many thankx to Fotografie Forum Frankfurt for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photograph for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) showing at left Parr's photograph 'Jubilee street party, Elland, West Yorkshire, England, GB, July 1977'

Installation views of the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) showing at left in the bottom image, Parr’s photograph Jubilee street party, Elland, West Yorkshire, England, GB, July 1977

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Jubilee street party, Elland, West Yorkshire, England, GB, July 1977' 1977 from the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF), September 2024 - February 2025

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Jubilee street party, Elland, West Yorkshire, England, GB, July 1977
1977
From Bad Weather
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) showing works from West Yorkshire including at left, Steep Lane Baptist Chapel buffet lunch. Doris Wilson (centre). Sowerby. Calderdale. West Yorkshire. England. GB. 1977; at second left top, Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977; and at right, Steep Lane Baptist Chapel. West Yorkshire. England. GB. 1977

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Steep Lane Baptist Chapel buffet lunch, Sowerby, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, 1977' 1977 from the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Steep Lane Baptist Chapel buffet lunch, Sowerby, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, 1977
1977
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) showing an enlargement of Parr’s photograph Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977 (detail)

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Mayor of Todmorden's inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977' 1977 from the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977
1977
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) showing at left, Parr’s photograph Hebden Bridge, England, 1979; and at top right, the cover of Parr’s book Bad Weather (Zwemmer, 1982)

In 1972, he settled to the north east of Manchester, in the west Yorkshire mill town of Hebden Bridge. Though the mills were rapidly closing, the back-to-back houses and the social fabric of the smaller mill towns remained.

Hebden Bridge was an intricate fabric of social organisation, and Parr was fascinated by the many clubs and societies which flourished there. With some fellow ex-students, he rented a small shop and set up the Albert Street Workshop, which showed photographs, paintings and ceramics. Though he photographed Hebden Bridge life with great enthusiasm (one of his favorite subjects was the Ancient Order of Henpecked Husbands) and produced many memorable images in the town, the great achievement of his Hebden Bridge years was his documentation of Crimsworth Dean Methodist Chapel, high up on the moors above the town. Together with his future partner Susie Mitchell, Parr immersed himself in the life of the chapel, photographing, interviewing and taking part in events there. For him, the chapel was ‘the icon of Hebden Bridge’s dark and gloomy, rather miserable past’ and the photographs he made at Crimsworth Dene and other Methodist chapels were an elegy to a passing way of life, somber and poetic, with an occasional whisper of humour.

Val Williams. “The Ordinary Made Extraordinary: Martin Parr in Black and White,” on the Magnum website Oct 14, 2019 [Online] Cited 30/12/2024

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Rugby League Club ground, West Yorkshire, England, 1977' 1977 from the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Rugby League Club ground, West Yorkshire, England, 1977
1977
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

With the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works on view from September 13, 2024 to February 16, 2025 the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) shows another highlight in its 40th anniversary year. As an observer of life, the ironic and socially critical eye of Magnum photographer Martin Parr has become an integral part of the history of photography. This exhibition of rarely seen black and white images made by the British photographer between 1970 and 1985 is on view for the first time in Germany.

Bird clubs in Surrey, pilgrimages to see the Pope in Ireland, holiday resorts, sports and village banquets are only a few of the places and social activities which first grasped Martin Parr’s attention. In a special selection of fifty-eight black and white images, this show focuses on the subtleties of the unnoticed episodes found in the everyday: be it in communities draped in local traditions, street life and in the unforgettable fluctuating island weather, Parr makes us always look twice, to cherish the funny sides of life.

Included are some of Parr’s encompassing views such as The Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural Banquette, from 1977, where hungry guests squeeze shoulder to shoulder, not to miss the best dish; or two devout Catholics anxiously awaiting a glimpse of Pope John Paul II, Dublin, 1979 a-top their kitchen ladder; as well as the animal protagonists, such as a cow posed like a day-tripper on the hillside of Glastonbury Tor.

Martin Parr. Early Works was curated by Celina Lunsford in close collaboration with the photographer and the Martin Parr Foundation. Simultaneously, the Leica Galerie Frankfurt is showing with Martin Parr in Colour (14.09.2024 – 05.01.2025), a selection of photographs in colour made by the British documentary photographer.

Known for his bold colours and everyday scenes, Parr’s famous classics are included such as the image of a woman with her face obscured by an English flag, and the view of a postcard of a crowded beach with a price tag. Equally iconic is the image of the swan looking directly into the camera, as if posing for the photograph.

Martin Parr’s colour photographs also show excerpts from everyday life in an exaggerated and sometimes absurd way. At first glance, nostalgia or romanticism seem to be at the forefront, but his works have a questioning character. As documentations of society, they contribute to its reflection, revealing the complexity and absurdity of modern life in a comical and critical way.

Together, these two exhibitions provide a complementary overview of the wide range of Martin Parr’s work. Exaggeration and hyperbole – his key elements – run like a thread through his early and late photographs, encouraging the viewer to reflect on social and cultural issues and to enjoy more than just the aesthetic aspects of photography.

Martin Parr (b. 1952 in Epsom, Surrey, GB) is a British photographer known for his perceptive and often ironic documentation of everyday life. Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic and began his career in the 1970s. His work is characterised by its humorous depiction of social issues. Initially working in black and white, he switched to colour photography in the mid-1980s. He has been a member of the renowned Magnum photo agency since 1994. Parr has published numerous books and his work is exhibited and collected worldwide. In addition to his work as a photographer, he is active as a curator and a collector. The Martin Parr Foundation was established in 2014 and is based in Bristol since 2017.

Press release from Fotografie Forum Frankfurt

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Surrey Bird Club, Surrey, England, 1972' 1972 from the exhibition 'Martin Parr. Early Works' at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Surrey Bird Club, Surrey, England, 1972
1972
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'Osmond Fan, Manchester, England, 1973' 1973

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Osmond Fan, Manchester, England
1973
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Tom Greenwood, Hangingroyd Road, Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, England, 1975
1975
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Wedding at Crimsworth Dean Methodist Chapel, Hebden Bridge, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, 1977
1977
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
St Peter’s Walks, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, 1979
1979
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Glastonbury Tor, Somerset, England, 1975
1975
From Beauty Spots
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

Martin Parr. Early Works poster for the exhibition at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF)

Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
e.V. Braubachstraße 30-32,
60311 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 (0) 69 29 17 26

Fotografie Forum Frankfurt website

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Photos: ‘Album Horace Vernet’

November 2024

Album Horace Vernet front cover
30 cartes des visite
16cm high x 11cm wide x 3.5cm deep

I purchased this small photo album from an op shop (charity shop) in Melbourne, Australia.

It features 29 carte de visite by the French firm Goupil & Cie of the paintings of the French history painter Horace Vernet (1789-1863) – painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist and modern national subjects.

“The Universal Exposition of 1855, at which he was represented by twenty-four paintings, crowned his popular and official success. His reputation among artists and critics, on the other hand, was not uncontested. Baudelaire scathingly referred to him as “un militaire qui fait de la peinture,” and while his painstaking factuality and the sheer magnitude of his production commanded respect, the prosy shallowness of his realism, his stylistic banality, and the stridency of his chauvinism were early noted and contributed to the eventual neglect of his work. At the time of his death in 1863, Vernet, a member of thirty academies, was nevertheless France’s most famous artist, admired and imitated throughout Europe and deeply imbedded in popular culture.”1

The only photograph not by Goupil & Cie in the whole album is the second photograph in the album, a portrait of the painter by Bingham (Robert Jefferson Bingham, English 1825-1870). The photograph can be dated to between 1861 when Bingham’s photographic studio in Paris was at Rue de la Rochefoucauld and 1863 when Vernet died. This also helps date the compilation of the whole album.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Anonymous. “Horace Vernet,” on the National Gallery of Art website Nd [Online] Cited 13/10/2024

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

PLEASE NOTE: the photographs appear in the posting in the order they appear in the album.

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) The Studio of Horace Vernet (Interieur d un Atelier) 1824
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie was at Boulevard Montmartre between the 1850s-1880s

Bingham (photographer) Robert Jefferson Bingham (English, 1825-1870)
Photographie De S.M. La Reine D’Angleterre
Medaille de 1ere Classe 1855
58 Rue de Larochefoucualt, Paris
Portrait of Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
1861-1863
Carte de visite

Operated at Rue de la Rochefoucauld, 58 from 1861 until 1870.

Born in 1825 near Leicester in England, Bingham had a background in chemistry. He was particularly interested in photographic processes, and published a treatise on this subject in 1848. He later became the first writer to outline the possible use of collodion in photographs and the self-proclaimed ‘Inventeur du procédé collodion’. Bingham first exhibited his photographs of landscapes and of copies of paintings in London at The Great Exhibition in 1851. In 1859 he established a photographic portrait studio in Paris, which thrived throughout the 1860s and continued under his name even after his death in Brussels in 1870.

Text from the National Portrait Gallery website

Bingham also made photographs of the Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris. His ability to take some 2500 photographs at relatively high speeds on this occasion encouraged other photographers to use the collodion process for their work as well, helping it become the most popular method from 1855 until about 1880. Henry Cole sent him at the same time to the Louvre to photograph the masterpieces of the museum collection. At some point in 1851 1855, or 1859, Bingham moved to Paris to work there as a photographer, at first together with the American Warren T. Thompson until Thompson returned to England in 1856. Bingham not only worked at the 1855 Exposition, but also displayed his own life-size portraits, for which he won a Medal First Class. Due to a lack of commercial success, however, he soon stopped producing these huge photographs and stuck to more standard formats.

His work at the Louvre inspired him to make photographic portraiture a commercial enterprise, and in 1857 he opened his new atelier in the Nouvelle Athènes quarter of Paris, one of the hotspots of artistic activity at the time. He became friends with many artists, photographing them and their works, and started on a new project, a photographic collection of the works of the recently deceased painter Paul Delaroche. Published in 1858, it was the first photographic catalogue raisonné. It was followed over the next few years by similar works about other artists, including one in 1860 on Ary Scheffer and another one with photographs of the major works of the 1860 Salon. Smaller works with only a handful of photographs were produced for particular collections and for the Napoleon Museum in Amiens.

Anonymous. “Robert Jefferson Bingham,” on the Wikipedia website

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Battle near Vitebsk 1812
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole 1826
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) La Barrière de Clichy. Défense de Paris, March 30, 1814
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Napoleon reviewing the Guard in the place du Carrousel, c. 1841-1842
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Napoleon bids farewell to his Guard at Fontainebleau on 20 April 1814 (1824)
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) The Lion Hunt 1836
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789–1863) Chasse Aux Sangliers dans la Plaine de Sahara (Wild Boar Hunting in the Sahara Plain) 1838
c. 1860-1863

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Unknown title Nd
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789–1863) Le Giaour, vainqueur d’Hassan (The Giaour conquers Hassan) c. 1827
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
Le Giaour, vainqueur d’Hassan
c. 1827
Oil on canvas
25 5/8 x 21 in. (65 x 54cm)
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Cavalier arabe, dit aussi ‘La Retraite’ (Arabian horseman, also called ‘The Retreat’) 1839
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
Cavalier arabe, dit aussi ‘La Retraite’
1839
Oil on panel
40.8 x 33.5cm (16 x 13 1/4 in.)
Purchased or commissioned by Baron Jean-Conrad Hottinguer (1803-1866) and paid by him to Vernet in 1840; then collection of Baroness Hottinguer, in 1874
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Louis-Philippe, accompagné de ses fils, sortant à cheval du château de Versailles (King Louis-Philippe escorted by his sons leaving Versailles on June 10, 1837) 1846
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visit

Horace Vernet (French, 1789–1863)
Louis-Philippe, accompagné de ses fils, sortant à cheval du château de Versailles (King Louis-Philippe escorted by his sons leaving Versailles on June 10, 1837)
1846
Oil on canvas
Height: 368cm
Width: 397.5cm
Musée national du Château de Versailles
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Judith and Holofernes 1829
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Judith with the head of Holofernes Nd
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Rebecca and Eleazar at the well (1835, now lost)
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Pie VIII porté dans la basilique de Saint-Pierre à Rome (Pius VIII brought to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome) 1829
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
Pie VIII porté dans la basilique de Saint-Pierre à Rome (Pius VIII brought to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome)
1829
Oil on canvas
Height: 385cm (12.6 ft)
Width: 329cm (10.7 ft)
Museum of the History of France
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Repudiation Of Hagar 1837
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Le Marché d’esclaves (Slave market) 1836
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
Le Marché d’esclaves (Slave market)
1836
Oil on canvas
Height: 65cm (25.5 in)
Width: 54cm (21.2 in)
Alte Nationalgalerie
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) An Algerian Lady Hawking 1839
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Châtelaine partant pour la chasse (Chatelaine leaving for the hunt) 1840
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Bonaparte after the Battle of Bassano 1848
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) The Arab Tale-teller 1833
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Joseph’s Coat 1853
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Première messe en Kabylie (First mass in Kabylie) 1854
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
Première messe en Kabylie (First mass in Kabylie)
1854
Oil on canvas
Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Daniel dans la fosse aux lions (Daniel in the Lions’ Den) 1857
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Mountain Hunters Nd
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Le Zouave trappiste (The Trappist Zouave) 1856
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) Zouaves at the Malakoff 1856
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
Zouaves at the Malakoff
1856
Oil on canvas
Height: 39.7cm (15.6 in)
Width: 33.9cm (13.3 in)
Royal Collection
Public domain

Goupil & Cie (photographer), Paris 19, Boulevard Montmartre
London, La Haye, Berlin, New York
After a painting by Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863) The scene of war 1861
c. 1860-1863
Carte de visite

Album Horace Vernet back cover
30 cartes des visite
16cm high x 11cm wide x 3.5cm deep

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Exhibition: ‘Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron’ at the Milwaukee Art Museum

“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 (British born India, 1815-1879) 'Annie' 1864 from the exhibition 'Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron' at the Milwaukee Art Museum, May - July, 2024

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Annie
1864
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

2/ Marcus Bunyan on the exhibition Julia Margaret Cameron: from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney on Art Blart 24th October 2015

3/ Marcus Bunyan on the exhibition Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography at the National Portrait Gallery, London on Art Blart 13th May 2018

Julia Margaret Cameron exhibitions on Art Blart

~ Exhibition: ‘Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London, March – June 2024

~ Exhibition: ‘Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London Part 1, March – May 2018

~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, November 2015 – February 2016

~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney Part 2, August – October 2015

~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney Part 1, August – October 2015

~ 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.

A V&A Exhibition – Touring the World

Text from the Milwaukee Art Museum website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879) 'A Sibyl after the manner of Michelangelo' 1864 from the exhibition 'Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron' at the Milwaukee Art Museum, May - July, 2024

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
A Sibyl after the manner of Michelangelo
1864
Albumen print
28.5cm x 22.5cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Whisper of the Muse
1865
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
La Madonna Aspettante
1865
Albumen print from wet collodion negative
25.5 x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879)
My grand child aged 2 years & three months
1865
Albumen print from wet collodion negative
25.5 x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879) 'The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty' June 1866

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Mountain Nymph Sweet Liberty
1866
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Christabel
1866
Albumen print from wet collodion negative
25.5 x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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’.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Beatrice
March 1866
Albumen print from wet collodion negative
35.3 x 28.1cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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’.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Call I Follow, I Follow, Let Me Die
1867
Carbon print
35.1cm x 26.7cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Sir John Herschel
1867
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Press release from the Milwaukee Art Museum

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Rosebud Garden of Girls
1868
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Charles Darwin
1868 (photographed), 1875 (printed)
Albumen print from wet collodion negative
25.5 x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Charles Hay Cameron
May 1868
Albumen print from wet collodion negative
25.5 x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

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.

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
I Wait
1872
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
St. Agnes
1872
Albumen print
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Mary Hillier
1873
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Text from the V&A website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
A Group of Kalutara Peasants
1878
Albumen print
25.5cm x 21.3cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Milwaukee Art Museum
700 N Art Museum Dr, Milwaukee,
WI 53202, United States

Opening hours:
Monday – Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 10am – 5pm
Thursday: 10am – 8pm
Friday – Sunday: 10am – 5pm

Milwaukee Art Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London

“In both artist’s work the notion of materialisation (the process of coming into being) and transformation is a powerful creative tool.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 21st March – 16th June, 2024

Curator: Magdalene Keaney

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879) 'The Dream (Mary Hillier)' 1869 from the exhibition 'Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In' at the National Portrait Gallery, London, March - June, 2024

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)

The Dream (Mary Hillier)

1869

Albumen silver print

Wilson Centre for Photography

Mary Ann Hilliar was born on the Isle of Wight, and as well as being Julia Margaret Cameron’s favourite model was employed by her as a house maid. She often poised in religious themed photos looking noble and melancholy. As well as modelling for Mrs Cameron she was painted by G F Watts.

She married Thomas Gilbert and had 8 children, descendants of whom still live on the Isle of Wight. Mary Ann lived to the age of 88, although in her later years she suffered badly from rheumatism and was almost blind due to cataracts. She is buried just a few feet away from the Tennyson grave.

Text from the National Portrait Gallery website

Otherworldy beings: the materialisations and transformations of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron

To pair these two artists together is curatorial inspiration from the gods!

In both artist’s work the notion of materialisation (the process of coming into being) and transformation is a powerful creative tool.

Cameron‘s photographs are exterior to the artist, outward facing creations which capture in the sitter an emanation of spirit. These ethereal creatures mainly based on biblical, mythological, or literary figures … these beautiful apparitions who seem to hover before us were, at the time, seen as radical photographs. Their striking presences and emotive sensibility create a psychological connection with the viewer, photographs imaged / imagined as if they were seen in a dream.

“Cameron’s portraits are famously a pictorialist stagecraft: a pantomime of Christian archetypes, Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics, and the influence of contemporary poets such as Shelley, Keats and Tennyson. What would be considered as potential subject matter for this nascent thirty-year-old medium was formative and cautious, and the conventions of beauty and gender, static” opines Stephen Frailey in an article commenting on the exhibition on the Aperture website (see below). Nothing could be further from the truth.

The artist envisions CHIMERICAL CREATURES. At the time of their production, Cameron’s shimmering portraits were seen as anything but cautious, they were seen as radical and ephemeral: a unique vision, different from everyone else: “directed light, soft focus, and long exposures that allowed the sitters’ slight movement to register in her pictures, instilling them with a sense of breath and life.”1 And, despite their soft focus, I believe that they are never “Pictorialist” photographs – they are “modern” photographs of a radical nature which may have later influenced the Pictorialist aesthetic. As I have commented before,

“She has, of course, been seen as a precursor to Pictorialism, but personally I do not get that feeling from her photographs, even though the artists are using many of the same techniques. Her work is based on the reality of seeing beauty, whereas the Pictorialists were trying to make photography into art by emulating the techniques of etching and painting. While the form of her images owes a lot to the history of classical sculpture and painting, to Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites, she thought her’s was already art of the highest order. She did not have to mask its content in order to imitate another medium. Others, such as the curator of the exhibition Marta Weiss, see her as a proto-modernist, precursor to the photographs of Stieglitz and Sander and I would agree. There is certainly a fundamental presence to JMC’s photographs, so that when you are looking at them, they tend to touch your soul, the eyes of some of the portraits burning right through you; while others, others have this ambiguity of meaning, of feeling, as if removed from the everyday life.”2

Contemporary commentators condemned Cameron’s photographs for sloppy craftsmanship (they were out of focus, the plates contained fingerprints, dust, debris, streak marks and swirls of collodion on her negatives). Others mocked her for claiming to have photographed a historical figure ‘from the life’. The kinds of images being made at the time did not interest Cameron. The artist would focus her lens until she thought the subject was beautiful “instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insist upon.” (JMC) “Her photographic vision was 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.”3

Woodman‘s photographs are interior to the artist, inward facing creations which capture her/self and the female form in space as a flux or metamorphosis of spirit.

“Francesca Woodman’s photographs explore issues of gender and self, looking at the representation of the body in relation to its surroundings. She puts herself in the frame most often, although these are not conventional self-portraits as she is either partially hidden, or concealed by slow exposures that blur her moving figure into a ghostly presence.”4

They promote in the attentive viewer a ghostly insistence that you could be her – in vulnerability, in presence, in fear of suffering, for our death. Who are we that is represented, what is our place in this lonely world, how do we interact with our shadow? They offer glimpses of another, dream-like world, the microcosm of a life focusing a lens on (her) infinite spirit.

“The artist is a CHIMERICAL CREATURE. Imaginary, visionary. Woodman’s transformations, her interior elements, become part of the wall or the house. She vanishes “from the room, out of the picture, at any given second.”5 A preoccupation with the body / her own body, and the dichotomy of subject-object, also adds multiple meanings and complexity to Woodman’s work. Her many angel images (and also images of umbrellas – Mary Poppins was released in 1964 when Woodman was growing up) suggest movement and the ability to fly, a fascination that found its ultimate expression when she jumped off a building in lower Manhattan at the age of 22.”6

Both Cameron, a woman taking photographs for just fifteen years within the first twenty five years of the birth of commercial photography, using rudimentary technology and chemicals – and Woodman, a woman taking photographs for just eight years, whose practice of staging her body and her face in interior spaces so influenced a later generation of female artists – have left an indelible mark on the history of photography and identity formation.

Working “at times when women were marginal in the history of art and photography” both women are now regarded as important artists, in the upper echelons of photographers who have ever lived. The unique quality of their work shines through, each materialising a distinctive handwriting which could only ever be a Cameron or a Woodman (the atmospheric radiance of the one and a sense of vulnerability in the other). In their photographs I feel the transformative potential of that vision (it rumbles through my body, it impinges on my consciousness). Their ability to see things not as others see them, away from the too-rough fingers of the world.

Oh how I would like to see this exhibition in the flesh, to observe the synergies and differences between both artist’s works, to listen to the conversations across time and space through centuries of art practice. I will just have to buy the catalogue instead, but that is no substitute for physically standing in front of their “beautiful, subtle, intricate, and beguiling” prints.

To feel the vibrations of energy from these otherworldy beings…

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Press release from the exhibition Julia Margaret Cameron at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, August 2013 – January 2014

2/ Marcus Bunyan. “The road less travelled,” on the exhibition ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney on the Art Blart website 24th October 2015 [Online] Cited 11/06/2024

3/ Anonymous. “A Study of the Cenci,” on the V&A website Nd [Online] Cited 11/06/2024

4/ Text from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art website [Online] Cited 25/06/2009. No longer available online

5/ Anna Tellgren. Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel (50kb pdf). 2015, p. 11

6/ Marcus Bunyan. “The artist as chimerical creature,” on the exhibition ‘Francesca Woodman. On Being an Angel’ at Moderna Museet, Stockholm on the Art Blart website 4th December 2015 [Online] Cited 11/06/2024

Other exhibitions on Julia Margaret Cameron and Francesca Woodman on Art Blart

~ Exhibition: ‘Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London Part 1, March – May 2018
~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, November 2015 – February 2016
~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney Part 2, August – October 2015
~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney Part 1, August – October 2015
~ Exhibition: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, August 2013 – January 2014
~ Exhibition: ‘Francesca Woodman. On Being an Angel’ at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, September – December 2015
~ Exhibition: ‘Francesca Woodman’ at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, March – June 2012
~ Exhibition: ‘ARTIST ROOMS: Celmins, Gallagher, Hirst, Katz, Warhol, Woodman’ at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, March – November 2009

Many thankx to the 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.

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world

Langston Hughes

Major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery to showcase rare vintage prints by two of art history’s most influential photographers – Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron

More than 160 rare vintage prints will be exhibited as part of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In, as the two photographers – who worked 100 years apart – are presented in parallel for the first time.

The exhibition will present a thematic exploration of the photographic work produced throughout both artists’ entire careers, including their best known and less familiar work. Artist’s books by Francesca Woodman, which have never been exhibited in the UK, will be on display.

Julia Margaret Cameron. 'The Dream' 1869

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Dream
1869
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Given by Alan S. Cole, 19 April 1913
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

John Milton’s poem On his deceased Wife (about 1658) tells of a fleeting vision of his beloved returning to life in a dream.

L-R: 'The Dream (Mary Hillier)' by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1869; 'Untitled', 1979 by Francesca Woodman; 'Annie (My very first success in Photography)', by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864; 'Self Portrait' at Thirteen by Francesca Woodman, 1972

L-R: The Dream (Mary Hillier) by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1869. Wilson Centre for Photography; Untitled, 1979 by Francesca Woodman. Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation © Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London; Annie (My very first success in Photography), by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Self Portrait at Thirteen by Francesca Woodman, 1972. Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation © Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

This spring, the National Portrait Gallery in London has staged an unexpected pairing of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron, whose bodies of photographic work were made a hundred years apart. The lushly titled Portraits to Dream In, the result of a thoughtful and imaginative curatorial inquiry, provides a compelling guide to their posthumous resemblances and describes a cultural arc of Romanticism from the mid-nineteenth-century to the turn of the twentieth, from luminous and pastoral to haunted and opaque. Both artists were engaged with the past, and the exhibition places them in a shared classicism of figuration and myth – a revelatory insight for Woodman. Both practiced photography for less than fifteen years. Both of their biographies often eclipse their critical reception. At times their congruence feels magnetic; at times their differences are as illuminating as their similarities.

The exhibition is organised by curator Magda Keaney in tidy themes that support affinities between the two women, among them “Angels and Otherworldly Beings,” “Mythology,” “Doubling,” and “Nature and Femininity.” Much of this is informative and, indeed, suggests a universal lexicon beyond this survey of dual sensibilities. Some of the rhymes are less plausible: a section entitled “Men” fails to persuade that Cameron’s depictions of eminent male political and cultural figures mirror Woodman’s male portraits. Unclothed men make rare appearances in Woodman’s photographs, where they do little to diminish the images as self-portraits. Festooned with a seashell, egg, pomegranate, or dead bird, the men serve as playful surrogates for the photographer herself.

Portraits to Dream In is an occasion to revel in the sumptuous texture of the photographic print, born from technologies decades apart. For both photographers, darkroom manipulation and tactility contribute to the pictures’ emotional mood, however diametric. For Cameron, the shallow depth of field and long shutter speed of the glass plate negative and wet collodion process renders a picture that flutters as if provisional, a vision subject to light glinting off an immaterial surface. They are as ethereal and transparent as Woodman’s are submersed in shadow; a moth bounding away from flame. One body of work, despite its soft patina, feels rooted in a sense of presence, the other by absence: fraught and confessional without evident disclosure.

Extract from Stephen Frailey. “An Unexpected Pairing of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron,” on the Aperture website May 16, 2024 [Online] Cited 03/06/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

L-R: 'The Dream (Mary Hillier)' by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1869; 'Untitled', 1979 by Francesca Woodman

L-R: 'Annie (My very first success in Photography)', by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864; 'Self Portrait at Thirteen' by Francesca Woodman, 1972

L-R: Annie (My very first success in Photography), by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Self Portrait at Thirteen by Francesca Woodman, 1972. Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation © Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
Untitled
1979
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation/DACS London

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Annie (My very first success in Photography)
1864
Albumen silver print
A photographic portrait of Annie Wilhemina Philpot (1857-1936)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

A photographic portrait of Annie Wilhemina Philpot (1857-1936), taken by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) in 1864. This albumen print forms part of the Herschel Album, created by Cameron for her friend Sir John Herschel (1792-1871). Annie was the daughter of Rev. William Benamin Philpot, a poet and friend of Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892).

Julia Margaret Cameron is one of the most significant figures in nineteenth century photography. Born in Calcutta, she moved to Britain where she lived at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. In 1863, aged forty-eight, she was given a camera by her daughter as a gift. From then on she took portraits of her family, friends and servants, as well as many eminent Victorians. Cameron was strongly influenced by classical art and many of her portraits are pictorial allegories based on religious or literary themes. In 1875 Cameron moved to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), where she died.

Text from the V&A website

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
Self Portrait at Thirteen
1972
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

L-R: 'Untitled', from the 'Caryatid' series by Francesca Woodman, 1980; 'House #3' by Francesca Woodman, 1976; 'Untitled' by Francesca Woodman, 1977-1978

L-R: Untitled, from the Caryatid series by Francesca Woodman, 1980. Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation © Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London; House #3 by Francesca Woodman, 1976. Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation © Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London; Untitled by Francesca Woodman, 1977-1978 Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation © Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
Untitled
1980
From the Caryatid series
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
House #3
1976
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
Untitled
1977-1978
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

From 21 March to 16 June 2024, the National Portrait Gallery will display a major retrospective exhibition of work by two of the most significant photographers in the history of the medium – Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) and Francesca Woodman (1958-1981). Bringing their work together for the first time in an exhibition of this scale, it will showcase more than 160 rare vintage prints from galleries, museums and private collections, including 96 works by Woodman and 71 by Cameron, spanning the entire careers of both photographers – who worked 100 years apart.

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In will offer a new way to consider these two artists, by moving away from the biographical emphasis that has often been the focus of how their work is understood. The exhibition challenges this approach in its insistence on experiencing the physical print, taking the picture making of Woodman and Cameron as a starting point for consideration of their work. While neither artist aimed for technical perfection in their printing, for each it was a dynamic and essential aspect of their creative process used to explore and extend the possibilities of photographic image making.

After an extensive curatorial research period, works by Julia Margaret Cameron have been selected for loan from major museums internationally including the Getty, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum, New York City; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the National Portrait Gallery’s own Collection. Prints made by Francesca Woodman in her lifetime, nearly 20 of which have not been previously published or exhibited, have been loaned primarily from the Woodman Family Foundation in New York, who have collaborated closely on the making of the exhibition and accompanying publication, with further loans from Tate and the Rhode Island School of Design

The exhibition’s title, Portraits to Dream In, suggests that when seen side by side, both artists conjure a dream state within their work as part of their shared exploration of appearance, identity, the muse, gender and archetypes. The title of the exhibition comes from an observation made by Woodman that photographs could be ‘places for the viewer to dream in’. Both Woodman and Cameron produced work that was deeply rooted in mythology and storytelling and each made portraits of those close to them to represent these narratives. Further, both women explored portraiture beyond its ability to record appearance.

Following a thematic approach, visitors will experience the work of Woodman and Cameron moving forward and back in time between the nineteenth and twentieth century; and also within the relatively short span of years that each artist was active – neither worked for more than fifteen years. Themes on display will comprise: Declaring intentions & claiming space; Angels & Otherworldly Beings; Mythology; Doubling; Nature & femininity; Caryatids & the classical form; Men and Models & Muses.

Key works on display will include the first forays both artists made into the medium of photography, as they began to portray their unique perspectives and carve out distinctive styles. These include Cameron’s self-declared ‘first success’, a portrait of Annie Wilhemina Philpot in 1864, accompanied by Woodman’s ‘Self-portrait at thirteen’, taken during a summer holiday in Antella, Italy in 1972. Photographs depicting angelic and otherworldly figures will be presented in a dense constellation with pieces from Woodman’s evocative and often abstracted Angels series contrasted against Cameron’s more direct representations of cherubic beings and winged cupids. Not to be missed images by Francesca Woodman will include Polka Dots #5 and House #3 both made in 1976, seen alongside ethereal portraits of the British actress Ellen Terry made by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1864.

Other defining works by Woodman include Caryatid pieces from a major photographic project developed in the last year of her life in which she experimented with large scale diazotype prints, including depictions of herself and other models as caryatids – carved female figures which take the place of columns in ancient Greek temples. The exhibition will be the first to draw significant attention to Woodman’s portraits of men as well as exploring the importance of her ongoing photographs of friends. Providing additional insight into her practice, contact sheets and examples of Woodman’s artist’s books will be on display, exhibited in the UK for the first time.

The exhibition will include many of Julia Margaret Cameron’s most famous and much loved portraits, including those of her niece and favourite model, Julia Jackson, who would later be the mother to Bloomsbury artists Virginia Wolf and Vanessa Bell; her striking depiction of Alice Liddell as the goddess Pomona; her portraits of prominent Victorian men including John Frederick William Herschel who she captured as he posed dramatically in The Astronomer (1867); and her frequent muses, May Prinsep and Mary Ann Hillier.

“It is a great pleasure to bring together the work of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron for the first time in this innovative and imaginative exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Though, of course, Cameron could not have known Woodman, and Woodman did not explicitly reference Cameron, they shared thematic and formal interests uncovered through the exhibition. Paired in this way, we see their work – individually and together – in a new light; one that feels contemporary and timeless. We are immensely grateful to our lead curator Magdalene Keaney for conceptualising this exhibition with great expertise and for the team at the Woodman Family Foundation in New York who have been wonderfully collaborative partners.”

Dr. Nicholas Cullinan OBE
Director, National Portrait Gallery

“Both Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron were utterly committed to the practice of photography and to their practice as artists without reservation. They both worked incredibly hard at times when women were marginal in the history of art and photography. I hope that visitors relish the physical experience of seeing such a large collection of prints that each artist made. They are beautiful, subtle, intricate, and beguiling. Then of course to come away knowing more about these two women artists who have defined the history of photography. I hope it poses questions about how we might think in new ways about relationships between 19th and 20th century photographic practice and what a portrait is and can be.”

Magdalene Keaney
Curator, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In by curator Magdalene Keaney, which will include essays and contributions from the collections curator of the Woodman Family Foundation, Katarina Jerinic, and leading photography historian, Helen Ennis.

Press release from the National Portrait Gallery

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
I Wait (Rachel Gurney)
1872
Albumen silver print
32.7 x 25.4cm (12 7/8 x 10 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
Untitled
1977
From the Angels series
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

Throughout her career, the young American photographer Francesca

Woodman revisited the theme of angels. In On Being an Angel (1976), she is

seen bending backward as light falls on her white body. A black umbrella is

in the distance. The following year she made a new version – an image with

a darker mood in which she shows her face. Woodman developed the angel

motif during a visit to Rome, where she photographed herself in a large,

abandoned building. In these images, she is wearing a white petticoat, but

her chest is bare. White pieces of cloth in the background are like wings. She

called these photographs From Angel series (1977) and From a series on

Angels (1977). There are also a number of pictures simply called Angels

(1977-1978), and among them is one where again she is bending backward, but this time in front of a graffitied wall. These angels are but a few examples of Francesca Woodman’s practice of staging her body and her face.

Anna Tellgren. Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel (50kb pdf). 2015, p. 9

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Cherub and Seraph
1866
Albumen silver print
A photographic study of William Frederick ‘Freddy’ Gould (born 1861) and Elizabeth ‘Topsy’ Keown (born 1859)
National Science and Media Museum

A photographic study of William Frederick ‘Freddy’ Gould (born 1861) and Elizabeth ‘Topsy’ Keown (born 1859), taken by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) in 1866. This albumen print forms part of the Herschel Album, created by Cameron for her friend Sir John Herschel (1792-1871).

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Sadness (Ellen Terry)
1864
Albumen silver print
22.2 x 17.6cm (8 3/4 x 6 15/16 in.)
Albumen silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Dame Ellen Terry (English, 1847-1928)

Dame Alice Ellen Terry GBE (27 February 1847 – 21 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured throughout the British provinces in her teens. At 16, she married the 46-year-old artist George Frederic Watts, but they separated within a year. She soon returned to the stage but began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin and retired from the stage for six years. She resumed acting in 1874 and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics.

In 1878 she joined Henry Irving’s company as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She and Irving also toured with great success in America and Britain.

In 1903 Terry took over management of London’s Imperial Theatre, focusing on the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. The venture was a financial failure, and Terry turned to touring and lecturing. She continued to find success on stage until 1920, while also appearing in films from 1916 to 1922. Her career lasted nearly seven decades.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981)
Polka Dots #5
1976
Courtesy Woodman Family Foundation
© Woodman Family Foundation / DACS, London

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson, formerly Mrs Duckworth)
1867
Albumen silver print
National Portrait Gallery, London

Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson; formerly Duckworth; 7 February 1846 – 5 May 1895) was an English Pre-Raphaelite model and philanthropist. She was the wife of the biographer Leslie Stephen and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, members of the Bloomsbury Group.

Julia Prinsep Jackson was born in Calcutta to an Anglo-Indian family, and when she was two her mother and her two sisters moved back to England. She became the favourite model of her aunt, the celebrated photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, who made more than 50 portraits of her. Through another maternal aunt, she became a frequent visitor at Little Holland House, then home to an important literary and artistic circle, and came to the attention of a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters who portrayed her in their work.

Married to Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, in 1867 she was soon widowed with three infant children. Devastated, she turned to nursing, philanthropy and agnosticism, and found herself attracted to the writing and life of Leslie Stephen, with whom she shared a friend in Anny Thackeray, his sister-in-law.

After Leslie Stephen’s wife died in 1875 he became close friends with Julia and they married in 1878. Julia and Leslie Stephen had four further children, living at 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, together with his seven-year-old mentally disabled daughter, Laura Makepeace Stephen. Many of her seven children and their descendants became notable. In addition to her family duties and modelling, she wrote a book based on her nursing experiences, Notes from Sick Rooms, in 1883.

She also wrote children’s stories for her family, eventually published posthumously as Stories for Children and became involved in social justice advocacy. Julia Stephen had firm views on the role of women, namely that their work was of equal value to that of men, but in different spheres, and she opposed the suffrage movement for votes for women. The Stephens entertained many visitors at their London home and their summer residence at St Ives, Cornwall. Eventually the demands on her both at home and outside the home started to take their toll. Julia Stephen died at her home following an episode of rheumatic fever in 1895, at the age of 49, when her youngest child was only 11. The writer Virginia Woolf provides a number of insights into the domestic life of the Stephens in both her autobiographical and fictional work.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Astronomer (Sir John Frederick William Herschel)
1867
Albumen silver print
Courtesy of the RISD Museum, Providence, RI

Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH FRS (7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work.

Herschel originated the use of the Julian day system in astronomy. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus – the seventh planet, discovered by his father Sir William Herschel. He made many contributions to the science of photography, and investigated colour blindness and the chemical power of ultraviolet rays. His Preliminary Discourse (1831), which advocated an inductive approach to scientific experiment and theory-building, was an important contribution to the philosophy of science. …

Photography

Herschel made numerous important contributions to photography. He made improvements in photographic processes, particularly in inventing the cyanotype process, which became known as blueprints, and variations, such as the chrysotype. In 1839, he made a photograph on glass, which still exists, and experimented with some colour reproduction, noting that rays of different parts of the spectrum tended to impart their own colour to a photographic paper. Herschel made experiments using photosensitive emulsions of vegetable juices, called phytotypes, also known as anthotypes, and published his discoveries in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1842. He collaborated in the early 1840s with Henry Collen, portrait painter to Queen Victoria. Herschel originally discovered the platinum process on the basis of the light sensitivity of platinum salts, later developed by William Willis.

Herschel coined the term photography in 1839. Herschel was also the first to apply the terms negative and positive to photography.

Herschel discovered sodium thiosulfate to be a solvent of silver halides in 1819, and informed Talbot and Daguerre of his discovery that this “hyposulphite of soda” (“hypo”) could be used as a photographic fixer, to “fix” pictures and make them permanent, after experimentally applying it thus in early 1839.

Herschel’s ground-breaking research on the subject was read at the Royal Society in London in March 1839 and January 1840.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Pomona (Alice Liddell)
1872
Albumen silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art., New York
David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1963

Pomona was the goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards. Unlike many other Roman goddesses and gods, she does not have a Greek counterpart, though she is commonly associated with Demeter. She watches over and protects fruit trees and cares for their cultivation.

Symbolically, Pomona and her fruit garden represent abundance, nurture and the simple pleasure derived from nature. She is often depicted in a garden full of life, colour and opulence, with her milky soft flesh on display and a cornucopia of fruit and flowers on her lap.

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Gardener’s Daughter
1867
Albumen silver print
A photographic study of Mary Ryan (1848-1914)
National Science and Media Museum

A photographic study of Mary Ryan (1848-1914), taken by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) in 1867. This albumen print forms part of the Herschel Album, created by Cameron for her friend Sir John Herschel (1792-1871).

‘The Gardener’s Daughter’ was the title of a poem by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). Cameron’s photograph was inspired by the lines: ‘Gown’d in pure white, that fitted to the shape, Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood.’

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Iago – study from an Italian
1867
Albumen silver print
A photographic portrait of the artist’s model, Angelo Colarossi (born about 1839)
National Science and Media Museum

A photographic portrait of the artist’s model, Angelo Colarossi (born about 1839), taken by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) in 1867. The print forms part of the Herschel Album, created by Cameron for her friend Sir John Herschel (1792-1871).

This is the only existing print known of ‘Iago’. The negative may have been destroyed intentionally by Cameron, and it is believed that the print was taken for George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) to work from for a painting.

Iago was the villain of Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’.

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In book front cover

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In book back cover

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In book p. 11

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In book back cover pp. 70-71

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In

Magdalene Keaney (Editor), Katarina Jerinic (Contributor), Helen Ennis (Contributor)

Hardcover – 26 June 2024

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In draws parallels between two of the most significant practitioners in the history of photography, presenting fresh research, rare vintage prints, and previously unseen archival works.

‘I feel that photographs can either document and record reality or they can offer images as an alternative to everyday life: places for the viewer to dream in.’
~ Francesca Woodman, 1980

Living and working over a century apart, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) and Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) experienced very different ways of making and understanding photographs. Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In accompanies the exhibition of the same name opening at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in March 2024. Spanning the careers of both artists, the beautifully illustrated catalogue includes their best-known photographs as well as less familiar images. The exhibition works are arranged into eight thematic sections with feature essays, offering an accessible, engaging opportunity to consider both artists in a new light.

This publication presents the artists’ exploration of portraiture as a ‘dream space’. It makes new connections between their work, which pushed the boundaries of the photographic medium and experimented with ideas of beauty, symbolism, transformation and storytelling to produce some of art history’s most compelling and admired photographs.

National Portrait Gallery Publications
208 pages

Text from the Amazon Australia website

National Portrait Gallery
St Martin’s Place
London, WC2H 0HE

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National Portrait Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Golden Valley Faces: The photographs of Richard Jenkins’ at the Café Gallery, Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye

Exhibition dates: until September 2023

Curator: Hilary Engel

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964) 'Untitled [Husband and wife]' Nd from the exhibition 'Golden Valley Faces: The photographs of Richard Jenkins' at the Café Gallery, Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Husband and wife]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Salt of the Earth

Little is known of the life of photographer Richard Jenkins but that matters little for the images the artist left behind captured on glass-plate negatives give clear insight into the nature of the man. His images are sensitive, full of feeling for the people he is photographing, direct and enigmatic at the same time.

An association can be made between Jenkins’ work and that of German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) as can be seen in the examples I have assembled in this posting. Both artists came from farming stock. Both artists took up photography to escape their proletarian roots. Both artists used an old-fashioned large-format camera with glass negatives. Shooting from a single (face-to-face) perspective both artists work possesses a frontality which places the subject front and centre in the pictorial plane with the background thrown out of focus by the use of low depth of field. Both artists planned compositions pictured their subjects within familiar surroundings and “considered the relationship between location and sitter to be the most essential ingredient for communicating both the status and essence of his or her personality.”1

But while Sander’s portraits tell of an uncertain cultural landscape during the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis during the interwar years through a set of typologies – ‘The Farmer’, ‘The Skilled Tradesman’, ‘The Woman’, ‘Classes and Professions’, ‘The Artists’, ‘The City’ and ‘The Last People’ – based on the tenants of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement “which advocated a return to realism and social commentary in art with a respectful and unadorned neutrality, and always within their familiar surroundings”2 rejecting all forms of expressionism and romanticism, Jenkins’ portraits picture the stable cultural landscape of Britain’s farming working class, a class of people that had existed since feudal times in the Britain: in sure and certain hope that hard work will be their salvation.

I grew up belonging to this working class. We were very poor. My mother had to boil a large kettle on the stove and then bathe us boys in a cowper on the floor of the kitchen for we had no hot running water when I was a child, and we only existed on what my father could shoot on the farm… pheasant, pigeon, rabbit, hare, partridge. But what we lacked for in creature comforts we made up in spirit. The energy of the land and its people. The connection to nature, the trees and birds, the crops and earth. In some ways it was a magical childhood amongst the forest, cowslips, fields, granaries – in others, not good at all. This spirit is what you can feel in Jenkins’ photographs. The essentialness of being of the people he photographed. As curator Hilary Engel insightfully observes, “He took photographs of them working, and the beautiful, useful things they made. Although Richard was not interested in farm work himself, he admired the skills that it entailed… You can sense their strength, their resilience – the spirit that has enabled them to survive the hard work and challenges of life in this remote farming community. Richard simply presents them, honestly, as they are: and you sense that they trust him.”

Jenkins’ photographs are not mere facades. They reveal in intimate detail, through every hard earned line on a human face, the triumphs and travails of that person’s existence. Observe if you will Jenkins’ photograph Untitled [Family group] (Nd, below) and note the intimacy of the scene with the two children balanced on the knee of their parents, the daughter held by the mother and the son clasped firmly by one of the stocky, dirty, hardened hands of the father who stares straight at the camera with a slight smile and a twinkle in his eye. Notice his patterned waistcoat peeking out from beneath his thick woollen jacket, thick workman’s trousers surmounting his WWI era puttees and likely army boots with studs. Did he serve during the First World War and survive? Observe also Jenkins’ photograph Untitled [Family group probably at a wedding] (Nd, below) where the family group are all in their Sunday best. What fascinates here is the sitters attitude towards the camera: the aloofness and stiff upper lip of the old gentleman (for that is what he would have been called) at top left, the quizzical look of the man at top right, the contemptuous defiance of the girl at lower left, the inscrutability on the man’s face at bottom right and, dominating them all, the openness and straight forward stare towards the camera of the woman at centre, she clutching a bouquet of flowers, wearing a prominent cross and surmounted by an enormous hat bedecked with blooms. High collars, bowlers hats, stiff upper lips, flowers and finery. It would have been a grand day…

“Sander once said ‘The portrait is your mirror. It’s you’. He believed that, through photography, he could reveal the characteristic traits of people. He used these images to tell each person’s story…”3 Jenkins’ photographs also tell each person’s story but my feeling is that he does it with a more humanist approach than those qualities Sander brought to photographic portraiture. There is a warm and empathy in photographs such as Untitled [Group of men with Romford & Evershed Ltd Pershorf 1885 steam engine] (Nd, below), Untitled [Man and dog] (Nd, below) and Untitled [Three women, sheep and dog] (Nd, below replete with sheep and dog) which Sander’s more Germanic portraits (with their rejection of all forms of expressionism and romanticism) shy away from. If as Sander believed, the portrait is your mirror, it’s you… it’s also a reflection of the soul of the photographer evinced through the portraits of his subjects.

Richard Jenkins must have been one hell of a human being to capture such revealing, intimate, celestial portraits of the people he loved.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Anonymous. “August Sander,” on The Art Story website Nd [Online] Cited 18/09/2023

2/ Ibid.,

3/ Anonymous. “Five things to know: August Sander,” on the Tate website Nd [Online] Cited 21/09/2023

Many thankx to Hay Castle for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. © Copyright in Richard Jenkins’ photographs: the Jenkins family 2023. © Copyright in the text: Hilary Engel 2023.

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964) Untitled [Family group] Nd from the exhibition 'Golden Valley Faces: The photographs of Richard Jenkins' at the Café Gallery, Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Family group]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins was born in 1890 on a farm ten miles from Hay and he became a brilliant pioneering photographer. He longed to escape the drudgery of farming – to go away and study. Instead he had to console himself by learning to wield a cumbersome camera, taking and developing spontaneous and moving portraits of his friends and neighbours going about their everyday lives. He had a gift for capturing his subjects’ personalities, paying tribute to their fortitude and skills. Miraculously, nearly a thousand of his glass-plate images survived decades of neglect and since the publication of Golden Valley Faces in 2020, his work has begun to be recognised as a remarkable record of life in rural Herefordshire at the start of the twentieth century.

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Bauernpaar – Zucht und Harmonie [Peasant couple – breeding and harmony]
1912
Gelatin silver print

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Working-class Mother
1927
Gelatin silver print

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964) 'Untitled' Nd from the exhibition 'Golden Valley Faces: The photographs of Richard Jenkins' at the Café Gallery, Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins was born in 1890 in south west Herefordshire, close to the Black Mountains of Wales. He grew up to be a bright, curious young man: he longed to go to college to study engineering, to be part of the technological revolution that was going on in the outside world. But because he was the only son of a farmer it was not allowed: he had to stay on the farm. Even in this remote valley, new machinery was beginning to take over tasks that had always been done by hand, or with horses – like the mobile steam engine which travelled from farm to farm. Travel was being transformed, with the opening of railways. And country people were beginning to discover a new freedom with bicycles – or even motorbikes.

Communication was revolutionised during Richard’s childhood, with the invention of wireless and telephones. Electricity was reaching across the country. Any one of these burgeoning industries offered enticing prospects for a would-be engineer in the first decade of the twentieth century. But for Richard, it was not to be. As he grew up, Richard found a way to escape the prison of farming. He acquired a camera, and somehow mastered the art of composing telling images, as well as the science of developing and printing. It was his way of celebrating the world that he saw around him. He photographed every stage in the lives of his Golden Valley neighbours: their weddings, their babies, their graves.

He portrayed their children growing up, at school concerts and at chapel anniversaries. He took photographs of them working, and the beautiful, useful things they made. Although Richard was not interested in farm work himself, he admired the skills that it entailed. Richard’s subjects were not used to being photographed. Some of them look uncomfortable, apprehensive. But Richard was evidently charming, and had a knack for getting people to relax. They have various props to put them at their ease – dogs, cats, even sheep or horses. Or a favourite bicycle or motorbike. Richard saw that these additions helped to express his subjects’ personalities. Many of them stare resolutely into the camera. You can sense their strength, their resilience – the spirit that has enabled them to survive the hard work and challenges of life in this remote farming community. Richard simply presents them, honestly, as they are: and you sense that they trust him.

Richard’s portraits differ markedly from the conventional style of the time. A professional photographer might place his subjects in a studio against an elegant setting, and get them to take up a certain pose, gazing into the distance. Or they would be portrayed with objects representative of their status – splendid horses, or impressive houses. Instead, Richard’s subjects appear in their natural, often very modest, habitat. Richard adored his beautiful sister, Eva, and photographed her repeatedly. Her form lights up many of the pictures. She poses, elegantly composed, amongst the bracken at Quarrelly Farm.

Richard Jenkins died in 1964, having lived at Quarrelly Farm all his life. For decades his glass plate negatives were stored in shoeboxes and cupboards in the farmhouse – never catalogued or published. But in 2010 the Jenkins family generously decided to place the collection in the care of the Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre, where it has since been digitised. Since the publication of Golden Valley Faces in 2020, Richard Jenkins has begun to be recognised as a remarkable photographer. Many of his subjects remain unknown: but their faces speak with all the freshness and vigour they had a hundred years ago. His images of the life around him form a unique portrait of rural Herefordshire at the start of the twentieth century.

Text by Hilary Engel on the Golden Valley Faces website Nd [Online] Cited 02/08/2023. Used with permission.

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964) 'Untitled [Child and bull]' Nd from the exhibition 'Golden Valley Faces: The photographs of Richard Jenkins' at the Café Gallery, Hay Castle, Hay-on-Wye

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Child and bull]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Family group probably at a wedding]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964) 'Untitled [Family group probably at a wedding]' Nd (detail)

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Family group probably at a wedding] (detail)
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Woman lying among the ferns]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964) 'Untitled [Woman lying in the grass]' Nd (detail)

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Woman lying among the ferns] (detail)
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Loading the hay]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Group of men with Romford & Evershed Ltd Pershorf 1885 steam engine]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Three men and a press]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Man with buttonhole posy]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
[Farmer, Westerwald (Bauer, Westerwald)]
1910
Gelatin silver print

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Couple]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Mother and Daughter
1912
Gelatin silver print

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Nurse, group of children and candles]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Man and dog]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Three women, sheep and dog]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Two heavy horses, two men and a plough]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

Richard Jenkins (British, 1890-1964)
Untitled [Two men with pipes, bicycles and dog]
Nd
Digital scan from a glass plate negative

The first published selection of Richard Jenkins’ work, telling the story of his life and his photography

Author: Hilary Engel
112 pages, 240 x 200 mm
140 black and white photographs
ISBN 978-1-5272-6998-9
Available in bookshops, or order online
Retail price £12
Postage and packing within the UK: £5

Profits from sales of the book will go to the Laurie Engel Fund for Teenage Cancer Trust

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Phone: 01497 820079

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