June 2020
Publisher: Ernst Wasmuth A.G. / Berlin
With an Introduction by Charles F. G. Masterman
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
145: Market Cross, Castlecoombe, Wiltshire
1926
Part 3 of my humungous posting on photographs from E.O. Hoppé’s book Picturesque Great Britain: Its Architecture and Landscape 1926.
I found a little more information about Hoppé’s process:
“He travelled across many countries including Great Britain, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the United States, India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand for projects such as the Orbis Terrarum book series for the Berlin-based publishing company Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, and devoted months, often a year or more, of his careful, meticulous attention to each of these countries in order to, as he himself once wrote, eventually select from 5000 negatives 300 images that could together with a text for the respective country, represent the selected topic and be published.”
Over a year in time, taken from 5000 negatives, to select 300 images. This means that Hoppé was working on a ratio of using about 6% of all the photographs of a subject that he took. From my personal experience I always work on 10% of what I take being “good” images, with about 5% actually being usable in a series, sequence or body of work.
As in the earlier postings, we can again see many of his compositional devices at work: double vanishing points (189: Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk), occlusion of foreground looking at subject in distance (186: Castle Rising, Norfolk; 199: Hop Poles & Oast Houses, Kent), superb use of “near far” (185: The Harbour, Kings Lynn, Norfolk; 190: The Broads at Wrexham, Norfolk), modernity and the geometric construction of the image plane (169: Caius Cambridge, Cambridge), strong elements holding up one side of the image and leading the eye into the subject (156: Pangbourne, Berkshire; 183: Walberswick, Suffolk); and wonderful use of light and chiaroscuro to picture atmosphere and emotion in the archaic and modern (218: The Canal, Manchester, Lancashire; 219: Warehouses, Manchester, Lancashire; 221: Steelworks, Sheffield, Yorkshire; 227: Evening, York).
Boy, would I like to see the ones he rejected!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. These photographs are published under fair use conditions for educational purposes only. See Part 1; Part 2; and Part 4 of the posting.
This magnificent set of pictures displays, with all the art of genius both in selection and technical skill, the beauty of the British Isles. I know of no similar collection which could give alike to the foreigner who wonders what England is like, to the Englishman who has wandered from his native land into all the great dominions of the world, and to the man who has remained behind, that particular sense of pleasure mingled with pain which all beauty excites, and excites especially a passionate love in the vision of home.
This is an introduction to pictures of the landscapes and the works of man; these latter ennobled by the associations of time, and in some cases by time’s decay. They open vistas through which one may gaze at the history of England for a thousand years.
Charles F. G. Masterman
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
147: At Hatfield, Hertfordshire
1926
Emil Otto Hoppé (born 1878 in Munich, died 1972 in England) was an exciting and mysterious phenomenon. During his lifetime, especially in the 1910s, 20s, 30s and 40s, he was one of the most famous photographers in the world and a highly-respected portrait photographer in London, with a large house and studio in South Kensington (Millais House, which had 27 rooms on four floors and had previously been inhabited by the renowned Victorian painter John Everett Millais) as well as a clientele comprising the most important politicians, businessmen, artists, dancers, poets, writers, philosophers and of course the English nobility, including Queen Mary and King George V. For many years he was a dedicated travel photographer. He travelled across many countries including Great Britain, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the United States, India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand for projects such as the Orbis Terrarum book series for the Berlin-based publishing company Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, and devoted months, often a year or more, of his careful, meticulous attention to each of these countries in order to, as he himself once wrote, eventually select from 5000 negatives 300 images that could together with a text for the respective country, represent the selected topic and be published. “Romantic America”, “Picturesque Great Britain: The Architecture and the Landscape”, “Romantik der Kleinstadt”, “The Fifth Continent” [Australia] and “Deutsche Arbeit” are the titles of just some of the 20 books he published in his lifetime. …
The first task in the development of the history of photography was to build as simple a framework as possible and to gain a recognisable, nameable overview of the key movements. The work of Emil Otto Hoppé perhaps simply did not to fit in; instead his diversity and attitude must have been unsettling. On the one hand, he threw quite a modern look on the people, villages, landscapes and especially industries. At the same time he was for long periods wont to print his pictures in more tonal and soft-focus ways. His black-and-white pictures are often characterised by a particularly dense and colourful tonality, while his portraits (and other genres) are often soft and almost a little out-of-focus. He himself describes printing his portraits as follows in his autobiography “Hundred Thousand Exposures: The Success of a Photographer” from 1945: “I use a soft-focus lens in the enlarger. I begin the exposure with the smallest stop considered advisable. During the exposure the iris diaphragm is slowly opened and closed. The effect is calculated by dividing the estimated exposure by the smallest stop used in the process and closing the iris diaphragm for fractions of the period which are approximately 1/5, 1/20, 3/4 (…) The final effect is a roundness which I have not found it possible to obtain by another method.” …
In a speech delivered by E.O. Hoppé to the Royal Photography Society in 1946, he addressed some of these issues himself. For example: “The function of the camera here would be to make a simple, straightforward picture, which probably would not be accepted by any Salon of Photography. No tricks of exposure, angle or printing would have a place.” […] “The search for the most effective angle is the prime task of the photographer, and his success will largely be judged by his success in that search. The harm comes when he does not look for the most effective angle but for the most bizarre and peculiar.” […] “I see no reason to think a man a better artist because he ignores public taste, despises supply and demand and has dirty finger-nails.” […] “Similarly, I cannot agree with the intellectual snobbishness which declares that a man who wears a clean shirt and has a bank account is necessarily a tradesman and cannot be an artist.” His line of argument seems to address some reasons why his work was for a long time forgotten vis-à-vis a romantic image of the artist and the search for an approach that could be precisely isolated and named.
Anonymous. “Emil Otto Hoppé: Unveiling a Secret Industrial Photographs, 1912-1937,” on the Urs Stahel website January 2015 [Online] Cited 18 May 2020
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
148: The Spires of Oxford, Oxfordshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
150: The Cloisters, New College, Oxford
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
156: Pangbourne, Berkshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
157: West Hagbourne, Berkshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
164: Trinity Gates, Cambridge
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
169: Caius Cambridge, Cambridge
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
171: Old Inn & Hostelry, Cambridge
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
172: Haddenham, Cambridgeshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
175: Housetops, Cathedral Close, Ely, Cambridgeshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
177: Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
178: Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
181: Fine Specimens of Ancient Domestic Architecture, Plastered Houses at Ipswich, Suffolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
182: Near Walberswick, Suffolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
183: Walberswick, Suffolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
184: Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
185: The Harbour, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
186: Castle Rising, Norfolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
187: Cottage at Southery, Norfolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
189: Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
190: The Broads at Wrexham, Norfolk
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
193: An Essex Landscape
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
195: Beeleigh Abbey, Essex
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
196: Plastered House, Safron Walden, Essex
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
198: The Friars, Aylesford, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
199: Hop Poles & Oast Houses, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
200: Staplehurst, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
201: Allington Castle, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
202: Allington Castle, Maidstone, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
203: Allington Castle, Maidstone, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
205: The Old Smithy, Penhurst, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
207: Penhurst, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
208: Cobham Hall, Gravesend, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
211: Canterbury Cathedral, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
213: The Weavers, Cantebury, Kent
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
215: Tideswell Cathedral, Derbyshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
218: The Canal, Manchester, Lancashire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
219: Warehouses, Manchester, Lancashire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
221: Steelworks, Sheffield, Yorkshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
222: Steelworks, Sheffield, Yorkshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
224: Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
227: Evening, York
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
228: Galilee Chapel, Durham Cathedral
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
229: Durham Cathedral, Durham
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
231: In Durham Cathedral
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British born Germany, 1878-1972)
232: The Cloisters, Durham Cathedral
1926
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