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; Part 3 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.
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Kelmscott Manor: Attics 1896 Platinum print Image and sheet: 6 1/16 Ă— 7 7/8 inches (15.4 Ă— 20cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Gift of the artist, 1932
Attics often serve as metaphors for the space where memories reside. Here Frederick Evans captures the warm glow, the simple, rough-hewn timbers, and the striking geometry of the attic at Kelmscott Manor, the beloved summer retreat of designer William Morris (British, 1834-1896).
Morris, the leader of the Arts and Crafts movement – which valued Britain’s craft tradition and rejected its industrial revolution – drew inspiration from the architecture and workmanship of Kelmscott, designed and constructed in the 1500s. In 1896 Morris invited Evans to photograph the home, which he felt embodied the memory of Britain’s aesthetic past.
Platinum prints always have such luminosity. A Sea of Steps by Fredrick H. Evans (1903, below) is a knockout. I remember some beautiful platinum prints many years ago (1989) up in Sydney at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the touring exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment that were an absolute knockout as well. Pity he didn’t print them himself but they were still superlative!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Shen Shellenberger and the Philadelphia Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the last five images in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Kelmscott Manor 1896 Platinum print Image and sheet: 7 3/8 Ă— 4 1/4 inches (18.7 Ă— 10.8cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman and with the Director’s Discretionary Fund, 1968
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Angers: Prefecture, Sculptured Arches of 11th-12th Century c. 1906-1907 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 11/16 Ă— 7 7/8 inches (24.6 Ă— 20 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman and with the Director’s Discretionary Fund, 1968
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Southwell Cathedral, Chapter House Capital 1898 Platinum print Philadelphia Museum of Art
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) View across the nave to the transept at York Minster 1901 Platinum print Philadelphia Museum of Art
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Durham Cathedral: West End Nave 1912 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 1/2 Ă— 4 13/16 inches (24.1 Ă— 12.3cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman, 1973
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Ancient crypt cellars in Provins 1910 Platinum print Philadelphia Museum of Art
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: North Transept: East Side 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 7/16 Ă— 6 inches (23.9 Ă— 15.3cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: Staircase in Confessor’s Chapel 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 1/2 Ă— 6 1/8 inches (24.2 Ă— 15.6cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: From the South Transept 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 1/2 Ă— 7 7/16 inches (24.2 Ă— 18.9cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: East Ambulatory 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 5/16 Ă— 6 11/16 inches (23.7 Ă— 17cm) Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: 12th-Century Mosaic Floor at the Sanctuary 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 7 5/16 Ă— 8 7/8 inches (18.6 Ă— 22.6 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Although Evans indicated that this mosaic floor was created in the twelfth century, the surface surrounding the High Altar of Westminster Abbey was in fact laid in 1268. King Henry III (1207-1272) commissioned the mosaic from Roman craftsmen who specialised in the opus sectile, or “cut work” technique, commonly called “Cosmati” after a well-known Italian family of mosaic artists. Materials used here include blue, red, and turquoise glass as well as yellow limestone, purple porphyry, green serpentine, and onyx. Evans’s unusual composition privileges the floor, drawing attention to the intricate and abstract design of squares, rectangles, and roundels.
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: East End, North Ambulatory 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 3/8 Ă— 7 1/2 inches (23.8 Ă— 19.1cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: Apse from Choir 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 7/16 Ă— 7 1/2 inches (23.9 Ă— 19.1cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Country Life magazine commissioned Evans to photograph the interior of London’s Westminster Abbey in 1911, while the church was closed to worshipers in preparation for the coronation of King George V (1865-1936) and Queen Mary (1867-1953). Although the construction and removal of temporary facilities relating to the coronation regularly disrupted Evans’s work, the more than fifty photographs in the resulting portfolio reveal only the timeless beauty and grandeur of the Gothic structure that has hosted thirty-eight royal coronations since the year 1066.
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: Henry VII Chapel, Detail of Henry VII Tomb 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 8 1/16 Ă— 7 3/16 inches (20.4 Ă— 18.2cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Westminster Abbey: Tomb of Edward III, Mary and William 1911 Platinum print Image and sheet: 8 11/16 Ă— 6 5/8 inches (22.1 Ă— 16.9cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, 1969
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) York Minster – In Sure and Certain Hope 1903 Platinum print Philadelphia Museum of Art
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) A Sea of Steps – Stairs to Chapter House – Wells Cathedral 1903 Platinum print Philadelphia Museum of Art
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Wells Cathedral: North Transept c. 1903 Platinum print Image and sheet: 7 1/4 Ă— 5 7/16 inches (18.4 Ă— 13.8cm) Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman, 1973
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Ely Cathedral: Octagon into Nave Aisle c. 1899 Platinum print Image and sheet: 7 15/16 Ă— 6 1/8 inches (20.2 Ă— 15.6cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman, 1973
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Fr: Sec: Spine of Echinus x. 40 c. 1887 Platinum print Image and sheet: 4 3/4 Ă— 4 5/8 inches (12 Ă— 11.8cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman, 1973
Unlike many beginning photographers of the nineteenth century who experimented with straightforward portrait or landscape compositions, Evans’s earliest trials with photography involved minute organic matter and required the use of a microscope. His complicated “photo-microgram” process allowed him to capture the intricate structures of objects including a water beetle’s eye, tiny sea shells, and this section of a sea urchin’s spine. Although classified as scientific rather than artistic imagery by the Photographic Society of Great Britain, this photo-microgram demonstrates Evans’s ability to delineate the magnificence of organic patterns and presage his photographs that depict the structural beauty of cathedrals.
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Berberis: Plant Study c. 1908 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 3/8 Ă— 7 1/16 inches (23.8 Ă— 17.9cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman and with the Director’s Discretionary Fund, 1968
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) Redlands Woods c. 1908 Platinum print Image and sheet: 6 Ă— 4 3/16 inches (15.3 Ă— 10.6cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman and with the Director’s Discretionary Fund, 1968
Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) An English Glacier: Near Summit of Scafell c. 1905 Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 3/4 Ă— 6 1/2 inches (24.8 Ă— 16.5 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman and with the Director’s Discretionary Fund, 1968
Exhibition Highlights the Exceptional Beauty of the Platinum Process in Photography
A cornerstone of photographic practice during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the platinum print is revered by photographers and viewers alike as one of the most beautiful forms of photography, with subtle and lustrous shades that range from the deepest blacks to the most delicate whites. The Philadelphia Museum of Art will present an exhibition of more than 50 works from the late 19th century to the present, showcasing outstanding prints largely drawn from the Museum’s collection of photographs. The Platinum Process: Photographs from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century, on view February 27 – May 23 in the Julien Levy Gallery at the Museum’s Perelman Building, will include images by early masters of the process including Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) and Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), as well as works by skilled contemporary practitioners such as Lois Conner (American, born 1951) and Andrea Modica (American, born 1960), who continue to engage in this historic and painstaking process in an era noted for electronic imaging.
“The exhibition offers an opportunity to share this exceptionally beautiful form of photography with our visitors, some of whom may be seeing it for the first time,” Curator of Photographs Peter Barberie said, adding “the Museum is fortunate to have a particularly strong and varied collection of work by some of the truly great practitioners of this process.”
Unlike standard silver printing, in which particles are suspended in gelatin, platinum is brushed directly onto the paper, allowing artists to create a matte image with an exceptionally wide tonal range. Introduced in 1873, the process was enthusiastically embraced by the group of photographers known as the Pictorialists, who believed that fine art photography should emulate the aesthetic values of painting. The group included Evans, whose beautifully rendered images of Britain’s Westminster Abbey, York Minster Abbey and Ely Cathedral are included in the exhibition, and Stieglitz (American, 1876-1946), who is represented in the show by a portrait of his wife, the artist Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887-1986), as well as a landscape that foreshadows his Equivalents series.
While encompassing works spanning many dates and styles, The Platinum Process highlights one of the Museum’s treasures, the 1915 masterpiece “Wall Street” by Paul Strand (1890-1976, see above), whose work was at the forefront of the modernist aesthetic developing in New York during the early 20th century. Strand used the subtlety of the platinum print in this work to emphasise abstract patterns in the long shadows cast by figures that walk before a succession of monumental windows.
Reserves of platinum were appropriated for military use during World War I, and its high cost led manufacturers to cease production of commercial platinum paper by the 1930s. As photographers became more engaged in social concerns, documentation and realism, the process fell into disuse. It was not until the early 1960s when Irving Penn, then a successful photographer for Vogue magazine, began to experiment with the long-forgotten technique and took the first steps toward its revival. A meticulous craftsman, Penn was delighted by the luminous prints and lavish tonal range he could achieve using platinum and began to make new photographs with this process in the 1970s. Penn and many of the other contemporary artists on view including Thomas Shillea and Jennette Williams followed Strand’s example, using platinum not for idealised pictures, but to capture nuances of modern experience.
Press release from The Philadelphia Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 25/07/2019. No longer available online
Robert S. Redfield (American, 1849-1923) Heloise Redfield at Mount Washington 1889 Platinum print Image and sheet: 6 5/16 Ă— 8 1/4 inches (16 Ă— 21cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Gift of Alfred G. Redfield, 1985
F. Holland Day (American, 1864-1933) Untitled 1905 Platinum prints mounted to paper Image and sheet (overall): 10 1/16 Ă— 7 1/2 inches (25.6 Ă— 19.1cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art From the Collection of Dorothy Norman, 1970
Katharine Steward Stanbery (American, 1870-1928) Untitled (Two Girls Playing Jacks) 1907 Platinum print Image and sheet: 8 15/16 x 4 11/16 inches (22.7 x 11.9cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, the Alice Newton Osborn Fund, and with funds contributed by The Judith Rothschild Foundation, 2002
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) City Hall Park, New York 1915 Platinum print Sheet: 13 7/8 x 7 3/4 inches (35.2 x 19.7cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Gift of the artist, 1972
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) Washington Heights, New York 1915 (negative); 1915 (print) Platinum print Image and sheet: 9 3/8 x 11 7/8 inches (23.8 x 30.2cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) Wall Street 1915 (negative); 1915 (print) Platinum print Image: 9 3/4 Ă— 12 11/16 inches (24.8 Ă— 32.2cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) Man in a Derby, New York 1916 Platinum print Image: 12 13/16 x 9 15/16 inches (32.5 x 25.2cm) Mat: 22 11/16 x 19 7/16 inches (57.6 x 49.4cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) The Italian, New York 1916 (negative); 1916 (print) Platinum print Image and sheet: 13 Ă— 9 5/16 inches (33 Ă— 23.7cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) Rebecca, New York 1922 (negative); 1922 (print) Palladium print Image: 9 3/4 x 7 13/16 inches (24.8 x 19.8cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art The Paul Strand Collection, purchased with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Hauslohner (by exchange), 1985
Alvin Langdon Coburn (British, born United States, 1882-1966) George Seeley c. 1902-1903 Platinum print Image and sheet: 11 x 8 9/16 inches (27.9 x 21.7cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund, the Alice Newton Osborn Fund, and with funds contributed by The Judith Rothschild Foundation in honour of the 125th Anniversary of the Museum, 2002
Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852-1934) The Two Families c. 1910 Platinum print Image and sheet: 5 3/8 × 11 5/16 inches (13.6 × 28.8cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Gift of William Innes Homer, 1986
Käsebier’s family members and close friends served as her earliest photographic subjects, and familial themes remained paramount in the images she produced throughout her career. This photograph of Käsebier’s two daughters and their families, taken in Woburn, Massachusetts, is a dynamic portrait of a multigenerational gathering. Curiously, Käsebier manipulated this print to emphasise the act of photography. In the original scene, the young boy and seated woman at right look downward at a wire-mesh food cover resting on a plate. These objects have been removed from this print, replaced by the considerably more fascinating camera.
Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852-1934) Mrs. F. H. Evans c. 1900 Platinum print Image and sheet: 7 1/2 × 5 1/4 inches (19.1 × 13.4 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman, 1973
In 1889, at the age of thirty-seven, Käsebier enrolled at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute to study portrait painting. Although the art school did not teach photography, Käsebier began using a camera at home to document her growing children, eventually favoring photography over other mediums. She established a commercial portrait studio in New York City in 1897, working to “bring out in each photograph the essential personality that is variously called temperament, soul, humanity.” This portrait features Ada Emily Longhurst, wife of photographer Frederick H. Evans, whom Käsebier befriended while on a trip to England in 1901.
David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) Nave, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France 2006/2007
I remember many years ago, in the mid-1990’s, seeing the wonderful Domes of David Stephenson displayed in Flinders Lane in what is now fortfivedownstairs gallery. They were a revelation in this light filled space, row upon row of luminous domes seemingly lit from within, filled with the sense of the presence of divinity. On the opposite wall of the gallery were row upon row of photographs of Italian graves depicting the ceramic photographic markers of Italian dead – markers of the impermanence of life. The doubled death (the representation of identity on the grave, the momento mori of the photograph) slipped quietly into the earth while opposite the domes ascended into heaven through their numinous elevation. The contrast was sublime.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the latest exhibition Heavenly Vaults by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond.
The problems start with the installation of the exhibition. As you walk into the gallery the 26 Cibachrome photographs are divided symmetrically down the axis of the gallery so that the prints reflect each other at both ends and each side of the gallery. It is like walking down the nave of a cathedral and observing the architectural restraint of the stained glass windows without their illumination. Instead of the punctum of light flooding through the stained glass windows, the varying of intensities, the equanimity of the square prints all exactly the same size, all reflecting the position of the other makes for a pedestrian installation. Some varying of the print size and placement would have added much life and movement to a static ensemble.
Another element that needed work were the prints themselves which, with a few notable exceptions, seemed remarkably dull and lifeless (unlike their digital reproductions which, paradoxically, seem to have more life!). They fail to adequately represent the aspirations of the vaults as they soar effortlessly overhead transposing the earth bound into the heaven sent. In the earlier work on the domes (which can be found in the book Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture) the symmetry of the mandala-like domes with their light-filled inner illumination worked well with the square format of the images making the photographs stand as equivalents for something else, other ineffable states of being.
“The power of the equivalent, so far as the expressive-creative photographer is concerned, lies in the fact that he can convey and evoke feelings about things and situations and events which for some reason or other are not or can not be photographed. The secret, the catch and the power lies in being able to use the forms and shapes of objects in front of the camera for their expressive-evocative qualities. Or to say this in another way, in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer’s expressive purposes. He may wish to employ the recording power of the medium, it is strong in photography, and document. Or he may wish to emphasize its transforming power, which is equally strong, and cause the subject to stand for something else too.”1
As Minor White further observes,
“When the image mirrors the man And the man mirrors the subject Something might take over”2
When the distance between object and image and image and viewer collapses then something else may be revealed: Spirit.
I found myself observing without engagement, looking without wonder or feeling – never a good sign!
The photographs of Domes and Vaults have served David Stephenson well for numerous years but the concept has become tired, the inspiration in need of refreshment through other avenues of exploration – both physical and spiritual.
Many thankx to Daniel and John Buckley Gallery for allowing me to reproduce the photographs from the exhibition. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) Choir, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France 2006/2007
David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) St. Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England 2006/2007
Installation view of Heavenly Vaults by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond Photo: Marcus Bunyan
David Stephenson (Australian born America 1955) Nave, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic 2008/2009
David Stephenson (Australian born America 1955) Choir, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic 2008/2009
“While the subject of my photographs has shifted… my art has remained essentially spiritual – furthermore than two decades I have been exploring a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence.”
David Stephenson
Internationally renowned photographer David Stephenson has dedicated his practice to capturing the sublime in nature and architecture. Fresh from a successful exhibition at Julie Saul Gallery in New York, Stephenson returns to John Buckley Gallery for his third highly anticipated exhibition Heavenly Vaults. The exhibition will feature 26 selected prints from his latest monograph published by Princeton Architectural Press; Heavenly Vaults: From Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture. Shaun Lakin, Director of the Monash Gallery of Art, will launch the book and exhibition at the opening, November 7th.
Stephenson began to photograph Gothic vaults in Spain and Portugal in 2003, while completing the work for his Domes project, and his first monograph Visions of Heaven: the Dome in European Architecture. He began to focus on the Vaults project in 2006, photographing Gothic churches and cathedrals in England, Belgium and France. With the assistance of an Australia Council Artist Fellowship in 2008-2009, Stephenson completed extensive fieldwork for the Vaults project, intensively photographing Romanesque and Gothic architecture in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany. The exhibition at John Buckley Gallery coincides with the launch of his second monograph, Heavenly Vaults: from Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture, published by Princeton Architectural Press, New York.
Even though the traditional systems the underpinned church architecture have lost their unequivocal power, David Stephenson’s photographs capture the resonance of those times. More importantly his work also suggest that the feelings of aspiration, transcendence, and infinity these buildings evoke in the viewer have an ongoing relevance beyond the religious setting and help us understand who and what we are.
Excerpt from Foreword, Heavenly Vaults, by Dr Isobel Crombie 2009
David Stephenson’s new book of photography is a love letter to the intricate, seemingly sui generis vaults of Europe’s Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and churches.
Press release from the John Buckley website [Online] Cited 11/11/2009 no longer available online
‘While the subject of my photographs has shifted from the landscapes of the American Southwest and Tasmania, and the minimal horizons of the Southern Ocean, and the icy wastes of Antarctica, to sacred architecture and the sky at both day and night, my art has remained essentially spiritual – for more than two decades I have been exploring a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence.’
David Stephenson 1998.1
With poetic symmetry the Domes series considers analogous ideas. It is a body of work which has been ongoing since 1993 and now numbers several hundred images of domes in countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, England, Germany and Russia. The typological character of the series reveals the shifting history in architectural design, geometry and space across cultures and time, demonstrating how humankind has continually sought meaning by building ornate structures which reference a sacred realm.2 Stephenson photographs the oculus – the eye in the centre of each cupola. Regardless of religion, time or place, this entry to the heavens – each with unique architectural and decorative surround – is presented as an immaculate and enduring image. Placed together, the photographs impart the infinite variations of a single obsession, while also charting the passage of history, and time immemorial.
1. Van Wyk, S. 1998. “Sublime space: photographs by David Stephenson 1989-1998,” National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne np 2. Hammond, V. 2005. “The dome in European architecture,” in Stephenson, D. 2005, Visions of heaven: the dome in European architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York p. 190
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
You must be logged in to post a comment.