| Newsletter for Collectors - Vol 4.4 | June 20, 2010 | | | Home • What‘s New • Photographers • Online Exhibitions
Affiliates • Galleries & Dealers • Timelines • Techniques
Library • Contact us
WELCOME
Luminous-Lint is rolling along and thanks for your support and enthusiasm, Alan
NEW ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
WARNING
Some of the online-exhibitions in this Newsletter contain images that may be considered disturbing and if you are of a sensitive disposition I would advise against viewing them. You have been warned. |
- Earliest War Photographs This reference set brings together some of the widely scattered examples that are referred to when the earliest war photography is mentioned.
There is little agreement as to what constitutes the first war photograph - is it the first person in military uniform, the first images of a group parading to war, the first scene of the logistics of war, the first photographs taken in the vicinity of where a war had occurred, the first battlefield scene or the first casualties? The difficulty also arises as to what war is and do civil conflicts, revolts and popular uprisings such as the Hungarian Revolution (1848) of Lajos Kossuth or the barricades in Paris (1848) photographed by M. Thibault qualify?
This exhibition has gaps or is seeking better quality examples:
1. The Daguerreotypes of the Mexican-American War taken around Saltillo, Mexico in 1847.
2. Any surviving images of the Hungarian Revolution (1848).
3. The works of Bengal Army Surgeon John McCosh who served with the Bengal Artillery during the Second Sikh War (1848-49) and the Second Burma War (1852-53). Albums of this work are held at the National Army Museum (London).
4. Battlefield photographs taken by Carol Szathmari in 1854 during the Danubian campaign of the Crimean War.
The intention here is to add missing examples as we proceed and I‘d be pleased to hear your suggestions for improvement so we can expand this into a useful resource for the community - alan@luminous-lint.com
- 19th Century Objects incorporating photographs This exhibition includes 19th and early 20th century objects in which photographs have been used as a key component. It includes jewelry, printed or hand-written items where photographs have been added, game boards, fans, lamps and other items.
- 19th century Tableau vivant A tableau vivant is a scene played by one or more actors who remain silent and motionless.
When Charles Dickens toured America he was entertained at grand balls which consisted of a combination of dances and tableau vivant. Dickens would have watched or participated in a dance and then presumably behind a curtain a suitably attired group armed with appropriate props would take their positions in a well-known scene from "Oliver Twist" or "Nicholas Nickleby" the curtains would be drawn back to reveal them to the audience with appropriate acclamation. Tableau vivant have declined in popularity along with costume parties, mime and dressing up although the tradition continues with dressed up characters in tourist centers.
The online exhibition includes a "preliminary" typology of tableau vivant with examples. Your insights are always welcome.
- Architecture: Masters of Architectural Photography - Exteriors This online exhibition is far from exhaustive but is rather, in my own defense, a sampling of five images from a number of photographers who have concentrated on architecture.
Charles Marville (France), Linnaeus Tripe (India), Thomas Annan (Scotland), Juan Laurent (Spain), Fratelli Alinari (Italy), Henry Dixon (England), Eugène Atget (France), Francis Benjamin Johnston (USA), Berenice Abbott (USA), August Sander (Germany), Bernd & Hilla Becher (Germany), Lewis Baltz (USA), Julius Shulman (USA), Christian Patterson (USA)
I‘d welcome suggestions for key photographers I‘ve missed.
- Scientific: Astronomy - Early examples Some other resources you might enjoy if you are interested in astronomy.
The Ultimate Resource for Eclipse Photography
Information on eclipse and astro-photography. Includes an online edition of the book Totality- Eclipses of the Sun.
The Transit of Venus
There have been only three transits of Venus since the discovery of photography in 1839 and these were in 1874, 1882 and 2004 with a further one coming in 2012. This website includes a detailed listing of the expeditions to observe the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882. The Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Egypt, France, USA all had observation teams for the 1874 transit.
Thomas B. Greenslade, Jr., "The First Stereoscopic Pictures of the Moon", Am. J. Phys., 40, 536-540 (1972)
- Scientific: Astronomy - The Modern Age A visual journey through the known universe with NASA and ESA.
In a 1615 letter from Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) to Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany he wrote...
Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held among academic philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors — as if I had placed these things in the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the sciences. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.
Source: Perry McAdow Rogers Aspects of Western Civilization: Problems and Sources in History (Prentice Hall, 1988)
- Satellite imagery of Earth When I prepared the "Aerial Photography" online exhibition in April 2010 I had an uneasy feeling that the remote sensing imagery from the ESA and NASA satellites and Google imagery should not be included there. I now feel that the topics need to be split and the satellite imagery that was in "Aerial Photography" has been moved here.
These images can be of such extraordinary beauty that we easily forget that views like this have only been possible in the last fifty years. Sputnik was launched in 1957 but it took a while for high quality imaging systems to be installed on satellites.
- Brian Duffy (1933-2010) "Before 1960, a fashion photographer was tall, thin and camp. But we three are different: short, fat and heterosexual!"
[Duffy explains the history of UK fashion photography in a single sentence.]
When I heard that Duffy had died on 31st May I realized that Luminous-Lint had no examples of his photographs and so I asked the Chris Beetles gallery, that represents him in London, to allow me to include some to which they kindly agreed. This online exhibition is dedicated to the memory of a great photographer.
With special thanks to Giles Huxley-Parlour.
- Roger Fenton English photographer - best known for his work March 8 to June 26, 1855 during the Crimean War (1854-1856). This however does not do justice to the range of photographs he took that include still lifes, royal portraits, landscapes, museum record shots and architecture. A richly varied output was achieved in the ten year period (1852-1862) that he was involved in photography.
He was the founder and first Secretary of the Photographic Society of London in 1854. Fenton terminated his photographic career in 1861, after which his equipment and negatives were bought by Francis Frith. Prior to this, he had a varied photographic career and was one of the first photographers to photograph scenic views, stately homes and art works with an eye to selling copies to the public. A perfectionist in all things, Fenton worried about his photographs fading but some of his prints in the Royal Photographic Society Collection are in near mint condition.
[With thanks to Pam Roberts]
- Alan Griffiths: Dark Realms As Luminous-Lint has expanded I‘ve frequently been asked if I take photographs and, if I do, where could they be seen? To avoid confusion I‘ve never included my own work preferring to keep it private and stored away in dark places. Recently I‘ve been looking at the work of Bohumil Stepán, Bill Lee and Norman Kulkin who‘ve been using carte de visites and cabinet cards as the basis for their artistic explorations. Seeing these I felt I should break my self-imposed rule as showing some pieces from one of my own series might stimulate discussion.
The series "Dark Realms" was created in 2005 as a parallel history of photography that could never have happened.
- Norman Kulkin: The Definitive Article For his series "The Definite Article" Norman Kulkin, a Los Angeles-based photography dealer and artist, has combined his interests in the nineteenth century photography formats of the carte de visite and the cabinet card with collage to experiment with new forms. The introduction by Norman includes his reflections and meditations.
- Eva Leitolf: German Images - Looking for Evidence 2006-2008 In "German Images - Looking for Evidence" photographer Eva Leitolf turns her attention to racist crimes in Germany and the ways they are discussed in society. In the early 1990s she photographed crime scenes, victims and perpetrators, and uninvolved bystanders. Returning to the theme in 2006, she reduced the visual content to nothing more than the places where the crimes had been commited, combined her images with meticulously researched texts about the events themselves and the way they were dealt with afterwards politically, by the courts, and in the media. Conceived as a long-term study, this work challenges the way society deals with racist violence and in the process tests the bounds and possibilities of what can be said visually.
A more detailed list of text sources can be found in the artist´s book, Eva Leitolf Deutsche Bilder - eine Spurensuche (Snoeck 2008, with texts in German and English)
- Chris Steele-Perkins: England, My England Photographs jog the mind.
Photographs can embrace you in a warm hug of memory, a shocked pause of recollection, or a visual jolt of the unexpected. I lived in England through most of the period that Chris Steele-Perkins documents in his book England, My England: A Photographer‘s Portrait (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Northumbria Press, 2009). I can remember times in pubs with drunken men stretched on the floor, I was at one of the Anti-Nazi League demonstrations in Lewisham in the late 1970s, I‘ve been at street carnivals in Brixton and walked on seaside beaches with donkeys. So the photographs are familiar - there are no visual tricks here just a desire to show Britain as it was during the period. It is an honest view of the complexities of society in an age when themed photo-essays often replace complexity with message.
The photographs here are not judgemental but inclusive of diversity in all its aspects. The homeless and the poor have their places along with an alfresco picnic at the Glynebourne Opera where cows have extra roles as ruminating food critics.
Chris Steele-Perkins England, My England: A Photographer‘s Portrait (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Northumbria Press, 2009) ISBN: 978-1-904794-38-7
- John Wood: Endurance and Suffering - Narratives of Disease in the 19th Century This online exhibition contains images and texts that may be considered disturbing and if you are of a sensitive disposition, or under 18, I would advise against viewing them. You have been warned.
Editorial note by Alan Griffiths
The book Endurance and Suffering - Narratives of Disease in the 19th Century is a complex work with multiple narratives and messages and is not easy viewing. The origins are in the case studies and notes of George Henry Fox (1846-1937) a leading American dermatologist. He arranged to have his patients photographed and most, but not all, of these were photographed by O.G. Mason the photographer at Bellvue Hospital in New York. Photomechanical prints were made for three books by Fox and they were hand-colored by Dr. Joseph Gaertner. With this we have the setting - medical illustrations but what do they tell us about the people?
Here this exhibition takes a different route and beneath the medical case notes are the poems by John Wood, photo-historian and poet, which take us into imagined realms of possibility. Make no mistake this is difficult viewing and reading and no American publisher would release it. When it was published in Germany it received the Deutscher Fotobuchpreis - Gold Medal for 2009 for Historical and Theoretical Photography. Luminous-Lint will continue to explore all aspects of the complex history of photography.
- Agathe Gaillard: 35th Anniversary of the Parisian Gallery The Agathe Gaillard Gallery was founded in June 1975 and is the longest running gallery in Paris dedicated solely to photography. This small and very personal exhibition, selected by Agathe, is a celebration of 35 years of the gallery and the photographers who have worked with it over the years. Founded with the support of photographer friends including Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, Ralph Gibson, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertesz, Edouard Boubat, Robert Doisneau and Gisèle Freund it has continued a tradition of well established photographers being involved with younger photographers establishing their careers.
Congratulations to Agathe and thanks for sharing this intimate view.
- Niagara Falls A nineteenth century account of a visit to Niagara Falls...
We discovered in the ferry-house at the top of the long staircase leading down to the ferry opposite the Clifton Hotel, a daguerreotypist‘s emporium, whose wares consisted of correct views of of the Falls taken from various points of observation, as also a number of the luckless Dutchman as he appeared in the boat which had lodged in the rapids leading to Iris Island, and who was hurried over after remaining there some forty-eight hours. Several months ago, another view presented him as he was plunging towards the brink of the Fall, his arms wildly, hopelessly tossed towards heaven. Such morbid and depraved tastes for the awfully tragic is peculiar to the other side. Fancy such a picture contributing to the embellishment of a drawingroom! It is disgusting; lamentably so! But Dollardom can turn grind-stones with the Falls, and dig down the river banks for a railroad track; so any innocent triumph of a daguerreotypist is of little consideration anyhow. "he will nasal to you!" Our British blood was boiling almost to effervescence, so we endeavored to allay it by copious exhaustings of sherry cobblers and dishes of ice-cream and strawberries, which Jonathan knows well how to prepare.
Published in "A Student Tramp to Niagara Falls", The Anglo-American Magazine, Volume 5, 1854, p.354
- New York A starting point for an online exhibition on the photography of New York. including photographs by:
Alfred Stieglitz, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Jacob A. Riis, Lewis W. Hine, Samuel Gottscho, Eugene De Salignac, Ben Shahn, Margaret Bourke-White, Ruth Orkin, Helen Levitt, Weegee, Todd Webb, Saul Leiter, Arthur Leipzig, André Kertész, György Lorinczy, William Klein, Philip Trager, Barbara Mensch, Sean Perry, Michael Massaia
Thanks to all the photographers, galleries and organizations who have kindly provided examples. Further suggestions are most welcome.
- Erotica: Comment me preferez vous?" [How would you like to see me?] I must lead a sheltered life as this is the first time I‘ve seen one of these late nineteenth century compact albums with the French title Comment me preferez vous? [How would you like to see me?]. The album contains twelve 15.5 x 11 cm albumen prints showing a lady at various stages of undressing and posing. It is tame by modern standards but shows a combination of erotica mixed with the artistic pretensions of the picture frame, moody backgrounds, selected props and posing styles.
Thanks to 19th century photography in The Netherlands for providing this example.
I‘m seeking examples for future online exhibitions:
- Contemporary photography galleries worldwide - I think we need to create a time capsule that records the appearance of contemporary photography galleries. So I‘m looking for exteriors, interiors, exhibition installations and gallerists at work around the world. This will provide an historic record and I‘d be grateful for any examples. If you feel inspired encourage some of your contemporary photographers to take examples.
- Marketing 19th century photographic studios - Examples of the techniques used by photographers to promote themselves or to encourage repeat business.
- World War I - Any collectors of World War I photographs who would like to collaborate?
Join in when you can - sharing makes the world a better place.
My own page on Facebook
If you go to my Facebook page - Alan Griffiths
or search for Luminous-Lint you‘ll join a community of around 3,900 fellow enthusiasts. I‘m finding it useful for keeping everybody updated about what is happening on Luminous-Lint and in the wider world of photography
generally. To everybody who is participating thanks for all your friendship, knowledge and support.
NEW ADDRESS
Want your invitations, catalogs, books and prints to arrive at my place? Well check your address book:
Alan Griffiths
Luminous-Lint
Box 33055
Quinpool RPO
Halifax NS B3L 4T6
CANADA
IMPORTANT: Couriers, such as Fedex and UPS, require a street address and telephone number so send me an email (alan@luminous-lint.com) to obtain further instructions if that is the way you ship.
To get a wider perspective on the topics covered on Luminous-Lint the following links will help. |
|
What‘s New on Luminous-Lint |
Jean Dieuzaide (1921, 20 June - 2003) was born - France, Grenade-sur-Garonne. French photographer.
Jack Kilby (1923, 8 November - 2005, 20 June) died - US,TX, Dallas. Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 2000 for his invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at Texas Instruments (TI) and a patent based on his reasearch for a "Solid Circuit made of Germanium", the first integrated circuit, was filed More... |
| |
|
LuminousLint 
@LuminousLint
