Newsletter for Collectors - Vol 13.4

October 26, 2019

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Welcome

Welcome to another Luminous-Lint Newsletter.

Thanks for your support

The months fly by at dizzying speed and it is time for another Newsletter.

To all Luminous-Lint subscribers and contributors I'd like to say thanks for your continuing support.

Ascension: Ladders and Staircases in Photohistory

There are ups and downs with any type of research but there are also visual possibilities. In this Newsletter I'll explore the photography of ladders and staircases right the way through the history of photography. There are overviews of hands, eggs, the sea and a vast range of other themes that have been published but I feel ascension has been ignored. At this point one of you will no doubt send me a book reference, catalogue or link to fill this mysterious gap.

Ascension: Ladders

Alan Griffiths, 15 October 2019, Screenshot of part of the "Ladders" visual index on Luminous-Lint, Luminous-Lint
LL/93961

From a daguerreotype of Vue de la galerie du chàteau de Talcy by Albert Stapfer in 1840 and the Haystack salt print taken by William Henry Fox Talbot included in The Pencil of Nature we have a series of connected rungs that lead us up to the present day.

Many great photographers have included ladders in their photographs. Louis-Adolphe Humbert de Molard had a group sorting and stringing beans by a ladder in 1851 and there is a print of one of these in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Accession Number: 2005.100.263). In Romania in 1866 Carol Szathmari took a series of exteriors of the Monastery Curtea de Arges where a ladder features prominently giving angular force to the vertical structure. Francis Benjamin Johnston in around 1893 photographed the interior of Mammoth Cave, Edmondson, Co., Ky. showing the series of ladders tourists climbed to access the cave. Photographer Jessie Tarbox Beals never feared heights and can be seen in 1904 photographs atop precarious step ladders photographing at the St. Louis World's Fair. The tottering photographs of Fred Boissonnas capturing the architectural elements of the Acropolis in around 1907-1908 bring giddiness to the faint hearted.

The shifted viewpoint perspectives of Modernists and those connected with the Bauhaus used ladders not only as functional objects but as fresh ways of adjusting visual reality as in the 1925 Fire escape photographs of Alexander Rodchenko. The ladder in the 1937 photograph Lights! by Will Connell in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Object number: 2005.27.3913) takes a stylized person into an almost mythical photographic studio where light is all powerful.

As we continue ladders feature in the works of many more contemporary photographers such as Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, Abelardo Morell and Robert Polidori.

There is an uplifting history of ladders in photography still to be written. If you'd like to prepare a real world exhibition on ladders do let me know as I have information to share.

Albert Stapfer, "Vue de la galerie du chàteau de Talcy", 1840, Daguerreotype, Musée d'Orsay, © RMN (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski, Europeana Identifier: RMNDO000000311547; PHO1992-14
LL/9858

Rudolf Járai, "Cleaning windows" (Limpieza de ventanas), 1959, Gelatin silver print, Hungarian Museum of Photography / Magyar Fotográfiai Múzeum
LL/91074

Robert Polidori, "Velours frappé et l'échelle", 1985, Chromogenic print, Sotheby's - London, Photographs, 23 May 2015, Lot: 123
LL/60111 At this point some of you may be asking where are those books I referred to on hands, eggs and the sea well here you are.

Henry Buhl & Thomas Krens, 2004, Speaking with Hands: Photographs from the Buhl Collection, (Guggenheim Museum)

Michele Auer & Jean Streff,1999, Histoires d'Oeufs: A travers 300 Photographies de 1840 a Nos Jours, (Ides et calendes)

Pierre Borhan, 2011, The Sea: A Celebration in Photographs, (Flammarion)

Ascension: Staircases

Alan Griffiths, 15 October 2019, Screenshot of part of the "Staircases" visual index on Luminous-Lint, Luminous-Lint
LL/93962

As with portable ladders we can also ascend with staircases and similar trends can be teased out between the treads and risers. Okay I appreciate I'm pushing it a little here.

There are the sweeping staircases of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris taken by Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg in around 1865. Staying in Paris there are multiple photographs of staircases taken by Eugène Atget such as at the Junk Dealer, Porte d'Asnieres taken in 1912 (J. Paul Getty Museum, 94.XM.108.5) or the outdoor steps at Versailles in 1921. The garden steps of Versailles have been photographed by Edward Steichen, Karl F. Struss, Ilse Bing, Elsa Thiemann, Michael Kenna, Gregory Popovitch and many others. Luminous-lint includes Visual Indexes that bring these examples together.

The platinum print A Sea of Steps, Wells Cathedral by Frederick H. Evans taken in around 1903 is one of the classics of photohistory and is so well known that Juliet Hacking examined it on pages 200-201 of her 2012 volume Photography: The Whole Story (Prestel). The same staircase has been documented by Edwin Smith, Dick Arentz and in a photomontage by Karl Baden but it is to the soft tones of Frederick H. Evans that we return. Pictorialists respected rustic or ancient staircases which carried the mood of well-trodden years and we see staircase examples in the works of Rudolf Eickemeyer, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Edward Steichen, Karl Struss and others.

We can see the Modernist spiral staircase of the Pont Transbordeur, Marseilles photographed by László Moholy-Nagy in 1929 - a lesson in black and white visual geometry. Herbert Bayer also photographed the Pont Transbordeur in the same year. In 1946 Heinz Hajek-Halke made the extraordinary photomontage Gläsernes Monument.

Any real-world exhibition on "Ascension" would need to include Barbara Kasten, Cig Harvey, James Casebere and a host of others. These are just preliminary suggestions for an intriguing and over-looked theme.

Pauline Jermyn Trevelyan, "Part of Quadrangle Leicesters Hospital Warwick", March 1845, Salt print, from calotype negative, Newcastle University Library - Special Collections
LL/72730

Ilse Bing, Untitled (No Trespassing), 1953, Gelatin silver print, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Bequest of Ilse Bing Wolff, Object number: 2001.9.22
LL/81257

Barbara Kasten, "Architectural Site 7, July 14, 1986", 1986, Cibachrome print, Swann Galleries - New York, Courtesy of Swann Galleries (Auction, "Icons & Images: Fine & Vernacular Photographs", Oct 13-14, 2015, #2393, Lot 359)
LL/61521

A few closing words on this example. Luminous-Lint has indexes to thousands of topics in remarkable detail. If you are planning an exhibition let me know and I'll be happy to send through lists. To really understand the millions of connections within photohistory you should take out a Luminous-Lint Subscription.

Travel advice sought for Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Greece (2020)

In April and May 2020 I'll be visiing Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Greece to view photographic collections, give some presentations and meet with photo curators, contemporary photographers and interesting folks.

If you have suggestions, contacts or would like to meet along the way please send me an email at alan@luminous-lint.com. I look forward to getting to know you better. Best wishes, Alan

So who has been involved in Luminous-Lint to date?

Given the scale of Luminous-Lint it is difficult to remember all the names of those who have helped in ways both large and small. Having said that one should always try so I‘ve added an "Acknowledgements" page to get the ball rolling. As you go through it you will get a sense of the truly international scope of this project.

My gratitude to you all for subscribing to, and supporting, Luminous-Lint.

Free Trial of Luminous-Lint

A FREE TRIAL for the website is currently available so send an email to alan@luminous-lint.com with your name and reasons for wanting to take a look and I'll set up a password for you.

Educational subscriptions

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Getting around

Stereographs Project

Library

Video feeds, audio feeds, and enhanced media documents

Welcome

Thanks for your support

Ascension: Ladders and Staircases in Photohistory

Ascension: Ladders

Ascension: Staircases

Travel advice sought for Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Greece (2020)

So who has been involved in Luminous-Lint to date?

Free Trial of Luminous-Lint

Educational subscriptions

Recently updated Themes

Getting around

PhotographersConnectionsDirectory

Stereographs Project

Library

Video feeds, audio feeds, and enhanced media documents

Welcome

Thanks for your support

Ascension: Ladders and Staircases in Photohistory

Ascension: Ladders

Ascension: Staircases

Travel advice sought for Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Greece (2020)

So who has been involved in Luminous-Lint to date?

Free Trial of Luminous-Lint

Educational subscriptions

Recently updated Themes