Photographic collections of London

I’m not a hoarder, nor a collector – not even of books; I don’t have a personal archive: I am not a typical librarian at all in fact.

However, I have become interested in archives of late and have enrolled on a course – Investigating the archive: photographic collections of London.

The first of our visits was to the Rothschild Archive - housed in an impressive building, close by the Bank of England.

It is not particularly accessible – two referees are needed to gain access to the reading rooms - and it is not specifically photographic: the Rothschilds are a banking dynasty, so the archive is as often as not accessed by economic historians.

However, the archive includes a photograph album once owned by Charlotte de Rothschild, which includes prints by Julia Margaret Cameron and has the largest collection of autochromes in the country – over 700 plates taken by Lionel de Rothschild . There are also photographs relating to the running of the company: portraits of staff, and some great pictures of people at work in the gold refinery.

Many archives – personal and business – have photographic materials, including incidentally the archives of The University of Westminster (see their flickr stream).

In some of the reading in preparation of the visit, some rather unflattering conjectures on the nature of collecting were discussed. But, as well as collecting being possibly a “masturbatory pursuit of solitary pleasures,” it is also “one way in which we hope to understand the world around us, and reconcile our places within it.” (Pearce, 1995: 8; 25).

Further reading

Ford, C. (2002) ‘Hannah, Charlotte ...and Julia’ in Rothschild archive review of the year; April 2001 – March 2002. The Rothschild Archive Trust. Available at http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/articles/ar2002.pdf [accessed 14/01/2011]

Pearce, S. M. (1995). Collecting processes: an investigation into collecting in the European tradition. London: Routledge

'The colours of another world' [pdf] Available at http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/articles/AR2006Autochromes.pdf [accessed 14/01/2011]

Photography festivals - roundup

The Telegraph website has helpfully provided a round-up of international photography festivals.

Further reading

Trenkler, K. International Photography Festivals. European Photography v. 29 no. 84 (Winter 2008/2009) p. 76-7

Old Periodicals Online

An advert in this 1910 The British Journal Photographic Almanac declares the Regent Street Polytechnic - a former incarnation of the University of Westminster - as having, "The first, largest and most successful school of photography in the world."  You will find it here.



This e-copy resides on the Internet Archive. 

Thanks to Jo Barker for sending me the link to the photography periodicals section of The Digital Book Index.  There are also links to early copies of Photograms of the year (copies of which are also in the library), which are gems! (see here for example). And there are other sections to explore: the Photography Collections page looks particularly interesting.

The "objectness" of art books

According to an article in The Telegraph in November, Steidl have opened a new bookshop in Soho – well not a bookshop, rather a “forum for books.” This is called Q Book but as the website only has a picture of empty shelves, I am not sure whether it has opened yet, so I will need to investigate and report back.

The Telegraph article is well worth a look, as it discusses the recent trend for art books – and specifically photographic art books – to be released in expensive limited editions (see the winner of the Lucie’s for example).

Iwona Blazwick, the director of the Whitechapel Gallery, is quoted as saying:

The pleasure for me is that if you can't afford to buy a work of art, you can afford to buy a book as a work of art. There is an interest in the "objectness" of art books.

As well as Q Book, three other bookshops in London get a mention – Marcus Campbell, Claire de Rouen, and another newly opened one at Somerset House – Rizolli.

References

Beyfuss, Druisilla (2010). 'Speaking volumes; Limited-edition art and photography books are increasingly treasured as works of art in themselves'. The Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 11, 12, 14. Available from Factiva [Online Database] [Accessed 18/12/2010].

See also

Steidl special editions [PDF]

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