Contents
| This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated. Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve | Introduction 9.01 Portrait > Introduction to the portrait
From its earliest invention one of the primary purposes of photography has been the preservation of the human form as a physical object - and this memory aid continues to be the primary function of photography. From the early daguerreotypes, through ambrotypes, tintypes and carte de visite, patented in France by André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in 1854, at each stage the portrait has been the paramount theme. Frequently these were turned out by hacks of limited talent but they can still have considerable charm and a great many are still in existence. 9.02 Portrait > Early examples of portraiture
9.03 Portrait > Early stylistic choices with portraiture
In the early photographs elaborate backgrounds, props, scenery and costumes were frequently used to link the resulting portrait to the artistic tradition of a painting.
In 1866 the smaller carte de visite was enhanced with the introduction in England of the cabinet card this had a standard size of a 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch mount affixed with a 5 1/2 x 4 inch picture fgrequently with the name of the studio and the photographer beneath or on the reverse of the card. Having a portrait taken 9.04 Portrait > "Portrait factory" on Broadway, New York
J. Werge, April 13, 1866, "Rambles among the Studios of New York", The Photographic News, Vol.X, No.397, p.171-173
In the Daguerreotype days there was a "portrait factory" on Broadway, where likenesses were turned out as fast as coining, for the small charge of twenty-five cents a head. The arrangements for such rapid work were very complete. I had a dollar's worth of these "factory" portraits. At the desk I paid my money, and received four tickets, which entitled me to as many sittings when my turn came. I was shown into a waiting room crowded with people. The customers were seated on forms placed round the room, sidling their way to the entrance of the operating room, and answering the cry of "the next" in much the same manner that people do at our public baths. I being "the next," at last went into the operating room, where I found the operator stationed at the camera which he never left all day long, except occasionally to adjust a stupid sitter. He told the next to "Sit down" and "Look thar," focussed, and, putting his hand into a hole in the wall which communicated with the "coating room," he found a dark slide ready filled with a sensitized plate, and putting it into the camera, "exposed," and saying "that will dew," took the dark slide out of the camera, and shoved it through another hole in the wall communicating with the mercury or developing room. This was repeated as many times as I wanted sittings, which he knew by the number of tickets I had given to a boy in the room, whose duty it was to look out for "the next," and collect the tickets. The operator had nothing to do with the preparation of the plates, developing, fixing, or finishing of the picture. He was responsible only for the "pose" and "time," the "developer" checking and correcting the latter occasionally by crying out "Short" or "Long" as the case might be. Having had my number of "sittings," I was requested to leave the operating room by another door which opened into a passage that led me to the "delivery desk " where, in a few minutes, I got all my four portraits fitted up in "matt, glass, and preserver," the pictures having been passed from the developing room to the "gilding," room thence to the "fitting room" and the "delivery desk," where I received them. Thus they were all finished and carried away without the camera operator ever having seen them. Three of the four portraits were as fine Daguerreotypes as could be produced anywhere. Ambrotypes, or "Daguerreotypes on glass," as some called them, were afterwards produced in much the same manufacturing manner.
9.05 Portrait > Visit to Plumbe's Gallery, New York (1846) Walt Whitman (attributed as he was the editor of the paper), Brooklyn Daily Eagle vol. 5, no. 160 (2 July 1846) front page
Visit to Plumbe's Gallery
Among the "lions" of the great American metropolis, New York City, is the Picture Gallery at the upper corner of Murray street and Broadway, commonly known as Plumbe's Daguerreotype establishment. Puffs, etc., out of the question, this is certainly a great establishment! You will see more life there—more variety, more human nature, more artistic beauty, (for what created thing can surpass that masterpiece of physical perfection, the human face?) than in any spot we know of. The crowds continually coming and going—the fashionable belle, the many distinguished men, the idler, the children—these alone are enough to occupy a curious train of attention. But they are not the first thing. To us, the pictures address themselves before all else.
What a spectacle! In whatever direction you turn your peering gaze, you see naught but human faces! There they stretch, from floor to ceiling—hundreds of them. Ah! what tales might those pictures tell if their mute lips had the power of speech! How romance then, would be infinitely outdone by fact. Here is one now—a handsome female, apparently in a bridal dress. She was then, perhaps, just married. Her husband has brought her to get her likeness; and a fine one he must have had, if this is a correct duplicate of it. Is he yet the same tender husband? Another, near by, is the miniature of an aged matron, on whose head many winters have deposited their snowy semblance. But what a calm serene bearing! How graceful she looks in her old age!
Even as you go in by the door, you see the withered features of a man who has occupied the proudest place on earth: you see the bald head of John Quincy Adams, and those eyes of dimmed but still quenchless fire. There too, is the youngest of the Presidents, Mr. Polk. From the same case looks out the massive face of Senator Benton. Who is one of his nearest neighbors? No one less than the Storm-King of the piano, De Meyer. Likewise Chancellor Kent and Alexander H. Everett.
Persico's statuary of the drooping Indian girl, and the male figure up-bearing a globe, is in an adjoining frame, true as the marble itself. Thence, too, beams down the Napoleon-looking oval face of Ole Bull, with his great dreamy eyes. Among the others in the same connection, (and an odd connection, enough!) are Mrs. Polk, her niece Miss Walker, Marble the comedian, Mayor Mickle, George Vandenhoff, Mrs. Tyler, and Mr. Buen, a most venerable white-haired ancient, (we understand, just dead!) On another part of the wall, you may see Mrs. J. C. Calhoun, the venerable Mesdames Hamilton and Madison, and Miss Alice Tyler. There, also, are Mike Walsh—Robert Owen, with his shrewd Scotch face, but benevolent look—Horace Greeley—the "pirate" Babe—Grant Thorborn—Audubon, the ornithologist, a fiery-eyed old man and Mr. Plumbe himself. Besides these, of course, are hundreds of others. Indeed, it is little else on all sides of you, than a great legion of human faces—human eyes gazing silently but fixedly upon you, and creating the impression of an immense Phantom concourse—speechless and motionless, but yet realities. You are indeed in a new world—a peopled world, though mute as the grave. We don't know how it is with others, but we could spend days in that collection, and find enough enjoyment in the thousand human histories, involved in those daguerreotypes.
There is always, to us, a strange fascination, in portraits. We love to dwell long upon them—to infer many things, from the text they preach—to pursue the current of thoughts running riot about them. It is singular what a peculiar influence is possessed by the eye of a well-painted miniature or portrait.—It has a sort of magnetism. We have miniatures in our possession, which we have often held, and gazed upon the eyes in them for the half-hour! An electric chain seems to vibrate, as it were, between our brain and him or her preserved there so well by the limner's cunning. Time, space, both are annihilated, and we identify the semblance with the reality.—And even more than that. For the strange fascination of looking at the eyes of a portrait, sometimes goes beyond what comes from the real orbs themselves.
Plumbe's beautiful and multifarious pictures all strike you, (whatever their various peculiarities) with their naturalness, and the life-look of the eye—that soul of the face! In all his vast collection, many of them thrown hap-hazard, we notice not one that has a dead eye. Of course this is a surpassing merit. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that the building is fitted up by him in many ranges of rooms, each with a daguerrian operator; and not merely as one single room, with one operator, like other places have. The greatest emulation is excited; and persons or parties having portraits taken, retain exclusive possession of one room, during the time.
9.06 Portrait > Daguerreotypes: Occupations and roles
Occupational daguerreotypes of women are far less common than those of men and this may be a reflection of gender-based attitudes to work in the nineteenth century.
Further examples of daguerreotype occupationals, especially of women and children, are requested. 9.07 Portrait > Interesting group posed for a Daguerreotype by a friend of the family / Interesting and valuable result (1855)
This two-panel cartoon was published in Punch's Almanack for 1855 and uses humour to highlight the quality of daguerreotype portraiture. 9.08 Portrait > Letter from W.L. Marcy, Secretary of War, to Major General Z. Taylor, Commanding Army of Occupation, Monterey, Mexico (5 October 1846)
Letter from W.L. Marcy, Secretary of War, to Major General Z. Taylor, Commanding Army of Occupation, Monterey, Mexico (5 October 1846). This letter is published in Message of the President of the United States, p.113-114.
Major General Z. Taylor.
War Department, October 5, 1846.
Sir: By a joint resolution of Congress, approved July 16th, the President is authorized and requested to have a medal of gold procured, with appropriate devices and inscriptions thereon presented to you in the name of the republic, as a tribute due to your good conduct, valor, and generosity to the vanquished. Preparations are being made to carry this resolution into effect, and the only difficulty that seems to present itself is the want of a faithful bust likeness of yourself, in order to enable the artist to prepare the die. It is possible that you may have a faithful miniature likeness of yourself, which could be made use of for this purpose: if so, and you will direct it to be sent to this department, it shall be taken good care of and safely returned to you. If you have no such likeness, it is suggested that one may be taken by a competent artist and forwarded to the department the expense of which will be defrayed by the government. It is believed that a daguerreotype likeness would answer every purpose. and insure a faithful resemblance.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
W. L. MARCY,
Secretary of War.
Major General Z. Taylor,
Commanding Army of Occupation, Monterey, Mexico.
Guidelines for sitters 9.09 Portrait > Guidelines for sitters - Jesse Gostick (1860) Jesse Gostick, 1860, Mechanical Photography: Including Positive, Negative, and Dryplate Pictures - Photographic Printing - Transparencies - Microphotographs, and life-size Portraits - Photographic Difficulties - Backgrounds, Solutions, and Miscellaneous Instructions. (London: G. T. Stevenson)
"Every sitter for a portrait, every building, every landscape, every animal, and every other subject has one view prettier than any other view. Find out the point of sight and there fix your camera for still life; and for a portrait adjust the position by your sitter's chair, and inclining his person to the natural position wanted. Educated people give but little trouble, as they are accustomed to good positions, but sometimes there are except ions, for nervous people assume the forced position; and sometimes the operator gives so many cautions that the sitter is frightened out of naturalness. Take the portrait without cautions, and if the sitter is wrong correct the pose quietly; for the mind of every sitter is. as sensitive as your sensitive plate, and a natural likeness is only to be got when the mind is naturally composed.
"Do not try to make a mechanic look like a gentleman, or a domestic servant to appear as an authoress with book and pen. You might as well pose an agricultural labourer to look like Byron. A mechanic may be as good a gentleman in his line of life as the best aristocrat is in his grade of society, but how ridiculous to caricature a sitter! Besides, all sitters want likenesses of themselves and not to be immortalised in an appearance which they never had but once in their lives."
9.10 Portrait > Guidelines for sitters - J.G. Vail
On the back of a carte de visite for J.G. Vail (6 Seneca St., Geneva, N.Y.) he provides guidelines for sitters.
Patrons will please remember that dark drapery, such as black, brown, green and the darker shades of red, make the the clearest looking pictures. Blue, pink, purple, and the light shades of red take light.
Clear sunny days are best for taking Babies and small children.
9.11 Portrait > Guidelines for sitters - American Journal of Photography (1890) 1890, American Journal of Photography, vol. XI, p.180
Posing For A Photograph.—Don't wear a silk frock. Nothing comes out so badly as the gloss of satin or glimpses of silk. Instead choose wool or velvet. If you are young, wear a white gown. Remember that gray takes white, and yellow or tan becomes black, so that with your white gown you must have white gloves. Lace always comes out very well, and furs are artistic. Do not fix your hair in any elaborate way, and remember you are posing as a lady and not as an actress. If you have any freckles the artist will, if he is a good one, spot them out, and if your hair is really light, put a little powder on it with powder-muff, and it will take its natural color.
Unless you are one of the people who can smile naturally to order, do not attempt to look pleasant, for the result is too often that seen in the picture of somebody just sitting down in the dentist's chair. For a full-length picture, throw your body, from the waist up, a little bit forward. Remember that a bonnet in fashion to-day will be out of style a year from now, and that, unless your pictures are only for the time, it is better to have them taken without a chapeau, says the Albany Journal. If you want to see a picture that could nowhere be mistaken but for that of a lady, look at those of the Duchess of Fife—not pretty, but refined looking. She inherited much of her mother's good sense, so that she has a photograph taken in a simple woolen gown, standing beside her husband, not in a dramatic fashion, but just as a lady might and does stand.
Studio portraits 9.12 Portrait > Nadar: Portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.13 Portrait > Studio portraits in Algeria
9.14 Portrait > Studio portraits in Egypt
9.15 Portrait > Studio portraits in Turkey
The "Artistic" portrait 9.16 Portrait > The "artistic" portrait
There was a strong desire amongst early photographers to demonstrate that photography was an art the equal of painting rather than just a technical skill that anybody could master. To promote the 'art' argument it was necessary to convince critics and the owners of art galleries and museums that the work had not only novelty but real lasting artistic quality.
The question of how exactly a photographic portrait could be included in the 'fine art' tradition in the 19th century Western European mindset was to link it to the biblical, classical or literary subjects that were common in salon paintings. These themes, which are now frequently seen as trite, were the staples of intellectuals in the late nineteenth century. The book by Juliet Hacking (Princes of Victorian Bohemia, 2000) deals with David Wilkie Wynfield (1837-87) who photographed Millais, Lord Leighton, Holman Hunt, Manet, and Burne-Jones and influenced the style of Julia Margaret Cameron. 9.17 Portrait > Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879): Portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Julia Margaret Cameron was born in 1815 at Calcutta in India to James Pattle, an official with the East India Company, and Adeline de l'Etang, a French aristocrat. She took up photography after she was given a camera in the early 1860's and mastered it quickly. She took soft focused portraits of the famous English Victorians that were in her social circle and these included the astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel, the author Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Charles Darwin.
Julia Margaret Cameron, in a short photographic exuberance, produced an astounding body of work often based on characters from literary narratives including Shakespearean characters, King Arthur, mythological figues such as Venus and Cupid, Lord Tennyson's poems, Biblical characters (angels and the Madonna) as her subjects and dressed her models accordingly. In addition to these art subjects she photographed the leading men of Victorian society - Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Sir John Frederick William Herschel and William Holman Hunt. As she wrote:
"When I have had such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavored to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer." (Julia Margaret Cameron)
[Note that the dates on some of the photographs above are from the dates the image was printed rather than the year the portrait was taken.] 9.18 Portrait > Lady Clementina Hawarden: Photographic studies About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Front and back views 9.19 Portrait > Front and back view portraits
Daguerreotype portraits 9.20 Portrait > W. & F. Langenheim: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.21 Portrait > Robert Cornelius: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.22 Portrait > Jeremiah Gurney: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.23 Portrait > Southworth and Hawes: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.24 Portrait > Rufus P. Anson: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.25 Portrait > J.E. Mayall: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.26 Portrait > Antoine Claudet: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.27 Portrait > William Edward Kilburn: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.28 Portrait > Richard Beard: Daguerreotype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Ambrotype portraits 9.29 Portrait > Ambrotypes: Portrait
9.30 Portrait > Japanese ambrotypes
These rare Ambrotypes rank as unique photographic treasures on a number of counts. It is important to note that the images you see before you were not intended for a Western audience. Rather, they are unique, one-of-a-kind images created by Japanese photographers exclusively for Japanese clients. Only in the last few years have they come to attention in the West.
Until now, the best-known images from Japan’s Meiji Period (1868-1912) were taken by Western photographers - Beato, Stillfried, Farsari, et al. They are paper prints (not unique glass, albumen works, as we see here), made by appreciative Western photographers for export to a Western public craving Japan’s exotic, cultural charm. Often the Japanese posed in them as paid sitters, garbed in outmoded forms of dress (a coat of multi-layered, medieval Samurai armor, for instance) or arranged in improbably artistic setups (a bare-chested lady at her toilette). They are exotic specimens of a time that had, or was soon to pass.
Once Westerners taught the Japanese the art of photography, the next wave of images that followed - by the Japanese - were also intended for Western eyes. Not so, here, however. Culled from villages and remote family collections, these photographs (small-scale images, encased in wood) were very private, personal, intended to be passed down as precious heirlooms. The "reformed Samurai" warrior, for instance, pictured here, may have sat for such a photo in order to give his family a record of his life, lest he die in battle. The woman whose traditional whiteface makeup is framed so perfectly by her black (Western) umbrella, would have seemed smartly Westernized to her contemporaries - despite her traditional "geta" wooden platform shoes. Such visual and cultural incongruities of East and West (now marvelous to our eyes) abounded for the Japanese as they found themselves, in the late 1800s, on the brink of huge political and cultural upheaval.
Note a few other formal points of interest: the way the Japanese photographers tend to craft their portraits in full-length pose - from head to feet; the slightly lowered, more respectful position of the camera angle (vs. to the more confrontational approach to portraiture of the West). Then, there is the Ambrotype medium itself, which creates one-of-a-kind images on glass, without a negative. Though the West had already begun to favor the Albumen paper-print process, Japanese photographers set about perfecting the soon-to-be retrograde Ambrotype process, teasing from it a greater tonal range. And finally, note the kiri-wood presentation cases, in which these photographs are housed: they are feather-light, perfectly hand-crafted to fit, just so, in your palm. Thanks to the wood’s natural drying properties, these ambrotypes have withstood the test of time (and humidity, quite prevalent in Japan) and have been preserved in amazing condition. The original owners of the photos have handled these cases, turned them over and over again - proof of their durability. On occasion, they personalized them with inscriptions. They are fascinating objects, in and of themselves.
Charles Schwartz Salt print portraits 9.31 Portrait > Salt prints: Portraits
Carte de visite portraits 9.32 Portrait > André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri: Uncut carte de visite sheets About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
The cameras employed for taking carte de visite often had multiple lenses and by selectively uncovering the lens multiple copies of the same pose or different poses on the same plate could be taken allowing the sitter to select the ones required for printing. After the photograph was taken the wet collodion plate was developed and printed onto a paper sheet using the albumen print process and for André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri examples of these uncut sheets survive. These sheets were used in sample books and on sample boards to allow purchasers to select poses, buy additional prints of their own portrait or those of subjects of interest. 9.33 Portrait > Carte de visites: Celebrities
9.34 Portrait > Giuseppe Garibaldi
The Photographic News, June 29, 1866, p.311-312.
Photography And Garibaldi. Mr. G. A. Sala, in a recent letter in the Telegraph, has a graphic word-photograph on Garibaldi, in commenting on the sun-pictures of the Italian hero. He says: "Photography has not done him justice. The sun, like calumny and the calumniator's favourite weapon, the frying-pan, blackens all with whom his rays, through the medium of the camera, come in contact. In the cartes de visite Garibaldi looks sombre, meagre, and worn. I was surprised to see a hearty, jovial man, with a great blonde beard. But for the eyeglass he used, and the stick he carried, there were no traces visible of the waves of time which have dashed against him, or of the cruel bullet which struck him at Aspromonte. He gave me his hand, and a hearty, sailor-like grip into the bargain; and if it be snobbish to have wished to kiss that horny paw, I am glad to have been, for once in my life at all events, a snob most egregious. A thousand times must it have been remarked in print that the aspect of Garibaldi is as that of a Lion. But no other simile will serve. ' Sorriso di madre, riguardo di leone,' the Italians say of him. His port and mien are, of a truth, thoroughly leonine ; but the ' sorriso di madre,' the ' mother's smile,' comes ever him when he converses familiarly, when he calls to some member of his staff, or, best of all, when he sees the boy volunteers, the hope and promise of Italy, passing before him. And there surely was never a countenance so thoroughly translucent, and from whose eyes there beamed so strongly the light of tho soul within the soul of a just and upright man, quietly striving to do his duty."
Cabinet card portraits 9.35 Portrait > Cabinet cards: Celebrities
Tintype portraits 9.36 Portrait > Tintype portraits
Tintypes being on thin metal sheets were difficult to write on and this means that the names of the sitters are less likely to be recorded than on salt prints, albumen prints, carte de visites or cabinet cards or other paper or card mounted photographs. Daguerreotypes, also on metal plates, had the same inherent disadvantage but as they were frequently cased and belonged to those with a higher station in life the connection with the family through the descendents is more likely to remain.
Although tintypes have a limited tonal range and can appear dark they can have a considerable charm. 9.37 Portrait > Tin Type Album: Little gem tintypes
Woodburytype portraits 9.38 Portrait > Thompson Cooper: Men of Mark (1876-1883)
Thompson Cooper (1837-1904), Men of Mark, a Gallery of Contemporary Portraits of Men Distinguished in the Senate, the Church, in Science, Literature and Art, the Army, Navy, Law, Medicine, etc. [Woodburytyped] from Life by Lock and Whitfield (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1876-1883).
This important work was a collaboration between the photographers Samuel Robert Lock (1822-1881) and George Carpe Whitfield (born 1833) and the journalist Thompson Cooper (1837-1904) who prepared the brief biographies for the individuals featured. Lock and Whitfield prepared 36 oval woodburytypes for publication each year and when Lock died in 1881 Whitfield continued the project alone. The total number plates is 254, including the two frontispiece illustrations in volumes 1 and 4. Some photographic plates were acquired from other photographers, e.g. the portrait of Victor Hugo is by Etienne Carjat (1828-1906), the one of Jules Verne by Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon (1818-1881), both of Paris, the one of Tennyson by London photographer John Jabez Edwin Paisley Mayall (1813-1901).
The “series” was distributed as seven bound volumes, in an unknown but probably low edition. A short biographical sketch of usually one page is followed by a page carrying a mounted woodburytypes portrait. There are about 36 portraits per volume, each of them in an excellent printing quality. Though the sitters – exclusively male – are the same, e.g. in different copies of vol. 1 some slight variations of posing and cropping can be observed in a few of the portraits published. This could be due to the relatively low print run which the woodburytypes technique allowed. The later volumes seem to be progressively rarer as they have probably seen a lower print run than the introductory volumes. The images are mounted to the pages succeeding the letterpress printed biographies. - The selection of personalities described and depicted would be another matter for future research. They are either British upper class and/or nobility, or have risen to some prominence as members of the military, lawyers, clergymen, artists or writers. Their names were selected when they were alive, though some did not live to see themselves published. If Cooper knew about a death he included this information in his biographical sketch. Were the more prominent invited to the Lock & Whitfield’s studio to be portrayed for free while less prominent but more vain persons where asked to contribute to the substantial costs of this major production?
Usually a text page or two by Cooper containing biographical data is followed by a woodburytype portrait mounted to the next page. Some introductory texts, e.g. on especially well-known personalities like Gladstone (vol. 6, 1882) are longer. The image size is c. 11.4 x 91 cm with a printed ornamental surround, the name of the model, the photographer’s name or names, and the identification as “Woodbury Process”. In some volumes the page with the mounted portrait preceeds the page of printed biographical information; this might be due to a bookbinder’s whim.
From the preface by George C. Whitfield (vol. 1, 1876):
“The photographs, taken from life, expressly for this publication, are produced in an absolutely permanent form by means of the Woodbury Process. – Whilst modifying on the one hand the crudeness which more or less is inseparable from the camera image, and correcting the untruthful rendering of colour which occasionally occurs, I have endeavoured on the other to retain the character and individuality of each subject […].”
The subjects are as follows [in brackets: additional names, life dates completed from later sources]:
First series (1876)
H.R.H. The Prince of Wales [Albert Edward, 1901-1910 King Edward VII; 1841-1910], frontispiece
The Earl of Dufferin, Governor-General of Canada [Frederick Hamilton-Temple Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava; 1826-1902], pl. 1
Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy, M.A., Late Chief Justice of Ceylon [1812-1878], pl. 2
Sir Richard Baggallay, Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal [1816-1888], pl. 3
Captain Richard [Francis] Burton [African explorer, diplomat, etc.; 1821-1890], pl. 4
The Right Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole, M.P. [1806-1898], pl. 5
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, [Bart.] Chief Secretary for Ireland [1st Earl St Aldwyn; The Viscount St Aldwyn; 1837-1916], pl. 6
Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India [Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton; 1831-1891], pl. 7
Sir John Walker Huddleston, Baron of the Exchequer [1817-?], pl. 8
Samuel Plimsoll, M.P., “The Sailor’s Friend” [1824-1898], pl. 9
Sir Garnet Joseph Wolseley, K.C.B., G.C.M.G., Major-General [1833-1913], pl. 10
The Right Rev. John Jackson, D.D., Lord Bishop of London [1811-1886], pl. 11
Lord James [4th Baron] Talbot de Malahide, President of the Royal Archaeological Institute [1805-1883], pl. 12
His Eminence Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster [1808-1892], pl. 13
James Anthony Froude, M.A., LL.D, Historian [1818-1894], pl. 14
Henry Fawcett, M.P., Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge [1833-1884], pl. 15
The Right Hon. Lord Chelmsford [Sir Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford; 1794-1879], pl. 16
The Right Rev. Charles J. [John] Ellicott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol [1819-1905], pl. 17
The Right Hon. Henry Bouverie William Brand, Speaker of the House of Commons [1st Viscount Hampden; 1814-1892], pl. 18
John Everett Millais, Royal Academician [1829-1896], pl. 19
The Rev. F. W. [Frederick William] Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., Canon of Westminster [1831-1903], pl. 20
Lord George [Francis] Hamilton, Under-Secretary of State for India [M.P.; 1845-1927], pl. 21
The Right Hon. Lord Selbourne, Ex-Lord High Chancellor of England [Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selbourne; 1812-1895], pl. 22
The Right Hon. Bartle Edward Frere, Bart., G.C.B. [1815-1884], pl. 23
The Hon. Sir Charles Hall, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1814-1883], pl. 24
The Right Rev. Edward Harold Browne, D.D., Lord Bishop of Winchester [1811-1891], pl. 25
Charles Jean Marie Loyson, “Père Hyacinthe” [1827-1912], pl. 26
Sir James Macnaghten [McGarel] Hogg, K.C.B., Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works [1823-1890], pl. 27
The Right Hon. The [7th] Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. [Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley; 1801-1885], pl. 28
The Right Hon. Lord Redesdale, Charman of Committees of the House of Lords [John Thomas Freeman Mitford; 1805-1886], pl. 29
The Ven. George Anthony Denison, Archdeacon of Taunton [1805-1896], pl. 30
The Right Hon. John Bright, M.P. for Birmingham [1811-1889], pl. 31
The Right Rev. Monsignor [Thomas John] Capel, D.D., Rector of the Catholic University College [1836-1911], pl. 32
The Right Hon. William Francis Cowper-Temple, M.P. for South Hampshire [1811-1888], pl. 33
His Grace The Duke of Abercorn, K.G., Lord Lieutnant of Ireland [James Hamilton, 1811-1885], pl. 34
The Most Reverend Archibald Campbell Tait, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury [1811-1882], pl. 35
W. H. [William Howard] Russell, Esq., LL.D. [1820-1907], pl. 36
Second series (1877)
Frederick Leighton, Esq., Royal Academician [1st Baron Leighton; 1830-1896], pl. 1
Richard Durnford, D.D., Bishop of Chichester [1802-1895], pl. 2
John Tyndall, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution [1820-1893], pl. 3
The Right Hon. Sir Robert J. [Joseph] Phillimore, D.C.L., Judge of the High Court of Justice [1st Baronet; 1810-1885], pl. 4
The Rev. Newman Hall, LL.B. [clergyman, 1816-1902], pl. 5
The Right Hon. Lord Winmarleigh [Col. John Wilson-Patten, 1st Baron Winmarleigh; 1802-1892], pl. 6
Comte Victor Marie Hugo, poet, dramatist, and novelist [1802-1885.- Portrait photograph is by Etienne Carjat ], pl. 7
Sir John Hawkshaw, F.R.S., Civil Engineer [1811-1891], pl. 8
Mr. William Black, novelist [1841-1898], pl. 9
The Most Noble The Marquis of Salisbury, Secretary of State for India [Lord Robert (Gascoyne-) Cecil, Viscount Cranborne; 1830-1903], pl. 10
The Late Sir William Ferguson, Bart., F.R.S., Serjeant-Surgeon to the Queen [1st Baronet; 1808-1877], pl. 11
Admiral Sir Richard Collinson, K.C.B., F.R.G.S., Deputy-Master of The Trinity House [1811-1883], pl. 12
The Right Hon. Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, Bart., M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer [1818-1887], pl. 13
The Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S. [1819-1898], pl. 14
Sir George Biddell Airy, K.C.B., F.R.S., Astronomer Royal [1801-1892], pl. 15
The Right Hon. Austen Henry Layard, D.C.L., Ambassador at Constantinople [1817-1894], pl. 16
Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Q.C., M.P., Professor of International Law at Cambridge [1827-1904], pl. 17
James Nasmyth, Engineer and Astronomer [1808-1890], pl. 18
Sir Joseph Bazalgette, C.B., Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works [1819-1891], pl. 19
The Hon. Sir William R. Grove, D.C.L., F.R.S., Judge of the High Court of Justice [1811-1896], pl. 20
Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. [1808-1882], pl. 21
Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.R.S. [1834-1913], pl. 22
James Sant, Esq., R.A., Principal Painter in ordinary to the Queen [1820-1916], pl. 23
M. Jules [Gabriel] Verne, French novelist [1828-1905; photo by Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon], pl. 24
Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., President of the Royal Geographical Society [1809-1897], pl. 25
The Right Rev. George Moberly, D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Salisbury [1803-1885], pl. 26
Thomas Woolner, Esq., R.A., Professor of Sculpture in the Royal Academy [1825-1892], pl. 27
Sir John Gilbert, R.A., President of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours [1817-1897], pl. 28
Dr. Heinrich Schliemann, the Homeric archaeologist [1822-1890], pl. 29
The Hon. Sir Henry Hawkins, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1st Baron Brompton; 1816 (correct: 1817)-1907], pl. 30
The Right Hon. Sir William Baliol Brett, Judge of the Court of Appeal [1st Viscount Esher; 1817-1899], pl. 31
The Rev. Robert Gregory, M.A., Canon residentiary of St. Paul’s [1819-1911], pl. 32
Captain Frederick Burnaby, of the Royal Horse Guards [1842-1885], pl. 33
The Right Rev. William Connor Magee, D.D., Bishop of Peterborough [1821-1891]. pl. 34
The Right Hon. George Joachim Goschen, M.P. for the City of London [1st Viscount Goschen; 1831-1907], pl. 35
M. Paul Gustave Doré [1832-1883], pl. 36
Third series (1878)
The Most Reverend William Thomson, D.D., Archbishop of York [1819-1890], pl. 1
Anthony Trollope, Esq. [1815-1882], pl. 2
Sir George Strong Nares, K.C.B. [1831-1915], pl. 3
The Right Hon. Lord John [James Robert] Manners, M.P., Postmaster-General [7th Duke of Rutland; 1818-1906], pl. 4
Richard Redgrave, Esq., R. A. [1804-1888], pl. 5
The Right Hon. Stephen Cave, M.P., Paymaster-General [1820-1880], pl. 6
The Right Hon. Lord Airey, G.C.B. [General Richard Airey, 1st Baron Airey; 1803-1881], pl. 7
The Right Hon. [William] Edward Forster, M.P. [1818-1886], pl. 8
Joseph Durham, Esq., A.R.A., sculptor [1813 (1814?)-1877] , pl. 9
The Right Hon. [1st] Viscount Cardwell [Edward Cardwell; 1813-1886], pl. 10
The Right Rev. Alfred Ollivant, D.D., Bishop of Llandaff [1798-1882], pl. 11
Edward Matthew Ward, Esq., Royal Academician [1816-1879], pl. 12
Frederick Goodall, Esq., R.A. [1822-1904], pl. 13
The Right Hon. Viscount Sandon, M.P., President of the Board of Trade [Dudley Francis Stuart Ryder, 3rd Earl of Harrowby; 1831-1900], pl. 14
John Scott Russell, Esq., F.R.S., Civil Engineer and Naval Architect [1808-1882], pl. 15
The Right Rev. James Fraser, D.D., Bishop of Manchester [1818-1885], pl. 16
The Right Hon. George [Limbrey] Sclater-Booth, M.P., President of the Local Government Board [1826-1894], pl. 17
Thomas Webster, Esq., R.A. [1800-1886], pl. 18
Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock [Francis Leopold M'Clintock], Kt., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D., &c. [explorer who three times went in search of Franklin's expedition in the Arctic; 1819-1907], pl. 19
Goldwin Smith, LL.D., M.A. [1823-1910], pl. 20
Henry Tanworth Wells, Esq., R.A. [1828-1903], pl. 21
Richard Owen, Esq., C.B., M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. [1804-1892], pl. 22
Frederick [Friedrich] Max Müller, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford [1823-1900], pl. 23
George Edmund Street, Esq., R.A., F.S.A., Architect [1824-1881], pl. 24
Lord Napier of Magdala, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. [Field Marshall Robert Cornelis Napier; 1810-1890] , pl. 25
William Calder Marshall; R.A., Sculptor [1813-1894], pl. 26
The Rev. Charles Old Goodford, D.D., Provost of Eton College [1812-1884], pl. 27
The Right Hon. Hugh Culling Eardley Childers, M.P., F.R.S. [1827-1896], pl. 28
Andrew Clark, M.D., Senior Physician to the London Hospital [1st Baronet; 1826-1893], pl. 29
John Stainer, M.A., Mus.Doc., Organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral [1840-1901], pl. 30
The Right Rev. James Atlay, D.D., Bishop of Hereford [1817-1894], pl. 31
Commander Verney Lovett Cameron, C.B., D.C.L., African Explorer [1844-1894] , pl. 32
Edward Armitage, R.A., Professor and Lecturer on Painting to the Royal Academy [1817-1896], pl. 33
The Right Hon. Robert Lowe [1st Viscount Sherbrooke], M.P. [1811-1892] , pl. 34
Sir William Withey Gull, Bart., M.D., D.C.L., F.R.S. [1816-1890], pl. 35
Charles Robert Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S. [1809-1882], pl. 36
Fourth series (1880)
His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince of Germany [Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl von Hohenzollern; in 1888 Friedrich III, German Emperor; 1831-1888], frontispiece
The Right Hon. Richard Assheton Cross, M.P., Secretary of State for the Home Department [1st Viscount Cross; 1823-1914], pl. 1
The Right Rev. Edward White Benson, D.D., Lord Bishop of Truro [1829-1896], pl. 2
William Gifford Palgrave [F.R.G.S, RAS; 1826-1888], pl. 3
The Very Reverend Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., F.R.S., Dean of Westminster [1815-1881], pl. 4
The Hon. Sir John Mellor, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1809-1887], pl. 5
John Hall Gladstone, Esq., Ph.D., F.R.S., President of the Chemical Society [1827-1902], pl. 6
The Reverend Joseph Barber Lightfoot, D.D., Bishop Designate of Durham [1828-1889], pl. 7
Sir Samuel White Baker, M.A., F.R.S., F.R.S.A., F.R.G.S., African Explorer [1821-1893], pl. 8
Erskine Nicol, Esq., A.R.A. [1825-1904], pl. 9
James Russell Woodford, D.D., Bishop of Ely [1820-1885], pl. 10
The Right Hon. Sir Fitz-Roy [Fitzroy] Edward Kelly, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer [1796-1880], pl. 11
Edward Frankland, D.C.L., Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the Royal School of Mines [1825-1899], pl. 12
Sir Charles Reed, LL.D., F.S.A., Chairman of the London School Board [1819-1881], pl. 13
Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle [1834-1892], pl. 14
The Right Hon. Sir William Milbourne James, Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal [1807-1881], pl. 15
The Right Hon. and Right Rev. Lord Arthur Charles Hervey, D.D., Bishop of Bath and Wells [1808-1894], pl. 16
Edward John Poynter, Esq., Royal Academician [1836-1919], pl. 17
Kuo Sung-Tao [Kuo Tajen; Guo Songtao], First Chinese Envoy to Great Britain [1818-1891], pl. 18
The Right Hon. Lord Penzance, Judge of the Court of Arches [James Plaisted Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance; 1816-1899], pl. 19
Sir Francis Philip Cunliffe-Owen, K.C.M.G., C.B., Director of the South Kensington Museum [1828-1894], pl. 20
William Powell Frith, Esq., Royal Academician [1819-1909], pl. 21
Henry Morton Stanley, Esq., African Explorer [1840 (correct: 1841)-1904], pl. 22
The Right Hon. Lord Augustus Loftus, G.C.B., Governor of New South Wales [Augustus William Frederick Spencer; 1817-1904], pl. 23
Walter William Ouless, Esq. A.R.A., Portrait Painter [1848-1933], pl. 24
Thomas Henry Huxley, LL.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor of Natural History in the Royal School of Mines [1825-1895], pl. 25
The Hon. Sir Henry Manisty, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1808-1890], pl. 26
[Myles] Birket [Birkett] Foster, Member of the Water-Colour Society [1825-1899], pl. 27
The Right Hon. Alfred Henry Thesiger, Lord Justice of Appeal [1838-1880], pl. 28
William Bowman, F.R.S. [1st Baronet; 1816-1892], pl. 29
Thomas Faed, R.A. [1826-1900], pl. 30
The Hon. Sir Anthony Cleasby, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1804-1879], pl. 31
James Clark [Clarke] Hook, R.A. [1819-1907], pl. 32
The Right Hon. Sir Robert Porrett Collier [1st Baron Monkswell], Judge of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council [1817-1886], pl. 33
The Right Honourable The [4th] Earl of Carnarvon, [Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert], President of the Society of Antiquaries [1831-1890], pl. 34
Thomas Hughes, Q.C. [1823 (?1822)-1896], pl. 35
The Very Rev. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., Dean of Norwich [1818-1897], pl. 36
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Fifth series (1881)
The Right Hon. The [1st] Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G., Prime Minister of England [Benjamin Disraeli; 1804-1881], pl. 1
Charles Rivers Wilson, Esq., C.B. [1831-1916], pl. 2
Major John Rouse Merriott Chard, R.E., V.C. [1847-1897], pl. 3
William Hepworth Dixon, Historian and traveller [1821-1879], pl. 4
The Right Hon. [1st] Earl Cairns, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain [Hugh McCalmont Cairns; 1819-1885], pl. 5
The Right Hon. John Arthur Roebuck, M.P. [1801 (correct: 1802) -1879], pl. 6
His Grace The [7th] Duke of Marlborough, K.G., Lord Lieutnant of Ireland [John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 1822-1883], pl. 7
William Harrison Ainsworth [1805-1882], pl. 8
The Hon. Sir Henry Charles Lopes [1st Baron Ludlow], Judge of the High Court of Justice [1828-1899], pl. 9
The Hon. Sir Charles Edward Pollock, Senior Baron of the Exchequer Division, and a Judge of the High Court of Justice [1823-1897], pl. 10
Wikie Collins, Esq., Novelist and Dramatist [1824-1889], pl. 11
Sir Julius Benedict, Musical Composer [1804-1885], pl. 12
The Right Hon. Sir George Jessel, Master of the Rolls [1824-1883], pl. 13
Vicat Cole, A.R.A., Landscape Painter [1833-1893], pl. 14
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, K.C.S.I, C.B., M.D., F.R.S., etc., Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew [1817-1911], pl. 15
The Right Hon. Sir Robert Lush, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1807-1881], pl. 16
Robert Browning, M.A., LL.D., Poet and Dramatist [1812-1889], pl. 17
William Charles Thomas Dobson, Royal Aacdemician [1817-1898], pl. 18
William Dalrymple Maclagan, D.D., Bishop of Lichfield [1826-1910], pl. 19
The Rev. Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Canon of St. Paul’s [1929-1890], pl. 20
Joseph Cowen, M.P. [1831 (1829?)-1900], pl. 21
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bart., M.P., Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affiars [2nd Baronet; 1843-1911], pl. 22
Tom Taylor, Dramatist and Critic [1817-1880], pl. 23
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Royal Academician [1836-1912], pl. 24
The Right Hon. [1st] Viscount Cranbrook, G.C.S.I. [Earl of Cranbrook (1892), Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy; 1814-1906], pl. 25
The Hon. Sir Edward Fry, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1827-1918], pl. 26
Hormuzd Rassam, F.R.G.S. [1826-1910], pl. 27
The Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., President of the Board of Trade [1836-1914], pl. 28
Sir Henry Bessemer, C.E., F.R.S. [1813-1898], pl. 29
George Alexander Macfarren, Mus.Doc. [1813-1887], pl. 30
The Right Hon. William Henry Smith, M.P. [1825-1891], pl. 31
The Right Hon. Sir Henry Cotton, Lord Justice of Appeal [1821-1892], pl 32
Alfred Elmore, Royal Academician [1815-1881], pl. 33
The Right Hon. The [15th] Earl of Derby [Edward Henry Stanley; 1826-1893], pl. 34
The Right Rev. Anthony Wilson Thorold, D.D., Bishop of Rochester [Winchester] [1825 (1826?)-1895], pl. 35
Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B. [1816-1909], pl. 36
Sixth series (1882)
The Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, M.P., Prime Minister [1809-1898], pl. 1
The Very Rev. Charles John Vaughan, D.D., Dean of Llandaff, and Master of the Temple [1816-1897], pl. 2
Sir Henry Thompson [entry incomplete; 1820-1904], pl. 3
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, K.C.B., F.R.S., LL,D., and D.C.L. [1810-1895], pl. 4
Sir John Fowler, Esq., Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers [1817-1898], pl. 5
William Quiller Orchardson, Esq., Royal Academician [1838 (correct: 1832)-1910], pl. 6
The Right Hon. Major-General Lord Chelmsford, G.C.B. [Frederic Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford; 1827-1905], pl. 7
John Pettie, Royal Academician [1839-1839], p. 8
The Right Rev. James Colquhoun Campbell, DD., Bishop of Bangor [1813-1895], pl. 9
The Right Hon. [2nd] Earl Granville, K.G., Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs [Granville George Leveson-Gower; 1815-1891], pl. 10
The Very Rev. Richard William Church, M.A., Dean of St. Paul’s [1815-1890], pl. 11
George Dunlop Leslie, Royal Academician [1835-1921], p. 12
Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Bart., M.P. for Carlisle [2nd Baronet of Brayton; 1829-1906], pl. 13
The Hon. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K.C.S.I., D.C.L., Judge of the High Court of Justice [1st Baronet Stephen; 1829-1894], pl. 14
Philip Hermogenes Calderon, Esq., Royal Academician [1833-1898], pl. 15
The Hon. George Denman, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1819-1896], pl. 16
General Sir Daniel Lysons, K.C.B. [1816-1898], pl. 17
Samuel Morley, M.P. [1809-1886], pl. 18
Sir William George Armstrong, F.R.S. [1st Baron Armstrong; 1810-1900], pl. 19
George Frederick Watts, Esq., Royal Academician [1817-1904], pl. 20
Sir George Job Elvey, Mus. Doc., Musical Composer [1816-1893], pl. 21
[6th] Duke of Richmond and [1st Duke of] Gordon, K.G. [Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, Earl of March; 1818-1903], pl. 22
Thomas Hutchinson Tristram, Q.C., D.C.L., Judge of the Consistory Court of London [1825-1912], p. 23 [attn.: marked 24]
The Right Hon. Sir Richard Malins [Q.C., M.P., Vice-Chancellor; 1805-1882], p. 24
General Sir Frederick Sleigh Roberts, G.C.B., V.C. [1st Earl Roberts; 1832-1914], p. 25
Warren De la Rue, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S. [1815-1889], p. 26
Briton Riviere, Royal Academician [1840-1920], p. 27
Sir William Nathan Wright [Wrighte] Hewett, K.C.B., V.C., Rear-Admiral [1834-1888], pl. 28
The Very Rev. John Saul Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester [1816-1885], pl. 29
John Calcott Horsley, Royal Academician [1817-1903], pl. 30
Léon Gambetta, President of the French Chamber of Deputies [1838-1882], pl. 31
William Ballantine, Serjeant-at-Law [1812-1887], pl. 32
Marcus Stone, Associate of the Royal Academy [1840-1921], pl. 33
The Right Hon. Lord Abderdare [Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare; 1815-1895], pl. 34
Hobart Pacha [Pasha], Marshal of the Ottoman Empire [Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden; 1822-1886], pl. 35
Frederick Richard Pickersgill, Royal Academician [1820-1900], pl. 36
Seventh series (1883)
Admiral Sir A. [Astley] Cooper Key, K.C.B., F.R.S. , D.C. L. (Oxon.), First Sea Lord of the Admiralty [1821-1888], pl. 1
The Hon. Sir Lewis William Cave, Judge of the High Court of Judicature [1832-1897], pl. 2
Richard Norman Shaw, R.A., Architect [1831-1912], pl. 3
The Right Hon. Lord Carlingford, Lord Privy Seal [Chichester Samuel Parkinson-Fortescue, 2nd Baron Clermont and 1st Baron Carlingford; 1823-1898], pl. 4
William Benjamin Carpenter, C.B., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. [1813-1885], pl. 5
The Very Reverend Edward Hayes Plumptre, D.D., Dean of Wells [1821-1891], pl. 6
The Honourable Sir James Charles Mathew, LL.D., Judge of the High Court of Justice [1830-?], pl. 7
The Right Hon. George Osborne Morgan, Q.C., M.P., Judge Advocate-General [1st Baronet; 1826-1897], pl. 8
Lumb Stocks, R.A. [1812-1892], pl. 9
Major General Sir Henry Evelyn Wood, V.C., K.C.B. [1838-1919], pl. 10
Henry Baker Tristram, M.A., F.R.S., LL.D., Canon of Durham [1822-1906], pl. 11
Sir Michael [Andrew Angus] Costa, Musical Composer [Michele Andrea Agnello Costa; 1810 (correct: 1808)-1884], pl. 12
Sir John Edmund Commerell, K.C.B., V.C., Vice Admiral [1829-1901], pl. 13
William Frederick Yeames, Royal Academician [1835-1918], pl. 14
Admiral Sir Sydney Colpoys Dacres, Governor of Greenwich Hospital [G.C.B.; 1804 (1805?)-1884], pl. 15
His Grace The [8th] Duke of Argyll, K.T. [George John Douglas Campbell, Marquess of Lorne; 1823-1900], pl. 16
Alfred Tennyson, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., poet laureate [1809-1892; Photograph by John Jabez Edwin Mayall], pl. 17
The Very Rev. George Granville Bradley, D.D., Dean of Westminster [1821-1903], pl. 18
Henry Irving, Actor [1838-1905], pl. 19
Benjamin Ward Richardson, M.D., LL:D., F.R.S., F.S.A. [1828-1896], pl. 20
The Right Rev. John Charles Ryle, D.D., Bishop of Liverpool [1810 (correct: 1816?)-1900], pl. 21
The Rev. Alfred Barry, D.D., D.C.L., Principal of King’s College, London [1826-1910], pl. 22
The Hon. Sir Edward Ebenezer Kay, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1822-1897], pl. 23
Richard Ansdell, Royal Academician [1815-1885], pl. 24
Lord Charles William Delapoer [de la Poer] Beresford, Captain, R.N. [1846-1919], pl. 25
Henry Hugh Armstead, Royal Academician [1828-1905], pl. 26
Captain Bedford Clapperton Trevelyan Pim, R.N. [1826-1886], pl. 27
Hon. Sir Joseph William Chitty, Judge of the High Court of Justice [1828-1899], pl. 28
Joseph Edgar Boehm, R.A. [1834-1890], pl. 29
Frank Dicksee, A.R.A. [1853-1928], pl. 30
Frank Holl, Associate of the Royal Academy. [1845-1888], pl. 31
Charles Thomas Newton, C.B., D.C.L., Professor of Archaeology at University College, London [1816-1894], pl. 32
John MacWhirter, A.R.A., H.R.S.A. [1839-1911], pl. 33
Dr. Charles William [Carl Wilhelm] Siemens, D.C.L., F.R.S. [industrialist; 1823-1883], pl. 34
The Right Rev. Alfred Blomfield, D.D., Bishop of Colchester [1833-1894], pl. 35
Rev. Sir Frederick A. Gore Ouseley, Bart., Professor of Music in the University of Oxford [1825-1889], pl. 36
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The British Journal of Photography, Vol.XXIII, No.865, December 1, 1876, p.571-572.
Men Of Mark. By George C. Whitfield.
London: Samson Low And Co.
We now redeem the promise made in the course of our notices of the pictures at the recent Exhibition, and devote a short space to giving a more detailed account of Men of Mark than was possible at that time. Those who desire to see what the Woodbury process is capable of producing when worked at its best can certainly have their wish gratified by a perusal of this work. It will be remembered that the Woodbury Company exhibited a series of portraits of men who had achieved eminence in various walks of life in politics, theology, and soforth; and it will also be remembered by those who saw these portraits that the brilliancy, depth, purity, and perfection of half-tone were such as to have induced several spectators to observe that it was impossible that works so charming could have been produced by a mechanical printing process; yet such is the case.
Men of Mark form a gallery of contemporary portraits of men "distinguished in the senate, the church, in science, literature and art, the army, navy, law, medicine, &c." In the present work the first of a consecutive series of volumes there are thirty-six portraits of men coming under the above voluminous category, each portrait accompanied by a page of descriptive text, by Thompson Cooper, F.S.A. It is, however, in the photographs we are more particularly interested. They have all been photographed from life by Messrs. Lock and Mr. G. C. Whitfield, under whose superintendence this volume has been produced, deserves great credit for the felicitous manner in which he has managed to associate in one "happy family" the distinctive characters of which it is composed; for, as no special attempt at classification seems to have been intended, so there are no invidious distinctions observable in regard to priority of place. Churchmen and catholics, liberals and conservatives, and people holding the most diverse phases of opinion all are mixed together very harmoniously.
This volume, so replete with gems of portraiture, should find a place on the reception-room table of every photographer, as well as take a distinguished position among the pictorial treasures usually found on the table of the private drawing-room.
The British Journal of Photography, Vol.XXIV, No.919, December 14, 1877, p.594-595.
Men of Mark. (Second series).
London ; Sampson Low And Co.
If we were asked to indicate any special collection of portraits we should recommend to photographers as containing the most perfect studies of light and shade and breadth combined with sharpness, we should unhesitatingly name Men of Mark as that which fulfilled best these conditions. This work was commenced last year under the superintending care of Mr. George C. Whitfield, a member of the firm of Lock and Whitfield, and the first series having been concluded at the close of 1876 a second series was commenced, and is now completed under the same management. The present series of Men of Mark contains thirty-six portraits of "men distinguished in the senate, the church, in science, literature, and art, the army, navy, law and medicine." With two exceptions all these portraits have been taken by Messrs. Lock and Whitfield, these exceptions being Jules Verne (by M. Adam-Salomon) and Victor Hugo (by M. Carjat). The introduction of such portraits affords an opportunity of comparing the works of distinguished foreign artists with those of equal distinction in this oountry, with a result which must be gratifying to those good patriots who cannot discover anything abroad which surpasses "our own glorious constitution and institutions." Among the thirty-six portraits here presented there are indeed many "men of mark." Opening with Mr. Frederick Leighton, R.A, whose portrait is in profile, we soon come upon the open, honest face of Professor Tyndall, by which we are reminded that "once upon a time" it was our good fortune to receive a volume of portraits of men who were famous in the world of science, that of Professor Tyndall forming one of the number. These portraits of a former period are now "faded and withered;" most of them, in fact, seem to have been bleached out of the paper upon which they were printed. With the "men of mark" in the volume now under review no such fading can possibly take place, these portraits being printed by the Woodbury process, which is a guarantee not only for the faithful rendering of a negative but of absolute permanence. The portraits respectively of Mr. William Black, the Right Hon. Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir George Biddell Airy, the Hon. Sir William R, Grove, and Sir John Lubbock are exceedingly striking for their lifelike fidelity. Captain Burnaby, of Asiatic celebrity, Mr. Gustave Dore, Sir John Gilbert, the Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, Mr. James Nasmyth, and others of equal celebrity, are all here assembled, forming, out of elements of a diversified character, one harmonious whole. It need scarcely be said that a page of descriptive and biographical text accompanies each portrait, written by Mr. Thompson Cooper, F.S. A. The characteristics of these portraits are singular clearness, perfection of detail, skilful posing, and light and shade rendered in the most unexceptionable manner. We commend Men of Mark as a study to photographers.
[Hans Christian Adam] 9.39 Portrait > Galerie Contemporaine, Litteraire, Artistique
9.40 Portrait > Nadar: Galerie Contemporaine About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
9.41 Portrait > Herbert Rose Barraud: Woodburytype portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Pictorialism 9.42 Portrait > Pictorialism and the innocence of children
9.43 Portrait > Pictorialism and the portrait
9.44 Portrait > Clarence H. White: Portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Modernism and the portrait 9.45 Portrait > The move from Pictorialism to Modernism in portraiture
As pictorialism waned in influence in America and Western Europe with the First World War and the influential Camera Work ceasing publication in 1917 there was a trend towards a different style of portrait photography. This led to two distinct approaches:
- Face on confrontation with the camera
This is best characterized by the catalogue of the German people created by August Sander - the photographs showed people as they really are with no retouching or hired in costumes. It is perhaps not surprising that his work did not find favor in the Germany of the 1930's and 40's. Martin Chambi at the same period was creating a remarkable body of work in the Andes where the subject accepted the formal pose required by the photographer.
- Tension in the shot
With other photographers the camera angle selected created a tension in the shot that was unsettling and powerful. This style is perhaps best demonstrated by the portraits of Alexander Rodchenko or the photographs Leni Riefenstahl took of the athletes for the infamous Berlin Olympics.
With so many portrait photographers now working the market has changed and is fragmented into an impossibly wide variety of styles, techniques and subjects. 9.46 Portrait > August Sander (1876-1964) About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
August Sander is known for his monumental work Citizens of the Twentieth Century (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts) which consists of face on portraits of all classes of German society during the first half of the nineteenth century. The portraits are highly detailed and show people in their working or everyday clothes sometimes accompanied by the tools or symbols of their trade.
In 1929 60 of his portraits were published in the book Face of Our Time (Antlitz der Zeit) but the honesty of the portraits conflicted against the propaganda myths of the Aryan super race that the Nazi party was seeking to promote. In 1934 they seized copies of the book and destroyed the photographic plates.
The work of August Sander is now regarded as one of the key projects in photographic portrait history and his style has been widely copied Vernacular portraits 9.47 Portrait > Photobooth portraits
9.48 Portrait > Mike Disfarmer: Heber Springs portraits About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959) was enigmatic portrait photographer who produced a extraordinary body of work at the farming community of Heber Springs, Arkansas. 9.49 Portrait > Joseph Selle's Fox Movie Flash: Mid-Century Street Vendor Photography About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Joseph Selle was a commercial photographer in the Union Square area of San Francisco for forty years, from the 30s to the 70s. He took candid snapshots of pedestrians and then sold the portraits by mail for fifty cents each. When he retired his entire archive - totaling some one million images - went to Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. Now, due to digital technology, a small selection of this vast body of work is available. It is an enormously moving experience of time travel to "walk" the streets along with Selle and see our parents and grandparents or younger selves on display. Curated with the cooperation of VSW archivist Andrew Eskind, this preliminary exhibition will include video projection of thousands of images.
Joseph Selle: Curatorial Reflections
I distinctly remember a tall older man haunting Union Square in the early 70s, offering to sell pedestrians their photographic portraits. After more than three decades I still remember him for some reason: perhaps it was his height, his odd outfit of a taxi driver’s hat and long duster. It is a supreme coincidence that after all this time I have come to work with Joseph Selle’s lifetime accumulated archive.
Viewing these images is an overwhelming emotional experience. After a session editing the photographs, one is unlikely to ever walk the city streets in quite the same way, because an awareness of the lives that once occupied these same sidewalks becomes unshakable. The Selle archive is as close as we will ever come to the experience of time travel, experiencing the streets of San Francisco half a century ago. Truly a memento mori, we encounter vibrantly alive people in the midst of their quotidian lives, people whom we infer are now long dead, while the children displayed are themselves entering late middle age. I don’t believe I have ever understood both the tragedy and dignity of life as viscerally as I have while immersed in this project.
It is fascinating and moving to see how people organize themselves, create structure, within such a simple act as walking down the street. Mothers and grandmothers hold children’s hands. Adult children support their aged parents. Women friends walk side by side, talking, touching. Couples and families align themselves with each other, to other pedestrians, and to the architecture. Vehicle traffic and crowding causes odd behavior and balletic moves.
This is to some extent an anthropological experience, as we see that a trip downtown to Union Square, even well into the 1960s, was an occasion for wearing one’s best clothing. Women inevitably wear white gloves and hats, and almost never wear slacks. Fox stoles and mink coats abound. Men wear suits and ties, and hats. Everyone smokes. Everyone shops. Everyone’s clean. Just blocks away on Market Street, we discover more people of color and more casually dressed people, especially as the 50s move along into the 60s. Taken at the end of the baby boom, the pictures include many more pregnant women than we are used to seeing on the streets today. Men smoke pipes.
People are faced with a behavioral choice if they see someone like Selle about to approach them on the street. Most ignore him if they notice him at all, but once they realize what he is up to, and that he’s harmless, often give themselves away by touching their hair or putting their best foot forward. Quite a few put their hands up to signal stop; many others laugh at being caught unaware.
History is lurking in the shadows of every photograph. In the 50s material one can detect the impact of Mamie Eisenhower’s conservative style on the women, and then suddenly just a few months later, Jackie Kennedy’s more chic approach is seen everywhere. We see an elderly man wearing a Kennedy straw hat during the election campaign. Then one evening on Market Street we see people carrying newspapers under their arms with the enormous banner headline: "….SLAIN!" and we can painfully infer that it marks the assassination of the President. Among the well-dressed people streaming by the photographer’s lens are a great number African American and Asian American people, and even a significant number of mixed-race couples; more occasionally we see Latinos, or a hipster in jeans or leather, or out gay people. San Francisco’s particular character was already apparently well on its way to being established.
Organizing the archive places the curator into several vexing dilemmas. These images have been captured for four decades like genies in a bottle, waiting to be released. Selecting a few of them for this catalogue feels like a betrayal to all the other lives glimpsed and not included that will now recede back into obscurity forever. Selecting a tiny number of these works to represent the whole is a daunting curatorial task. Arguably, to be most true to the archive one should allow chance to determine the selection: the richness of this work is the profound beauty of its ordinariness. As curator I am drawn to the most artfully or quirkily framed shots. I am tempted to disregard the great majority of the pictures that are out of focus. As historian one could cull the 18,000 images for important moments. As anthropologist there is the opportunity to represent the entire population: the wealthy, the middle class, the working class, all the racial backgrounds, the clothing, lifestyles and eccentricities of the culture. I have tried to represent all these approaches as best I can; a book many times the size of this catalogue is called for.
The territory of museums has widened over the past decade to include more and more consideration of visual materials made by non-artists that nonetheless reflect skill, style, meaning and power. The street vendor work of Joseph Selle is just at the brink of being appreciated in that same way and it is a thrill and a privilege to participate in that rediscovery. This project could not have happened without the energy and dedication of Andrew Eskind of Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. Eskind has taken on the pursuit of information about Selle with the precision of a private eye and the dedicated professionalism of the historian he truly is. I offer my humble thanks to him for bringing this project to me, enabling the Nelson Gallery to share it with the UC Davis community.
© Renny Pritikin
Davis, California
February 2005
How long does it take to look at a million photographs? Is it even possible? It‘s said that in today‘s media saturated society, we‘re each exposed to 1500 images daily. If that‘s an average (and not counting TV and movies), what are the high and low extremes? Can one look at, say, even 10,000 in a day and still make any sense out of them?
This conceptual conundrum is perhaps what delayed archivists and students from exploring and exhibiting the more than one million surviving negatives made between the 1950s and 1970s by the San Francisco street vendor photographic firm, Fox Movie Flash.
Fox Movie Flash was owned by Joseph Selle (1906-1988) and operated out of 942 Market Street from the 1930s until the 1970s. Selle ventured out onto Market Street often framing his photographs under the marquee of the neighboring Pix Theatre at 946 Market. He also worked all of the corners and side streets around Union Square during peak periods of pedestrian traffic. He and associate photographers wearing the Fox Movie Flash cap carried rather heavy, modified DeVry movie cameras (marketed by Burke & James, Inc as "Street Vending Cameras"). They were pre focused at 10 ft and loaded with sufficient film to snap up to 1500 images of shoppers and tourists with the hope of selling some percentage of them souvenir portraits of their visit to San Francisco‘s prime retail shopping district. Charlie Rester, the last living Fox Movie Flash associate photographer recalls that on good days photographers could earn $100/day - a respectable living at the time.
This photographic genre - street vendor photography - has yet to attract much attention from museums, collectors, or historians. Yet there is anecdotal evidence that similar cameras and the same business model were used in many other American cities as well as abroad. Selle and fellow practitioners were not at all interested in the esthetics of their photographs. In fact, it is unlikely they even looked at every frame among the 1500 on the 100-foot rolls of negatives. The one-out-of-10 (or more likely one-out-of-100) pedestrians who actually paid the 50 cents ($1 by the 1970s) for the postcard-size souvenirs made their purchase decisions sight-unseen. Neither creator nor purchaser was making decisions on the basis of visual interest, or qualitative judgment. Only those frames matched by ticket number to individual purchasers were even printed. Among the many permutations of the speculative commercial practice now called street vendor photography, this one has also been aptly referred to as ‘surprise photography‘. (cf Mapping Sitting: On Portraiture and Photography; Walid Raad, Karl Bassil, Zeina Maasri, Akram Zaatari; 2002)
The term "surprise" is fitting in more ways than one. The purchaser received the souvenir within a few weeks in the mail. Having no opportunity for a preview, the end-product may have been a pleasant surprise, or a dud. Not every frame is sharp, well composed, or properly exposed. San Franciscan Jack Tillmany recalls his mother making 2 purchases from Fox Movie Flash operators when he was a kid going downtown with her in the 1950s. The first is a cherished memento; the second a disappointment. The photographers, too, should have experienced surprises - both while on the streets encountering sailors, shoppers, tourists, lovers, families - as well as in the darkroom where surely they looked at, and, perhaps laughed at frames which hadn‘t sold as well as those which were printed for buyers. The best surprise of all, however, are the many reactions we can experience today whether selecting previously unseen images for publication, or viewing original shooting sequences as if they were movies - complete with bad frames, changing weather, newspaper headlines, movie theatre marquees, dress, kids, smokers, relationships.
US Davis American Studies professor Jay Mechling refers to the psychological term "intermittant reward" to explain why many viewers become so captivated watching the original unedited shooting sequences that they‘ll continue watching without knowing when - or if - there will soon be an end. If every once in a while, we‘re rewarded by a surprise - by an image striking to us for its accidental composition, for its recollection of someone we knew or loved, for its goofiness - we‘ll happily continue watching expecting a new surprise at any moment.
Thus, beyond the sheer logistical challenge of exploring over a million undifferentiated images, the archivist today needs to consider the multitude of potential unimagined points of interest represented in this vast documentary record. For curators, such as Renny Pritikin, there‘s the irresistible temptation to do what Selle and his co-hort photographers never found time or motivation to do. He has applied the criteria of visual interest we‘d otherwise associate with non-commercial street photographers such as Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Harry Callahan, or even Weegee. His selections reproduced here from the 18,000 frames digitally scanned to date (only 1% of the extant total) could easily be matched by totally different sets selected from the perspective of social historians, movie buffs (theatre marquees are a recurring theme), architecture historians, urbanologists, or those of us who are plain and simple sentimental old picture junkies.
© Andrew Eskind
Rochester, NY
March 2005
[These texts accompanied the exhibition Joseph Selle‘s Fox Movie Flash - Mid-Century Street Vendor Photography that was held at the Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, January 13th - March 13th, 2005. This exhibition used projected images.] Bust portraits 9.50 Portrait > Bust portraits
Humanistic portraiture 9.51 Portrait > The Family of Man Exhibition (1955) The photojournalists who take images of the unknown people use their everyday surroundings to tell us about the hardships of daily existence.
Lewis W. Hine did this with portraits of men, women and children in the industrial hell holes of the early 20th century.
Dorothea Lange and
Walker Evans showed the poverty and dignity of depression era share croppers. Eugene Smith did this in his photo essay for LIFE magazine on the Country doctor and
Sebastião Salgado does it in his works on workers and migrants. The great portrait puts a person in context so that we understand who they really are.
This theme is best demonstrated by the Family of Man exhibition of 1955 organized by Edward Steichen that was the most popular photographic exhibition upto that point. In his introduction Edward Steichen explained the rationale:
"It was conceived as a mirror of the universal elements and emotions in the everydayness of life - as a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world."
Edward Steichen, 1955, The Family of Man (Simon and Schuster / Museum of Modern Art).
It was first shown in New York City and then toured to widespread acclaim.
Edward Steichen, a remarkable photographer with a well attuned eye, with the editors selected 503 works by 273 photographers from 68 countries. But out of the over two million images that the editors had to cut their way through there are many well known photographers and a great many classic images provided by photographers from LIFE magazine and the extremely talented Magnum collective.
Photographers who participated in the The Family of Man Exhibition (1955) included:
The Family of Man exhibition raised public interest in portraiture and photography but at the same time it led to a number of projects in the years that followed that could not match its high standards. In 1965 the world renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead worked with the photographer Ken Heyman to produce Family - he took seven years to take the photographs and visited 45 countries in the process. The Family of Children came out in 1977 and The Family of Woman in 1979 both edited by Jerry Mason who had been the editor for the original Family of Man volume and although they contain many excellent images they don't work as well.
There has been a trend to produce books of heart warming photographs for ever smaller groups - this can yield coffee table books that are short term gifts with a 'oh' factor that lasts until the book has been gone through once. The books deal with single groups, women, men, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandfathers and grandsons, sisters, brothers, gay couples etc. Some of these books include meaningful autobiographical pieces or appropriate poetry or quotations. Most of them, and there are a great many, would have been better if kept to an idea and they will have little longevity in serious photography. 9.52 Portrait > Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer: The first exhibition "Bali-Kino" Berlin (October 1974) About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
This exhibition includes the fifteen photographs shown at the first show by Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer that was held at "Bali-Kino" in West Berlin, Germany in October 1974. The following comments prepared by the photographers for this online exhibition provide the context.
For the first exhibition of our photographs 1974 in West-Berlin we wrote:
"We show festive events, moments where a person rises above his everyday life, such as to elevate himself by joining a well-meaning circle in the certainty about the indivisibility of the nation, or to bask in the radiance from a trophy for his dog; or even to make sure to be among the redeemed by taking part in the procession on Corpus Christi Day. Should anybody nevertheless feel signs of sadness in our pictures, the blame should not be laid on us. Perhaps it is the paltriness of our everyday life, the insufficient conditions of production and working, which even in these festive moments show discernibly through."
Today, rereading these lines, we are astonished at our self-assuredness then: The precisely formulated concept of "alienated leisure time" had been our guideline in finding and selecting motifs; however, dragged along by the passage of history we now find that our pictures may not be locked up within such boundaries.
Since then our endeavor has developed further, unpredictable and difficult to explain. Nevertheless, we believe strongly that we are still in pursuit of the same task. Now we are especially led by the magical space provided by the glance and posture of the photographed, by their aura: the tension between being repelled and attracted, which includes us as well as the viewer and which at the same time expels us and shows us our place.
Inevitably, political and social climate shows up in these pictures. We as anyone have our opinion about that. But we trust it’s better to leave the viewer on his own and let him enter unguided so that he may find his own self.
Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer (December 2006) 9.53 Portrait > Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer: What‘s our Concern with Strangers? About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
In the beginning, we were interested in the documentary force of photography. We wanted to illustrate and criticize social manifestations like the alienation of leisure. But this documentary intention faded in the face of the impact of the individual pictures: if successful, it gave us an impulse, and we were moved by its particular points, which could be brought onto a socially critical denominator. We realized that the preliminary theoretical decisions cannot be a substitute for the spontaneous grasping of a moment. We moved closer to the anarchic element of photography — where chance is often given more credit than the photographer did. And since there is no point in being jealous of chance, it didn‘t bother us being limited in our impact. For it was only within these limits that our intentions could be realized. The way from reality to a photograph is not a technical process. The photographic process is determined by thought and sense and leads from the conspicuous situation through the taking, discussing and selecting of the picture into the rational eye of the public.
All of the photographs were taken in Berlin. They show people with which we share the experience of living in the same city. The anonymity of a city is not a magic cap, which makes the social roles invisible. What is our concern with these strangers? In passing they give us inducement to think, to experience emotions of attraction or disgust. Our photography also finds itself in this conflict.
Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer (May 2007) Diversity in portraiture 9.54 Portrait > Photographers who photograph representations of people Another approach in portraiture is to photograph two dimensional or three dimensional representations of individuals. For example one might take a negative or digital copy of a source image and then manipulate it with the selection of lenses, light, filters etc into a different form and change it chemically or digitally into a totally new creation. Andy Warhol used this approach to create a blend of photography and painting.
The Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, for his Portraits series commissioned by Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, placed the wax figures of Madame Tussaud against a black background to create high contrast black and white images of major personalities of Western history such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry VIII and Queen Victoria. This intriguing work questions the nature of history and what a portrait is. Post-modernism 9.55 Portrait > Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Street hustlers About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
Some series from the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia blur the boundaries between different genre including street photography, documentary, staged photography and fabricated realities. The use of sophisticated lighting systems such as those used by Gregory Crewdson mean that there is intentionality as the location was selected, lighting set up and the shot framed before the subject arrived. In one series the location was prepared and then street hustlers from Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles were picked up and paid their normal rate for a sexual act. No sexual act took place but the hustler was taken to the prepared location and photographed - the photographs having a title made up of three parts - the name of the person, where they came from and the amount paid. The resulting photograph is therefore partly documentary with portraits of social outsiders but it breaks the rules by changing location and it is not a street photography even though it takes place on the street. Reality has been twisted by the use of additional lighting and so what are we seeing? The resulting staged tableaux can be considered exploitative but they make the viewer question their pre-conceptions of reality and genre. 9.56 Portrait > The contemporary portrait
The diversity of portraiture makes any attempt at structure difficult and fraught with preconceptions and subjective statements. Having said this as a justification for the simplicity of what is to follow there are trends and patterns that have taken place over the last thirty years. The world of portraits could be divided up in a vast number of ways so consider this as a starting point for your own explorations.
A desire not to be taken
Masks and veils
The seemingly normal portrait
Alternate personalities and questioning identity
Appropriation
Identity documents
Icons through alternative processes
Death and crossing the Styx
9.57 Portrait > Keeping abreast of changes in portraiture One of the best ways of keeping up with current trends in portrait photography is to examine the international awards that are presented each year for individual portraits or for books by photographers. Also examine the websites of museum and galleries that have permanent collections of portrait photographs or that hold exhibitions to monitor changing styles.
alan@luminous-lint.com |
General reading Adams, Robert, 1981, Beauty in Photography, (Millerton, NY: Aperture) [Δ] Billeter, Erika (ed.), 1985, Self-Portrait in the Age of Photography: Photographers reflecting their own image, (Bern: Benteli Verlag / Musee cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne) [Exhibition catalogue, Houston 2-30 March 1986, San Antonio 12-27 April 1986, texts by Erika Billeter and Roger Marcel Mayou] [Δ] Boyle, Ben & Duchin, Linda, 1987, Photomaton: A Contemporary Survey of Photobooth Art, (Rochester, NY: Pyramid Arts Center) [Exhibition catalogue - 11/20/87 - 1/2/88] [Δ] Cooper, Thompson, 1876-1883, Men of Mark, (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington) [Δ] Doyle, Peter, 2009, Crooks Like Us, (Historic Houses Trust Of New South Wales) isbn-10: 1876991348 isbn-13: 978-1876991340 [Δ] Eskildsen, Ute, 2008, On the Human Being: International Photography 1900-1950, (Turner Ediciones) isbn-10: 8475068219 isbn-13: 978-8475068213 [Δ] Ford, Colin, 1983, Portraits, (London: Thames & Hudson) [Δ] Goranin, Näkki, 2008, American Photobooth, (New York & London: W.W. Norton) [Δ] Hamilton, Peter & Hargreaves, Roger, 2001, The Beautiful and the Damned: The Creation of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Photography, (London: Lund Humphries Publishers in association with The National Portrait Gallery, London) isbn-10: 0853318212 isbn-13: 978-0853318217 [Δ] Hayert, Elizabeth, 1979, The Glass-House Years Victorian Portrait Photography 1839 - 1870, (Montclair and London: Allanheld & Schram and George Prior) [Δ] Heathcote, Bernard & Heathcote, Pauline, 2002, A Faithful Likeness: The First Photographic Portrait Studios in the British Isles 1841 to 1855, (Bernard And Pauline Heathcote) isbn-10: 0954193407 isbn-13: 978-0954193409 [Δ] Hunt, W.A. (ed.) & Ewing, William A. (introduction), 2011, The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious, (Aperture) isbn-10: 1597111937 isbn-13: 978-1597111935 [Δ] Jay, Bill, 2007, Bill Jay's Album, (Nazraeli Press) isbn-10: 1590052005 isbn-13: 978-1590052006 [Δ] Kasher, Steven & Michaelson, Mark, 2009, Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots, (Steidl) isbn-10: 3865212913 isbn-13: 978-3865212917 [Essay by Bob Nickas, texts by Mark Michaelson and Kio Stark] [Δ] Mathews, Oliver, 1974, The Album of Carte-de-visite and Cabinet Portrait Photographs 1854–1914, (London: Reedminster Publications, Ltd) [Δ] McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, 1980, Likenesses: Portrait Photography in Europe, 1850–1870, (Albuquerque: Art Museum, University of New Mexico) [Δ] McCauley, Elizabeth Anne, 1985, A. A. E. Disderi and the Carte de Visite Portrait, (New Haven: Yale) [Δ] Peffer, John & Cameron, Elisabeth, A., 2013, Portraiture and Photography in Africa, (Indiana University Press) isbn-13: 978-0253008602 [Δ] Pellicer, Raynal, 2011, Photobooth: The Art of the Automtic Portrait, (Harry N. Abrams) isbn-10: 0810996111 isbn-13: 978-0810996113 [Δ] Pfister, Harol, 1978, Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press) [Δ] Severa, Joan L., 2006, My Likeness Taken: Daguerreian Portraits In America, (Kent State Univ Press) isbn-10: 0873388372 isbn-13: 978-0873388375 [Δ] Somoroff, Michael, 2012, A Moment - Master Photographers: Portraits by Michael Somoroff, (Damiani editore) isbn-13: 978-8862082112 [Preface by Julian Sander, essays by William Ewing and Michael Somoroff] [Δ] Svenson, Arne, 1997, Prisoners: Murder, Mayhem, and Petit Larceny, (Blast Books) isbn-10: 0922233187 isbn-13: 978-0922233182 [Δ] Taylor, Maureen, 2010, The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation, (Kent State Univ Press) isbn-10: 1606350552 isbn-13: 978-1606350553 [Δ] Readings on, or by, individual photographers Richard Avedon Avedon, Richard; Hambourg, Maria Morris & Fineman, Mia, 2002, Richard Avedon Portraits, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New York: Harry N. Abrams) [Foreword by Philippe de Montebello] [Δ] Julia Margaret Cameron 1893, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his friends, (London: T. Fisher Unwin) [Δ] Cameron, Julia Margaret, 1926, Victorian Photographs of Famous Men and Fair Women, (New York: Harcourt, Brace) [Δ] Robert Cornelius Stapp, William; Carson, Marion & Barger, M. Susan, 1983, Robert Cornelius: Portraits from the Dawn of Photography, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press) [Δ] Mike Disfarmer Scully, J., 2005, Disfarmer, the Heber Springs Portraits 1939–1946, (New York: powerhouse Books) [Δ] Woodward, R. B., 2005, Disfarmer: The Vintage Prints, (New York: powerHouse Books) [Δ] Alexander Gardner Gardner, Alexander, 1872, Photographs of Red Cloud and Principal Chiefs of Dacotah Indians Taken on Their Visit to Washington, D.C., May, 1872, (Washington D.C.: for Trustees of Blackmore Museum, Salisbury, England, [Gibson Brothers, Printers]) [Δ] Philippe Halsman Halsman, P., 1959, Jump Book, (New York: Simon & Schuster) [Δ] Horst Pepper, T., 2001, Horst Portraits: 60 Years of Style, (New York: Harry N. Abrams) [Δ] Bill Jay Jay, Bill, 1983, Photographer's Photographed, (Peregrine Smith Books) isbn-10: 0879051469 isbn-13: 978-0879051464 [Δ] Yousuf Karsh Karsh, Y., 1996, A Sixty-Year Retrospective, (Boston: Little, Brown) [Δ] Seydou Keita Magnin, A. (ed.), 1997, Seydou Keïta, (New York: Scalo Publishers) [Δ] Annelise Kretschmer Kretschmer, Annelise, 2003, Annelise Kretschmer 1927-1937, (Steidl) [Δ] Kretschmer, Annelise & Eskildsen, Ute, 1982, Annelise Kretschmer: Fotografin, (Fotografische Sammlung im Museum Folkwang Essen) [Exhibition catalogue] [Δ] Annie Leibovitz Leibovitz, A., 1984, Annie Leibovitz: Photographs, (New York: Pantheon/Rolling Stone) [Introduction by T. Wolfe] [Δ] Leibovitz, A., 1999, Women, (New York: Random House) [Introduction by S. Sontag] [Δ] Leibovitz, A. & I. Sischy, 1992, Photographs, Annie Leibovitz, (New York: Harper Collins) [Δ] George Platt Lynes Kirstein, L., 1960, George Platt Lynes Portraits 1931–1952, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago) [Δ] Woody, J., 1981, George Platt Lynes: Photographs, 1931–1955, (Pasadena, CA: Twelvetrees Press) [Δ] Man Ray Warner, Marina; Pepper, Terence & Trompeteler, Helen, 2013, Man Ray Portraits, (National Portrait Gallery) [Exhibition catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, London, 7 February - 27 May 2013, texts by] [Δ] Sally Mann Mann, Sally, 1988, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, (New York: Aperture) [Δ] Mary Ellen Mark Mark, Mary Ellen, 2003, Twins, (New York: Aperture) [Δ] Joel Meyerowitz Meyerowitz, Joel, 1990, Redheads, (New York: Rizzoli) [Δ] Duane Michals Michals, Duane, 1988, Album: The Portraits of Duane Michals: 1958–1988, (Pasadena, CA: Twelvetrees) [Δ] Yasumasa Morimura Morimura, Yasumasa, 2003, Daughter of Art History: Photographs by Yasumasa Morimura, (New York: Aperture) [Introduction by D. Kuspit] [Δ] Arnold Newman Fern, Alan & Newman, Arnold, 1992, Arnold Newman’s Americans, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company) [Δ] Newman, Arnold, 1974, One Mind’s Eye: The Portraits and Other Photographs of Arnold Newman, (Boston: David R. Godine) [Δ] Nicholas Nixon Nixon, Nicholas, 1991, People With AIDS: Photographs by Nicholas Nixon, (Boston: David R. Godine) [Δ] Louis Pierson Apraxine, Pierre & Demange, Xavier, 2000, "La Divine Comtesse": Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press) [With Françoise Heilbrun and Michele Falzone del Barbarò] [Δ] Erich Salomon Hunter-Salomon, Peter, 1967, Erich Salomon: Portrait of an Age, (New York: Macmillan) [Δ] Salomon, Erich, 1975, Portrait of an Age, (New York: Collier Books) [Δ] Salomon, Erich, 1978, Erich Salomon, (Millerton, NY: Aperture) [Δ] Lucas Samaras Prather, M. & Samaras, L., 2003, Unrepentant Ego: The Self Portraits of Lucas Samaras, (New York: Harry N. Abrams) [Δ] August Sander Heiting, Manfred (ed.), 1999, August Sander 1876–1964, (New York: Taschen) [Δ] Sander, August, 1973, Men Without Masks: Faces of Germany, 1910–1938, (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society) [Δ] Sander, August, 1980, August Sander: Photographs of an Epoch. 1904–1959, (Millerton, NY: Aperture) [Preface by Beaumont Newhall; historical commentary by Robert Kramer] [Δ] Sander, August, 2003, Antlitz der Zeit, (Munich: Schirmer/Mosel) [Δ] Gary Schneider Schneider, Gary, 2005, Nudes, (Aperture) isbn-10: 1931788626 isbn-13: 978-1931788625 [Δ] Schneider, Gary, 2010, Handbook, (Aperture / Print on demand) [Δ] Schneider, Gary & Kao, Deborah Martin, 2004, Portraits, (Yale University Press / Harvard Art Museum) isbn-13: 978-0300100549 [Δ] Camille Silvy Haworth-Booth, Mark, 2010, Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life, (London: National Portrait Gallery) [Δ] Taryn Simon Neufeld, Peter; Scheck, Barry & Simon, Taryn, 2008, The Innocents, (Umbrage Editions) isbn-10: 1884167187 isbn-13: 978-1884167188 [Δ] Strauss-Peyton White, Stephen (ed.) & Buckland, Gail, 2006, Strauss-Peyton: Celebrity and Glamour, (Stephen White Editions) isbn-10: 097688044X isbn-13: 978-0976880448 [Δ] Thomas Struth Bryson, Norman; Buchloh, Benjamin H.D. & Weski, Thomas (essays), 2001, Thomas Struth: Portraits, (Munich: P Schirmer/Mosel) [Δ] Struth, T.; Lingwood, J. & Teitelbaum, M. (eds.), 1994, Thomas Struth: Strangers and Friends: Photographs 1986–1992, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) [Δ] Hiroshi Sugimoto Bashkoff, T. & Spector, N., 2000, Sugimoto Portraits, (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications) [Δ] Doris Ulmann Featherstone, D., 1985, Doris Ulmann, American Portraits, (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press) [Δ] Peterkin, J. & Ulmann, D., 1933, Roll, Jordan, Roll, (New York: Robert O. Ballou) [Δ] Ulmann, Doris, 1974, The Darkness and the Light: Photographs by Doris Ulmann, (Millerton, NY: Aperture) [Δ] James Van der Zee Van Der Zee, James, 1968, Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–1968., (Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition. New York: Random House) [Edited by Allon Schoener. Preface by Thomas P. F. Hoving. Introduction by Candice Van Ellison] [Δ] Van Der Zee, James, 1973, James Van Der Zee, (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Morgan and Morgan) [Δ] Van Der Zee, James, 1978, The Harlem Book of the Dead: James Van Der Zee, Owen Dodson, Camille Billops, (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Morgan & Morgan) [Foreword by Toni Morrison] [Δ] Willis-Braithwaite, Deborah, 1993, Van Der Zee: Photographer, 1886–1983, (New York: Harry N. Abrams) [Δ] If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com Resources James Abbe (1883-1973) • Nubar Alexanian (1950-) • Diane Arbus (1923-1971) • Atelier Adele • Richard Avedon (1923-2004) • David Bailey (1938-) • Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) • Richard Billingham (1970-) • Jane Brown (1925-) • Sophie Calle (1953-) • Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) • Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) • Martin Chambi (1891-1973) • Anton Corbijn • Robert Cornelius (1809-1893) • Denis Dailleux (1958-) • Roy DeCarava (1919-2009) • Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959) • Jeff Dunas (1954-) • Patrick Faigenbaum (1954-) • Bernard Faucon (1950-) • Peter Feldstein • Samuel Fosso (1962-) • Jona Frank • Gisèle Freund (1912-2000) • Robert Gardner (1925-) • Arlene Gottfried • Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) • Ruth Handley (1899-1957) • Hill & Adamson • E.O. Hoppé (1878-1972) • Horst (1906-1999) • Frank Horvat (1928-) • George Hurrell (1904-1992) • Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002) • Ken Kitano • Annelise Kretschmer (1903-1987) • David LaChapelle (1969-) • Eva Lauterlein (1977-) • Annie Leibovitz (1949-) • Loretta Lux • Sally Mann (1951-) • Mary Ellen Mark (1940-) • Edith Maybin • Anne Arden McDonald (1966-) • Andrea Modica (1960-) • Jose Mora (check) • Arnold Newman (1918-2006) • Helmut Newton (1920-2004) • Pierre et Gilles • Jack Pierson (1960-) • Milton Rogovin (1909-2011) • August Sander (1876-1964) • Michelle Sank (1953-) • Tomoko Sawada (1977-) • Gary Schneider (1954-) • Augustus Francis Sherman • Cindy Sherman (1954-) • Antonio Sorgato (1825-1885) • Strauss-Peyton • Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948-) • Ellen Susan • Joyce Tenneson (1945-) • Wolfgang Tillmans • Waldemar Franz Herman Titzenthaler (1869-1937) • Anton Josef Trcka • James Van der Zee (1886-1983) • Neil S. Winokur (1945-) | Home > Themes > Portrait
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