The Next Generation in Classic Photography –
Barnabé Moinard

The French dealer Barnabé Moinard started his dealership in 2022 and has quickly become a familiar face on the classic photography scene. I started out by asking him about early interest in…


"The Whole of Old Paris"
Highlights from the Mary & Dan Solomon Collection at the Getty Museum

This autumn at the Getty Center, an impressive recent acquisition is on display: Eugène Atget: Highlights from the Mary & Dan Solomon Collection. Below, The Classic takes a peek at the…


Philippe Garner:
An exhibition of his photographs at Hamiltons Gallery

Philippe Garner has been a key figure in the international photography world for over 50 years. He was in charge of the December 1971 sale at Sotheby’s, London, the first specialist photography sale…


A Second Lease of Life-
Sitters and Photographers
Part Five: Mr Boswell’s “Field Days”

In Mexico it is believed that a person does not really die until their name is spoken for the last time. I must say I like the idea since it seems to give some purpose to the articles I write. As a…


An Alternative History of Photography:
Works from the Solander Collection at
The Photographers' Gallery

On display through 19 February 2023, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, presents An Alternative History of Photography: Works from the Solander Collection, a bold new perspective on the history of…


“A Marvelous History Through Object and Image”
The Cromer Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Photography

On 26 December 1924, Gabriel Cromer stood in front of the Société française de photographie and made an impassioned proposal: We must create a Photography Museum. A noble proposition, one infused…


A Tall Tale and a Mystery Wrapped in a Conundrum

Captions and annotations on photographs are not always to be trusted. And here, Stephen White shares two favourite examples from his collection. Stephen writes: The title in the lower left of…


Alfred Hind Robinson’s Panoramas

Alfred Hind Robinson was born at Osmanthorpe Hall in Leeds, England in 1864, the son of Col John Robinson (and his wife Jane) a wool merchant working for John Vance & Co of Leeds. Educated at…


“And then I suddenly realised I had bought Gustave Le Gray’s La Grande Vague”

“AN ILL FAVOURED THING, SIR, BUT MINE OWN.”                                               - Touchstone in As You Like It by…


B.C. Almanac(h) C.-B.
Re-drawing the map

PROLOGUE Picture this: A photographic exhibition where the catalogue was the artwork. A photography show in which there were no original photographs on the wall. Consider this: A…


L’Origine du Monde

This collection of 33 original albumen prints is interesting in various ways. There is its erotic character; its early dating, given that the prints are known to have been produced during the 1870s;…


The Photographers' Gallery at 50:
Notes on a long association

Philippe Garner viewing the 17th December 1976 Co-Optic auction at The Photographers' Gallery, photograph by Homer Sykes. My memory is hazy on the circumstances of my first visit to The…


"Problems, problems" - Letters to and from Photographers

This article is an appendix to the article "Dear John" - Letters to and from Photographers, published in issue 6 of The Classic, available as a free downloadable pdf on our website. In the letters…


La Salpêtrière - Fact, fiction and speculation about Blanche Wittmann

This article is an appendix to the article Photography at La Salpêtrière and beyond, published in issue 6 of The Classic, available as a pdf on our website. As discussed in the article in the…


Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900-1940: The Thomas Walther Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Exhibition at Jeu De Paume 14 September 2021 - 13 February 2022

In 2001 and 2017, The Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired just over 500 photographs from the collector Thomas Walther, from the period 1900 to 1940, by the recognised masters as well as…


The London Photograph Fair - 40 Years On

2022 will mark the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the London Photograph Fair. Its first outing was on Sunday September 12th 1982, and it was held at The Photographers’ Gallery in…


A Gust of Photo-Philia: Photography in the Art Museum
by Alexandra Moschovi

Where does photography stand in today’s art museum? And how did it arrive there? These questions are at the heart of Alexandra Moschovi’s new book, A Gust of Photo-Philia: Photography in the Art…


The Democratic Picture: Grace McCann Morley and Photography in the San Francisco Museum of Art

The San Francisco Museum of ArtThe author would like to thank the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Archives for kindly allowing the publication of the cited archival material and photographs, the…


History of Photography in China: New Discoveries and Research

Since the publication in 2013 of the last of my 3-volume History of Photography in China,Terry Bennett, History of Photography in China 1842-1860 (London: Quaritch, 2009); Terry Bennett, History of…


Wendy Red Star at Joslyn Art Museum:
Re-examining The Indian Congress 1898.
An Interview with Annika Johnson, Associate Curator of Native American Art

In the summer of 1898, over 500 citizens of 35 Native American nations gathered in present-day North Omaha to participate in the Indian Congress. Some had travelled over 800 miles to get there. The…


Antonia Gotte:
A Much Photographed Model

I have written somewhere else about Antonia GotteDenis Pellerin, History of Nudes in Stereoscopic Daguerreotypes – Collection W. + T. Bosshard, 2020. The book was published simultaneously in…


What Did the Victorians See in the Stereoscope?

Is it possible, for us who live in the 21st century, to imagine or – probably even more difficult – understand what the Victorians saw in the Stereoscope? In 1980 literary theorist, philosopher and…


The Epidemic Conflagration

Medical Science and Photography at the Time of the Plague in Manchuria 1910-1911 L’incendie épidémiqueThis expression figures in a text by Dominique Chevé and Michel Signoli, “Corps dans la…


Images of Persia
Du Khorassan au pays des Backhtiaris, trois mois de voyage en Perse

It's a fascinating collection. An exceptional archive, regrouping a set of 403 original photographs, printed on albumen paper from glass negatives, or in some cases on gelatin silver paper, and…


The Troubled Life of a Dandy: John J. McKendry, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Met (1967-1975)

“Mad Romantic” is a term often used in the literature to describe the biographical journey of the extravagant John J. McKendry. Born in 1933 in Canada, McKendry was the Curator of Prints and…