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…
Florence Nightingale:
The Mysteries Behind Her Iconic Photographs
Joint research by Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe Florence Nightingale apparently loathed having her photograph taken. There are consequently relatively few photographic portraits of her and…
Chronic Nostalgic:
How I became a dealer in vernacular colour slides
I was a young girl on the Canadian prairies in the 1980s and early '90s, when public television was particularly rife with Anglophilia. My first cinematic influences were The Wizard of Oz, Carry On…
The Commissioned Oxford Stereos of Spiers and Son
Modern stereo of the acid free cardboard boxes housing the original wooden containers holding the negatives presented to the Weston Library by Walter Lewis Spiers. Housed in three wooden boxes…
Collecting as a Mirror of Changing Times:
Photography at the Städel Museum
Collection, preservation, research, exhibitions and education together make up the bedrock of a museum’s work. The accompanying operational structures and conception of exhibition objects, on the…
When a family album turns out to be a piece of photographic history
During the summer of 2019, while we were going through stereo cards and photographs at Bruno Tartarin’s professional premises, my assistant Rebecca drew my attention to a photo album she had just…
Collecting photographs before the modern photography market
Your editor has asked me to answer the question “Why did you begin to collect photographs?” In order to answer, I have to go back over fifty years, so you must forgive me if memory fails, but here…