Besides the obvious: a permanent, for the most part, result in the form of a photograph; the act of taking said photograph could be argued as being just as important. For some, it really is the point.

Can I take your picture? Why sure. Why would you be interested may I ask? Because…

I find you: insert adjective here. Or don’t ask permission.

Because. No real reason at all, other than it sorta confirms your existence for posterity. So not a bad tradeoff, especially for those who might want to look back, far off in the future, or five minutes from now.

Going back well over a century, this series of photographs is confirmation act has always been wrapped up in art. For proof, observe the capable body language of voiceless French actress Félicia Mallet, (1863–1928) published in 1896 and recently posted. As Pierrot, she was taking on the role modern scholars consider the essence of the artist’s alter-ego. Especially as some might consider: “the famously alienated artist of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” (1.)

But the inherently silent results recorded by French photographer Arthur da Cunha here are besides the point. A live performance will always elicit a critic, particularly one on the public stage.

In a fortunate coincidence, no less an observer than George Bernard Shaw weighed in a year later, his take on Mallet’s performance during the London stage production of A Pierrot’s Life giving readers the opinion her Pierrot was far more believable than one played by (Mrs.) Signora Litini:

The recasting of “A Pierrot’s Life” at the matinees at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre greatly increases and solidifies the attraction of the piece. Felicia Mallet now plays Pierrot; but we can still hang on the upturned nose of the irresistible Litini, who reappears as Fifine. Litini was certainly a charming Pierrot; but the delicate, subtle charm was an intensely feminine one, and only incorporated itself dreamily with the drama in the tender shyness of the first act and the pathos of the last. Litini as a vulgar drunkard and gambler was as fantastically impossible as an angel at a horse-race. Felicia Mallet is much more credible, much more realistic, and therefore much more intelligible — also much less slim, and not quite so youthful. Litini was like a dissolute “La Sylphide”: Mallet is frankly and heartily like a scion of the very smallest bourgeoisie sowing his wild oats. She is a good observer, a smart executant, and a vigorous and sympathetic actress, apparently quite indifferent to romantic charm, and intent only on the dramatic interest, realistic illusion, and comic force of her work. And she avoids the conventional gesture-code of academic Italian pantomime, depending on popularly graphic methods throughout. The result is that the piece is now much fuller of incident, much more exciting in the second act (hitherto the weak point) and much more vivid than before.  (2.)

Notes:

1. Pierrot: see: Wikipedia overview: accessed, March, 2014
2. excerpt: Meredith on Comedy: An Essay on Comedy. By George Meredith. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co. 1897: from:  Dramatic Opinions and Essays by G. Bernard Shaw/(James Huneker): Volume 2: New York: Brentanos: 1906:  pp. 225-6

Subversive and unwilling to play by the rules. This is why the body of work produced by British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) should still matter to us today.

How can one not admire the intent and courage it must have taken her to focus a camera lens in the era of wet plate photography (1860s-1870s) and then, just as often as not, deliberately have the mischievous bent to throw that lens slightly out of focus in order to create photographs often resembling the feelings found in dreams? Photographs that justifiably draw admiration and discussion even today of the lives of Victorian celebrities and house servants who were convinced to sit or be dragged in front of that camera.

For those inclined to learn the mysterious ingredient-and staying power so to speak-of Cameron’s photography-the answer might be a single word: “beauty”. This might indeed be the key, a Citizen Kane, Rosebud moment if you will, the one final word she reportedly uttered on her deathbed.

Beauty, and a renewed appreciation is what I took away from a visit late last year to a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art simply titled “Julia Margaret Cameron“.  

Surprisingly, it was first devoted solely to her work at the museum, a tightly edited overview comprised of 38 works, including several by her contemporaries: David Wilkie Wynfield, William Frederick Lake Price, and Oscar Gustav Rejlander.

The wall copy set the stage for those not already familiar with Cameron, describing her rightly as:

 “One of the greatest portraitists in the history of photography—indeed in any medium“…

A further explanatory statement in her own words followed:

“From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” 

Words that no doubt have influenced scores of photographers, painters and others working in various artistic disciplines during the many decades since her passing. An important early tribute came in the lifetime of Cameron’s youngest son Henry Herschel Hay Cameron. (1852-1911) Inspired no doubt by his mother’s art, he was a working photographer who maintained a London studio, and provided the Introduction as well as a series of complimentary portraits paired with those by his mother for the folio volume Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his Friends. This series of 25 large-plate photogravures along with letterpress was published in a limited edition in 1893.

Other notable remembrances of Cameron’s work appeared earlier and much later. In 1890, the English publication Sun Artists featured four of her photographs: Sir John Herschel, Alfred Lord Tennyson and the allegorical works The Day Dream and The Kiss of Peace. All large-plate gravures for the 5th Number.

For Camera Work 41 published in 1913, editor Alfred Stieglitz presented five plates of Cameron’s work published as tissue gravures: two of Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, portraits of English polymath John Herschel and Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim and an allegorical study of English Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry taken done in 1864 when she was 16 originally titled “Sadness“.

Later in the British Number of the short-lived publication Platinum Print published in Feb. 1915, American photographer Clarence White’s essay titled Old Masters in Photography lauded Cameron as an early influence, singling out her photograph he most likely saw in an 1891 issue of Sun and Shade titled the Dalmatian Maid.

This portrait of Christina Spartali, a neighbor of Cameron on the Isle of Wight who was most certainly not a maid, as her family had made their fortune from the cotton trade and her father was Consul-General for Greece, was taken in 1868. White observed:

“While some questions have been raised as to the influence these workers have had on those of today, for my own part I must confess an influence on my work inspired by Mrs. Cameron’s “Dalmatian Maid,” a copy of which I saw in the days of my early efforts.” (p.4)

Although ended, photographs from the Cameron show at the Met can still be viewed in digital form, along with an ambitious project devoted to her and other notable photographers now ongoing on behalf of the rich photographic collection held by the Royal Photographic Society at the National Media Museum in Bradford, England.

Other treasures await additional scholarship. For our part, PhotoSeed presents with this post a seldom-seen work by Cameron formerly owned by Peter Hukill, (1927-2003) an early collector of fine art photography who built a collection thanks to the early efforts of galleries including the former Robert Schoelkopf Gallery in New York City, the records of which now reside in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Prescient, and subversive indeed. The Schoelkopf Gallery was apparently one of the first to feature photography as fine art in the United States. In 1967, it had the distinction of mounting the last solo show of Cameron’s work before the Met’s which opened in 2013: “timing it to coincide with a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that focused on Cameron as one of four Victorian photographers.” (1.)

1. excerpt: Robert Schoelkopf Gallery records, 1851-1991: Smithsonian Archives of American Art online resource: “In its early years the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery contributed considerably to the development of interest in fine art photography that fostered an increasingly lucrative market for photographic prints during the 1960s and 1970s.”

A curious photograph entered this archive last year, and with the debut of a new season of Downton Abbey upon us here in the States, I thought it important to pay homage to those women who made English Service, from circa 1917, the noble effort it was.

The English copperplate engraver, amateur photographer and Linked Ring Brotherhood member Walter L. Colls (1860-1942) (1.) was the son of  fine art dealer Lebbeus Colls, 1818-1897. (2.)

 

See examples of Work from the Walter L. Colls Atelier in this archive:

• Pictorial Photographs : A Record of the Photographic Salon of 1895
• Pictorial Photographs : A Record of the Photographic Salon of 1896

 

He developed an interest in amateur photography sometime before 1885. Early efforts were exhibited at the London Exhibition of Amateur Photography that year, where the London correspondent E.R.P. writing on April 30th for the Boston-based cycling magazine Outing described his entries- A Few Instantaneous Bits as: “Among other good work deserving of special mention are…a capital group of swans on the water; several really very fine”.  (3.)

Colls soon began exhibiting in the Royal Photographic Society exhibitions beginning in 1887 and later showed examples of his engraved commission work with them into the early 1900’s. Known by his professional Linked Ring pseudonym Aquafortist when first inducted in 1892, he later served as part of the Photographic Salon’s General Committee responsible for picture selection. In 1895, Colls received The Linked Ring’s commission to produce an annual portfolio of photogravures for the Salon exhibits from 1895-1897.

Initially trained as an artist, (4.) Colls had come from a family immersed in photography since the calotype era, as his father and uncle Richard Colls had exhibited “Sun pictures” before (presumably) he was born as early as 1851. (5.) At some point, most likely in the early 1870’s, he learned the trade and art of copperplate engraving and became a specialist in the area of reproducing photographs by this method, probably after joining Alfred Dawson’s London firm The Typographic Etching Company. Before leaving in late 1888 or early 1889, he had climbed the ranks to become chief photo-etcher. (6.)

At around this time or earlier, he became good friends with English photographer (born Cuba) Peter Henry Emerson. They both are named vice-presidents in the newly formed (1888) West London Photographic Society beginning in 1889.  (7.)
Before leaving the Typographic Etching Company, Colls had partnered along with Alfred Dawson to produce the photogravures for Emerson’s book Wild Life on a Tidal Water (published 1890). (8.)

Emerson may have been directly responsible for Colls leaving this firm, or at least giving him the opportunity to do so after singing his praises and quoting him directly on his  Methods of Reproducing Negatives from Nature for the Copper-Plate Press in his groundbreaking book Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art. (1889) An excerpt:

Mr. Colls is a careful worker and perhaps therein lies the secret of his success. It is perhaps invidious to select a firm for special mention, but as the results of Mr. Colls are in every way so superior when artistically considered, we feel it our duty to record the fact here for the benefit of the student. (9.)

 In 1889, he produced the large-plate photogravure Breezy Marshland (22 x15”) for Emerson (10.) and went on to personally teach him the process of photogravure after Emerson purchased his own copperplate press.

Walter Colls commission work focused mainly on the production of copper plates for the reproduction of artwork, but occasionally he would combine his talents as a photographer. One interesting collaboration involved working with his brother Harry Colls, himself a fine artist and illustrator. Harry Colls provided the majority of the artwork (done 1896-97) and his brother the photographs for the first volume of the 1901 book The Tower of London. (11.)

As late as 1929, Colls continued to work from his Barnes studio, printing the copper plates executed by illustrator David Jones for a limited edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. (12.)

 

NOTES:

1.  WALTER LEBBEUS COLLS: B. SEPTEMBER, 1860: KENSINGTON DISTRICT OF LONDON: D.  MARCH, 1942: BARNES IN THE SURREY N.E. DISTRICT. COLLS MARRIED FLORENCE MARY DRURY-LOWE (B. 1885) AND PRODUCED A SON: STACY WALTER DRURY COLLS: B. JUNE, 1907: SOURCES: FAMILYSEARCH.ORG, FREE BMD AND ANCESTRY.COM
2. COLLS BIOGRAPHY: PHOTOLONDON WEBSITE: 2011. HIS OLDER BROTHER HARRY COLLS: B. 1856 WAS A MARINE PAINTER.
3. OUTING-AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF RECREATION: VOL. VI: 1885: THE WHEELMAN COMPANY: BOSTON: P. 484
4. PHOTO-MECHANICAL PROCESSES: IN: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY FOR STUDENTS OF THE ART: P. H. EMERSON:  SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON: SECOND EDITION REVISED: LONDON: 1890: P. 209
5. REPORTS BY THE JURIES-ON THE SUBJECTS IN THE THIRTY CLASSES INTO WHICH THE EXHIBITION WAS DIVIDED: WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS: LONDON: 1852: P. 278
6. EXCERPT REPRINT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: 1898: P. 448: FROM: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY FOR STUDENTS OF THE ART: P. H. EMERSON:  SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON: LONDON: 1889
7. PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETIES OF THE BRITISH ISLES AND BRITISH COLONIES: IN: THE INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL OF ANTHONYS PHOTOGRAPHIC BULLETIN: ILIFFE & SON: LONDON: VOLUME II: 1889: P. 478
8. P.H. EMERSON-THE FIGHT FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FINE ART: NANCY NEWHALL: AN APERTURE MONOGRAPH: NEW YORK: 1975: P.83
9. EXCERPT REPRINT: IN: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES: 1898: P. 448: FROM: NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY FOR STUDENTS OF THE ART: P. H. EMERSON:  SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON: LONDON: 1889
10. ENGLISH NOTES: TALBOT ARCHER: IN: ANTHONY’S PHOTOGRAPHIC BULLETIN: E.& H.T. ANTHONY & CO.: NEW YORK: MAY 24, 1890: P. 299
11. INTRODUCTION: IN: THE TOWER OF LONDON: LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER, F.S.A.: GEORGE BELL & SONS: LONDON: VOL. 1,1901: XI
12. COLOPHON: THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER: PUBLISHED BY DOUGLAS CLEVERDON:  FANFARE PRESS: BRISTOL: 1929