Photographs, Museums, Collections: Between Art and Information

by Elizabeth Edwards (Editor), Christopher Morton (Editor)

Overview

The status of photographs in the history of museum collections is a complex one. From its very beginnings the double capacity of photography - as a tool for making a visual record on the one hand and an aesthetic form in its own right on the other - has created tensions about its place in the hierarchy of museum objects. While major collections of 'art' photography have grown in status and visibility, photographs not designated 'art' are often invisible in museums. Yet almost every museum has photographs as part of its ecosystem, gathered as information, corroboration or documentation, shaping the understanding of other classes of objects, and many of these collections remain uncatalogued and their significance unrecognised.

This volume presents a series of case studies on the historical collecting and usage of photographs in museums. Using critically informed empirical investigation, it explores substantive and historiographical questions such as what is the historical patterning in the way photographs have been produced, collected and retained by museums? How do categories of the aesthetic and evidential shape the history of collecting photographs? What has been the work of photographs in museums? What does an understanding of photograph collections add to our understanding of collections history more broadly? What are the methodological demands of research on photograph collections?

The case studies cover a wide range of museums and collection types, from art galleries to maritime museums, national collections to local history museums, and international perspectives including Cuba, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Together they offer a fascinating insight into both the history of collections and collecting, and into the practices and poetics of archives across a range of disciplines, including the history of science, museum studies, archaeology and anthropology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472527332
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	05/19/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Elizabeth Edwards is Research Professor of Photographic History and Director of the Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Christopher Morton is Curator of Photograph and Manuscript Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK and Lecturer in Visual and Material Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK.
Elizabeth Edwards is Professor Emerita of Photographic History at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she was Director of the Photographic History Research Centre from 2011- 2016. She is also Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Victoria and Albert Museum Research Institute, London, and Honorary Professor in the Department of Anthropology University College London. Until 2005 she was Curator of Photographs at Pitt Rivers Museum and lecturer in visual anthropology at ISCA, University of Oxford, where she is Curator Emerita and Research Affiliate. In 2015 she was the first photographic specialist to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy. She has worked extensively on the relationship between photography, anthropology and history, on photographs and material culture, and on the work of photographs in museums, notably in colonial legacies. She has received many awards for her work and, over the years, has been on the boards many leading journals and of major museum and archival institutions. In addition to over 100 articles and essays, her monographs and edited works include Raw Histories (2001), Sensible Objects (2006), The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination 1880-1918 (2012) and Photographs, Museums, Collections (2015).
Dr Christopher Morton is Curator of Photograph and Manuscript Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Departmental Lecturer in Visual and Material Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. He is co-editor (with Elizabeth Edwards) of Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Frame (2009), and the author of numerous articles on photography and anthropology, especially in Africa.

Table of Contents

List of Plates and Figures
Notes on Contributors

Preface

1. Between Art and Information: Introduction, Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University, Leicester, UK) and Christopher Morton (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK)

PART I BECOMING COLLECTIONS
2. Multiple Collections and Fluid Meanings: Alfred Maudslay's Archaeological Photographs at the British Museum, Duncan Shields (De Montfort University, Leicester, UK)
3. Self Assembled: Isabella Stewart Gardner's Photographic Albums and the Development of her Museum, 1902-1924, Casey Riley (Boston University, USA)
4. 'An Invitation to Visit Windermere': Moments of Departure and Return in the Biography of the Bryan Heseltine Collection, Darren Newbury (University of Brighton, UK)
5. Private to Public: the David MacGregor Maritime Photographic Collection, Eleni Papavasileiou (SS Great Britain Trust, UK)

PART II SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENTS
6. Collecting Portraiture, Exhibiting Race: Augustus Pitt-Rivers's Photographs at the South Kensington Museum, Christopher Morton (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK)
7. Collecting Photographs, Constructing Disciplines: the Rationality and Rhetoric of Photography at the Museum of Economic Botany, Caroline Cornish (Royal Holloway, UK)
8. Photographs as Scientific and Social Objects in the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Geoff Belknap (University of Leicester) and Sophie Defrance (University of Cambridge)

PART III SHAPED IN HISTORY
9. Revolutionary photographs: the Museo de la Revolución, Havana, Cuba, Kristine Juncker (De Montfort University, Leicester, UK)
10. Photography in Jersey under German Occupation: the 1940 'Order Concerning Open-air Photography' and Photography at the Société Jersiaise Museum, Gareth Syvret (De Montfort University, Leicester, UK)
11. From Them to Us: Changing Meanings of Photographs of Mäori at Te Papa, Athol Mc Credie (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa)

PART IV CURATORIAL PRACTICES
12. Unwrapping the Layers: Translating Photograph Albums into an Exhibition Context, Ulrike Bessel (DASA Working World Exhibition in Dortmund, Germany)
13. To Collect and Preserve Negatives: the Eli Lotar Collection at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Damarice Amao (Paris Sorbonne, France)
14. Looking for Bolton in the Worktown Archive, Caroline Edge (Bolton Museum/University, UK)

Index

Editorial Reviews

Whoever suspected that museums' photography collections could be digitized and then discarded will change their mind after reading this groundbreaking book that brings together leading academics and curators. Anonymous and mostly uncatalogued photographs are restored with not only their biographies, but also a material future, as a key to a broader understanding of collecting history.” —Dr Costanza Caraffa, Head of Photo Library, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max Planck Institute, Italy

“With breadth of vision and depth of understanding, this editorial collaboration constitutes a critical addition to the self-reflexive literature on museum history and practice, at the same time enlarging the history of photography as a field of study and shifting it onto a robust institutional plane.” —Joan M. Schwartz, Professor, History of Photography, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada

“This book is a compilation of essays about collecting and curatorial practices unique to photographic collections. The editors argue that issues related to the technical, ephemeral, and serial qualities of photographs, along with the medium’s relatively short history, have led to their marginalization within museums, yet these collections are ‘increasingly being understood as knowledge-objects in their own right.’ An introductory chapter provides a theoretical and historical overview of the place of photographic collections in the museum setting. Developed as part of an international conference held in Leicester, England, and organized into five topical sections, the essays explore several notable photographic collections, the information value of photographs, the history of collecting photographs, and curatorial practices for photograph collections. Essays detailing how portrait photography solidified Charles Darwin’s professional network and aided his work on evolution, examining photographs documenting revolution in Cuba of the 1950s and 1960s, and creating images of the Maori people of New Zealand illustrate the breath of this volume. It will be of particular interest to students of photographic history and museum professionals. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections.” -P. A. Mohr, independent scholar, CHOICE

From the Publisher

With breadth of vision and depth of understanding, this editorial collaboration constitutes a critical addition to the self-reflexive literature on museum history and practice, at the same time enlarging the history of photography as a field of study and shifting it onto a robust institutional plane.

Joan M. Schwartz

Whoever suspected that museums' photography collections could be digitized and then discarded will change their mind after reading this groundbreaking book that brings together leading academics and curators. Anonymous and mostly uncatalogued photographs are restored with not only their biographies, but also a material future, as a key to a broader understanding of collecting history.

Dr Costanza Caraffa