Collection of Pictorial Photographs

COLLECTION OF PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHS The organized collection of pictorial photographs generally seems to have presented few attractions to any public institutions or to individuals, and it is a regrettable fact that no complete rec ord exists of the achievements of the past. The importance to pos terity of such a record was not realised in the early days and, in any case, the housing and exhibition of such a collection would have presented insuperable difficulties to any body other than a municipal or government institution. Small individual collections have been made no doubt at all times but in only one or two cases could they claim any importance. The Duchess of Sermoneta is known to have possessed a fine collection but it is reported to have been dispersed at her death. Mr. Harold Holcroft of Wolver hampton has made a fairly representative collection of con temporary work during the past thirty years and this will be pre served intact as he has presented it to the Royal Photographic Society.

In the early days, the Prince Consort, who was keenly interested in photography, apparently formed a collection for in 1859 he offered fifty prints to the Photographic Society of London to form the nucleus of a permanent collection. The Society appointed a committee to consider the Prince's suggestion as it then possessed no permanent abode, and that apparently is as far as the matter ever went. If the prints were ever received there is no trace of them now. It was not until after 1890 that the idea of forming a permanent collection was revived and the line taken was to acquire annually the pictures which received medals at the exhibi tion but even that small effort soon expired and the collection grew in desultory fashion by casual gifts.

In 1923, however, the President, who for once was a pictorialist, organised an effort to make the collection worthy of the society. A ready response was received, many pictures of great historical and pictorial importance were secured, gaps were filled, a curator appointed and the Society's Permanent Collection, although by no means complete, is by far the largest and most representative in the world. The addition of the Holcroft collection adds greatly to its value and importance. Collections of photography have been made by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, U.S.A., and by the State Museum in Berlin and in recent times Mrs. Milson, a former Lady Mayoress of Sydney, N.S.W. formed a collection of pictorial photographs to become the basis for a permanent collec tion in Australia, but none of these can compare in size and im portance with the R.P.S. collection which contains examples of the work of all the most notable photographers from D. 0. Hill to the present day. The further expansion of this collection is assured by the recent gift by Mr. Stephen H. Tyng of New York of a fund for the purchase annually of outstanding examples of photographic art. The administration of this fund is placed in the

hands of the Pictorial Group of the R.P.S., an organization within the Society specially designed to encourage and foster pictorial interests in every possible manner.

Photographic Press, Weekly and Monthly.

This, while dealing with pictorial matters, has catered chiefly for the gen eral reader and the publications dealing exclusively with pictorial interests have been comparatively few. The first of tills nature in Great Britain was a series of monographs on the work of the leading pictorialists of the day, each volume being devoted to the work of one man and illustrated in photogravure by four of his pictures. The whole was issued in 1890 under the title of "Sun Artists." In 1895 the proprietors of The Photogram, a monthly magazine, issued a special volume devoted to an account of the photographic activities of the year in this and other coun tries, with 90 illustrations of selected pictures. This has grown to be a feature of annual interest and, under the editorship of F. J. Mortimer, F.R.P.S., is now the principal record of the photographic pictorialism of the world. A volume of somewhat similar aim but limited to the pictorial work exhibited at the R.P.S. has since 1926 been issued under the auspices of the Society by F. C. Tilney, F.R.P.S., who supplies a critical commentary on the pictures reproduced. In addition the Society issues in the October number of its Journal an account of the year's work both pictorial and scientific, with abundant illustrations. Of late years the Societe Francaise de Photographie and the Gruppo Piemontese have issued sumptuously illustrated records of the Salons held by them annually, which constitute valuable records of the work done in their respective countries, and now Japan is doing the same on a slightly less ambitious scale in the Japan Photographic Annual. . The most beautiful of all these records of photography, however, we owe to Alfred Stieglitz who, in fifty-four volumes of Camera Work issued between 1903 and 1917, gave us the finest pictorial work of the principal masters in photogravure reproduction that are a joy to the connoisseur. This was the most perfect thing of its kind that has ever been attempted and involved Stieglitz in heavy financial loss in return for the devotedly unselfish labours of nearly twenty years.

In conclusion, pictorial photography would appear to have reached a point where no marked progress can be expected along the present lines and we await the coming of the genius who will give a new orientation to its aims. Perhaps the development may be in the nature of a direct colour process for with the addition of colour the scope of photography would be vastly widened.

(J. D. J.)