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I got sent in a couple of articles about Scottish photography by Mike Russell who was Minister of Arts and Culture but is now Minister for Education.
The Herald for Monday 4th December 2000
By Michael Russell MSP
“Scottish Photography”
The award of the Turner prize to the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans should also remind us that photography – that all too accessible medium – is breaking perceptual barriers every bit as much as any other art form.
The name of Patricia MacDonald always springs to mind when I think about the way in which photographs can challenge our knowledge of the world around us. Castle Island and Cracking Ice is just one of the extraordinary images in which she abstracts from the natural world patterns and shapes of disturbing beauty.
Scotland is rich in talented photographers and indeed Scotland has a place in the photographic world that needs to be celebrated. Scholars differ on the exact date on which, and the exact place in which, photography was invented but if we accept 1839 as the start point, then by 1842 photographs of high quality and international significance were being taken in this country.
Lest that statement be thought chauvinistic let me call in support none other than the great American photographer Paul Strand. When the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged its first great overview exhibition of photography in 1937 he advised that the first floor of the exhibition should be devoted to the work of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, who were the Scottish pioneers.
A few weeks ago I visited the Scottish National Photography Collection which is held at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately it is held in a large private room with little if any on permanent display, although those who care for it have organised some splendid exhibitions and continue to do so. It consists of some 23,000 items and works closely not only with other Scottish institutions but with collections and scholars world wide. It’s curator, Sara Stevenson, is an internationally recognised expert and a persuasive enthusiast. The totality of what she looks after presents a fascinating variety of perspectives on Scotland’s contribution to photography as well as much from elsewhere.
Hill and Adamson are the corner stone of the Scottish photography story and their presence in the collection is comprehensive and of immense importance. It is also very valuable. But they are not the only significant names. The Annans of Glasgow, Thomas Keith in Edinburgh and Iona, the Wilson firm in Aberdeen – including the great 19th cenutry photographer of life in the Hebrides, George Washington Wilson – and James Cox in Dundee are joined by Scots who (like many Scots) lived and worked furth of their country: John Thomson in China , William Carrick in Russia , Alexander Gardner in the United States. And of course there are photographers of Scotland who came from elsewhere – including my own favourite Werner Kissling who photographed the traditional and the new in various parts of the country from the early 1930s until the late 1980s.
Contemporary photography is also represented , with not only Patrica MacDonald but a host of others including the ever challenging Calum Colvin. These photographers not only stretch the medium – for example by intense scrutiny of every day objects, such as in Calum Angus MacKay’s work in the Western Isles – but they also refer back to what has gone before. Robin Gillanders formal photograph of the first day of the new Scottish Parliament is in part a homage to the whole genre of Scottish group portraiture.
Divisive as it is to set one art form against another, one cannot but reflect that the Scottish contribution to photography is probably of greater international significance than the Scottish contribution to any of the other visual arts. However whilst large public galleries expand, the Scottish National Photographic collection remains in its boxes. It is time for that to change and the imaginative idea that a National Museum of Photography might be created is surely an idea whose time is coming.
I say idea because there are no formal plans as yet. But there is a possible place. The Old Royal High School on Calton Hill – the perpetual bridesmaid in the search for a proper venue for Scotland’s Parliament – is still vacant. Its restoration for the specific purpose of housing a new National Museum of Photography is the most attractive suggestion I have yet heard.
Certainly it would need money and these days while capital can be quite readily found from a variety of sources, revenue funding is scarcer. There would need to be imagination in its presentation so that it could guarantee public interest, public enthusiasm and a willingness from the public not just to visit, but to spend money. But if all these things fitted together – and given the push and determination of some of those behind the project, I suspect they will – then the time is coming closer when Scotland’s photographic heritage will at last be fully recognised.
The Herald for Monday 4th December 2000
By Michael Russell MSP
“Scottish Photography”
The award of the Turner prize to the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans should also remind us that photography – that all too accessible medium – is breaking perceptual barriers every bit as much as any other art form.
The name of Patricia MacDonald always springs to mind when I think about the way in which photographs can challenge our knowledge of the world around us. Castle Island and Cracking Ice is just one of the extraordinary images in which she abstracts from the natural world patterns and shapes of disturbing beauty.
Scotland is rich in talented photographers and indeed Scotland has a place in the photographic world that needs to be celebrated. Scholars differ on the exact date on which, and the exact place in which, photography was invented but if we accept 1839 as the start point, then by 1842 photographs of high quality and international significance were being taken in this country.
Lest that statement be thought chauvinistic let me call in support none other than the great American photographer Paul Strand. When the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged its first great overview exhibition of photography in 1937 he advised that the first floor of the exhibition should be devoted to the work of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, who were the Scottish pioneers.
A few weeks ago I visited the Scottish National Photography Collection which is held at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately it is held in a large private room with little if any on permanent display, although those who care for it have organised some splendid exhibitions and continue to do so. It consists of some 23,000 items and works closely not only with other Scottish institutions but with collections and scholars world wide. It’s curator, Sara Stevenson, is an internationally recognised expert and a persuasive enthusiast. The totality of what she looks after presents a fascinating variety of perspectives on Scotland’s contribution to photography as well as much from elsewhere.
Hill and Adamson are the corner stone of the Scottish photography story and their presence in the collection is comprehensive and of immense importance. It is also very valuable. But they are not the only significant names. The Annans of Glasgow, Thomas Keith in Edinburgh and Iona, the Wilson firm in Aberdeen – including the great 19th cenutry photographer of life in the Hebrides, George Washington Wilson – and James Cox in Dundee are joined by Scots who (like many Scots) lived and worked furth of their country: John Thomson in China , William Carrick in Russia , Alexander Gardner in the United States. And of course there are photographers of Scotland who came from elsewhere – including my own favourite Werner Kissling who photographed the traditional and the new in various parts of the country from the early 1930s until the late 1980s.
Contemporary photography is also represented , with not only Patrica MacDonald but a host of others including the ever challenging Calum Colvin. These photographers not only stretch the medium – for example by intense scrutiny of every day objects, such as in Calum Angus MacKay’s work in the Western Isles – but they also refer back to what has gone before. Robin Gillanders formal photograph of the first day of the new Scottish Parliament is in part a homage to the whole genre of Scottish group portraiture.
Divisive as it is to set one art form against another, one cannot but reflect that the Scottish contribution to photography is probably of greater international significance than the Scottish contribution to any of the other visual arts. However whilst large public galleries expand, the Scottish National Photographic collection remains in its boxes. It is time for that to change and the imaginative idea that a National Museum of Photography might be created is surely an idea whose time is coming.
I say idea because there are no formal plans as yet. But there is a possible place. The Old Royal High School on Calton Hill – the perpetual bridesmaid in the search for a proper venue for Scotland’s Parliament – is still vacant. Its restoration for the specific purpose of housing a new National Museum of Photography is the most attractive suggestion I have yet heard.
Certainly it would need money and these days while capital can be quite readily found from a variety of sources, revenue funding is scarcer. There would need to be imagination in its presentation so that it could guarantee public interest, public enthusiasm and a willingness from the public not just to visit, but to spend money. But if all these things fitted together – and given the push and determination of some of those behind the project, I suspect they will – then the time is coming closer when Scotland’s photographic heritage will at last be fully recognised.