Art and Photography: A Cultural History


Wonderful five week course organised by the London Art History Society and held at the Art Workers’ Guild looking at how photography has developed over the last 150 years and how it has influenced and been influenced by fine art.

The lecture, Tim Satterthwaite, was very clear and gave a narrative across the five afternoons while also admitting there were a lot more themes he could follow. Starting with the discovery of photography he took us through the main figurative and street photographers and discussed their influence on and how they were influenced by the figurative art of the time. 

He had excellent slides and slide lists which took us from the earliest work of Louis Daguerre and Fox Talbot through the Atget and his wonderful photographs of Paris streets, to the rise of urban life as a subject by Paul Strand and Cartier-Bresson and finishing with  a look at contemporary art photography.

I came away with a much better knowledge of and a real interest in 19th and 20th century photography but also wanting more. What about abstract photography? More on surrealism? Ansel Adams?


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