More Real than Life

Interesting exhibition at the Barber Institute of Fine Art in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery looking at how Victorian photographers exploited the new medium.

It looked at how Victorian and Albert pioneered the use of the new technique popularising it amongst the masses and at how studio were set up to meet this demand. It looked at pictures which had tinting added or details painted in. It had an examples of a day book from Camile Silvys studio and also of family albums.

It also showed how images could be manipulated with an example of the original studio picture of Edward VII and Alexandra and the version which was marketed which was coloured and put them in a garden.

It talked about how men were shown in active roles but women in passive ones even Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman doctor, who is shown reading with eyes downcast not looking at the camera.

I loved the small studio they had set up with changeable backgrounds and dressing up clothes so children could recreate the images.

Closes on 24 September 2017

 

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