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Harriet Farnie and Miss Farnie with a Sleeping Puppy, Brownie 2
Summary
Robert Adamson, David Octavius Hill
1920 (original negative around 1845)
Accession no. PGP HA 390
Medium Carbon print
Size 15.40 x 20.20 cm
Credit Elliot Collection, bequeathed 1950
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David Octavius Hill was a Scottish painter and photographer. He was a pioneer of photography in Scotland and is best known for his collaboration with Robert Adamson in which they produced some of the most important early photographs of Scotland.
In 1843, Hill was commissioned to paint a group portrait of the leaders of the Free Church of Scotland, which became known as the "Disruption Assembly" painting. He then decided to photograph the same people in order to have a more accurate representation of the individuals. This commission led him to take up photography and he teamed up with Robert Adamson, who was a master of the new collodion process. Together, they produced a large body of work that depicted the people and landscapes of Scotland during the mid-19th century. Their photographs are considered some of the most important early photographs of Scotland, and are widely recognized for their technical excellence and artistry.
Robert Adamson (1821-1848) was a Scottish chemist and pioneering photographer, best known for his collaboration with the artist David Octavius Hill in the early days of photography. Born on 26 April 1821 in St Andrews, Scotland, Adamson grew up in a family of shipowners. In 1843, Adamson met David Octavius Hill, a painter, and the two formed a partnership that would contribute significantly to the development of photography as an art form. Their collaboration began at a time when the calotype process, an early photographic technique, had just been introduced by William Henry Fox Talbot. The calotype process produced an image on paper coated with silver iodide, allowing multiple positive prints to be made from a single negative. Adamson and Hill set out to document various aspects of Scottish life and culture, including landscape, architecture and portraiture. They are particularly famous for their depictions of the people of Newhaven, a fishing village near Edinburgh. This work culminated in the production of a collection known as the 'Disruption of 1843', which captured scenes from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Tragically, Robert Adamson's career was cut short by his untimely death at the age of 26 in 1848. The exact cause of his death remains uncertain, but it is widely believed to have been related to the chemicals used in the photographic process, which were often toxic. Despite his short career, Adamson's contributions to the early development of photography, particularly through his collaboration with David Octavius Hill, have had a lasting impact on the history of the medium.
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