Hill and Adamson Catalogue Project

The Library has received a research grant of £17,500 from the British Academy to develop a CD-ROM based catalogue of their important collection of early photographs produced by the partnership of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson.

The partnership of D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson is one of the most significant and intriguing in the history of photography. The art of photography was announced to the public in 1839. Just four years later, in 1843, Robert Adamson established his studio in Rock House, on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

Robert Adamson had enjoyed an intense upbringing in the fledgling art at St. Andrews. His brother, Dr John Adamson, was a colleague and close friend of Sir David Brewster. Brewster had a unique relationship with the inventor of photography on paper, William Henry Fox Talbot. This was critical at a time when all photographic materials were made by the photographer himself. The painter, David Octavius Hill, was highly popular and influential in the Edinburgh artistic community. His brother, Alexander Hill, was a premier publisher of prints. Between them, they had extensive contacts with society in Edinburgh and beyond.

The partnership was born in extraordinary circumstances. In May, 1843, four hundred ministers - a third of the entire church - signed a Deed of Demission, resigning their livings and establishing the Free Church of Scotland. Hill announced the undertaking of a great commemorative painting of the event, to include all those present, which would be the basis of an engraving. As the many ministers would soon scatter throughout Scotland, it was Hill's friend Sir David Brewster who suggested a way to make the recording practical. Brewster introduced Hill to Adamson and overcame the artist's scepticism as to the value of photography. The two men soon entered into an enthusiastic partnership. In their photography, Hill and Adamson produced calotype negatives. These were made on sheets of writing paper treated with light sensitive chemicals. Exposure times could run into several minutes in sunlight. The cameras were necessarily bulky as enlarging was not possible. The negative, which had to be the size of the final print, was printed by contact in full sunlight on a hand coated salt paper. Each negative and print had its own character. The prints were typically purple to reddish brown in tone, emphasizing broad masses of detail. They were frequently compared by contemporaries to the work of Rembrandt.

The Glasgow Collection in context

The largest single collection of their work is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. It is the defining collection and contains approximately 3000 prints and 600 negatives.

The Glasgow University Collection contains 491 original paper negatives and 444 original salt prints (41 of which are duplicates). A preliminary cataloguing indicates that virtually all of these negatives (approximately 450) are not represented by prints in the SNPG; in addition, more than 100 of the prints in Glasgow are not represented in the SNPG. Glasgow's is the second largest H & A collection and is of special importance because of the negatives. In addition to the original calotype negatives and salt prints, there are later salt prints, photogravures, and glass copy negatives (these have yet to be assessed). The collection also includes two original printing frames used by Hill & Adamson, the manuscript registration book for orders for the engraving, and a copy of their publication on St. Andrews. While Hill & Adamson salt prints are held in most photographic collections, no others even approach the two Scottish collections in scope or importance. Only a handful of original Hill & Adamson negatives are in other collections. The largest of the print groupings are in the Getty and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other significant collections include the University of Texas, the National Gallery of Canada, and smaller holdings in several British collections.

The case for electronic cataloguing of this collection

The primary value of the Glasgow holdings is as a research collection. As such, it should be published in its entirety. It should also be fully indexed (from a number of points of view) and fully and easily searchable. The catalogue should retain the important colour information of the originals. Reproducing in conventional print from nearly a thousand full-colour photographs full-size would be economically prohibitive, however attractive this imaginary prospect might be. The dominant strength of the Glasgow collection lies in its group of negatives.

Nearly all of these negatives are unpublished (six were shown to good effect in reproductions from modern salt prints in Sara Stevenson's Firth of Forth). One can learn a great deal from negatives and they must be reproduced as such. However, prints from these negatives will be more readable for many viewers, and they will convey additional types of visual information. The ideal way to make prints from these negatives would be by making modern salt prints from surrogate negatives. At a cost of between £150 and £300 each, this is not a practical alternative. It is a relatively simple and economical matter to "make" an electronic print from scanned negatives. This virtual print can be adjusted in tone and colour balance to fall within the range of known Hill & Adamson prints, retaining an individual character. The publication of the collection on a CD-ROM (with possible electronic extensions from this) makes all this practical.

Extensive search, comparison, and indexing tools can be built in. The cost of adding more reproductions is mooted. Consequently, every image can be displayed in full-colour, negatives can be included with matching virtual prints, details (such as inscriptions) can be shown. Special effects, such as combining the panoramas into a single integrated image, are easily accomplished.

For more information contact:

David Weston
Keeper of Special Collections Tel: 0141 330 5632
E-mail: D.Weston@lib.gla.ac.uk