Alexander Keighley

Alexander Keighley (born February 3, 1861 in Keighley , Yorkshire, † August 2, 1947 ibid) was a British amateur photographer. He is considered a representative of "Impressionist photography" and one of the most influential artists of the Pictorialist movement in Great Britain in the 20th century.

biography

Origin and education

Alexander Keighley was born in Keighley on February 3, 1861, to a wealthy Yorkshire factory owner. His father, Joseph Keighley, is of knightly descent from the Kighley family, of whom Sir Richard Kighley once fought in the Battle of Azincourt (1415) and is named on King Henry V's list of the fallen . With the construction of a small mill, Keighley's grandfather laid the foundation stone for the “Sudgen Keighley Company” yarn manufacture. They owed their success primarily to their proximity to the then industrial market of Bradford and Halifax .

As the youngest son, along with two sisters and a brother, Keighley was initially sent to a lady's school by his parents in 1867 . Five years later he switched to the Old Grammar School .

Here Keighley began to be interested in the subject of biology and managed to get a scholarship to the London School of Mine (later: Royal College of Science) with a scientific thesis . As one of the youngest students at the university, he was particularly enthusiastic about Thomas Huxley's lectures . In addition to biology, he also studied geology and botany at Huxley. In 1879 he became a founding member of the Keighley Scientific and Literary Society . Keighley then planned to study medicine, but as soon as his courses were finished, his father signed him to join the family business. In fact, Keighley became director of the Sudgen Keighley Company in 1886 and remained so until 1932.

Personal

In 1905 Keighley married Lily Howroyd of Bradford .

Alexander Keighley died in Keighley on August 2, 1947.

Keighley as an artist

Photographic career

When Keighley gave his first public lecture "Geology of Airedale" in 1883 on a tour of the Yorkshire Naturalist's Union , he saw a geologist using the new photographic drying plate. Inspired by this, Keighley got photographic equipment and set up a darkroom in the attic.

As was customary at the time, he began by taking photos of his family, relatives, their houses and gardens. Influenced by Henry Peach Robinson's works and writings, he then tried his hand at pictorialist photography. Keighley early joined the Bradford Photographic Society , which was mainly interested in the technical processes of photography.

He celebrated his first great success in 1887 when he won a competition for the magazine "Amateur Photographer" with twelve submitted works. Jury member PH Emerson later criticized his then focus on a sharp focus and called him a "gum-splodger", but Keighley managed to be placed ahead of Alfred Stieglitz , who only came second in this competition . In 1889 he took part with four photographs in a large exhibition of The Photographic Society of Great Britain (later: The Royal Photographic Society).

In 1892 Keighley belonged to the group of well-known amateur photographers who, due to insufficient recognition of their art, founded the club The Linked Ring . Even if sole membership was a sign of his prominence, Keighley did not stand out from the crowd of his contemporaries at the time. In the first 15 years it did find approval in the press, but enthusiasm and broad reception did not set in. In 1898 Keighley became president of the Bradford Photographic Society , whose exhibitions were held at the Bradford Art Gallery and from which in 1899 the Yorkshire Photographic Union was formed. With the death of A. Horsley Hinton in 1908 at the latest, Keighley was one of the top pictorialist photographers in Great Britain.

In 1910 he joined The Royal Photographic Society (RPS). In the same year, RPS held his first solo exhibition in London and only one year after joining, he had the privilege of having FRPS (Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society) behind his name. From then on there were many solo and group exhibitions of Keighley's works. In 1924 he was finally made an honorary member of RPS. From 1938 to 1939 Keighley traveled 6,000 miles across South Africa by car in order to maintain contact with the local photographic organizations.

Keighley made five to six pictures a year for fifty years - at that time an astonishing achievement that always remained at a high artistic level. In the summer of 1943, a large-scale retrospective took place in the Bradford Art Gallery of the RPS, in which the development of his work could be admired. After his death in 1947, the RPS also organized an exhibition in London in his honor.

equipment

Earlier in his career he accompanied his plate camera (whole plate camera). Models and backgrounds were specifically selected and due to the long exposure time , the question of optimal positioning was of great importance. It was an advantage here that Keighley could afford an assistant to help him with his equipment. His camera had a “Goerz-Celor” anastigmat lens, with a cover and a fixed yellow screen . There was a large viewfinder above the lens that was carefully adjusted to match the field of view. The focus was constantly set at 10 meters.

With the introduction of faster photo emulsions and handheld cameras, prints could be made in a short time. Keighley also used a quarter plate box camera from then on . The camera under his arm looked like a small brown parcel through the short folding bar at the front and the back, which was covered with brown paper, in which the film was located. This inconspicuousness was very helpful for Keighley on his many travels, as many residents feared the “devil's eye”.

Motif choice

Keighley liked to photograph nature or people in natural surroundings. Sometimes he also tried to capture and depict “mystical” objects. Most of his pictures were taken outside of Great Britain. With his first trip, overseas travel became an annual pleasure for Keighley. His destinations included Morocco, France and Greece, for example. He was not satisfied with the big cities, but always looked for the motif of the genuine inhabitants of the country.

Artistic style

Keighley had an unerring instinct for an image from the start. He was also able to achieve a good composition in a fraction of a second.

At the beginning of his life as a photographer (1887) Keighley still focused on a sharp focus. However, it was less HP Robinson than PH Emerson who propagated the blurring. From 1890, presumably after seeing George Davison Impressionist photographs, he found his own Impressionist style. His photographs have been described as poetic, lyrical, and romantic.

Working method

For his first work he used albumen paper . He then experimented with different processes and made use of platinum , oil, bromine oil and gum dichromate . After all, Keighley made extensive use of coal pressure in his works.

He turned his “quarter-plate” negatives into “whole-plate” positives. He also liked to use several negatives for one positive. Often he also enlarged his 10x20 ( inches ) pictures considerably - mostly to a size of 16x20 or 24x30 inches, which was unusual at the time.

Furthermore, he amplified dark tones when he felt it necessary, made unwanted details disappear, set accents and played with the tone variations to achieve the desired atmosphere. In some cases he retouched his charcoal engravings so much that one could only guess the negative underneath. This is why his pictures were often referred to as "camera paintings".

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

The number in brackets indicates how many works were exhibited

source

• 1910 Royal Photographic Society, London (45)
• 1912 Paris (40) and Vienna (40)
• 1913 Munich (40)
• 1917 Washington DC, USA (66)
• 1920 New York Camera Club, New York (54)
• 1923 Washington DC, (67)
• 1930 Chicago (47)
• 1933 Paris (64)

From 1923 to 1941 there were many other exhibitions. Examples are London (The Camera Club), Cleveland, Birmingham, Hampshire House (Hammersmith), Rochester, Boston, Rugby, Loughborough, and many more. ... in which between 30 and 61 photographs were exhibited.

• 1943 Royal Photographic Society, London and Bradford Art Gallery, Bradford
• 1947 Royal Photographic Society, London

Group exhibitions

source

• 1889 The Photographic Society of Great Britain (later RPS) London
• 1899 Salon, Philadelphia (USA)
• 1903 8e Salon International de la Photographie, Paris; Photographic Salon, London
• 1904 Salon du Photo Club, Paris
• 1905 Exposition Internationale, Genova (Italy); Salon du Photo Club, Paris
• 1906 Salon du Photo Club, Paris; Photographic Salon, London
• 1907 The Scottish Salon (GB)
• 1913 Exposition SFP, Paris
• 1924 Stockholm
• 1927 Salon International de la Photographie, Paris
• 1930 XXIXe Salon International d'Art Photographique, Paris
• 1978 PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN BRITAIN
• 1900–1920, Hayward Gallery , London

Works (selection)

source

See-Saw, 1883.
My Lady's Garden, 1899.
The White Sail, 1901.
Grace before Meat, 1901.
The Olive Branch, 1904.
A Spring Idyll, 1904.
The Shepherdess, 1905.
Calle del Duomo, Chioggia, 1906.
The Bridge, 1906.
A Spring Pastoral, 1907.
The Rest is Silence, 1909.
Fantasy, 1913.
The Sphinx, 1915.
The Harp of the Winds, 1917.
A Castle of Romance, 1917.
The Gathering of the Flock, 1924.

Three Boats, 1923.
A Greek Temple, 1926.
A Bridge, Montenegro, 1927.
Adieu, 1932.
The River Bed, 1934.
Ali Baba's Cave, 1934.
A Castle in Spain, 1935.
At the Palace Gate, 1936.
The Family , 1936.
The Sheik, 1937.
The Keeper of the Mosque, 1940.
The Church Steps, 1940.
Service Time, 1941.
The Old Cloister, 1942.
Woodland, 1943.

Quotes

Keighley

"Art consists of selection and rejection, mostly rejection."

"No outline should be definite, everything must be soft: no sharp-focusing."

“Photography is divided into two strictly separate areas: utility photography and pictorial photography. When I turned to it 53 years ago, I actually saw only one tool for sketching my drawings: at that time the expression “pictorial photography” was not yet coined. It didn't take long, however, and I began to deal with the many possibilities it offers in artistic terms. [...] Those who devote themselves to pictorial photography will never come to an end, as long as [sic] they may live; again and again new areas open up to him, because it is inexhaustible, like the beauty of nature.

Others about Keighley

"The point about the work that have always appealed to me most forcibly are first, his unerring skill in selecting his picture, secondly his uncanny knack of getting his figures or animals into exactly the right spot and attitudes at the right moment and, thirdly, his skill in the treatment of tone relationships. "

by J. Dudley Johnston, Hon. FRPS

"Alexander Keighley, an 'impressionist in photography', was described as' an amateur who, unrestrained by the imperious demands of patrons, is free to use his photography for the satisfaction of his own aesthetic sense, and desiring no recognition or applause for the display of dexterity or skill the sympathy of those to whom Nature appeals ... '. "

by Alfred Horsley Hinton

"Although assuming greater dignity than a mere hobby or occasional pastime, photography only occupies Mr. Keighley in his leisure from more imperious duties, yet the relationship between the man and his work is interesting to note; for Mr. Keighley is before anything else a naturalist ... His writings, his pictures, his conversation, show that the great hills, the scattered boulders, the tree and meadow ... impress him only as an organic whole, yet as often as may be introducing by subtle suggestion a tender human interest ... '. "

by Alfred Horsley Hinton

literature

• Michèle Auer: Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours. = Photographers encyclopaedia international 1839 to the present. 2 volumes. Camera Obscura, Hermance 1985, ISBN 2-903671-04-4 .
• Cecil Beaton , Gail Buckland: The magic image. The genius of photography from 1839 to the present day. Little, Brown, Boston MA et al. 1975, pp. 120-121.
• Josef Gottschammel (Ed.): Alex. Keighley (= Master Books of Photography. Vol. 2). Edition Die Galerie, Vienna 1937, p. 3.
• JL Hankey, J. Dudley Johnston: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer. = Alexander Keighley. A memorial. Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, London 1947, pp. 5-23.
• John Hannavy (Ed.): Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography. Volume 2: J - Z, index. Routledge, New York NY et al. 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2 , p. 792.
• Margaret Harker: The linked ring. The secession movement in photography in Britain, 1892-1910 (= A royal photographic society publication ). Heinemann, London 1979, ISBN 0-434-31360-2 , pp. 92, 155-156.
• John Taylor: Pictorial photography in Britain 1900–1920. Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1978, ISBN 0-7287-0171-5 , pp. 81-82.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. JL Hankey: The Man and his Methods . In: Alex Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial . RPS London 1947, p. 7.
2. ↑ ^{a b} J. L. Hankey: The Man and his Methods . In: Alex Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial . RPS London 1947, p. 8.
3. ↑ ^{a b} cf. John Taylor: Alex Keighley 1861-1947 . In: Pictorial photography in Britain 1900-1920 . Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1978, p. 81.
4. ↑ cf. Hankey, Dr. JL, The Man and his Methods. In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 9.
5. ↑ Ibid.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. Hankey, Dr. JL, The Man and his Methods. In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 10.
7. ^ Crawford, Alistair, Alexander Keighley (1861-1947) . In: Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography, Hannavy, John (Ed.), New York 2007, p. 792.
8. ↑ cf. Johnston, J. Dudley, The Man and his Art . In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 21.
9. ↑ Ibid., P. 22.
10. ^ ^{A b} Auer, Michéle, Alexander Keighley . In: Photographers encyclopaedia international 1839 to the present, Hermance 1985.
11. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. Hankey, Dr. JL, The Man and his Methods. In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 12.
12. ↑ cf. Johnston, J. Dudley, The Man and his Art . In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 23.
13. ↑ cf. Beaton, Cecil and Buckland, Gail, Alexander Keighley . In: The magic image: the genius of photography from 1839 to the present day, Boston 1975, p. 120.
14. ↑ Ibid., Pp. 16-17.
15. ↑ cf. Johnston, J. Dudley, The Man and his Art . In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 22.
16. ↑ cf. Hankey, Dr. JL, The Man and his Methods. In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 19.
17. ↑ cf. Herker, Margaret, Alexander Keighley (1861-1947) . In: The linked ring: the secession movement in photography in Britain 1892-1910. A royal photographic society publication, London 1979, p. 155.
18. ↑ ^{a b} Crawford, Alistair, Alexander Keighley (1861-1947) , in: Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography, Ed .: Hannavy, John, New York 2007, p. 792.
19. ↑ cf. Taylor, John, Alex Keighley 1861-1947 . In: Pictorial photography in Britain 1900-1920: Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1978, p. 81.
20. ↑ cf. Herker, Margaret, Alexander Keighley (1861-1947) . In: The linked ring: the secession movement in photography in Britain 1892-1910. A royal photographic society publication, London 1979, p. 156.
21. ↑ cf. Beaton, Cecil and Buckland, Gail, Alexander Keighley . In: The magic image: the genius of photography from 1839 to the present day, Boston 1975, p. 121.
22. ↑ Hankey, Dr. JL, The Man and his Methods . In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, pp. 12-13
23. ↑ Hankey, Dr. JL, The Man and his Methods . In: Hankey, Dr. JL and Johnston, J. Dudley (Eds.), Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 5.
24. ↑ The Olive Branch on Scienceandsociety.co.uk
25. ↑ A Greek Temple on Luminous-lint.com
26. ↑ Ibid., P. 17.
27. ^ ^{A b} Cecil Beaton, Gail Buckland: Alexander Keighley . In: The magic image: the genius of photography from 1839 to the present day . Boston 1975, p. 121.
28. ↑ Alexander Keighley: Alex Keighley . In: Josef Gottschammel (Ed.): Masterpieces of Photography . Ed. Die Galerie, Vienna 1937, p. 3.
29. ↑ Johnston, J. Dudley, The Man and his Art . In: Alex. Keighley, artist and photographer: a memorial, RPS London 1947, p. 23.
30. ↑ Taylor, John, Pictorial photography in Britain 1900-1920 , Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1978, p. 81.