Emma Barton (photographer)
Emma Boaz Barton , nee Rayson, (born October 5, 1872 in Birmingham , † March 31, 1938 on the Isle of Wight ) was an English photographer. Her works are assigned to the pictorial style of photography.
Life and artistic career
Emma Barton was born as the first of six children to the married couple Ambrose and Elisabeth Emma Rayson. Her middle name Boaz corresponds to the maiden name of her maternal grandmother Emma Collins. Emma's father was a worker and among other things worked as a railway conductor, carter and lock keeper. He passed away when Emma was thirteen years old. Her mother married the axle maker Edgar Birchley in 1890. His brother-in-law Walter Baker continued a photo studio founded by Birchley's parents.
Emma Barton attended school between the ages of five and twelve. At the time of her mother's remarriage, she worked as an employee in a factory owner's office. It is believed that she acquired her photographic skills in the studio of her stepfather's family. The earliest known portrait depicting her (a profile shot) dates from around 1890 and could have been created in Baker's studio.
For the period between 1891 and 1893, there is no reliable knowledge of Barton's living conditions. But she must have met her husband, the solicitor George Albert Barton (1867–1950), during this time ; a first daughter was born in 1892.
By 1901 the couple had four more children. The Bartons subsequently changed their place of residence in the vicinity of Birmingham several times, with improvements in the standard of the houses and their surroundings until the end of the First World War. From 1932 the couple lived permanently at Vernon Cottage, Shanklin , Isle of Wight.
The oldest photographs taken and preserved by Emma Barton, three children's pictures, date from 1896 and 1897.
The Barton family was related to the variety star Dan Leno (1860-1904, real name: George Galvin). Since Leno's photographs were in high demand by the press, Emma Barton took the opportunity to portray him and offer the pictures for publication. The photographs appeared in various press publications in 1898 and contributed to Barton's fame in circles interested in photography.
After she was able to exhibit a single picture (meditation) for the first time at a show of the Royal Photographic Society in 1901 , a year later, in February 1902, eleven of her works were presented to the public at the annual exhibition of the Birmingham Photographic Society in Birmingham, including this one Image Alma Mater .
Her increasing popularity and the recognition she received for her photos culminated in 1904 with a high point in public perception of her works, a so-called "House Exhibition", a solo exhibition at the Royal Photographic Society with over 60 images.
Exhibitions and awards in America and France followed. In 1911 she presented autochromes, i.e. color photographs, for the first time at exhibitions. The last picture published and exhibited during her lifetime is considered The Squire (1932).
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Emma Barton's early pictures mostly show children and religious subjects. In general, she was modeled on her own children, her maid, and herself.
Her religiously motivated pictures of the subject Madonna and Child are among the most emotionally expressive pictures of the mother of five.
In this respect, among other things, the picture Alma Mater , a self-portrait in the style of the Old Masters with her youngest son Cecil (born 1901), takes up the motif of Mary breastfeeding Christ . This was first presented to the public at the Birmingham exhibition in 1902. The self-portrayal as the Mother of God with a halo was not without controversy, it was questioned by the contemporary critic Anthony Guest as "quite daring".
For her picture The Awakening , she was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Photographic Society of the United Kingdom in 1903. According to her own statement, she wanted to show the moment a child woke up in the arms of his mother in the picture without a rigid pose, she had already succeeded in doing this on the first attempt.
In addition to Pre-Raphaelite style elements, Emma Barton also used those from the Old Masters or the Arts and Crafts Movement, which was strong in her hometown of Birmingham . For portraits or her "Window Photographs", that is, pictures taken in front of a bright window (such as the An Indoor Group showing her children and herself ), she used the so-called Rembrandt-, which is recommended at the time for the advantageous portrayal of women with full necks and chins. Effect. For this purpose, the main light source was positioned behind the person to be depicted and the face in the shadow was brightened by means of a reflector. She painted the backgrounds for studio recordings herself.
Deviating from the early recordings characterized by an intimate motherly love, she later also made individual portraits of women in which a feeling of lack of love is immanent (e.g. My Sweet Highland Mary (1911) or There Was a Knight Came Riding By ( 1920)).
Emma Barton also used the possibilities of early color photography, the autochrome process. The passionate garden lover took both colored outdoor shots in lush, horticultural surroundings, with a certain melancholy effect, as well as minimalist conceptualized studio shots with an exemplary balance of light, colors and clear, simple shapes, for example in the picture The Blue Turban (1911) .
Emma Barton signed most of her pictures with Mrs. GA Barton , using her husband's initials.
techniques
Emma Barton used a number of contemporary processes for the positive production, including fine printing processes such as rubber printing, platinum printing or carbon printing , and later also the colored autochrome process . When building a new house for the Barton couple in Sutton Coldfield in northern Birmingham around 1900, a darkroom was provided during the planning phase.
Little is known about the camera technology she uses. In the years of her first public success, she used a plate camera with a Cooke triplet with a maximum aperture of 1: 6.5, and later, in addition to a plate camera for half-format plates, also a Kodak bullet camera for roll film .
literature
- Peter James, Tessa Sidey, John Taylor: Sunlight and Shadow: The Photographs of Emma Barton 1872–1938. Birmingham Libraries and Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham 1995, ISBN 0-7093-0207-X .
Web links
- Royal Photographic Society website with an image gallery included with a variety of photographs by Emma Barton
- Luminous-lint website via Emma Barton, accessed October 13, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Barton, Emma |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Emma Boaz Rayson |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 5, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Birmingham |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 31, 1938 |
| Place of death | Isle of Wight |