Henry Collen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Self-Portrait by Henry Collen (1825)

Henry Collen (born October 9, 1797 in London , † May 8, 1879 ) was an English painter and pioneer of photography .

Collen as a portrait painter

Henry Collen was born in London and was baptized in St. Pancras Church. At the age of 29, he married his wife, Ellen, in Maghera , Ireland, where she grew up.

Collen learned to paint at the Royal Academy of Arts . His teacher was George Hayter , with whose family Collen's family became close friends. Henry Collen was the godfather of Hayter's son Angelo Collen (1819–1898), and Hayter in turn was the godfather of Collen's son Edwin Henry Hayter (1843–1911).

In the 1830s, Henry Collen was personally acquainted with the heir to the throne, Princess Victoria , giving her drawing lessons, and she also sat for several portraits for him (R. Derek Wood (1994)). From 1844 to 1879 Henry Collen was the editor of Debrett's Peerage , which gave him many contacts in the higher society. He was successful as a portrait painter; between 1820 and 1972 he exhibited at least 100 paintings in the Royal Academy and the Society of Botanical Artists (SBA), and in 1821 he was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Academy . Some of his pictures were in the library at Bodelwyddan Castle .

Collen worked with both artists and scientists of his time, such as the astronomer John Herschel , known in the early 1840s , the artist Thomas Scully and his wife. He and his wife were not only close friends with the Hayters, but also with the painter Edwin Landseer , who was known for his pictures of animals and English peasant landscapes, as well as for his design of the four bronze lions at the foot of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square in London.

Collen as a photographer

Queen Victoria with daughter Victoria (1844)

Henry Collen had established himself as a reputable portrait painter by the 1840s, but he was also known for his photographic work by the time. In March 1840 he began experiments in the field of electroplating with the help of daguerreotype plates and in the calotype . The calotype is a method of photography invented around 1835 by the Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) , with which Collen was friends and worked together; Talbot contributed the photographic and Collen the artistic knowledge. Talbot had the patent for the process, and in August 1841 he licensed Collen as the first official calotypist, who had to pay 30 percent of Talbot for the license.

Then Collen opened the first calotype studio for portraits in London. He made around 1,000 portraits that were positively received by his colleagues. He made portraits in the style of miniature painting , which were then painted over, with which Collen combined his two artistic styles. In 1844, Collen and Talbot fell out, and Collen withdrew from photography.

Treaty of Nanking

On August 29, 1842, the Treaty of Nanking was signed between the United Kingdom and China , ending the First Opium War . The original was brought to London by an officer and Henry Collen was commissioned to "photocopy" the contract. In December 1842, in two days in a Foreign Office , he photographed the contract and made two copies, the first photocopies of an official document in history. One copy was intended for the Queen to have the document framed and hung at Buckingham Palace , the second was attached to the original which was returned to China. Collen charged 19 pounds, 13 shillings and 7 pence for it. An album with photocopies of the contract is now in the George Eastman House , the world's oldest photography museum, in Rochester . In this museum there is a large collection of other works by Collen.

literature

  • Larry Schaaf: Henry Collen and the Treaty of Nanking. In: History of Photography. Vol. 6, No. 4, October 1982, ISSN  0308-7298 , pp. 353-366; Addenda to Henry Collen and the Treaty of Nanking. In: History of Photography. Vol. 7, No. 2, April / June 1983, pp. 163-165.
  • Robert A. Sobieszek: British Masters of the Albumen Print. A selection of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Victorian Photography. University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL a. a. 1976, ISBN 0-226-69171-3 .
  • Helmut Gernsheim : A Concise History of Photography. 3rd, revised edition. Dover Publications, New York NY 1986, ISBN 0-486-25128-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chrono Media on terramedia.co.uk
  2. ↑ Henry Collen on npg.org.uk
  3. ↑ P. Derek Wood: "hotocopying the Treaty of Nanking in January 1843 / Part 1" at midley.co.uk, 1994

Web links

Commons : Henry Collen  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Collen, Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English painter and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1879
Place of death London