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Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph - cover image

Copyright

Lionel Gossman

Published On

2015-05-25

ISBN

Paperback978-1-78374-127-4
Hardback978-1-78374-128-1
PDF978-1-78374-129-8
HTML978-1-80064-484-7
XML978-1-78374-646-0
EPUB978-1-78374-130-4
MOBI978-1-78374-131-1

Language

  • English

Print Length

192 pages (x + 182)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 10 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.41" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 13 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.5" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback613g (21.62oz)
Hardback991g (34.96oz)

Media

Illustrations140

Funding

  • The University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Princeton University

OCLC Number

910991780

LCCN

2019452883

BIC

  • AJ
  • AJB

BISAC

  • PHO010000
  • PHO014000
  • PHO001000
  • PHO023040
  • PHO016000

LCC

  • TR820.5

Keywords

  • Thomas Annan
  • photography
  • documentary
  • Glasgow
  • portraits
  • landscapes
  • Victorian Scotland

Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

  • Lionel Gossman (author)
In the wake of Glasgow’s transformation in the nineteenth-century into an industrial powerhouse, the "Second City of the Empire,” a substantial part of the old town of Adam Smith degenerated into an overcrowded and disease-ridden slum. The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, Thomas Annan’s photographic record of this central section of the city prior to its demolition in accordance with the City of Glasgow Improvements Act of 1866, is widely recognized as a classic of nineteenth-century documentary photography. Annan’s achievement as a photographer of paintings and a portrait and landscape photographer is less widely known. Thomas Annan: Photographer of Victorian Scotland offers a handy, comprehensive and copiously illustrated overview of the full range of the photographer’s work. The book opens with a brief account of the immediate context of Annan’s career as a photographer: the astonishing florescence of photography in Victorian Scotland. Successive chapters deal with each of the main fields of his activity, touching along the way on issues such as the nineteenth-century debate over the status of photography — a mechanical practice or an artistic one? — and the still ongoing controversies surrounding the documentary photograph in particular. While the text itself is intended for the general reader, extensive endnotes amplify particular themes and offer guidance to readers interested in pursuing these themes further.

Reviews

The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow [...] is widely recognized as a classic of nineteenth-century documentary photography. However, Annan’s achievement as a photographer of paintings, portraits, and landscapes is less widely known. To repair this neglect, Thomas Annan of Glasgow offers a handy, comprehensive and copiously illustrated overview of the full range of the photographer’s work.

The Photo Review Newsletter, 2015.

Contents

1. Introduction

(pp. 1–24)
  • Lionel Gossman

2. Paintings

(pp. 25–38)
  • Lionel Gossman

3. Portraits

(pp. 39–48)
  • Lionel Gossman

4. Landscapes

(pp. 49–66)
  • Lionel Gossman
  • Lionel Gossman
  • Lionel Gossman

7. Epilogue

(pp. 125–126)
  • Lionel Gossman

Endnotes

(pp. 127–162)
  • Lionel Gossman

Contributors

Lionel Gossman

(author)
M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Romance Language at Princeton University