CONTEMPORARY ARTS
BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHERS
THE Institute of British Photographers—the organisation for professional photographers in Britain—opened its Coronation Exhibition at the R.B.A. Gallery in Suffolk Street last week. Fifty or sixty years ago an exhibition of comparable importance would have received long notices in The Times, Morning Post and leading daily papers, as well as in the critical periodicals. Today the fact that it was opened by Miss Hermione Gingold is more likely to receive notice than the exhibits.
What has happened to photography in the last two or three generations ? Why are our leading photographic exhibitions regarded as unworthy of serious critical attention ? What has become of hopes that photography—if it did not, as early enthusiasts claimed, " render drawing unnecessary "—would at least establish itself as an important minor art ?
The short answer is that -the work of present-day photographers does not get serious critical notice because it does not deserve it. There are a few photographers in this country who bring to their work imagination, taste and a genuine grasp of their medium—not merely the knowledge of how to get a sharp impression on to a negative, but the capacity to think seriously about what that sharp impression will convey. The vast majority, however, even of those who have reached the level of exhibiting regularly and printing strings of initials after their names, are simply practitioners filling orders. If their productions are considered art, then hair-dressing and confectionery are arts.
Yet, say the supporters of the Institute, that is all very well, but it is unfair to apply any artistic standards to our work. Almost all the 800-odd pictures in the current exhibition were done for clients in industry or advertising. They impose limitations which we are forced to accept. But (overlooking the fact that the Institute labels its exhibition the " Photographers' Royal Academy ") this is only to say that the photographer—like the architect, the stage designer or the decorative artist—is faced with the task of convincing someone else that he should be allowed to do the job as he knows it should be done. Nor are business firms and advertising agents by any means always unenlightened. The most unusual and interesting picture in the present show was taken for Metropolitan-Vickers, and the most beautiful one in last year's show for Shell.
No ! Comparison with other photographic exhibitions makes it clear that photographers themselves must carry responsibility for the total failure of imagination which makes shows of this kind so dull=and, incidentally, so empty of the general public. It is .they who introduce this unhealthy swarm of pop-eyed babies and senti- mental animals, the anaemic landscapes, glutinous film and theatre stars—and such sad ventures into fantasy as a harp with a roll of wallpaper, entitled " Wallpaper Harmony," or a phony thank-you letter against a lace cloth, captioned" A wedding has been arranged."
It is fair to add that there is a mass of competent technical work, photographs of machinery and industrial processes, launching of vessels, construction of bridges, oil-refineries and so on. But even such subjects could be treated with something more than competence, and become more than another piece of industrial recording.
Certainly, if photography is again to receive the consideration it deserves and used. to get, photographers themselves must bring a new climate into their profession. Instead of complacently reposing on their technique for a living, they must struggle to infuse it with the breath of life. It is not necessary that heads should roll—but
Previous page
