HESCAH Lecture + Reception with Dr. Anne Lyden

"With an Eye to Profit: Photographic Studios in 19th Century Scotland”
Anne Lyden, International Photography Curator at the National Galleries of Scotland

In 1840, just one year after photography was announced to the world, Scotland was yet to have a single photographic studio. By 1845 there were three. However, in the ensuing years after the Great Exhibition of 1851, this figure increased exponentially as photography became more accessible and popular for practitioner and patron alike. From George Washington Wilson in Aberdeen to James Valentine in Dundee; from Thomas Annan in Glasgow to Ross & Thomson in Edinburgh, Scotland’s main cities boasted some of the major photographic studios of the nineteenth century. The artistic merit of the work produced was not forsaken with an eye to profit: the fact that prints by these highly prolific commercial enterprises are still widely collected and represented in collections all over the world, including the National Galleries of Scotland is testament to their lasting impact.

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