#Rejlander the two ways of life series

#Rejlander the two ways of life series

In the third section photographs of RejlanderвЂ™s staged scenes of everyday life are on view followed by a series of photographic studies that Rejlander intended to be used as вЂњphotographic sketchesвЂќ by other artists. The second section of the exhibition contains several of RejlanderвЂ™s self-portraits and portraits of his wife Mary. The section includes some of his non-photographic work including a large scale drawing along with some of his first landscape photographs. The exhibition opens with work created during Rejlander earliest years in England - from 1839 to 1853. вЂњ The National Gallery of Canada began acquiring photographs by Rejlander more than 35 years ago, and we are very happy to offer the public this overview of the work of this exceptional artist.вЂќ He was one of the first artists to show how photography could use allegory and narrative in the same way as more traditional arts such as painting and drawing,вЂќ said NGC Director and CEO Marc Mayer. вЂњ Oscar Gustaf Rejlander has a central place in the history of the medium. Their portraits, along with those of other influential 19th-century notables, includingВ poet Alfred Tennyson are featured in the show.

Rejlander is also praised for his collaboration with naturalist Charles Darwin and his influence on the work of British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and author Lewis Carroll. The exhibition includes two of the four known surviving versions of his famously controversial composite photograph Two Ways of Life, or Hope in Repentance, produced in 1857 from more than 30В negatives. Rejlander often employed the technique of combination photography, where two or more negatives are combined to make a new, single image. He is referred to as the вЂњFather of Art PhotographyвЂќ in recognition of the path he paved for present day photo manipulation and experimentation. Oscar Gustaf Rejlander began his career as a painter who took up photography in the early 1850s. The exhibition features 140 of RejlanderвЂ™s photographs, paintings, drawings and prints.

Rejlander: Artist Photographer opened on October 19 at the National Gallery of Canada where it will be on view until Februbefore travelling to the J. The Canadian Photography Institute of the National Gallery of Canada presents the first-ever retrospective of the life and work of the celebrated Swedish-born, British photographer. Surprisingly there has never been a major examination of his career вЂ¦.until now. See illustration on preceding page.Oscar Gustaf Rejlander (1813-1875) was a Victorian artist whose innovations in both the production and conceptual aspects of photography have secured him a place within the history of the medium. Provenance: Purchased in Streatham (London), by the vendor's grandfather, in the 1920s. An elaborate allegory of the choice between the life of virtue and that of vice (in this version the central figure of a philosopher looks towards vice, in a later version he looks to virtue), this copy is captioned in the photographer's hand 'A Pictorial Composition/from Nature/Dedicated to the Artists of England/by O.G. The Photographic Society of Scotland was so outraged that it initially refused to exhibit the picture, before reluctantly agreeing to hang it behind a curtain.

Some called the picture 'the symbol of a new era in in photography' some doubted the suitability of combining a number of negatives in one composition others questioned the propriety of treating such subjects photographically, or complained of the semi-nudity of some of the models' (Gernsheim, The Rise of Photography 1850-1880, revised edition 1988, p.38). Whilst Queen Victoria approved of the results, purchasing a copy for her husband Albert when it was exhibited at the Manchester Art Treasure Exhibition (1857), the photograph 'provoked heated discussions in photographic circles. He printed the composition from thirty separate negatives of single figures, groups, and different backgrounds, arranging them to form one large tableau. Rejlander's aim with The Two Ways of Life was to counter the criticism aimed at photography that it was merely a mechanical art not worthy of comparison with painting.

One of the most controversial photographs of the nineteenth century, The Two Ways of Life was an important image in the history of photo montage, and the narrative of 'Art photography'.

'The Two Ways of Life', large albumen print on 2 sheets joined, a few surface abrasions and spots, mounted, framed and glazed above a pencil caption in Rejlander's hand 'A Pictorial Composition/from Nature/Dedicated to the Artists of England/by O.G.