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Anna Atkins

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Anna Atkins (née Children; 16 March 1799 – 9 June 1871) was a botanist and photographer native to England.[1]She is recalled as the creator of the first book to be illustrated and printed through photographic processes.[2][3][4][5] Some regard her as the earliest female photographer[2][5][6][7]; the making of her images, cyanotypes by process and materiality, did not involve the use of a camera.[8]

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Anna Atkins
 
Born16 March 1799
Tonbridge, Kent, England
Died9 June 1871 (aged 72)
Halstead Place, Sevenoaks, Kent, England
Known forVery early botanical photographs, 1843 book Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1st book illustrated with photographic images)
SpouseJohn Pelly Atkins

Early life[edit]

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A town in Southeast England named Tonbridge, Kent became the birthplace of Anna Atkins in 1799.[1] Her mother, Hester Anne Children, "didn't recover from the effects of childbirth" and died in 1800.[6][9] This loss drew her emotionally close to her father, John George Children, who was an investigator of astronomy, chemistry, electricity, entomology, mineralogy, and zoology.[10][9][11] Notably, he constructed a laboratory within their home.[12][11] Anna was born into a family of wealth.[13]

Through involvement in her father's academic activities, Anna received an education whose quality was rare for a female of this period.[14][11] Holding positions such as fellow of the Royal Society, assistant librarian at the British Museum, and president of the Royal Entomological Society of London, Children was a catalyst for Atkins' scientific endeavors; he introduced her to esteemed colleagues, allowed her to read scientific papers acquired by him, and recounted what he absorbed during lectures to her.[15][11][9][12] Her father frequently was the one to transmit information regarding Anna through his correspondence, which is thought to elucidate why her self-inscribed record is limited.[15]

When her father translated Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's Genera of Shells into English, Anna was asked to create naturalistic drawings meant to aid readers in their identification of specimens - depictions that would subsequently be adapted by an engraver for the purposes of printing.[11][9] These shell illustrations, amounting to 256 images defined by their scientific integrity, were rendered with graphite and watercolor between 1822 and 1824.[9]

In 1825, she married John Pelly Atkins, a London West India merchant, county sheriff, and proponent of railways; during this same year, she moved to Halstead Place (the Atkins family home near Sevenoaks, Kent).[11][15] They had no children.[16] Later in life, having been painting them for decades, Anna gifted her husband a set of watercolor landscapes.[8]

Atkins pursued her interests in botany during her twenties by keeping a collection of dried plants, also known as an herbarium - ones which were likely used later for photograms.[11] With those she gathered and those lent by friends, she engaged in a practice of preserving specimens with the assistance of a flower press.[11][8] She was elected a member of the London Botanical Society in 1839, an institution which was distinct in its inclusion of women in scientific spheres during this part of history.[11][17]

Development of a Photographic Practice[edit]

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Anna Atkins emerged as a photographer during the Victorian era, a period of scientific fascination and of gender-based hierarchy described by the "doctrine of separate spheres".[18]

John George Children and John Pelly Atkins were friends of William Henry Fox Talbot.[19][9] Children was the secretary at an 1839 Royal Society meeting in which Talbot explained his newfound iteration on the "photogenic drawing" technique (in which an object is placed on light-sensitized paper and exposed to the sun to produce an image).[20][8][15] At first through her father, Anna learned from Talbot about this aforementioned technique, as well as its refined version, the calotype - rather than their bond being one of competition, it is believed that she shared his "excitement of the potential of photography on paper".[20][21][15]

Anna was known to have had access to a camera by 1841.[9] Some sources claim that Atkins was the first female photographer,[2][5][6][7]while others attribute this title to Constance Fox Talbot.[22]

In 1842, a companion of Atkins and Children named Sir John Herschel invented the cyanotype photographic process.[5] Within a year, Atkins applied the process to algae (specifically, seaweed) by making cyanotype photograms that were contact printed "by placing the unmounted dried-algae original directly on the cyanotype paper".[6] It may be noted that this process gave way to relatively "permanent" and "'accurate'" botanical images.[15][23]

Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions[edit]

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A cyanotype photogram made by Atkins which was part of her 1843-53 book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions
 
Detail of title page of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions

Through application of algae garnered along the coast of Great Britain, Atkins self-published her photograms in the first installment of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in October 1843.[4][24] At first, Anna's projection was for her illustrations to serve as a complementary work when paired with William Harvey’s Manual of British Algae (1841); the two volumes did not maintain this preconceived relationship, however the manual was essential to Anna as a reference for nomenclature.[5][23][25] Significant to the contents of this work, the specimens were identified by their scientific names in Latin.[3][26] Along with the aid of servants, the entire set of books took approximately ten years to produce; subscribers themselves sewed the fascicles together gradually, as the component pages were sent individually upon completion.[8]

Although privately published, with handwritten text and a limited number of copies, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions is considered the first book illustrated with photographic images.[4][2][5][27] Prior to this point, it was typesetting and non-photographic illustration that enabled the publication of manuals; Atkins's novel production contributed to the pursuit of studying the sciences by way of replicable visuals.[15] Applying the freedoms of her chosen method, Atkins composed the characters of select titles in British Algae with strands of seaweed.[15]

Eight months later, in June 1844, the first fascicle of William Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature was released; that book was the "first photographically illustrated book to be commercially published"[28] or "the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs".[29] During the process of crafting and distributing their books, Atkins and Talbot exchanged fragments of these two works.[15]

Atkins produced a total of three volumes of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions between 1843 and 1853.[30] Only 17 copies of the book are known to exist, in various states of completeness.[31] Copies are now held by the following institutions, among others:[6][10]

As an effect of the book's rarity and historical importance, a single copy with 411 plates in three volumes sold for £133,500 at auction in 1996.[30][10] Another copy with 382 prints in two volumes which was owned by scientist Robert Hunt (1807–1887) sold for £229,250 at auction in 2004.[31]

Later life and work[edit]

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Cyanotype photogram of Wood Horsetail from the 1853 book Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Fernsby Atkins and Dixon

Disagreement exists in the crediting of Anna Atkins to the publication of five novels between 1852 and 1863.[42][15] Those in question include The Perils of Fashion, The Colonel: a story of fashionable life, Murder will Out: a story of real life, and A Page from the Peerage.[42][15] Scholar Larry Schaaf illuminates the source of these attributions as cataloguing by the then British Museum; he implies that there is a lack of evidence supporting her association to these works.[15]

Anna's father died on 1 January 1852.[43] Signed A.A. at its private printing during 1853, Memoir of J.G. Children, Esq. (Including Some Unpublished Poetry by Father and Himself) chronicled the life of her father.[15][44]

In the 1850s, Atkins collaborated with Anne Dixon (1799–1877) - an "almost sister" to Anna and a cousin to novelist Jane Austen - in botanical and artistic pursuits.[45][23] Friends since childhood, Dixon was a consoling force towards Anna when her father died in 1852; during the summer of that year, the two collected and made sun prints of organic specimens.[45][6] Together, they produced at least three presentation albums of cyanotype photograms:[23][6]

  • Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns (1853), now in the J. Paul Getty Museum;
  • Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns (1854), disassembled pages of which are held by various museums and collectors;
  • An album inscribed to "Captain Henry Dixon," Anne Dixon's nephew (1861).[45]

Algae, lace, ferns, feathers, and waterweeds in part constitute the imagery that Atkins documented through the cyanotype process during her life.[2][23]Atkins retained the plant specimens that she used in her work and in 1865 donated the collection to the British Museum. [26]

In 1871, she died at Halstead Place of "paralysis, rheumatism, and exhaustion" at the age of 72.[6]

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On 16 March 2015, internet search engine Google commemorated Atkins's 216th birthday by insetting a Google Doodle on its search page that was representative of her cyanotype contributions - visually, it involved pale leaves (approximating the letter shapes of the company's name) surrounded by characteristically blue negative space.[46][47]

Atkins work was a major feature in the New Realities: Photography in the Nineteenth Century exhibition held in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, June – September 2017.[48]

Additionally, the reverberations of Atkins's work were clear at the New York Public Library (NYPL) in a set of companion exhibitions.[49][50] One, Blue Prints: The Pioneering Photographs of Anna Atkins, was on view from October 19th, 2018 to February 17th, 2019.[50] The other, Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works, was open from September 28th, 2018 to January 6th, 2019; remarking upon Atkins's enduring effect on the nature of artistic practice, it featured the visual work of nineteen creatives.[49]

The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and The First Book of Photographs by Fiona Robinson, a picture book biography, was published by Abrams Books for Young Readers on February 12th, 2019.[11] Robinson's illustrated text is accompanied by Atkins's cyanotypes in this biography, whose subject is described by Kirkus Reviews as "a pioneering woman whose intellectual passions culminated in published works of beauty and scientific verisimilitude".[11][51]

Critical and Scholarly Perspectives [edit]

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Although in the past mainstream photographic historians have been sparse in their scholarship devoted to her, increasing attention towards and publication about Atkins have been noted.[2][5][6][7]

In an 1848 edition of the Art-Union, photographic historian and researcher Robert Hunt expressed his reception of "specimens of the British Algae executed by a lady, by the cyanotype process, that are remarkable for the extreme fidelity with which even the most attenuated tendrils of the marine plants are copied".[15]

Larry Schaaf, scholar of photography, emphasized the "democratizing effect" of photography that Atkins's British Algae foretold - as well as how it speaks to its creator's "imagination and perseverance".[15]

Within Anna Atkins: Photographs of British Algae, curator Hope Saska observes the reciprocity across disciplines that this work evokes; noting that her "contributions to botanical illustration and photographic publishing...are remarkable", Saska illuminates the potential for conversation between "the fine arts, natural sciences, and early photography" in the presence of this book.[24]

Bibliography[edit]

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  • Atkins, Anna (2020) [1843]. Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (Sir John Herschel's Copy). Gerhard Steidl Druckerei und Verlag. ISBN
  • (1853). Memoir of J. C. Children, including some unpublished poetry by his father and himself. London: John Bowye Nichols and Sons. OCLC

See also[edit]

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References

  1. ^ a b Schaaf, L. J. (2003), "Atkins [née Children], Anna", Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 2020-11-29
  2. ^ a b c d e f James, Christopher (Christopher P.), 1947- (2009). The book of alternative photographic processes (2nd ed ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning. ISBN 1-4180-7372-5. OCLC 166372761. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b Mayer, Allana (2017-07-17). "The Artful Science of Anna Atkins". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2020-11-29.
  4. ^ a b c Parr,, Martin (2004). The Photobook : a history. Badger, Gerry. London: Phaidon. ISBN 978-0-7148-4285-1. OCLC 56658197.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g "Seeing is Believing: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration. Cyanotype photograph. Anna Atkins (1799-1871)". seeing.nypl.org. New York Public Library. Retrieved 11 August 2009. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help); Check date values in: |archive-date= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Atkins, Anna (1985). Sun gardens: Victorian photograms. Schaaf, Larry J., Kraus, Hans P. New York, N.Y.: Aperture. ISBN 0-89381-203-X. OCLC 12934968.
  7. ^ a b c Clarke,, Graham (1997). The Photograph. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-284248-X. OCLC 35777437.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  8. ^ a b c d e Farago, Jason (11 November 2018). "She Needed No Camera to Make the First Book of Photographs (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Lotzof, Kerry. "Anna Atkins's cyanotypes: the first book of photographs". Natural History Museum. Retrieved 29 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ a b c Ware, Mike (1999). Cyanotype: The Future, Science, and Art of Photographic Printing in Prussian Blue. Bradford, U.K.: National Museum of Photography, Film & Television.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Robinson, Fiona (2019). The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and The First Book of Photographs. New York, New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-1-4197-2551-7.
  12. ^ a b "John George Children". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ a b Pollack, Maika (11 January 2019). "The Woman Who Made the World's First Photobook". Aperture. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Anna Atkins | English photographer and botanist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 30 November 2020. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Schaaf, Larry (1979). "The First Photographically Printed and Illustrated Book". The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 73 (2): 209–224. doi:10.1086/pbsa.73.2.24302456. ISSN 0006-128X.
  16. ^ "John Pelly Atkins". University College London. Legacies of british Slave Owndership. Retrieved 16 March 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ John, Hannavy (16 December 2013). Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Routledge. ISBN 9780203941782.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  18. ^ Steinbach, Susie. "Victorian era | History, Society, & Culture". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-12-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ "Anna Atkins (British, 1799 - 1871) (Getty Museum)". The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  20. ^ a b "Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions - NYPL Digital Collections". digitalcollections.nypl.org. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  21. ^ "Calotypes". University of Oxford | Museum of the History of Science. Retrieved 4 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ^ Arnold, H.J.P. (1977). William Henry Fox Talbot, Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science. London: Hutchinson Benham. p. 119. ISBN 9780091296001.
  23. ^ a b c d e "Anna Atkins: British, 1799-1871". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ a b Saska, Hope (2010-03-01). "Anna Atkins: Photographs of British Algae". Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts. 84 (1–4): 8–15. doi:10.1086/DIA23183243. ISSN 0011-9636.
  25. ^ a b "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions | 1843-53". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2000–2020. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  26. ^ a b Moorhead, Joanna (23 June 2017). "Blooming marvellous: the world's first female photographer – and her botanical beauties". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 June 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  27. ^ Focal encyclopedia of photography : digital imaging, theory and applications, history, and science. Peres, Michael R. (4th ed. ed.). Amsterdam: Focal. 2007. ISBN 978-0-08-047784-8. OCLC 499055803. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: others (link)
  28. ^ "Book of the Month. William Henry Fox Talbot. The Pencil of Nature". Glasgow University Library, Special Collections Department. February 2007. Retrieved 11 August 2009. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  29. ^ "William Henry Fox Talbot: The Pencil of Nature (1994.197.1-.6)". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Timeline of Art History. New York, New York. October 2006. Retrieved 11 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  30. ^ a b "Rare book by woman pioneer goes to auction". The Guardian (London). 10 June 1996.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  31. ^ a b c "ANNA ATKINS (1799-1871) , Photographs of British Algæ. Cyanotype Impressions., Robert Hunt's copy". www.christies.com. 19 May 2004. Retrieved 13 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  32. ^ "Catalogue of photographically illustrated books. Atkins, Anna. Photographs of British algae. Cyanotype impressions". The British Library | Catalogue of Photographically Illustrated Books. Retrieved 11 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  33. ^ Genocchio, Benjamin (4 July 2004). "ART REVIEW; Where Art and Botany Coupled, Photography Evolved". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 August 2009.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  34. ^ "Catalog entry for Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions". New York Public Library. Retrieved 11 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  35. ^ "NYPL digital gallery. Browse source titles. Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions". New York Public Library | Digital Library. 11 June 2008. Retrieved 11 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  36. ^ Teanby, Rose (22 May 2018). "The gift of 1843". The Royal Society | The Repository. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  37. ^ "Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale) | Atkins, Anna |". V&A Search the Collections. 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  38. ^ "Catalog entry for Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions". The Linnean Society of London. Retrieved 18 January 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  39. ^ Murphy, Adrian (20 October 2013). "Celebrating Women in Science: Anna Atkins". Horniman Museum and Gardens. Retrieved 1 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  40. ^ "Rijksmuseum acquires PHOTO Book by First Female Photographer". Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 14 May 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  41. ^ "Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions". umontreal.on.worldcat.org (in French). Université de Montréal Library. Retrieved 2 March 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  42. ^ a b Boase, Frederic (1908). Modern English Biography: Containing Many Thousand Concise Memoirs of Persons who have Died During the Years 1851-1900, with an Index of the Most Interesting Matter, Volume 4. Netherton and Worth, For the author.
  43. ^ "Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002 | Biographical Index Part One" (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. Retrieved 4 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  44. ^ Anna Atkins (1853). Memoir of J.G. Children, esq. [signed A.A.]. Oxford University.
  45. ^ a b c "Anne Dixon (British, 1799 - 1877) (Getty Museum)". The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  46. ^ McSpadden, Kevin (15 March 2015). "New Google Doodle Honors Anna Atkins, Photography Pioneer". Time. Retrieved 29 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  47. ^ "Anna Atkins' 216th Birthday". Google. March 16, 2015. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  48. ^ Boom, Mattie; Asser, Saskia; Joseph, Steven F.; Jurgens, Martin C.; Rooseboom, Hans (2017). New Realities: Photography in the 19th Century. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Publications Department.
  49. ^ a b "Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works". New York Public Library. 2020. Retrieved 29 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  50. ^ a b "Blue Prints: The Pioneering Photographs of Anna Atkins". New York Public Library. 2020. Retrieved 29 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  51. ^ "Kirkus: The Bluest of Blues". Kirkus Reviews. 15 October 2018. Retrieved 30 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Further reading[edit]

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  • Armstrong, Carol; Catherine de Zegher (2004). Ocean flowers: impressions from nature . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11948-1
  • Gerhard Bissell, Atkins, Anna, in: Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon(Artists of the World), Suppl. I, Saur, Munich 2005, from p. 514 (in German).
  • Schaaf, Larry (1985). Sun gardens : Victorian photograms . New York: Aperture. ISBN 089381203X
  • Schaaf, Larry (2018). Sun gardens : cyanotypes by Anna Atkins . New York: New York Public Library. ISBN 9783791357980

External links[edit]

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anna Atkins.
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