"Windmill, Kempsey,
Worcestershire," 1852-54. Albumen print from paper negative,
collection Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Benjamin
Brecknell Turner:
NEW YORK CITY
"Benjamin Brecknell Turner: " presents an impressive series of
large-format scenes depicting quintessentially English subjects:
ruined castles and abbeys; thatched barns, crumbling cottages and
half-timbered houses; woodland paths and ancient oaks. Turner's
picturesque and poetic images reveal a rough-hewn beauty in
rustic subjects and express a moral value found in tradition,
nature and rural life and labor.
The exhibition, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, is
on view in the Howard Gilman Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art
Director Philippe de Montebello commented, "These exquisite
photographs, created in the midst of the Industrial Revolution by
a man who found an antidote to the ills of his time in a pastoral
tradition, have retained the power to work their magic on the
modern soul. Like so many great works of art, they transport us
to another world, delight the eye and soothe the spirit."
Nearly all of the works included in "Benjamin Brecknell Turner: "
are drawn from one magnificent album, Photographic Views from
Nature, assembled by the artist in 1854 or 1855 and passed
down in his family until it was acquired by London's Victoria and
Albert Museum in 1982.
"Hawkhurst Church, Kent ('A Photographic Truth')," 1852.
Albumen silver print from paper negative, collection Victoria
and Albert Museum, London.
Turner, who was born in London in 1815 and entered the family
candle and saddle soap business at the age of 16, first took up
photography in 1849, when the medium was barely a decade old.
Like many early practitioners, he was a "gentleman amateur" for
whom photography was a passion, not a profession, so he made only
a few prints of each image. Photographic Views from Nature
constitutes the richest group of Turner's rare surviving prints.
The album opens with two views of the Crystal Palace, Joseph
Paxton's vast iron and glass pavilion built for the Great
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851 - the
first world's fair. "Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, 1852, Transept"
shows the building after its six million visitors had left and
its thousands of exhibits had been removed - an empty, enormous
modern greenhouse built around an ancient elm. Two lacy networks
- tree branches and iron trusses - form a visual metaphor for
nature and industry, tradition and modernity, all issues central
to the artist's work.
Most of Turner's photographs eschew the modern, urban world in
favor of country scenes and historic subjects. The artist
described his approach to picture-making by way of a Washington
Irving text he chose to accompany his photograph in The
Photographic Album for the Year 1855: "England does not
abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little
home-scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique
farmhouse and moss grown cottage is a picture."
Many of Turner's best photographs, such as "Foldyard, Bredicot
Court" (1852-54) and "Hedgerow Trees, Clerkenleap" (1852-54),
were made quite close to home, at his picturesquely rundown farm
near the village of Bredicot and in other nearby Worcestershire
towns.
Other photographs in the album represent historic architecture -
Hawkhurst Church mirrored in a pond, a windmill at Kempsey,
Ludlow Castle and a gateway at Peterborough Cathedral and others.
Among the most striking are a series of dramatic photographs made
in 1852-54 at Whitby Abbey, a Thirteenth Century Benedictine
cloister in Yorkshire, the gaunt remains of which sit atop a
cliff high above the town.
Turner depicted the abbey in a progression beginning from a
distant point to the very heart of the ruined structure, evoking
all the connotations such sites inspired in the Romantic era -
the echo of history, the reminder of mortality and the inexorable
reclaiming of man's construction by nature.
At the Metropolitan Museum, the exhibition is curated by Malcolm
Daniel, associate curator and administrator in the department of
photographs. The exhibition is designed by Michael Batista,
exhibition designer, with graphics by Constance Norkin, graphic
designer, and lighting by Zack Zanolli, lighting designer.
"Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, from the North East," 1852-54.
Albumen silver print from paper negative, collection Victoria
and Albert Museum, London.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog,
Benjamin Brecknell Turner: (London: V&A Publications,
2001, and Harry N. Abrams, Inc, New York) by Martin Barnes with
an introduction by Daniel and biography by Mark Haworth-Booth,
available at the Metropolitan Museum book shop for $39.95.
Martin Barnes, assistant curator of photographs at the Victoria
and Albert Museum and organizing curator of the exhibition, will
give a slide lecture on Sunday, April 21, at 3 pm in the Uris
Center Auditorium.
Gallery talks led by the Metropolitan Museum's curator Malcolm
Daniel will take place on Friday, March 29, at 7 pm, and on
Wednesday, April 10, at 11 am. Daniel will provide a scholarly
introduction to readings of Victorian poetry in the gallery at
6:15 pm on Saturday, April 13.
The museum is at 1000 Fifth Avenue. Hours are Friday and
Saturday, 9:30 am to 9 pm; and Sunday and Tuesday to Thursday,
9:30 am to 5:30 pm. For information, 212-535-7710.
