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The Getty Library

December 19, 2008 2 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mao Tse Tung and Lana Turner, cheek by jowl in the archives.

This print is worth thousands, because of the Picture Post label and the stamps on the back.

The alchemy of conservation

Prints of the royal family by a now unheard of, female photographer, awaiting to be flattened and placed in an archival paper album.

A reticulated glass negative.

The reticulated print of Eva Peron, and next to it, the restored image.

Legendary names

Daguerrotypes set in beautiful little gold frames

Photographic miniatures, tintypes. At that time, there were many competing technologies.

A panoramic of San Franscisco, before the earthquake.

The Man Ray print. Man Ray was considered a minor photographer before the 1980’s.

I was lucky enough to get a tour of the Getty/Hulton archives this week. The library where I have my rock/pop images, Redferns, has been sold to Getty. David Redfern, the legendary jazz photographer, has finally retired.

It was in some ways like a trip down memory lane. My father had a massive photo library with royal weddings and the Balcombe Street seige, sometimes on 5 x 4 glass plates. I felt a comforting sense of nostalgia as I walked through the stacked shelves, jammed neatly with boxes, their spines sporting historic names and events, hand written in felt tip. The whiff of cardboard, the scent of chemicals, fixer and silver celluloid plunges me into the past.
Matt, who gave us the tour, explained that even in the 1980’s, newspapers such as the Daily Express were simply chucking out their film and print libraries. Getty, fortunately agreed to store them. Now the Daily Express are kicking themselves. Some of the prints alone are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Probably their most valuable print, kept in a special vault of historic prints, is a Man Ray, which lay for years unidentified in a box. One sold recently for 1.25 million.
There are now serious collectors of photography, such as Elton John and Brad Pitt.
A photographer’s back catalogue is his or her pension. The problem today is of course, how to preserve digital photography. Matt said that at recent conferences on the subject, the experts from Kodak had to admit, somewhat ruefully, that the only guarantee of preserving digital images for the future, is to print them out. Yes, we still need hard copies. And nobody is printing anything out nowadays, things are shared and sent via a smoke whisp of electrical pixels. A silver gelatine print, we know, will last 150 years.
We were also showed the conservation room, filled with archival paper, various chemicals in bottles, tweezers and microscopes. It was like CSI for photographers. On various surfaces were curled up postcard size prints of the royal family taken in the 1940’s by a now unknown female photographer. These are almost reportage style pictures of the Queen and Princess Margaret at home.
Getty conservation team consists of one man only: he has to be creative. Given glass plates of Eva Peron, which had been ruined by reticulation (1), he painstakingly soaked each plate in a solution, floated off the thin membrane of silver gelatine containing the image, and placed it carefully on a new pane of glass. Each plate took 5 hours.
Matt also talked of his time working in the BBC library where two old ladies who had worked there for around 40 years confessed that they threw away 19th century prints that they considered ‘saucy’.
The Getty library was formed by John Paul Getty II, who did something useful with his money, donating to the National Gallery and the British Film Institute.
Speaking of the Getty family, I’ll always remember as a child being touched by the tragic plight and angelic countenance of John Paul Getty III, who was kidnapped by Italians who cut off his ear and sent it in an envelope to extort a ransom from his billionnaire grandfather John Paul Getty I. The latter refused to pay the ransom saying that if he paid for this grandchild, then all the others would be at risk also. Harsh but true, although one can scarcely imagine the damage caused by this experience to Jean Paul Getty III.
(1) Reticulation can also be used deliberately and creatively.

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Comments

  1. Ben Emlyn-Jones

    December 20, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    I can sense the nostalgia that you, as a photographer, felt in your description, ML. I get the same feeling whenever I see those brown pop-stud jackets when I watch "The Royal" I think Eric Idle wrote a song about the Getty Library. I heard it once. It contained a line that went something like "everything outside of a wet dream at the Getty"!

    Reply
  2. marmitelover

    December 22, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    It is apparently the largest photo archive in the world. And soon it will have my pictures too hooray.

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

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Looking at vegetables in Italy. Photo by @loredana Looking at vegetables in Italy. Photo by @loredanaparisi72
My piece in the @hamandhigh about the 3 day @heat My piece in the @hamandhigh about the  3 day @heathostile training course. Incredibly interesting & challenging. Link: https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/things-to-do/hostile-environment-training-9037980 to read more #hostileenvironmenttraining
Supper club dishes from Saturday: pickled beetroot Supper club dishes from Saturday: pickled beetroot eggs, cheeseboard, stracciatella & cucumber, tomato/strawberry/peashoot salad with real balsamic & spruce oil, home cured dill gravlax, smoked salmon, homemade sourdough crisp bread, potato salad with wild fennel & lots more! #supperclub #midsummer #eattherainbow (miss you @linnsoederstroem)
Last nights supper club. My first supper club in 2 Last nights supper club. My first supper club in 2 years was great fun. I’m pleased with my food, the guests were lovely, it looked magical in the garden. But the weather! I even had to bring my duvets from the bedroom out. They looked like refugees. But this brought even more laughter! Next event September
My first supperclub in two years will take place t My first supperclub in two years will take place this Saturday 18th June starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £50 byo you can book here: https://msmarmitelover.com/product/midsommar-supper-club there are still a few places left. Pescetarian menu. Scandi and botanical influences. #gettingbackonmyfeet #postpandemic #smallbusinesses #supperclub #london
I recently completed the 3 day @heathostile train I recently completed the 3 day  @heathostile training course. On the last day I was kidnapped by ex-special forces for a few hours & learnt how to deal with compliance training & a hostile environment. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. 3 intense days of combat first aid, navigation & how to survive in a war zone. I handled short, long guns, mortars, grenades, bullets, and tourniquet & bandaged an amputee. I learnt where to sit in a car, where to hide from a bullet, where to protect myself if in a car. It was brilliant. Highly recommended for any journalists, photographers, cameramen, charity workers, paramedics going into any difficult environment say a disaster or war. The stories from the tutors & the other participants were so interesting. My piece on it out soon. Book a course: https://hostile-environment.co.uk/  They also do jungle & desert training. I’d love to join the Antarctic expedition. Anyway that’s me hooded in the front. #adventures #het #hostileenvironmenttraining #experiences #travel
Bundoran beach, Donegal. I spent a week knocking o Bundoran beach, Donegal. I spent a week knocking on doors, going to libraries, searching through graveyards for my Irish forebears. It’s really hard to find information prior to 1850. I found this in last years trip to Arbroath in Scotland. Headstones wear out, records are lost or burnt in a fire, everybody has the same name and are known by nicknames, successive children have the same first name, that usually means they died and the next one is called by the same thing. Women did have children out of wedlock, and people remarried more often than you’d think, plus families fall out & never see each other again. I learnt that my Irish great grandfather michael went to Glasgow & met a woman who came from a similar place: somewhere wild & beautiful by the sea. Then they and their children came to london. Chasing the work & the money always. Politics and economics matter for they push people around from rural to city. And now we rodgers are Londoners. #ireland #scotland #family #travel #roots
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I’ve taken down the previous post as it’s poor I’ve taken down the previous post as it’s poor timing considering what’s happened over the last 24 hours. Being British I’ve not grown up around guns. It’s interesting to be on this course and find out more about the reality of them, although my focus is learning the ‘golden triangle’ of first aid, communications and navigation. But at the same time It’s depressing how in America nothing will ever change regarding gun law. RIP.
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A Simple tomato, goats cheese and basil salad, spa A Simple tomato, goats cheese and basil salad, spanking fresh asparagus / fried in olive oil, season, then add a little boiling water, not too much, put on the lid, dressed with lemon zest & Parmesan, @fenfarmdairy baron bigod cheese, good bread. This is how I like to eat. Claire’s plates found at the beccles brocante. #suffolk #suffolkfood #supper #dinnerwithfriends  #vintageplates
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