Brian May provides a rare collection of Victorian stereographic photographs for exposure at Tate Britain Automatic translate

LONDON. Queen’s legendary guitarist Brian May has provided Tate Britain with a personal collection of rare stereographic photographs from Queen Victoria’s era. Now they are presented at the exhibition “Art Gallery for the Poor: Victorian Art and Stereoscopic Photography”, which will run until April 12, 2015.

This is the first exhibition in a large British art gallery, dedicated to the already popular in the 19th century three-dimensional photography, known as "stereography", which again opens for us this abandoned variety of British art. In the 1850s and 1860s, pioneers of photography shot men, women and children in “live” paintings based on well-known works of art in order to realize these masterpieces in the form of three-dimensional scenes.

Henry Wallis “The Death of Chatterton”, 1856, William Powell Frit “Derby Day”, 1857 and John Everett Milles “Order for Release”, 1746 - these are just three examples among twelve famous Victorian masterpieces that include paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites, which are in the Tate collection, and will now be presented in three-dimensional color photographs.

Stereography consists of two photographs of the same scene, taken from different points of view. When they are placed side by side, the viewer looking through the stereoscope sees only one three-dimensional image. Stereographs were inexpensive and in the 1850s and 1860s were widely used throughout the world. Many contemporaries of the Victorian era became acquainted with famous paintings through stereoscopes, thanks to which this type of photography, which was not considered art, got its name “Picture Gallery for the Poor”.

The exhibition exposition introduces us to important figures in stereoscopic photography, such as Alexis Gaudin and Michael Barr, and shows how some of their innovations in turn inspired artists. Barre’s stereography, “Cardiac Addiction,” made in 1866, served as an idea for John Everett Milles’s famous canvas of the same name, written six years later.

Before opening the exhibition, Brian May said: “I am very pleased that stereography can be seen for the first time in the Tate Gallery. In this unique exhibition, they can be shown in all their three-dimensional splendor, along with beautiful narrative paintings of the Victorian era, with which they have a close relationship. I am grateful to Tate Britain and hope to revive the love of stereoscopy in the 21st century. ”

Carol Jacobi, curator of British art from 1850-1915 at the Tate Gallery, said: “This exhibition allows us to look at works belonging to Tate in a completely new light. “We are very pleased to work with Brian May, who has been collecting his collection for over 40 years, and with Denis Pellerin, who conducted a study of all these works.”

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru