Photography pioneer ‘forgotten’ in Scotland
The work of a pioneering Scottish photographer who is celebrated in the Far East has been “forgotten” in his home city, it has been claimed.
John Thomson, who took some of the earliest photo- graphs of China on record, is the subject of two exhibitions in London this summer.
But efforts to arrange a similar retrospective in Edinburgh have so far fallen short.
Thomson set sail from Leith in 1862 with a camera and a portable dark room determined to capture the ancient civilisations of China, Thailand – then known as Siam – and Cambodia.
He spent more a decade in the Far East, capturing thousands of intimate portraits of people from all walks of life – including royalty and street beggars.
With photographic technology in its infancy, Thomson was adept at using the so-called “wet plate” process, meaning all exposures were made on a glass negative that had to be developed immediately.
Prints made from 700 of his original glass plates have now gone on display at the Brunei Gallery in London as part of a new exhibition, China and Siam: Through the Lens of John Thomson.
Co-curator Betty Yao told The Scotsman that Thomson’s work shed light on a part of the world little understood by British society at the time.
Yao, an expert in Asian culture, discovered Thomson’s glass negatives at the Wellcome Library in London and subsequently embarked upon a worldwide exhibition tour.
“No-one had seen his work in China before and the tour was very successful,” she said. “It has now visited 20 cities around the world and been seen by close to one million people.
“But it has yet to visit Edinburgh. I’ve been trying for three years to arrange a suitable venue.”
Yao believes that Thomson has been forgotten in his home city, despite retaining close links with it until his death in 1921.
“He could communicate with the great and the good, but also had equal respect for those from poorer communities,” she added.
“That really emerges from his background in Scotland.”
Born in 1837, the son of a tobacco spinner and shopkeeper, he was apprenticed to an Edinburgh optical and scientific instrument manufacturer where he learned the basics of photography.