Henry Peach Robinson (1830–1901) was an English photographer. His Pictorialist photographs and texts made him one of the most prominent photographers of the second half of the 19th century.
Born in Ludlow, Shropshire, Robinson apprenticed to a printer and bookseller, before taking up photography after seeing the Great Exhibition of 1851. He launched a portrait studio at Leamington Spa in 1857. He tired of formal portraiture and progressed to ‘high art photography.’
Inspired by Oscar Gustave Rejlander’s The Two Ways of Life (1857,) Robinson produced photographs such as Juliet with the Poison Bottle (1857,) his earliest-known work, by blending separate negatives into a composite picture and applying a process known as combination printing. His other prints included the controversial deathbed scene, Fading Away (1858,) and Pre-Raphaelite narratives like The Lady of Shalott (1860–61.) Though criticized for artificiality, he had significant influence until the end of the century as the leader of the Pictorialist movement, which advocated achieving painterly effects in photography.
In works such as Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869,) Robinson published extensively on photographic aesthetics, make a case for photography as a ‘pictorial’ art, transformed from mechanical transcription through the application of the principles of academic painting. He believed that the photograph could bear the marks of its artist with its visual qualities and expressive modes.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Henry Peach Robinson
After some time passed in studying – and even imitating – the works of others, I would recommend the student to endeavour to be original, and to remember that originality should not be undiscovered plagiarism.
—Henry Peach Robinson
Topics: Creativity
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