Stonyhurst Annan, James Craig  (Scottish, 1864-1946)

In 1907 Annan photographed Stonyhurst, a fine Elizabethan building with added Baroque cupolas at its gatehouse. Annan liked to work over the walls of such buildings. The light in this print is to a large degree the result of Annan’s handwork on the plate, though it is just possible that the shadows were being cast at forty-five degrees when he made the exposure. The empty grounds adds to the tension of the threatening whether. This large tissue gravure exemplifies the somber, introspective, and quite extraordinary mood he could conjure out of the most ordinary subject matter. (Buchanan)

Reproduced / Exhibited

Buchanan, William, and J C. Annan. The Art of the Photographer: J. Craig Annan, 1864-1946. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1992. plate 23.

Harker, Margaret F. The Linked Ring: The Secession Movement in Photography in Britain, 1892-1910. London: Heinemann, 1979. pl 9.5

Naef, Weston J. The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography. New York: Viking Press, 1978. no. 34.