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Roger Fenton
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Roger Fenton
Roger Fenton (28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) was a British photographer, noted as one of the first war photographers.
Fenton was born into a Lancashire merchant family. After graduating from London with an arts degree, he became interested in painting. After seeing examples of the new technology of photography at the Great Exhibition in 1851, he became keenly interested in this new technique. Within a year, he began exhibiting his own photographs.
He became a leading British photographer and was instrumental in founding the Photographic Society (later the Royal Photographic Society). In 1854, he was commissioned to document events occurring in Crimea, where he became one of a small group of photographers to produce images of the final stages of the Crimean War.
Fenton was born in Crimble Hall, Heywood, Lancashire, on 28 March 1819. His grandfather was a wealthy cotton manufacturer and banker, whilst his father, John, was a banker and from 1832 a member of parliament. Fenton was the fourth of seven children by his father's marriage to Elizabeth Apedaile, his first wife. His father remarried after her death and had 10 more children by his second wife.
In 1840 Fenton graduated with a "first class" Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London, having read English, mathematics, Greek and Latin. In 1841, he began to read law at University College, London, evidently sporadically as he did not qualify as a solicitor until 1847. He had also become interested in studying painting. In Yorkshire in 1843 Fenton married Grace Elizabeth Maynard, presumably after his first sojourn in Paris (his passport was issued in 1842), where he may briefly have studied painting in the studio of Paul Delaroche. When he registered as a copyist in the Louvre in 1844, he named his teacher as Michel Martin Drolling, a history and portrait painter who taught at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, but Fenton's name does not appear in the school records.
By 1847 Fenton had returned to London, where he continued to study painting under the tutelage of history painter Charles Lucy. They became friends and, starting in 1850, the two men served on the board of the North London School of Drawing and Modelling. In 1849, 1850 and 1851 Fenton exhibited paintings in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy.
Fenton visited the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in London in 1851 and was impressed by the photography on display there. He visited Paris to learn the waxed paper calotype process, most likely from Gustave Le Gray, who had modified the methods employed by William Henry Fox Talbot, its inventor. By 1852 Fenton had photographs exhibited in Britain. He travelled to photograph Kiev, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and also photographed views and architecture around Britain.
In 1853 the British Museum commissioned Fenton to record some of its collection of rare historical artefacts. He established an open-air studio on the museum's roof. Museum staff manhandled the items into the daylight and dusted them with chalk (to avoid reflections) for his procedures. These were unpaid commissions, but Fenton was allowed to sell the prints on his own account, eventually setting up a shop at the museum entrance.
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Roger Fenton
Roger Fenton (28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) was a British photographer, noted as one of the first war photographers.
Fenton was born into a Lancashire merchant family. After graduating from London with an arts degree, he became interested in painting. After seeing examples of the new technology of photography at the Great Exhibition in 1851, he became keenly interested in this new technique. Within a year, he began exhibiting his own photographs.
He became a leading British photographer and was instrumental in founding the Photographic Society (later the Royal Photographic Society). In 1854, he was commissioned to document events occurring in Crimea, where he became one of a small group of photographers to produce images of the final stages of the Crimean War.
Fenton was born in Crimble Hall, Heywood, Lancashire, on 28 March 1819. His grandfather was a wealthy cotton manufacturer and banker, whilst his father, John, was a banker and from 1832 a member of parliament. Fenton was the fourth of seven children by his father's marriage to Elizabeth Apedaile, his first wife. His father remarried after her death and had 10 more children by his second wife.
In 1840 Fenton graduated with a "first class" Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of London, having read English, mathematics, Greek and Latin. In 1841, he began to read law at University College, London, evidently sporadically as he did not qualify as a solicitor until 1847. He had also become interested in studying painting. In Yorkshire in 1843 Fenton married Grace Elizabeth Maynard, presumably after his first sojourn in Paris (his passport was issued in 1842), where he may briefly have studied painting in the studio of Paul Delaroche. When he registered as a copyist in the Louvre in 1844, he named his teacher as Michel Martin Drolling, a history and portrait painter who taught at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, but Fenton's name does not appear in the school records.
By 1847 Fenton had returned to London, where he continued to study painting under the tutelage of history painter Charles Lucy. They became friends and, starting in 1850, the two men served on the board of the North London School of Drawing and Modelling. In 1849, 1850 and 1851 Fenton exhibited paintings in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy.
Fenton visited the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in London in 1851 and was impressed by the photography on display there. He visited Paris to learn the waxed paper calotype process, most likely from Gustave Le Gray, who had modified the methods employed by William Henry Fox Talbot, its inventor. By 1852 Fenton had photographs exhibited in Britain. He travelled to photograph Kiev, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and also photographed views and architecture around Britain.
In 1853 the British Museum commissioned Fenton to record some of its collection of rare historical artefacts. He established an open-air studio on the museum's roof. Museum staff manhandled the items into the daylight and dusted them with chalk (to avoid reflections) for his procedures. These were unpaid commissions, but Fenton was allowed to sell the prints on his own account, eventually setting up a shop at the museum entrance.
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