Natasha's Photographer Ancestors:
Katherine Edis (later Legat), my grandmother's mother, and her twin Emmeline Edis (later McKendrick). Taken by Mary Olive Edis. Twins also run in the family -I'm a twin and my twin's middle name is Katherine in memory of Katherine Edis.
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(Mary) Olive Edis.
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Here are some random but interesting facts (at least for me/Natasha)! If you're in a rush -go to the most relevant website pages -if not -read on!
Photography runs in my family -Edwardian photographers and sisters Katherine and Olive Edis (my grandmother's mother and her sister) were very close and developed a joint interest in photography -perhaps from their Great Uncle, Surgeon General John Murray.
Dr. John Murray was one of the earliest photographers and made his own camera and also sensitized his own negatives and printing paper (his daughter Caroline was Olive's first portrait).
This is what is written about Olive Edis on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Edis :
Mary Olive Edis, later Edis-Galsworthy (3 September 1876 - 28 December 1955) was a British photographer who was famous for autochrome photographs and portrait photography. She served as a war artist in World War I
Olive Edis was a daughter of Arthur Wellesley Edis, Professor of Gynaecology at the University College Hospital. In 1903 she and her sister Katherine opened a studio in Sheringham, Norfolk where they specialised in portraits of local fisherman and members of the local gentry. She later had studios in Farnham, Surrey and Ladbroke Grove, London. Edis worked with platinum prints and from 1912 she pioneered colour autochrome photography. Her sitters included George Bernard Shaw, Emmeline Pankhurst and the Duke of York.
Edis was one of the first women photographers to make use of the autochrome process and she patented her own design of autochrome viewers, termed diascopes. In 1920 she was commissioned to create advertising photographs for the Canadian Pacific Railway and her autochromes of this trip to Canada are believed to be some of the earliest colour photographs of that country.
She joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1913 and was elected a Fellow in 1914. She was appointed an official war artist and photographed British Women's Services and the battlefields of France and Flanders between 1918 and 1919 for the Imperial War Museum. She married a Cambridge academic Edwin Henry Galsworthy, a cousin of the novelist John Galsworthy. She died in 1955.
Cromer Museum in Cromer holds a large collection of her work including prints, autochromes and glass plate negatives.
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My family (including my 96-year-old grandmother -who features in several of Olive and Katherine's photographs)- were just visited by the Cromer Museum's curator, Alastair Murphy, and project assistant, Liz Elmore, to discuss Olive and Katherine Edis. Here is Liz's website/blog about Olive's work:
https://oliveedisproject.wordpress.com/
The next Cromer Museum exhibition of their (mainly Olive's) work will be in October 2016. Olive's work has also been featured in galleries around the world -for example the National Portrait Gallery, London and others.
Another link: Click here for the Guardian Article or BBC Article -many more links on google!
Photography runs in my family -Edwardian photographers and sisters Katherine and Olive Edis (my grandmother's mother and her sister) were very close and developed a joint interest in photography -perhaps from their Great Uncle, Surgeon General John Murray.
Dr. John Murray was one of the earliest photographers and made his own camera and also sensitized his own negatives and printing paper (his daughter Caroline was Olive's first portrait).
- J. Paul Getty Museum link about Dr. John Murray: http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1468/dr-john-murray-british-1809-1898/
- & V & A link
- or see the biography at this Luminous-lint.com link, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).
This is what is written about Olive Edis on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Edis :
Mary Olive Edis, later Edis-Galsworthy (3 September 1876 - 28 December 1955) was a British photographer who was famous for autochrome photographs and portrait photography. She served as a war artist in World War I
Olive Edis was a daughter of Arthur Wellesley Edis, Professor of Gynaecology at the University College Hospital. In 1903 she and her sister Katherine opened a studio in Sheringham, Norfolk where they specialised in portraits of local fisherman and members of the local gentry. She later had studios in Farnham, Surrey and Ladbroke Grove, London. Edis worked with platinum prints and from 1912 she pioneered colour autochrome photography. Her sitters included George Bernard Shaw, Emmeline Pankhurst and the Duke of York.
Edis was one of the first women photographers to make use of the autochrome process and she patented her own design of autochrome viewers, termed diascopes. In 1920 she was commissioned to create advertising photographs for the Canadian Pacific Railway and her autochromes of this trip to Canada are believed to be some of the earliest colour photographs of that country.
She joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1913 and was elected a Fellow in 1914. She was appointed an official war artist and photographed British Women's Services and the battlefields of France and Flanders between 1918 and 1919 for the Imperial War Museum. She married a Cambridge academic Edwin Henry Galsworthy, a cousin of the novelist John Galsworthy. She died in 1955.
Cromer Museum in Cromer holds a large collection of her work including prints, autochromes and glass plate negatives.
_______________________________________________
My family (including my 96-year-old grandmother -who features in several of Olive and Katherine's photographs)- were just visited by the Cromer Museum's curator, Alastair Murphy, and project assistant, Liz Elmore, to discuss Olive and Katherine Edis. Here is Liz's website/blog about Olive's work:
https://oliveedisproject.wordpress.com/
The next Cromer Museum exhibition of their (mainly Olive's) work will be in October 2016. Olive's work has also been featured in galleries around the world -for example the National Portrait Gallery, London and others.
Another link: Click here for the Guardian Article or BBC Article -many more links on google!
Latter Day Cox -by Olive Edis. (Black & white print, materials: glass, paper). I believe he was a local fisherman.
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Great author, Thomas Hardy -by Olive Edis. (Materials: glass, paper).
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Dr John Murray, 1911 -by Olive Edis. Glass plate negative. (Materials: glass, paper).
Hard at work: Members of Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) in the machine room that formed part of the RAF engine repair shops at Pont de l'Arche in northern France, pictured by Olive Edis in 1919.
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Belcher Johnson by Olive Edis. (Materials: glass, paper).
The Red Cross hut at Wimereux, inside a requisitioned building, where female helpers worked with British soldiers.
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Book -available on Amazon.
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Former UK Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
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