- David Octavius Hill at the Gate of Rock House
Sheet: 8 7/16 × 6 7/16 in. (21.4 × 16.4 cm)
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In four and a half years and through nearly 3,000 images, the Scottish team of Hill and Adamson created the earliest substantial body of self-consciously artistic work in the new medium. Hill was a locally prominent painter in Edinburgh with a keen sense of composition and an affable manner that put his sitters at ease. Adamson, 20 years his junior, brought to the partnership an extraordinary mastery of the negative-positive photographic process invented just a few years earlier by William Henry Fox Talbot. Hill, handsome and naturally relaxed in front of the camera, here stands at the entrance to Adamson’s studio, Rock House.
ProvenanceChristie's, London, October 20, 1993; Robert Hershkowitz Ltd, London.
Bought by Manfred Heiting from Robert Hershkowitz Limited on 12/9/1989.
Exhibition History"Self, Model, and Self as Other," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,13 July – 29 September, 2013.
“A History of Photography II: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 17–July 19, 2015.
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