Henrietta Ross (1815-94): photographer

After a great many years of neglect, photographic historians are gradually uncovering and sharing the individual histories of early women photographers whose lives and work have been languishing in the shadows. As yesterday marked the 125th anniversary of the death of Henrietta Ross (1815-94), this seemed a good occasion to write a little about her life and photographic activities. Some of this has appeared in my 2004 article on Horatio Ross, and Henrietta will be treated in more detail if I ever manage to finish writing Horatio’s biography, but in the meantime I have put together this brief sketch in the hope that it interest some readers.

Henrietta Macrae was born on 17 April 1815 in Demerara, an island off the north east coast of Brazil which was ceded to Great Britain under the terms of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty. Her father, Colin Macrae (1779–1854), had helped broker the treaty, which was signed in London on 13 August 1814. Colin hailed from the West Highlands: his parents were Farquhar Macrae of Inverinate, and Mary, daughter of Alexander Mackenzie of Davochmaluack. As head of the Inverinate branch of the family he had a rightful claim to be recognized as Chief of the Clan Macrae. Like many young Scotsmen he sailed abroad to seek his fortune, finding work as a merchant and planter in Demerara.  He became a colonel in the colonial militia and was also appointed to the colonial legislation. His status is indicated by his marriage in 1805 to Charlotte Gertrude, daughter of John Cornelius Vandenheuvel, Dutch Governor of Demerara from 1765 to 1770.

They resided at Cumingsburg, in the capital Stabroek (later renamed Georgetown) where they raised a large family of eleven sons and daughters, many of whom went on to take prominent positions in the colonies. Some of their time was spent in New Haven, Connecticut. Colin Macrae published a short tract, Suggestion of a Plan for the Effectual Abolition of Slavery in all of the British West India Colonies in 1830 and soon after returned with his family to Scotland, where he divided his time between Edinburgh, Perth and Nairn. Henrietta was in her late teens when she met her future husband, Horatio Ross (1801-86), who was then MP for Aberdeen Burghs and one of the more remarkable men of his age.

Ross’s accomplishments were extraordinary. His father Hercules – like Colin MacRae – had left Scotland as a young man to seek his fortune overseas. Through a blend of enterprising trade and marine activities bordering on piracy, Hercules Ross made a fortune in Jamaica, where he succeeded in winning the friendship of the young Captain Horatio Nelson, then a naval lieutenant. Hercules Ross returned to Scotland on his own 32-gun frigate, a wealthy man, and married Henrietta Parish, a beautiful heiress whose portrait was painted by Raeburn. They settled near Montrose on the east coast of Scotland and set about building Rossie Castle.

Rossie Castle

They had four daughters before a son was born in December 1801. Nelson agreed to be godfather to Ross’s son – hence the name Horatio. Hercules Ross was an enthusiast for the volunteer movement, and after an embarrassing scene when five year old Horatio ran away at the sound of guns on the lawn at Rossie, he had his valet fire guns daily over the head of his son. Horatio developed an interest in shooting and turned out to be a brilliant marksman. His feats with a gun became the thing of legend and he was reckoned the best pistol shot in the British Empire. In 1821 he joined the army but grew bored with barrack life and resigned in 1826. He was then able to devote himself fully to the sporting and shooting activities which were his joy, among the most notable of which include the first ever recorded steeplechase, a 97 mile non-stop walking competition and some astounding feats of marksmanship with both pistols and rifles. Some of these were documented in my article, ‘The Delight of their Existence’: the photography of Horatio Ross of Rossie (1801–86) Studies in Photography (2006) and will be treated at greater length in my biography of Horatio Ross, which I hope to complete one day.

Perhaps in need of a greater focus for his talents he stood as a Reform candidate for Aberdeen burghs and was returned in 1831. His contributions to parliamentary debate reflect his interests in rural affairs – he spoke forcefully on matters such as game laws and hemp tax, but was also appointed to a commission of inquiry into child labour in factories. Other members included Robert Peel, who became Prime Minister a few years later and remained a friend. Ross was well-connected and moved among high social circles. He dined with Thomas Carlyle in London, corresponded with leading peers of the realm, and took part in adventurous sporting activities with aristocratic gentry from both Scotland and England.

Although now in his early thirties, he had still not found a wife. Although it was later said that he sought a wealthy heiress, the woman with whom he fell in love was far from that. Henrietta Macrae was in her late teens when they met.  She married Ross in Nairn on 26 December 1833. They had five sons: Horatio, Edward, Hercules, Colin and Robert Peel.

Having left politics in 1835, Ross was in possession of a little more leisure time when photography was invented four years later and unsurprisingly was one of the first in Scotland to take it up. Beginning with daguerreotypes, he switched to the calotype process, but continued to concentrate on landscape photography. Naturally, he was fond of hunting scenes, and took numerous photographs of deer both living and dead. Some of these photos were used by his friend Sir Edwin Landseer as an aid for painting. Henrietta appears in one of his earliest known images, an 1848 daguerreotype entitled ‘Craigdarroch’ which show her with a rifle in the (clearly posed) act of shooting a stag.

Many of Horatio’s photographs are labelled Glen Dibidale, which was the site of a lodge in the Ross-shire highlands at which they spent much of their time. Some years ago I acquired Henrietta’s own Bible, which was signed and inscribed while she was staying. The Bible is of interest because it contains many marginal notes and pasted in scraps, giving some idea of Henrietta’s own spiritual inclinations.

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Queen Victoria’s residence on Deeside had made this part of the country increasingly popular, but Ross had already been shooting deer here for over two decades. Horatio and Henrietta Ross joined the royal household for a shooting party at Mar in October 1850; Her Majesty noted in her diary that ‘Mrs Ross is a very pretty ladylike person, & an excellent shot herself, but without any ‘prétention’. Her husband, no longer a young man, is considered the best deer stalker & best shot in Scotland.’ (Journal entry for 5 October 1850.)

As well as being an excellent shot, Henrietta soon began to try her hand at photography. Her husband did a great deal to promote Scottish photography and in 1856 Ross helped found the Photographic Society of Scotland (PSS). This gave a great boost to photographic activity in the country, bringing photographers together for meetings and talks, allowing them to discuss methods and arrange for annual exhibitions. Although she was not a member of the Society, Henrietta displayed her work at some of the PSS exhibitions, as the comments below indicate:

‘Mrs Ross of Rossie’s works are not alone in showing that photography has been most succesfully pursued by the fair sex.’ Scotsman 21st December 1857

‘Mr and Mrs Horatio Ross also exhibit a considerable number of well chosen river and burn scenes. To portray running water properly by the camera – more particularly falls – is a difficult matter; indeed, the latter cannot be accomplished with any degree of success – the rapid motion of the descending and broken water giving a blurred appearance to the picture. In No.348, ‘Highland Burn and Waterfall’ by Mrs H. Ross, may be observed what we regard as a great improvement when a better cannot be offered. The falling water is touched by the pencil, which gives it much better effect, and throws a spiritedness into the photograph which it would otherwise lack.’ – Caledonian Mercury, 25th December 1857

Regarding another photograph on waxed paper, Cat. No. 350 ‘Highland Burn’ – probably the same image of that title that Henrietta exhibited at The British Association for the Advancement of Science’s meeting at Aberdeen in 1859  (cat 161, waxed paper) – critics noted its ‘pleasing landscape… sugar-white stones on the heathery brae… gleam on the water

Henrietta Ross, ‘A Photographer in his Studio’ (1858)

At the third exhibition in December 1858 Henrietta Ross had on show a fine portrait of her husband entitled A Photographer in His Studio, depicting Ross in the act of preparing a collodion plate. Apart from its clever composition, making use of the overlapping ‘V’-shape of tripod legs, deer antlers and a funnel, the picture is also of interest for demonstrating the sheer size of a contemporary camera. This image was later designated a self-portrait by Horatio Ross, although there are grounds for disputing this.

Henrietta’s sons inherited their parents’ shooting skills. Edward was the best, winning the Queens Prize at Wimbledon in 1860 and taking a prominent role in the development of the National Rifle Association. Colin and Hercules also joined their father at shooting competitions during the 1860s. The youngest son Peel took less interest in shooting and entered the Church, being ordained a priest of the Church of England in . He was Rector of Drayton Bassett from until when he retired to Inverness and took up residence at Druim, a short distance from where his parents lived at Rossie Lodge on the banks of the River Ness.

Horatio and Henrietta celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in December 1883. Ross was now 82 but still succeeded in shooting a stag on his 83rdbirthday the following year. He was out for the Glorious Twelfth in 1884 but that was the last time. His health gradually declined, and he spent his last few months arranging his photographic negatives at Rossie Lodge before dying here in September 1886.

Henrietta left Inverness for the other end of the country, moving down to Portsmouth to be near her eldest son Horatio Jr, who worked in the Bank of England in Portsmouth. She took a house at in Southsea where she died on 17 October 1894.

There is much more to be written about Henrietta, some of which I may do another day – this has been cobbled together somewhat in haste, as most of my boxes of research notes on Ross are inaccessible following the house move. Commemorative dates are always a good spur for writing something, however, and if I can raise a little more awareness of Henrietta Ross then this raggedy little blogpost will have done some good.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen….

On 7 May the BBC finally released a DVD of The Mad Death, some 25 years after the miniseries was originally broadcast in the summer of 1983. The programme imagined what might happen if rabies was introduced into Scotland, and over the course of three episodes follows the spread of the disease, its effect on victims, and the authorities’ attempts to control the outbreak. Filmed on location around central Scotland – including a memorable chase sequence in which a landrover pursues a rabid dog through the old Plaza shopping centre at East Kilbride – and containing some horrific scenes of rabies symptoms, including nightmarish hallucinations – the programme attracted a great deal of attention at the time, especially as the threat of rabies reaching the UK was a real fear then, and the subject of widespread media campaigns.

In retrospect, one wonders if we worried too much, and over the years my memories of watching the original broadcast have been tempered by further reflection about the other fears and anxieties that perhaps lay beneath all the lurid imagery and ‘protect our borders’ propaganda.

The BBC’s timing of their DVD release was rather serendipitous as it coincided with the publication of my illustrated article, ‘”Mad Dogs and Englishmen”: Hydrophobia, Europhobia and National Identity in “The Mad Death” (BBC Scotland, 1983)’ in the online periodical, The International Journal of Scottish Theatre and Screen. This was written for a special issue on ‘TV in Scotland: Past, Present and Future’, and some idea of the contents can be gleaned from the abstract:

BBC Scotland’s three-part series The Mad Death (1983) presented a fictional account of a rabies outbreak on Scottish soil. Although the story was based on a lurid unpublished novel and made use of classic horror tropes, including animal attacks, imprisonment in a baronial manor and terrifying hallucinations, it also reflected the sober tone of public information films and contemporary rabies safety campaigns. Filmed in Scotland and making effective use of Highland locations and actors such as Jimmy Logan, the ‘Scottishness’ of the production was nonetheless undermined by the vague presentation of the physical landscape, uncertainty over the parameters of the Scottish and English authorities, and an uneven depiction of social classes and dialects. A more detailed study of this content reveals the cultural anxieties that underpinned the narrative and characterisation, which remain acutely relevant as the 35thanniversary of the original broadcast approaches. Drawing on original production materials and personal discussions with screenwriter Sean Hignett, this article places The Mad Death in its social, cultural and political context, exploring how the series engaged with questions of national heritage and social identity while at the same time repackaging familiar tropes from the traditions of the horror genre. Particular attention is applied to the ways in which the spread of rabies is used to reflect anxieties about the dangers of European integration, employing language and attitudes that are all too familiar from the ongoing ‘Brexit’ debate in Britain. Through a close analysis of these issues it is possible to provide detailed insights into the production of The Mad Death, the adaptation process and the workings of the Scottish television industry during a time of social and political upheaval. The essay aims at providing a case study from which lessons can be learned that could help guide policy for future Scottish programming.

and also from a little ‘word cloud’ image that I generated:

For those who wish to read my article, it can be accessed (free-of-charge) here

Heavitree’s Hispanic Corner: Richard Ford, calotypes and ‘the annals of the artists of spain’

Richard Ford’s grave in Heavitree. Photograph by the author.
Tucked away under a tree in the churchyard of St Michael’s, Heavitreee, by the edge of a path I once walked on a near-daily basis, lies the resting place of Richard Ford (1796-1858), Hispanicist, writer, art collector and historian. After spending several long sojourns in Spain in the early 1830s he moved to Exeter to be near his brother James Ford (1797-1877), later a Canon of Exeter Cathedral. After Richard bought Heavitree House in the summer of 1834, he filled it with books, antiques and artwork that he had brought back from Spain, and laid the gardens out using Moorish designs and artefacts.

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The house, sad to say, was demolished by the council after WWII and the site is now occupied by a housing estate. Photograph by the author.
In 1840 Richard Ford met the Scottish writer and art historian Sir William Stirling (later Stirling-Maxwell, and 9th Baronet of Pollok (1818-78), who had also travelled in Spain and shared Ford’s deep interest in Spanish art and artists. The two men began corresponding on the topic. Ford’s Handbook for Travellers in Spain (1845) proved highly popular, and was reprinted in 1847, the year before Sir William’s four volume Annals of the Artists of Spain was published. This was the first scholarly history of Spanish art in English, and was chiefly responsible for making known the works of  El Greco, Goya, Velazquez, Ribera and Murillo. It was, moreover, the first book on art to be illustrated with photographs. The first three volumes featured texts by Stirling Maxwell, whilst the fourth was a supplement of illustrations printed in a limited edition of 50 copies for his circle of friends and family. Sir William had taken a camera lucida on his first trip to Spain and used this as a drawing aid, but it is possible that his inspiration for using the calotype process to illustrate his book came from seeing Talbot’s Sun Pictures of Scotland (1845) or the earlier Pencil of Nature (1844.) Hill & Adamson were also commissioned to produce calotype images for the volume, but – for various reasons – their work was not included.

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One of the images from the fourth volume of ‘Annals of the Artists of Spain’ (London: John Ollivier, 1848)
There were 68 photographs in all, taken by Nicholas Henneman using Talbot’s calotype process. Henneman had entered Talbot’s service in 1826 but was later trained by him as a photographer and placed in charge of the printing establishment at Reading. Many of the Spanish photographs were made from the original paintings, which had to be photographed outdoors in the sunshine due to the long exposure times required. When this was impossible, existing engravings were used. Several artworks were borrowed from Richard Ford, who died of Bright’s Disease ten years later at Heavitree House on 31 August 1858.

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Ford’s headstone, with the inscription ‘Rerum Hispaniae indagator acerrimus’ – Most keen investigator of all things Spanish. Photograph taken by author, in very bright sunshine!
A set of the Annals of the Artists of Spain was retained at Pollok House, Sir William’s mansion in Glasgow, and a place very familiar from my childhood: in addition to regular visits to the parkland surrounding the house, my parents often went to dinner dances there, and I got to see inside the house from time to time. I still have distinct memories of seeing prints by Goya and Piranesi around the walls. When I began working in the Special Collections Department of Glasgow University Library, the Stirling Maxwell collection of emblem books became a favourite haunt, second only to the early photographic collections. Sir William’s fascination with emblem literature led him to collaborate with Richard’s brother, Canon James Ford, on the book ‘Ut Pictura poesis,’ or An attempt to explain, in verse, the Emblemata Horatiana of Otho Vaenius (London, 1875.) The preface and epigrams were written by Ford, while Stirling-Maxwell provided bibliographical notes.
​The Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid is currently running an exhibition about Sir William’s volume – but Copied by the Sun/Copiado por el sol: Talbotype Illustrations to the Annals of the Artists of Spain closes tomorrow, so you’ll need to hurry if you want to catch it! Otherwise, there’s a massive catalogue published to accompany the exhibition, and the following are also well worth reading if anyone wishes to learn more:

Hilary Macartney, ‘William Stirling and the Talbotype volume of the Annals of the Artists of Spain.
History of Photography 30:4 (2006) pp.291-308
‘The Reproduction of Spanish Art: Hill and Adamson’s calotypes and Sir William Stirling-Maxwell’s Annals of the Artists of Spain.’
Studies in Photography (2005), pp. 16-23.Gilbert, E.W. ‘

Richard Ford and His Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain
The Geographical Journal Vol. 106, No. 3/4 (Sep-Oct 1945), pp. 144-15
Radford, Cecily. ‘Richard Ford (1796-1858) and his Handbook for Travellers in Spain.’
Transactions of the Devonshire Association, Vol. 90, (1958) pp.146-166

A Monk of Magdalen:   Abbot Oswald (David) Hunter-Blair O.S.B. (1853-1939)

Abbot Oswald in 1919

​One may be sure that when Gibbon wrote sarcastically of ‘the monks of Magdalen’ he never envisaged any real association between his Oxford college and those men who take religious vows according to the Rule of St Benedict. Yet just over one hundred years after Gibbon’s death a monastery was founded in Oxford itself, and this little Benedictine house of studies was known as Hunter-Blair Hall after the name of its Master. Oswald Hunter-Blair was not only a monk and a graduate of Magdalen, he was also a baronet, would later become an abbot, and stands out as one of the most colourful Catholic converts of his time.

David Hunter-Blair was born on the 30th September 1853, the eldest of thirteen children (nine sons and four daughters) of Sir Edward Hunter-Blair (1818-96), 4th Baronet of Dunskey, and Elizabeth Wauchope. Dunskey Castle is in Wigtownshire on the southwest coast of Scotland. His mother’s family, the Wauchopes of Niddrie, had remained Catholic for almost two centuries after the Reformation before going over to the Scottish Episcopalian Church in 1750, but although all his siblings were baptised by Episcopalian clergy the future Benedictine abbot received the sacrament from the Presbyterian minister of Portpatrick.

In 1854 his father’s elder brother was killed at the Battle of Inkerman and Sir Edward inherited the baronetcy and estates. According to the arrangements of the settlement he was obliged to divest himself of the estate of Dunskey if he was to possess Blairquhan. His eldest son David therefore became the laird of Dunskey at the age of four.

In the summer of 1863 the family left the country for Spa in Belgium where they were to live for over a year before moving on to Boulogne. David returned to Britain in January 1864 to attend prep school at May Place, Malvern Wells – a select establishment where almost every boy had a Duke or a Marquis for a father. From here he proceeded to the Upper IVth form at Eton.  He was a fifteen-year old pupil here in 1868 when he heard the sensational news of the conversion to Catholicism of the 3rd Marquess of Bute. A favourite uncle of his, Colonel David Hunter-Blair (1827-69) took the same step the following year. His own mind was already intrigued by the Catholic past through reading Walter Scott’s novels and he noted in Eton ‘the aura of Catholicism which still hung faintly about her venerable halls and cloisters.’

Hunter-Blair went up to Oxford and studied at Magdalen College from January 1872 to December 1876. For the winter term of 1875 he received permission to study music in Leipzig under Karl Reinecke (1824-1910), the pianist and conductor of the Gewendhaus and also Professor at the Leipzig Conservatorium.

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WHF Talbot, ‘An ancient doorway in Magdalen College, Oxford.’ Salt print from a calotype negative, 9 April 1843

By this time the religious question was clear in his mind. With his fellow student Harold Willoughby he left Germany for Rome, arriving in time to see Manning receive his cardinal’s hat on the 15th March. Ten days later on Maundy Thursday, 25th March, 1875, he was received into the Catholic Church by Fr Edward Douglas C.SS.R. in the Redemptorist house on the Esquiline Hill. Fr Douglas (1819-98) was a kinsman of the Marquis of Queensberry and himself a convert. From Rome it was back to Oxford in April to begin the summer term: unlike Gibbon he was not forced to leave because of his apostasy. Instead of the High Anglican services of old he now walked over Magdalen Bridge each Sunday to attend Mass at the dingy St Clement’s Catholic Church. He also renounced membership of the Masonic Lodge, regarding this as incompatible with Catholicism. A number of students were especially interested in Freemasonry at this time because Prince Leopold – Queen Victoria’s youngest son and then a commoner at Christ Church – was also Grand Master of the Freemasons.

His friend and fellow-student Oscar Wilde had been initiated into the Masons just weeks before Hunter-Blair became a Catholic. Filled with a new convert’s zeal Hunter-Blair was determined that Wilde would follow him; the poet’s fascination with the Catholic Church was then at its peak. Wilde visited Italy in the summer of 1875 with staunch Protestants Professor Mahaffy and William Goulding, and on the 15th June he wrote the poem ‘San Miniato’ which was published in the Dublin University Magazine the following March. He had to break off the trip at Verona, leaving his friends to go ahead to Rome, in consequence of which he composed ‘Rome Unvisited’. Hunter-Blair thought highly of this poem, as did another Oxford convert, John Henry Newman, and when his friend returned for the autumn term he sought to carry Wilde over the threshold. Together they attended the opening of St Aloysius’ Church on 23rd November 1875, at which Cardinal Manning preached on the Oxford motto Dominus Illuminatio Mea, denouncing the university for its spiritual apathy and decay. Hunter-Blair kept on at Wilde, often sitting up all night talking to him about his religious views. During one heated discussion he hit him on the head and shouted ‘You will be damned, you will be damned, for you see the light and do not follow it.’ Their mutual friend William Walsford Ward, known as ‘Bouncer’ after a comic novel, was present during this debate; he had always opposed Wilde’s flirting with Roman Catholicism and persistently argued for the reasonableness of Protestantism. When he asked Hunter Blair’s opinion about his own salvation, he was met with the reply ‘You will be saved by your invincible ignorance.’

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Oscar Wilde, Hunter-Blair and others, Oxford 1876. Photographed by Jules Guggenheim

The trio appears in a photograph taken the following year by Hungarian emigré photographer Jules Guggenheim (1820-89). The picture shows a group of students and friends gathered in Magdalen Cloister on the evening of 21st June: Hunter-Blair, Wilde and Reginald Harding are alongside William Ward and his younger sister Florence. Ward left Oxford that summer to become a lawyer and Wilde moved into his old rooms in December.

The following year saw the religious discussion continue without any further development. Hunter-Blair was joined in many of these conversations by another convert, Archie Dunlop, and in the spring they succeeded in bringing Wilde to Rome. Hunter-Blair and Ward travelled to Italy in March and made arrangements for Wilde to follow them, although Hunter-Blair had to send £60 after a series of delays and difficulties arose. Travelling through France and Genoa – where the Holy Week services inspired more poetry – Wilde caught up with his friends at the Hotel d’Inghilterra in Rome. Here they were joined for supper each evening by two papal chamberlains, J. Ogilvie Fairlie and Hartwell de la Garde Grissell (1839-1907). The latter was a close friend of Hunter-Blair who had come up to Oxford from Harrow in 1859, studied at Brasenose and became a Catholic in 1868. When Hunter-Blair made his first return visit to Oxford since graduation in the summer of 1890 he stayed at Grissell’s house in Long Wall Street, overlooking the deer-park and aged elm trees of Magdalen. There was even a private chapel where Hunter-Blair – by then a priest – was able to say Mass. Fairlie was another Oxford friend, a graduate of Christ Church, and had acted as Hunter-Blair’s godfather when he was received into the Church. A papal audience for Wilde was secured through Hunter-Blair’s acquaintance with Mgr Edmund Stonor, Rector of the English College. Hopes for Wilde’s conversion to Catholicism were high and he could be forgiven for frustration and disappointment at his friend’s prevarications.  Two incidents – small in themselves – revealed a sharp divergence in opinion between the two students. After the audience with Pope Pius IX they visited the English Cemetery where Wilde prostrated himself on Keats’ grave – an act of devotion which displeased Hunter-Blair. The following June Wilde again incurred his friend’s displeasure with his long poem Ravenna which brought Magdalen its first award of the Newdigate Prize since 1825: Hunter-Blair objected to the description of Vittorio Emmanuel II’s triumphant entry into Rome in 1870.  Wilde’s fickleness was evident. After the audience he wrote the sonnet ‘Urbs Sacra Aeterna’ which Hunter-Blair sent to Fr Henry Coleridge SJ, editor of the Jesuit journal The Month; it was published in September but Wilde seemed merely to be playing with moods and Hunter-Blair’s patience had worn thin.

‘I don’t want to see them [sonnets]. It is useless to talk of your weakness and want of principle – truly a strange reason for turning your back on what alone will make you strong…and as for your want of faith and enthusiasm, you cannot pretend to believe that the God, who has given you grace to see His truth, will not also keep you firm when you choose to embrace it.’ Almost ten years later Wilde called on Hunter-Blair in Edinburgh; the meeting was brief and lacked the warmth of their student days. Wilde finally fell on his knees and said ‘Pray for me, Dunskie, pray for me.’ As Hunter-Blair walked out Wilde knelt on the floor and kissed his hand, and that was the last they saw of one another.

Hunter-Blair obtained his MA in 1876 and in the same year was appointed Captain in the Prince Regent’s Royal Ayrshire Militia. His convert’s zeal was not restricted to trying to draw Wilde into the Catholic Church and over the next two years Hunter-Blair poured a fair amount of his wealth into the Diocese of Galloway and other Catholic causes. A number of new churches were built with his financial support. Donations were made to the churches at Girvan, Stranraer – to which he would cycle from Dunskey for Sunday Mass – and it was he who paid for the new church at Newton Stewart, opened on the 7th December 1876 and dedicated St Ninian. His connections with the area remained, and when the church at Stranraer was refurbished in the early 1920s he returned to preach at the grand re-opening. Between 1877 and 1879 he donated a total of £72,677 to Fort Augustus and was largely responsible for the fine monastic library. On the 9th May 1877, along with Robert Monteith (whose relative Anne Monteith paid for a window at Newton Stewart) and his old friends J Ogilvie Fairlie and Rev Archibald Douglas, he was in Rome to present Pius IX with £2,000, a chalice and vestments, as a consolation for the loss of the papal states. A good many ladies had their eyes upon this wealthy young bachelor heir, and in the elegant whirl of high society a series of débutantes were introduced to him in the hope that a brilliant match would be made. To the disappointment of many mothers, if not to him, his vocation lay elsewhere.

St Benedict’s Abbey, Fort Augustus 

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The canal locks at Fort Augustus, with the abbey visible in the background

The monastery at Fort Augustus was housed in a former military garrison at the south end of Loch Ness and had been given to the Benedictines by the Catholic landowner Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat. The foundation came about through the vision and enthusiasm of Dom Jerome Vaughan OSB in 1876 but was still finding its feet when Hunter-Blair first visited in February 1878. He was evidently impressed and returned in September for the inauguration of the boys’ school. The foundation stone of the monastery was laid by Lord Lovat on 15th September, that of the school by the Marquis of Ripon, and that of the guest-house jointly by Mr Maxwell-Scott of Abbotsford and Robert Monteith of Carstairs. After this, Prior Jerome Vaughan took the 25-year-old on a tour of English monasteries and cathedrals. Returning to Scotland to settle his affairs, he entered Fort Augustus at the end of October and began his postulancy on 11th November, donning for the first time the black tunic and belt of the postulant. When he was clothed as a novice he took the religious name of Oswald. By then the building work had advanced enough to justify a solemn opening ceremony on the 16th October, but the community remained small: in August 1879 there were still only six other monks besides the Prior. In those days the English Benedictines had a common novitiate at Belmont Priory in Herefordshire and he duly set off south at the end of the month. He made his simple profession on 3rd July 1880 and travelled up to Fort Augustus for its long-awaited solemn opening in August, planned to coincide with celebrations for the 1400th anniversary of the birth of St Benedict in 480.

Behind the jubilation, however, tensions were rising within the community with regard to monastic observance. The English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) has a unique history and character: although claiming continuity with the pre-Reformation monks of England, its traditions and structures grew out of the 16th and 17th century experience of monk-missionaries trained on the continent to minister to Catholics in England. This strong pastoral emphasis meant that EBC houses undertook to run parishes and schools outside their monasteries, and individual monks lived far more ‘in the world’ than their counterparts in other Benedictine congregations. Many remained outside their monasteries for years on end, returning only for the annual retreat. Even if few were baronets like Hunter-Blair, most came from privileged backgrounds, something reflected in the general ambience, culture and standard of living within the houses. One of the objections made in 1880 was that claret should no longer be served in the refectory, and more abstinence was demanded two years later, along with greater silence and the exclusion of schoolboys from the monastic cloister. In part, this reflected the influence of monastic reform movements then gathering momentum on the continent; it was also a manifestation of national tensions. The Third Marquess of Bute was pushing for the establishment of a Scottish Benedictine Congregation, and on the 30th September 1882 Lord Lovat wrote to the Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh that his land had been intended for ‘an entirely Scotch foundation’. There was also the problem that the Prior, Dom Jerome Vaughan, was not popular within the community.

Matters came to a head and a Papal Brief, formally separating Fort Augustus from the EBC, was read out at Mass on the Feast of the Epiphany, 7th January 1883, by John Strain, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.  Members of the community currently elsewhere left their EBC houses and returned to the Fort. Vaughan invited Dom Leo Linse, Prior of St Thomas’ Abbey in Erdington, to give the annual retreat to the monks at Fort Augustus, and at the end of the retreat a unanimous petition was sent to the Holy See by all the professed monks asking that he be appointed their Superior. Dom Jerome was deposed by the EBC and left shortly afterwards, to be replaced as Prior by Fr Kentigern Milne. Although the community’s request was not granted at this time, Linse was installed as Prior on 4th April 1886 and finally blessed as the first Abbot of Fort Augustus on 15th July 1888.

Meanwhile Dom Oswald was ordained deacon on March 25th, the same day that his Rule of St Benedict was published. This edition was printed at Fort Augustus by the Abbey Press and contained the Latin text of the Rule accompanied by Fr Oswald’s English translation and notes. It proved popular: a second edition came out in 1906, reprinted the following year, with a third edition in 1914. His ordination to the priesthood took place a few months later, on the 11th July; he was ordained with Dom Adrian Weld-Blundell, a brother of Lady Lovat. It is intriguing to note that the name of another celebrated Magdalen graduate, Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (1870-1945), was entered in the Abbey Visitor’s Book just a few weeks earlier. By this time Fr Oswald was engaged in translating Geschichte der Katholiken Kirche in Schottland (2vols, 1883) by Alfons Bellesheim, Canon of Cologne Cathedral.  The result was a History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, from the introduction of Christianity to the present day published by William Blackwood & Sons in four volumes between 1887 and 1890. It is much more than a straight translation. Fr Oswald added copious notes, expanding and explaining Bellesheim’s text. Few of these are mere glosses; many are highly instructive and extremely useful to historians. He showed himself a gifted translator, turning Bellesheim’s German into easy-flowing harmonious English prose. The book was well-received by critics and remains the most outstanding scholarly achievement of all his literary work.  It was an important step in establishing the abbey’s reputation for intellectual and spiritual vitality. Over the next decades this was consolidated by other publications and works of art produced by the community.

During that summer of 1886 he came into contact with the enigmatic Baron Corvo, about whom I have written in A Carnal Medium.  Hunter-Blair’s old friend Lord Bute was then engaged in setting up a cathedral choir on the west Highland coast at Oban, but finding it as difficult to locate suitable boy choristers as it was to employ a reliable choirmaster. Four youngsters were eventually chosen and sent to the abbey school at Fort Augustus to learn the rudiments of Gregorian plainchant from the monks. For a choirmaster Lord Bute obtained the services of Frederick Rolfe, ‘Baron Corvo’, who had just been dismissed from the Scots College in Rome – a fact unknown to His Lordship. Rolfe called at Fort Augustus to collect the boys on his way to Oban and met Fr Oswald, who subsequently came to stay in Oban on 13th September. The three months had not been happy ones and Rolfe poured out a litany of bitterness and complaints about his treatment from other Catholics and locals. He abandoned the post in October and left for Aberdeen where he set up as a photographer. Between then and 1898 Rolfe moved through a number of jobs and as many friends. That autumn the Daily Free Press published a series of three anonymous articles on Rolfe – 8th, 12th and 26th November – containing both intimate accurate details as well as stinging accusations. Who was the author? Hunter-Blair was one of those suspected, but it is doubtful if this will ever be confirmed. Another shady character who visited the abbey around this time was Ada Goodrich-Freer. She mentioned her intended visit to Fr Oswald in two letters written on 15th August 1894; one to Lord Bute, the other to Frederick Myers who had put her into contact with the monk.  He describes this month on page 203 of A Medley of Memories without reference to her.

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Lord Bute, wearing the gown he had designed himself for his installation as Rector of St Andrews University in 1893; the resemblance to a monastic cowl was intentional.

He was headmaster of the school until 1888 when Abbot Leo appointed him master of scholastics i.e. newly professed monks studying for the priesthood. By the autumn of 1894 several of them were within a few months of ordination, emphasising the problem of providing studies. At one point it seemed that a hall might be opened at St Andrews University: the 3rd Marquess of Bute was then Lord Rector and was eager – for patriotic and romantic reasons – to open a Scottish seminary there. Fr Oswald met Lord Bute several times to discuss the plan, even reaching the stage of opening negotiations with the Dean of Faculty there, but it came to nothing. In the autumn of 1896 he returned to Oxford again as guest of Hartwell Grisell and found the university community full of interest over the new hall for Jesuit students about to be opened with Fr Richard Clarke SJ as its Master. An 1882 statute allowed any individual with an Oxford MA to open a Private Hall in his own name, and the Jesuit house of studies was opened as Clarke Hall. This development would turn out to be of direct relevance to Fr Oswald’s future career, but for the time being his eyes turned elsewhere, for in (April) 1896 he embarked on a steamer for South America.

The Beuronese congregation, to which Fort Augustus was affiliated from 1883 to 1911, had accepted a request for help from moribund Benedictine communities in Brazil by sending out a small party of monks in April 18957. Fr Oswald had been asked to assist in the restoration by Dom Gerard van Caloen who had been Rector of the school at Maredsous when he visited the Belgian monastery in 1883. Brazil had been a Belgian colony until the collapse of the Empire in 1889, by which time the entire Brazilian Congregation comprised barely a dozen monks. Fr Oswald was sent to the oldest Benedictine monastery in the country, St Benedict’s, Olinda. The Anglican chaplain here, curiously enough, had been a chorister at Magdalen while Hunter-Blair was an undergraduate. He married in 1895 and returned to Scotland for a three-month honeymoon on Loch Tay. His chapel at Pernambuco was a barn-like structure of corrugated iron. Macray died of yellow fever soon after Fr Oswald returned to England in time for Easter 1897.

That summer saw the purchase by his old friend Lord Bute of Pluscarden Priory, a partially-ruined monastery near Elgin. The Marquess acquired the property for his youngest son but hoped that the buildings could be restored and possibly returned to their original purpose. He invited Fr Oswald to celebrate Mass in the prior’s chapel at Pluscarden, and this took place on 5th May 1898. The scene was later painted by an artist, Horatio Walter Lonsdale, with whom Lord Bute was then working closely.

Return to Oxford Later in the year Fr Oswald returned to his old college to attend the Magdalen ‘gaudy’. In June he was back at Fort Augustus after an absence of almost eighteen months, but his sojourn there was to last barely a year, for in at the end of August he left the Highlands to return to Oxford.

The Benedictine hall in Oxford owed its origin to the Prior of Ampleforth, Fr Anselm Burge. The decision was made at a meeting of the Prior’s Council on 22nd July 1897 and twenty-six-year old Fr Edmund Matthews OSB was appointed superior. Along with three young postulants Fr Edmund arrived in Oxford early in October 1897, moving into premises at 103 Woodstock Road opposite St Philip and James Church. The foundation foundered however in that Fr Edmund was not a Master of Arts, and this degree was required by the university for anyone wishing to maintain a private lodging hall of undergraduates. As no-one at Ampleforth had an MA the future of the hall looked uncertain until Fr Oswald offered his services.  He was not just a Master of Arts but also a graduate of Oxford; furthermore, his social skills provided a means of gaining acceptance for the monks within the Oxford community. To satisfy the university rules he had to reside for a short period before he could be granted a license, and he moved in accordingly on 1st September 1898. License to open a Private Hall was obtained on the 29th May and Hunter-Blair Hall opened in October 1899 with himself as Master; Fr Edmund took care of general management until his recall to Ampleforth in 1903. In these early years the hall received much help from Hartwell Grissell.

Frederick Rolfe contacted him in 1901, hoping to enlist his help in finding a publisher for Chronicles of the House of Borgia. For some reason Rolfe turned on Hunter-Blair and directed a furious onslaught of invective against him. In 1904 Hunter-Blair moved the Benedictine house to new premises in Beaumont Street in the former Grindle’s Hall. Students included Justin McCann, who was the first monk from the Hall to obtain a First. Fr Oswald became a well-known and popular figure around Oxford, but by 1908 his health was causing concern and it was revealed that he would need a major operation. This effectively ended his term as Master. He returned to Oxford to spend a year as assistant Catholic chaplain and then embarked for Brazil to help at the monastery of San Bento in Sao Paolo.

Back at Fort Augustus Abbot Leo’s health had also deteriorated, so much so that he returned to Germany to be treated for diabetes: he did not return until the autumn of 1909. In his absence Prior Kentigern Milne had been in charge of the monastery, but the Abbot’s condition was so poor that it was evident he could not resume responsibility. He moved to the monastery’s “holiday home” St James’, at Letterfourie near Buckie, where he died on the Feast of St Benedict, 21st March 1910. The monastery ceased to be an independent abbey affiliated to the Beuronese Congregation and instead rejoined the EBC. Prior Hilary Wilson of Ampleforth was appointed claustral Prior during the inter-regnum which ended with the election of Fr Oswald as the second Abbot of Fort Augustus.

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The abbatial blessing
His abbatial blessing took place on 9th April 1913. A photograph in the Benedictine Almanac and Yearbook for 1914 (above) shows him seated alongside Bishop George Smith of Argyll & the Isles, with Abbot-President Aidan Gasquet and Abbot Oswald Smith of Ampleforth. ​

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The new abbot in 1913

He announced his determination to complete the abbey church, which still lacked a choir, and made this one of the priorities as abbot. The community then numbered about forty with some of the monks serving parishes outside the monastery. The school had been closed in Christmas 1894 as part of the Beuronese reform, continuing in a much-reduced scale as a junior seminary for around twenty boys considering a vocation to the priesthood or monastic life. He had been abbot for just over a year when the First World War erupted. Although it was not yet apparent,  the society that he had known had ceased to exist.  The college buildings were handed over for use as a military hospital and occupied by wounded Belgian soldiers. Several monks left to serve as chaplains in the army or navy; some, like Frs Odo Blundell and John Lane-Fox, distinguished themselves. It was a challenging time to be abbot. Many local families lost fathers, husbands and sons in the war. Resources were scant and his own health poor. The horrors of modern warfare ended the confident carefree Edwardian era, confronting mankind with proof of its own inhumanity. The introduction of airplanes and tanks was frightening enough, but submarine warfare was the most sinister development in the eyes of many – including Pope Benedict XV who considered their attacks on shipping as beyond even the laws of war. In 1911 Abbot Oswald had noted the arrival of two naval submarines – ‘weird, wicked-looking brown things’ – in Loch Ness. The modern world was breaking in. After the war even the grandest celebrations were more sober. The vast social balls at country mansions that he had known in his youth, with processions of carriages and footmen in livery, were not to be repeated. His memoirs contain much that seems redolent of the 18th and early 19th century, belonging to an era that ended with the coming of the railway rather than the submarines.

He resigned as abbot in November 1917 just after the solemn blessing of the Blessed Sacrament chapel by Bishop Aeneas Chisholm of Aberdeen. The choir had just been finished, although the entire church was not to be complete for another half-century. The retired Abbot followed the usual practice of moving away from his abbey for a while in order to give breathing space to his successor. As it happened there was another two-year interregnum during which Fr Hilary Wilson was again claustral prior. The EBC have a tradition of granting retired abbots the titular abbacy of an old pre-Reformation monastery and Abbot Oswald became – for the time being – titular Abbot of Abingdon. The suggestion of spending his retirement at the Benedictine House of Studies in Oxford was quashed by his former pupil Dom Justin McCann, appointed Master in 1920. He therefore moved at the age of 66 to Caldey Island off the coast of South Wales, the home of a Benedictine community of former Anglicans who had joined the Catholic Church in 1913. Their journal PAX carried his Rome Forty Years Ago: some rambling recollections in their autumn 1917 issue, with the second part of the article appearing in the winter number.

The community was in fact struggling with financial and personal difficulties, and the Superior – Dom Aelred Carlyle – left in December for a fund-raising tour in America. As he had still not returned by Easter 1918 Abbot Oswald officiated at the Holy Week services and preached on Easter Sunday. His presence was a welcome one. His gifts as a raconteur were appreciated by most (but not all!) of the community, which he also served as acting librarian. Much of the time was spent on literary work, a biography of Lord Bute as well as his forthcoming memoirs. Chapters from the latter were read to Br Richard Anson who provided the illustrations. Extracts were published in PAX. Abbot Oswald remained on Caldey Island for two and a half years, albeit with occasional journeys for important functions. He returned to the Highlands for the blessing of his successor, Abbot Joseph McDonald on 27th August 1919. While at Harrogate on the way home he heard that his titular abbacy was to be moved from Abingdon to Dunfermline – the only old Scottish abbey associated with the English Benedictines.

A Medley of Memories, the first of three entertaining volumes of memoirs, was published in 1919. (The other two came out in 1922 and 1936). Amongst all the thousands of books and articles written by Benedictine monks over the last 1,500 years there is nothing quite like Hunter-Blair’s trilogy. His gifts as a raconteur were obvious, but the never-ending litany of country houses, famous names and exotic locations presented an extraordinary picture of monastic life. Publication coincided with Abbot Cuthbert Butler’s Christian Monachism, an erudite, convincing and influential work that quickly became a classic. Comparing the two, one critic commented that Butler wrote about monastic life as it should be, while Hunter-Blair’s book showed it as it is. His trilogy of Medleys says little about mysticism but a great deal about high society. The abbot’s human failings may have included excessive concern with worldly affairs, yet this should neither obscure his achievements as a monk nor be presumed to imply lack of religious devotion or disregard for prayer. Most of a monk’s life is hidden, known only to God. While some monks may have worn silk-lined hair shirts Abbot Oswald could not be accused of hypocrisy, for he was extremely candid about his extra-mural activities; so much so, in fact, that it appears almost as a smokescreen. He was an intelligent man. Few abbots are fools.

He left Caldey on March 23rd 1920, having accepted another invitation to assist in Brazil. On his way to Southampton he stopped over at Bristol with Dr Tetley, the Archdeacon of Bristol and an old Magdalen man whose daughter had become a Catholic. At a Magdalen gaudy Hunter-Blair had met a previous Archdeacon of Bristol (and chaplain to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce) Alfred Pott. From Southampton he sailed for Brazil, arriving back at San Bento on April 19th 1920. He left in August and by the autumn was back in Fort Augustus where he completed the final pages of Life of the Third Marquess of Bute. Early in 1921 he sailed back to Brazil and reached San Bento on February 10th 1921. He left in November and reached England mid-December. The Beuronese encouraged artistic work and the abbey had its own Arts & Crafts school which made a rosewood screen for the Blessed Sacrament chapel at Fort Augustus.

From then on he was never able to settle. He travelled about, acting as chaplain to noble families, writing prolifically for books and magazines, and residing for some years at the New Club in Edinburgh’s Princes Street. He was constantly in demand as a speaker for church events, jubilees, weddings, radio broadcasts, dinners, and social functions, at which he was always the life and soul of the gathering.

Hunter-Blair took part in the abbatial blessing of Dom Edmund Matthews, his former Oxford colleague, on 12th March 1925. In 1927 he was on the BBC broadcasting on the subject of ‘Scottish Monasticism’ before leaving for Brazil again in the winter months. On December 8th 1928 he kept his Golden Jubilee, marking fifty years since he began his novitiate.

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Abbot Oswald in 1929

In noting the occasion the Benedictine Almanac and Guide for 1930 acknowledged that ‘English Benedictines are especially indebted to him as the first Master of the Benedictine Oxford House of Studies, for whose help in an acute emergency, and in many years of service, we can never be sufficiently grateful.’ (p.15. Photograph above.)

On 7th January 1935 he took part in the inaugural meeting of the Fort Augustus Old Boys’ Association at the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh, presiding over their London dinner at the Rembrandt Hotel in London the following month. He told the gathering that he was shortly travelling to Rome to see Pope Pius XI and would ask the Pope for a special blessing for them all, at which point the audience burst into singing ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow.’  A few weeks later he was back in Oxford, for the Scottish Catholic Observer reported on 9th March 1935: ‘The Lord Abbot of Dunfermline, Abbot Hunter Blair, gave a lecture last week in the Society’s rooms at the Old Palace (now the residence of Fr Ronald Knox) on the famous Monster of Loch Ness. Many distinguished members of the University attended.’ He was off to Rome next where he stayed with the Abbot Primate on the Aventine and had a private audience with Pius XI on March 27th. The two men seemed to have got on well together. Eschewing the formality of his predecessors, the Pope asked Abbot Oswald to sit next to him. The monk showed him a picture of the monastery’s setting by Loch Ness and Pius XI cried out in delight ‘Enfin, nous l’avons – l’habitat du Monstre! It turned out that the Pope had long been fascinated by the Loch Ness monster and had been unsuccessfully quizzing Scottish bishops and priests for details. Once Hunter-Blair admitted that he had in fact seen the creature, it proved impossible to steer the conversation onto any other subject.

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Hardly an ascetic figure: Abbot Oswald in 1932

By his early eighties his health – never strong – had begun to deteriorate and he suffered much from rheumatism, gout and failing sight. Despite this he remained active, with neither his brain nor his pen lying idle for long. Even if his “unwillingness to let the monastic life interfere with his social engagements”11 had led him to spend most of his time outwith the cloister, his heart remained in the monastery where he made profession. Lying ill in St Mary’s Hospital, London, he knew that death was drawing near and asked to return to St Benedict’s Abbey. He was taken on train back to Fort Augustus where he died on September 12th 1939, and buried in the abbey cemetery.

To monks today he cuts a rather comical figure, seeming to belong more to the pages of a novel by Trollope or Dickens than to the Vitae Patrum. Since the beginnings of Christianity monks have made their dwelling in deserts, mountain caves, on remote islands and even atop pillars, none of which seems as incongruous as Edinburgh’s New Club – but this image he himself presented, and it is easy to be fooled by the impression.  His aristocratic connections and evident enjoyment of them may seem out of keeping with the renunciation of his monastic vows, but these were deliberately employed for higher ends. In an era when the establishment tended to identify Catholicism with Irish navvies and foreign Jesuits, the charms of this literary baronet were a revelation. The fact that he was a monk – and a highly capable one – added to his effectiveness in making Catholic religious life acceptable. There were still violent attacks being made on the presence of a Roman Catholic monastery in Scotland in newspapers in 1888. The ease with which he glided through the upper classes enabled him to advance Catholic causes that might otherwise have been obstructed: his success in gaining a foothold for the Benedictines in Oxford is just one instance. Abbot Oswald may sometimes have acted the clown, but his mind was more shrewd than he let on.  Despite the huge amount this colourful and flamboyant figure wrote about himself, one suspects that it was always less than the full story. This monk of Magdalen continues to fascinate, to entertain and to confound; in being a sign of contradiction, even to himself, he stands firmly in the monastic tradition. ​​​

Diane Arbus in Kirkcaldy

 

Following on from last week’s post, during our stay in Fife I was surprised (but why?) to find that the council-run Kirkcaldy Galleries was hosting an exhibition of the work of photographer Diane Arbus (1923-71.) It reminded me of my visit to the island of Capri five years ago, when I stumbled across an exhibition of original Leni Riefenstahl prints in a small room tucked away in a cobbled alleyway behind a church. It had the added bonus of being free, as is the one in Kirkcaldy.

Exhibition poster. The photograph shown is Arbus’ ‘A Young Man and his Pregnant Wife in Washington Square Park, New York City’
Born into a wealthy Jewish family of the name Nemerov, Diane began using a camera in partnership with her husband Alan Arbus, running a fashion photography business. From making images of conventional beauty and desirable opulence, she gradually moved away to concentrate on those at the opposite end of the social spectrum – those on the margins of society, including circus performers, transvestites and people with physical deformities – including the sort of human zoo pictures that I wrote about in an earlier post. In the last two years of her life, she was allowed access to mental institutions where she produced a series of images – both poignant and disturbing – of the mentally impaired inmates.

 

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‘A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y’

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‘Jack Dracula’, photographed in New London, Connecticut, in 1961

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A Child Crying, New Jersey 1967

The image above, like the majority of Arbus portraits, is taken face-on, so that the viewer has a direct confrontation with the subject of the photograph. It is this aspect of her work, as much as the content matter, that is so unsettling. There is no opportunity to avert the eye, to focus on another portion of the image and try to alter the perspective. Unlike her early fashion shoots, these are not contrived studio sessions but are taken in the sitters’ own homes, institutions or workplaces, so that it is we who find ourselves in unfamiliar settings, alienated, confronted with people and places that may make us uncomfortable. The fact that many of her sitters appear quite at ease with their physical or mental awkwardness, or even proud of their disfigurements, challenges us to identify who it is that has the real problem.

However, not all the sitters appear comfortable with being photographed, and in the case of those with severe mental disabilities it is evident that their consent was never – and could never – be obtained. The photographer’s troubled life – after several bouts of depression Arbus committed suicide at the age of 48 – invites connections with these images of loneliness, marginalisation and suffering. Does evidence of her own unhappiness demonstrate a degree of affinity or sympathy with those she photographed? There is an honesty about her photography that undermines accusations of voyeurism or exploitation, although such charges have been made. Influential critic Susan Sontag expressed her unease about Arbus’s work in her 1973 New York Review of Books article ‘Freak Show’, which was later revised to form the central essay in On Photography (1977.) Surprisingly, for such a respected writer, Sontag never really strikes home with any critical insight about Arbus’s work. The essay is effective in articulating Sontag’s negative response, but reveals little about the photographs themselves. Her main charge – that of a lack of compassion – has ‘stuck’ nonetheless, and it is no simple matter to dismiss.

One might argue that developing a ‘lack of compassion’ is an occupational hazard for any photographer working in the documentary tradition, particularly those commissioned to record scenes of suffering in war zones or disaster areas. Maintaining a high degree of detachment is essential for professional standards: but where does one draw the line? And does the practice of enforcing such discipline not run a risk of psychological self-harm? The story of Kevin Carter (1960-94) remains a salutary warning; the life, work and death of the South African photographer was dramatised in the film The Bang-Bang Club (Steven Silver, 2010) and inspired Alfredo Jaar’s unbearably moving art-installation The Sound of Silence (2006.)

Diane Arbus’s life has also been depicted on the big screen, providing the inspiration for the film Fur (2006) directed by Steven Shainberg. Like his earlier Secretary (2002) it is an audacious portrayal of a woman’s unorthodox desires, but as a portrait of Arbus it is unsatisfactory. Those wanting to know more about her should begin by studying her photographs – and for anyone in the region of Kirkcaldy, their exhibition remains open for another month, until the end of May.

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Nicole Kidman as Diane Arbus in ‘Fur’ (Steven Shainberg, 2006)

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The real Diane Arbus
For those interested in seeing more of Diane’s images, along with information about gallery exhibitions and sales of her work, check out this Diane Arbus page on the Artsy website.