{"id":15171,"date":"2011-10-10T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amateurphotographer.co.uk\/uncategorized\/frank-meadow-sutcliffe-1853-1941-iconic-photographer-15171"},"modified":"2014-10-23T11:31:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T10:31:29","slug":"frank-meadow-sutcliffe-1853-1941-iconic-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/iconic-images\/frank-meadow-sutcliffe-1853-1941-iconic-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853-1941) – Iconic Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image: From the beginning of his career, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe aimed to push the limits of conventional photography<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Although the majority of Frank Sutcliffe\u2019s photographs were made in or around the small North Yorkshire town of Whitby, he achieved an international reputation in his lifetime and is now regarded as one of the masters of late 19th and early 20th century photography. <\/p>\n

Sutcliffe was both artistically and technically accomplished, and worked within the limitations of photography at the time to produce images of lasting value. Despite that, he never achieved great wealth and remained a working portrait photographer throughout his professional life. The atmospheric studies of Whitby and its inhabitants for which he is now remembered were mainly done for his own enjoyment.<\/p>\n

As the eldest son of the successful watercolour artist Thomas Sutcliffe, Frank spent much of his early life surrounded by artworks and had early ambitions to be a painter. Due to his father\u2019s illness, however, Sutcliffe\u2019s education was cut short and at the age of 14 he was sent to work as a clerk at Tetley\u2019s Brewery. After 18 months, his father recovered and Sutcliffe returned home where he formed an interest in photography.<\/p>\n

His first camera, bought for him in 1869, was a huge mahogany stand camera that, when extended fully, was 3ft (1m) long and used 15x12in glass plates. Sutcliffe used the wet-collodion process, which required that the plate was exposed and developed before the light-sensitive coating had dried. It was a complicated and awkward process, but he soon produced good results with it.<\/p>\n

After Thomas\u2019s premature death in 1871, the 18-year-old Frank took on the wage-earning responsibility as the head of the household to provide for his seven younger siblings. He got his first commission the following year when Francis Frith paid him to photograph abbeys and castles in Yorkshire. These images formed part of Frith\u2019s project to photograph all the towns, villages and landmarks in the UK, and were to be mass-produced and sold as \u2018local views\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, commissions such as Frith\u2019s brought in little money and Frank decided to set up a portrait photography studio. Believing that more money was to be made in the prosperous South of England, Sutcliffe moved to Tunbridge Wells in Kent and set up a studio there. Unfortunately, it was a financial disaster and he returned to Whitby the following year.<\/p>\n

Sutcliffe started a new studio in considerably humbler circumstances and his studio was part of a jet workshop that was both hot and noisy. Nevertheless, the studio thrived and during the holiday season he and his wife would regularly finish the day\u2019s work by mounting prints until 2am. <\/p>\n

From the beginning of his career, Sutcliffe aimed to push the limits of conventional photography. He disliked the unnatural, stiff poses favoured by most photographers and aimed to make his portraits more relaxed and natural. He also strived to produce photographs of the best possible quality that contained a great range of tones.<\/p>\n

<\/img><\/p>\n

<\/img>Image: \u2018Piggy Back\u2019. Sutcliffe carefully posted his subjects to make them look as natural as possible. This picture shows Whitby locals Jane Fordon (left) and Hannah Ledley
\n<\/strong><\/em>
\nSutcliffe was diligent and hard working, and later moved on to a bigger and better studio. However, his writings revealed that he resented the amount of time he spent doing formal portraits of babies and children when he would rather have been photographing the outdoor scenes about which he was passionate.<\/p>\n

He became a well-known figure in the town and, when his work permitted, was often out photographing local people and scenes in Whitby\u2019s thriving harbour, around its ruined abbey on the hillside overlooking the town and in the surrounding countryside. <\/p>\n

As Michael Hiley observed in his book Frank Sutcliffe: Photographer of Whitby, \u2018Sutcliffe was able to produce striking photographs from very simple subject-matter \u2013 men leaning against a rail, sun streaming through the sail of a boat at the quayside, two women chatting in an alleyway\u2026 These scenes were there for all to see, but only Sutcliffe took notice of them and photographed them.\u2019<\/p>\n

By the 1890s, Sutcliffe\u2019s work had won many prizes at international exhibitions and his writings on the theory and practice of photography regularly appeared in a number of publications, including Amateur Photographer. <\/p>\n

He strongly believed in photography\u2019s artistic potential at a time when many regarded it as inferior to painting and only useful as a means of recording people and scenes. In 1892, Sutcliffe became a founder member of The Linked Ring, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of photography as a fine art.<\/p>\n

He was also interested in the technical innovations of the late 19th century and began experimenting with the new Kodak \u2018pocket\u2019 cameras made by the Eastman Company. From 1897-1907, Sutcliffe was given the company\u2019s latest models in exchange for providing Eastman with photographs made with them. <\/p>\n

These images were more photojournalistic in style than Sutcliffe\u2019s earlier pictorial work, and although the results were inevitably of an inferior technical quality, he enjoyed the freedom of being able to photograph people in a more spontaneous and informal style. <\/p>\n

\u2018The Kodak has freshened my interest in outdoor photography in a marked degree,\u2019 he wrote in AP in 1900. \u2018My only regret is that I didn\u2019t have it years ago.\u2019 Elsewhere, he wrote that he felt he had been born \u201840 years too soon\u2019 and wondered what images he might have created with 20th century handheld cameras.<\/p>\n

<\/img>Image: \u2018Dock End, Whitby\u2019, 1880. Sky tones couldn\u2019t be captured using the wet-plate process, so Sutcliffe expertly print in clouds from another negative<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Sutcliffe eventually closed his portrait studio in 1922 and took up the position of President of Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society. He continued taking photographs into old age, but in later years lamented the passing of the more traditional way of life that he had done so much to immortalise in his work. <\/p>\n

Biography<\/h2>\n