1203
dying of consumption, was too painful to depict with
the realistic medium of photography. To compose the
narrative image, Robinson used combination printing, a
technique in which a photographer created a picture by
printing parts of several negatives together. Robinson
used this technique to make up for the technical short-
comings of the collodion process and because it allowed
him to carefully compose an aesthetic picture. Whereas
Robinson felt that photographers should be able to use
any technique that furthered the aesthetic appearance
of the image, Alfred H. Wall and other critics felt that
combination printing was dishonest. Undeterred, Rob-
inson continued to use combination printing for the
remainder of his photographic career. In 1861 Robinson
exhibited another controversial combination print of a
young woman doomed to die—The Lady of Shalott. This
photograph was based on the title character from Alfred,
Lord Tennyson’s allegory of artistic creation. In effect,
Robinson’s Shalott staked a claim that photography
could illustrate and even interpret poetry, or in other
words, it could depict the imaginary. Some critics had
harsh opinions, saying that the subject went beyond the
appropriate boundaries for photography.
After the two controversial subjects of Fading Away
and the Pre-Raphaelite Lady of Shalott, Robinson
vowed to stick to themes of “the life of our day,” but he
still wanted to create a type of photography that would
be accepted as art. For the next fi fty years, Robinson
produced photographs that almost exclusively imitated
British genre painting, depicting rustic maidens and
old cottagers. This subject matter allowed him to ex-
plore the creative principles of photography while still
permitting him to picture a conservative and familiar
type of reality.
Robinson was an active member of the Photographic
Society of London, to which he was elected in 1857.
He was elected to the Society’s Council in 1862, and he
was elected Vice-President in 1870. In 1891, however,
he withdrew from the Society after he was censured for
allowing the late entry of George Davison’s photographs
into the annual exhibition. The following year he helped
to form the Linked Ring, an association of photogra-
phers dedicated to developing their medium as an art.
Throughout his career, Robinson was a prolific
writer, publishing nine books and over 150 articles in
various photographic journals. His most popular book,
Pictorial Effect in Photography: Being Hints on Com-
position and Chiaroscuro for Photographers (1869),
went through four English and American editions and
was also published in French and German. These books
were mostly aimed at other commercial photographers,
and Robinson encouraged these photographers to create
pleasing images by following compositional and lighting
principals of Fine Art.
Robinson operated commercial photography studios
for the majority of his artistic career. His initial studio in
Leamington fared well, and he offered portraits on paper,
glass or ivory, plain or colored, as well as hand-colored
art reproductions, landscapes, documentation of public
buildings and residences, and printing of amateurs’
negatives. Robinson suffered from ill-health, largely
due to the hazards of photographic chemistry, and he
halted commercial practice in late 1864. After more than
three years of rest, Robinson opened up a commercial
studio in 1868 with a partner, Nelson K. Cherrill, in
Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Robinson and Cherrill col-
laborated on many artistic combination prints during
their partnership, which lasted until 1875. Their lavish
studio featured prominent displays of studio portraiture
and also many examples of Robinson’s artistic exhibi-
tion photographs. It also exhibited nearly fi fty medals
Robinson had won at various exhibitions throughout
Europe and America. Robinson retired from commercial
practice in 1888.
Although he had retired from commercial photog-
raphy, Robinson was still very as an artist and writer.
In 1889 began a brief, but very heated, public debate
with the British photographer Peter Henry Emerson,
who had implicitly criticized Robinson’s oeuvre in his
book Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.
(Emerson disdained combination printing, for example,
saying that it was “the art of the opera bouffe” and that
Oscar Rejlander was the only artist he knew who had
used it.) Robinson negatively reviewed Emerson’s book,
concluding that Emerson’s theories were symptomatic
of a recurrent “disease,” for which Robinson’s views
were the “disinfectant.” This prompted a heated and
insulting reply from Emerson that concluded, “I have
yet to learn that any one statement or photograph of Mr.
H.P. Robinson’s has ever had the slightest infl uence upon
me, except as a warning what not to do.” Their public
debate effectively ended with Robinson’s assessment
of Emerson’s retraction of his theories as “a petulant
jeremiad.”
Robinson died in 1901, survived by his wife, Selina,
and their fi ve children: Edith, Ralph Winwood, Maud,
Ethel May, and Leonard Lionel.
David Coleman
See also: Photographic Exchange Club and
Photographic Society Club, London; and Wet
Collodion Negative.Further Reading
Coleman, David. Henry Peach Robinson: Victorian Photogra-
pher. Austin, Texas: Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 2001.
Handy, Ellen, ed.. Pictorial Effect, Naturalistic Vision: The
Photographs and Theories of Henry Peach Robinson and
Peter Henry Emerson. Norfolk, Virginia: Chrysler Museum,
1994.