43
Guggisberg, C.A.W. Early Wildlife Photographers. London:
Newton Abbott; Vancouver: David & Charles, 1977.
Jacobson, Ken and Jenny. Études d’Apres Nature: 19th Century
Photographs in Relation to Art. Petches Bridge, Great Bard-
fi eld Essex: Ken and Jenny Jacobson, 1996.
Harker, Margaret. ‘Animal photography in the 19th century.’ In
Alexandra Noble, ed., The Animal in Photography. London:
Photographer’s Gallery, 1986.
Prodger, Philip. Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instanta-
neous Photography Movement. Stanford, CA: The Iris & B.
Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University
in association with Oxford University Press, 2003.
Thomas, Ann, et al., Beauty of Another Order: Photography in
Science. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in
association with the National Gallery of Canada, 1997.
Wurm, W., Dr. Die Jagdthiere Mittel-Europas - Naturgeschichte
und Charakterschilderung der zur hohen Jagd gehöri-
gen Thiere illustrirt nach Momentaufnahmen nach dem
Leben— Ein Beitrag zur wissenschaftlichen und praktischen
Thierkunde - mit vielen Fotoabbildungen. [Natural History and
Description of Hoofed Animals in Middle Europe hunted by
the Aristocracy. A Scientifi c and Zoological Treatise.] Leipzig:
Verlag von Otto Klemm, 1897.
ANNAN, JAMES CRAIG (1864–1946)
Scottish photographer and photogravurist
Annan was an important international fi gure in photog-
raphy’s fi ght for recognition as an art in its own right at
the turn of the nineteenth century. Then anyone inter-
ested in Pictorial Photography would know his work,
exhibited throughout Europe and the United States from
St Petersburg in 1894 to Buffalo in 1910 and reproduced
in many journals including Die Kunst in der Photogra-
phie of Berlin and Camera Work of New York.
He learned photography from his father Thomas An-
nan and went in 1883 to Vienna to learn photogravure
from its inventor Karl Klíč. When in 1887 his father died
the family fi rm became T. & R. Annan & Sons, Glasgow,
Photographers and Fine Art Publishers. James became
a partner specialising in photogravure for the reproduc-
tion of works of art, for example, Sir Henry Raeburn: a
Selection of his Portraits, Constable, 1890, and for book
illustration, an early example, G. Christopher Davies,
Norfolk Broads and Rivers, Blackwood, 1883, and a
macabre example, William Macewen, Atlas of Head
Sections, Maclehose, 1893.
About 1891 Annan decided to make his own photo-
graphs. In 1892 a trip to North Holland produced what
must have been a breathtakingly fresh exhibition in
the fi rm’s new galleries, its interior, furniture, and the
picture frames designed by George Walton. The almost
abstract “On a Dutch Shore” captures the roar of wind
and sea as a catch of fi sh is auctioned on the open beach.
“The Beach at Zandvoort,” merely 4.6 cm by 23.3, has
fi gures which at fi rst appear like irregular notes of music
pushed into a slanting line across the top of the composi-
tion. These two photogravures alone almost reduce The
Hague School to costume painters.
Annan’s trip in 1894 to North Italy produced in 1896
a folio of eleven photogravures, Venice and Lombardy.
The minimal “Venice from the Lido” shows Annan fol-
lowing his own advice to set up, then watch and wait
and wait, until, in this case, the shape of the drifting
gondola came into a visual harmony with the posts in
the channel and the distant towers of the city. Annan
stated that he had no set of rules. He worked ‘by the
inspiration of the moment’.
1894 brought him astounding recognition. He was
elected a member of The Linked Ring. He showed more
prints than anyone else at the Photo-Club de Paris. He
exhibited at the Joint Exhibition in New York and “The
Beach at Zandfoort” was used as a frontispiece for The
American Amateur Photographer. He exhibited in St
Petersburg, and, at the London Salon, sold a 45.4 cm
carbon of “The Lombardy Ploughing Team” for three
guineas to Harold Holcroft, an early collector.
Annan was an early advocate of the hand camera.
Stieglitz obtained one sometime in 1892–93. Annan
had exhibited hand camera prints in 1891 and presented
an entire exhibition “North Holland” in 1892. When in
1897 Stieglitz wrote about the hand camera he quoted
from Annan’s article in The Amateur Photographer of
March 1896. Annan and Stieglitz were exact contem-
poraries. They enjoyed a long correspondence. Stieglitz
owned sixty Annans.
Annan delighted in the seizing of the moment, for
example, the practised glance of William Strang examin-
ing his etching plate, or the tiny, restless, almost eerie,
movement of the white horse in the farmyard below
Stirling Castle.
In photogravure the image is transferred to a plate to
be worked on as an etcher would. Annan enjoyed this
immensely. “The Etching Printer—Willam Strang, Esq,”
1902, was heavily manipulated with its background and
the wheel of the etching press washed out leaving the
very subject of the work, Strang’s eye and his plate,
sharp. Annan explored other manipulations. Adding
“Ex Libris Dorothy Carleton Smyth” to a print of her
portrait resulted in a photographic book plate.
During its 1901 International Exhibition, Glasgow
was the centre of Pictorial Photography. Annan as-
sembled 201 pictorial works from Austria, Belgium,
England, France, Germnay, India, Italy, Scotland,
Russia, Switzerland, and the United States. In addition,
he asked Steigltiz to select the American section. He
provided, with a few exceptions, the works which in
1902 announced the arrival of The Photo-Secession. T.
& R. Annan & Sons were also offi cial photographers
to the International Exhibition. Three years later they
built the most handsome new premises in Sauchiehall
Street.
Annan produced some fi ne portraits deeply redolent
of their time. Anne MacBeth, who taught at Glasgow