FREDERICK H. EVANS
British
Known for his extraordinary interior photographs
of churches and portraiture, Frederick Henry Evans
went against the prevailing winds of his era in photo-
graphy to produce startling modern, historically
important photographs at the turn of the nineteenth
to the twentieth centuries. Despite his international
renown in midlife, Evans’s early years are largely
unknown. Born in 1853, Evans was self-educated,
and in the 1870s, he was a bank clerk. In his early
20s, because of poor health, he visited Boston and
lived with his aunt for a year. Health was also the
reason for visiting England’s Lake District, where
the scenery made a deep impression.
In keeping with the scientific era, Evans bought a
microscope in the 1880s, and then took up photo-
graphy to record the images. The Royal Photo-
graphic Society, in 1887, awarded him a medal for
his photomicrographs of shells. In the 1880s, he left
clerking and became a partner, and later, sole
owner of a London bookstore. The book shop
attracted a remarkable clientele, which included
George Bernard Shaw whose writing on Ibsen
Evans recommended to appropriate customers. In
addition to a considerable literary background,
Evans also acquired a connoisseur’s appreciation
of art, and he collected drawings, prints, and Japa-
nese artifacts. Evans recognized the artistic talent
of the 18-year-old Aubrey Beardsley, a frequent
browser in the store, and it was Evans who recom-
mended this young artist to the publisher J. M.
Dent.
Evans’s photography included portraiture, and
Beardsley proved one of his best subjects in a pho-
tograph showing him in profile, his long hands
supporting his chin. The pose of this young artist
of the Decadence referred to a gargoyle on Notre
Dame de Paris.
While running his unusual bookstore, Evans pur-
sued photography in his spare time, and in 1894, he
photographed York Minster, where he would return
in 1902 to makeIn Sure and Certain Hope,whose
title comes from The Book of Common Prayer.
Typically, Evans would visit a cathedral town for
days so he could experience the sacred building under
many different conditions. If necessary to achieve the
right effect, he would pressure church officials to
remove furniture and even gas lighting fixtures.
He usually used a 4 5-inch camera and
occasionally an 8 10 camera. Double-coated
Cristoid films were used so that shadows and high-
lights would be recorded on fast and slow emul-
sions to assure maximum detail. A battery of
lenses up to 19 inches in focal length was used to
get the desired coverage and perspective. Typi-
cally, exposures ranged from several seconds to
hours at f/32. The negatives were always printed
on platinum paper, which yielded an especially
subtle range of middle tones.
Health forced Evans to retire from book selling,
and he moved to Epping in 1898, but this allowed
him to pursue photography full time. In 1892, some
photographers seceded from the London Photo-
graphic Society (after 1894, The Royal Pho-
tographic Society of Great Britain) and formed
the Linked Ring, a select international group
open to women and featuring the annual Photo-
graphic Salon. Evans was invited to join the
Linked Ring in 1900, where he was a leading advo-
cate for the Purist faction as opposed to the Pic-
torialists or Impressionists, who advocated using
manipulative techniques.
As designer and installer of the Linked Ring’s
Photographic Salon exhibitions at the Dudley Gal-
lery in London from 1902–1905, Evans showed
skill and imagination in transforming a somber
space and usual hanging methods into a well lit
area with photographs arranged to emphasize
visual statements. These ideas spread to the Little
Galleries of the Photo-Secession. Evans corre-
sponded extensively with Alfred Stieglitz, leader
of the Photo-Secession in New York and publisher
ofCamera Work, where Evans’s work and ideas
were well represented.
Without training in traditional art media, Evans
could not practice the manipulative techniques
others used to emulate fine art. Consequently, he
championed straight or pure photography and
wrote frequently in journals such asAmateur Photo-
grapherandPhotography, where he championed his
beliefs about photographic art. While praising the
gum bichromate works by Robert Demachy and
other outstanding artists using manipulative tech-EVANS, FREDERICK H.