This article, by Robert Elwall, appeared in Matrix 27 in 2007. It discusses Edwin Smith and Olive Cook’s involvement with The Saturday Book, which he called ‘A Cabinet of Curiosities’ .
Matrix – The Saturday Book
Bomarzo and the Sacro Bosco
In the days when I was printing Edwin Smith’s negatives for Olive Cook, his widow, she would sometimes give me copies of his original prints as gifts. This was always a great honour, as she was extremely protective of the work he left behind, particularly any prints he had made himself.
This is one example, which I received sometime in the early 1990’s. Although given to me framed, I never hung it as the makeshift mount was one made for a landscape print and this was portrait format, so it didn’t look right at all. The frame was also old and battered, so recently I took it apart to cut a new mount and re-frame.
Daily Telegraph: Edwin Smith’s England
Christopher Howse celebrates the nostalgic photographs of Edwin Smith and the glorious, changing landscape that inspired him 50 years ago.
An article in the Daily Telegraph, 2007, by Christopher Howse
“A photographer who conveys the apparent timelessness of England’s landscape, and its vulnerability, is Edwin Smith”.
Edwin Smith Recollections
These recollections, by people who knew Edwin Smith, where published to accompany the exhibition of his work held at The Minories Gallery, Colchester, in 1974.
Edwin Smith – The Last Exposures
These photographs were on the roll of film that still lay, undeveloped, in Edwin’s Ensign Autorange camera when Olive let me have it in 1993. It had been in the camera since 1971 when Edwin died, unbeknownst to Olive.
I processed the 22 year-old roll with great care and was astonished to find it contained usable images. Continue reading “Edwin Smith – The Last Exposures”
Edwin Smith Revisited
In 1965, whilst photographing in Ireland for the book of the same name published in 1966, Edwin Smith visited the formal gardens at Powerscourt in County Wicklow.
One of the photographs he took there has always held a certain fascination for me and a trip to Ireland gave me the opportunity to visit the gardens and see this impressive place myself. Armed with a copy of this published version of his image on my iPad as a guide, I set out to try and photograph the view as it is today.
Edwin Smith & Social Documentary Photography
Edwin Smith is one of the great British architectural photographers of the 20th century. Between the publication of English Parish Churches in 1952 and Rome: from its Foundation to the Present in 1971 he established a deceptively simple yet distinctive style of photography that celebrated the architecture of Britain and mainland Europe. Continue reading “Edwin Smith & Social Documentary Photography”
Edwin Smith – Ways of Working
On other pages, Unwrapping the Enigma, I describe how in 1989 we set out to explore the work of Edwin Smith and in doing so talked to his widow, Olive Cook, and some friends, a few of whom worked with him. That article uses the interviews to try to gain some insights into the character of Edwin. This article uses the same sources and research in the Olive Cook Papers (Newnham College) to explore something of his way of working as a photographer.
The Photographs of Edwin Smith
These are some of Edwin Smith’s photographs from my own collection. They are a few from the many that I printed for Olive Cook during the 1980s and 1990s.
Exhibitions of Paintings & Drawings
In 1992, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Edwin Smith was held at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. Ever since his death, Olive Cook had tried to promote more interest in Edwin’s non-photographic output – which was prolific but largely unrecognised during his lifetime.
In 1997, Olive exhibited his non-photographic work at the Sally Hunter Fine Art gallery in London, now closed. There have been no other major exhibitions of his work that we know of, but The Fry Art Gallery has an extensive collection of work by both Edwin Smith and Olive Cook, as does The Chelmsford Museum.
Edwin Smith used to say that he was “the only artist with a complete collection of his own work”.
Most recently, The Fry Gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex, hosted a major exhibition of Edwin Smith’s paintings, drawings, cuts and photographs from July 7 until September 1, 2013. Continue reading “Exhibitions of Paintings & Drawings”
