People, Places and Things draws from the archive of W.W. Winter Studio in Derby – the oldest running photography business in the UK. The exhibition, at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, presents images of the interwoven personalities, industries and changing landscapes of the city of Derby over the past 165 years. The exhibition is part of FORMAT, the UK’s largest photography festival.
From studio portraits of families, soldiers and sportsmen, to shop fronts, factory production lines, still-lifes, musical productions and royal visits, the photographs in the exhibition have been drawn from tens of thousands of negatives and prints from the archive of W.W. Winter studio by curator Greg Hobson. The studio was founded in 1852 and has been operating in its current purpose-built studios and under the name W.W. Winter, on Midland Road in Derby since 1867. Over the years, Winter’s has embraced new photographic formats and technologies and is now a fully digital business that continues to build on the strong tradition of portraiture.
The earliest photographs in the archive are portraits, familiar in their formality and drawing heavily on the conventions of portrait painting, a model that is little changed today. The studio portraits map the sitters’ aspirations and self-image with best clothes worn, hair-styled alongside backdrops, props and lighting variously employed to create an image of perfection and success. Through the archives of W.W. Winter, technologies evolve, demographics shift and fashions change – whilst hopes and desires of the sitters remain broadly the same. The photographs of families can be traced through the visits made by children, parents and grandparents, each generation returning to be recorded for posterity by the Winter photographers.
In the early 20th century, W.W. Winter Ltd diversified into commercial and industrial photography, advertising and weddings. Derby was rapidly establishing as a major industrial city, renowned for transport manufacturing and for many years was the UK’s center for train building, including the luxury Pullman Railway Coach. Winter studio actively engaged with businesses, chronicling their innovation and growth, requiring work on location, away from the confines of a controlled studio environment, resulting in some of the most compelling photographs in the archive.
The city of Derby has grown and evolved around industry, and the Winter studio has mapped these changes through their regular photography of the streets and buildings, charting city planning developments and progress. Shop fronts festooned with chickens and gutted rabbits; a royal visit; a street festival all unwittingly create a permanent historical record of Derby. Positions and compositions remain static, while buildings are demolished and industries that defined the city disappear as new industries emerge. Photographic archives are uniquely placed to disclose these changes, allowing comparison and consideration in a relatively objective recording of daily life. W.W. Winter Ltd is embedded in the history of Derby and remains a dynamic force in the records and histories of the city’s people, places and things.
People, Places and Things, photographs from the WW Winter archive
24 March – 23 April 2017
Cathedral Green
Derby
United Kingdom
