Henry Peach Robinson

Born on July 9^th, 1830, Henry Peach Robinson would become known as a pictorialist photographer who combines multiple negatives to form one photo in a technique known as photomontage (which would actually be invented by Oscar Gustave Rejilander a year prior to Robinson’s start in this new art), in which Robinson would be considered to be a pioneer. After thirteen years of education, Robinson became an apprentice to Richard Jones, a Ludlow printer and bookseller. While studying art, Robinson continued to be a bookseller by trade, moving from bookstore to bookstore until 1852 when he exhibited an oil painting and began taking photographs.

In 1855 he opened a studio in Leamington Spa, out of which he would sell portraits. A year later, he co-founded the Birmingham Photographic Society with Rejilander. Three years after that, he would marry Selina Grieves, the daughter of Ludlow chemist John Edward Grieves. Robinson would, in 1864, be forced by failing health due to darkroom chemical exposure at the age of thirty-four, to give up his studio, preferring to employ the “paste pot and scissors” method of combining photos to the method employed by Rejilander. He kept up with the theoretical side of photography as he moved to London, penning the 1868 essay Pictorial Effect in Photography, Being Hints on Composition, and Chiaroscuro for Photographers, an influential essay in the field. He was also a strong advocate for the recognization of photography as an art form, joining the Royal Photographic Society as Vice President in 1870.

Robinson was a member of the RPS until 1890 when internal disputes within the society led him to resign and join the Linked Ring society, which served as a rival to the RPS. He was active with Linked Ring until 1900, and by that time, the RPS elected him to honorary membership as well. An early supporter of the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom, Robinson regularly debated in favor of photography’s status as an art form. In 1891, he was asked to serve as President of the PCUK, but he declined. He died and was subsequently buried in Tunbridge Wells in 1901.