The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London began developing a permanent collection of photographs in 1852, the year it was founded. This early recognition of photography was pioneering, making the V&A the first museum to collect photography in the world. Today, the museum contains more than 800,000 photographic objects. But, for much of its history, the V&A has exhibited to the public only tiny fragments of its world-renowned photography collection.
No more. On May 25, the museum will mark the long-awaited completion of the Photography Center. “The momentum behind photography at the V&A is greater than ever,” says Marta Weiss, Senior Curator of Photography at the V&A.
First phase
The centre, located in the North East Wing of the South Kensington Museum, has had a long gestation period. First phase of the project opened in 2018, attracting three times more visitors than expected. “It was our first real attempt to claim a space within the museum,” says Martin Barnes, senior curator of photographs who heads the V&A’s photography department.
A rendering of the Parasol Foundation Gallery (Room 97) in the V&A’s Photography Center, which was funded by a donation from Ruth Monicka Parasol, who made a fortune selling adult entertainment
© Gibson Thornley Architects
But the first phase included only three galleries. Now a second and final phase has added four more. Together, the center’s seven galleries now total over 1,000 m² of exhibition space along the length of the museum’s northeast quarter.
“We wanted to show photography in all its forms, from book page to glass negative, wall print and digital,” says Barnes. “We’re one of the few places in the world where you can come and be able to reliably see this range.”
The Photography Center gained momentum when the already large holdings of the photography department were bolstered by the addition, in 2016, of the Royal Photographic Society’s archive of photographs, books and cameras. The collection was previously held at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, Yorkshire.
Donation
But the collection is not inert. It is a living, evolving and ever-changing thing, driven by a dynamic program of contemporary acquisitions. In September 2021, the V&A announced the Parasol Women in Photography project, made possible by a £3 million endowment from the Parasol Foundation Trust. The funding comes from Ruth Monicka Parasol, a billionaire philanthropist from San Francisco, who ironically made her fortune in part selling adult entertainment.
In March 2022, the V&A appointed Fiona Rogers, the former chief executive of Magnum, the prestigious photography cooperative, as Curator of the Parasol Foundation for Women in Photography, a newly created position. Her appointment reflected the need to “rebalance” the collection, she says. Only 15% of the existing collection is made by women, a statistic Rogers is keen to change.
“We are in the process of mapping the existing collection,” says Rogers.
At Tarrah Krajnak’s Self-portrait as a woman walking with a bag, 1979 Lima, Peru 2019 Los Angeles, Californiafrom the Serie 1979 Contact Negatives (2019-22) © Tarrah Krajnak
Alternate histories
Rogers’ work is reflected in the centre’s inaugural exhibition, which will feature, in addition to ephemera from the birth of the medium, new work by contemporary British photographer Liz Johnson Artur and German artist Vera Lutter, as well as a Parasol Foundation Trust-funded a series of contemporary self-portraits by Peruvian photographer Tarrah Krajnak. “We try to be strategic in our acquisition and programming activities,” says Rogers.
“We searched for underrepresented communities and overlooked stories, primarily by female artists”
Fiona Rogers, Curator of the V&A Parasol Foundation for Women in Photography
In addition to advocating for new artists, Rogers and his team have mined the collection, searching for photographs that might have been overlooked by generations, but which illuminate alternative histories. On social media, Rogers has revisited the photography of Julia Margaret Cameron, who had her first exhibition at the then South Kensington Museum in 1865. But she also shares the contents of hand-ornate photo albums created by unknown women of the Victorian era. , as well as sharing 19th-century Isabel Agnes Cowper’s documentation of V&A objects and spaces in her capacity as the first official female museum photographer of the South Kensington Museum, as the V&A was known from its official opening in 1857 in 1899. “We researched underrepresented communities and overlooked histories, mostly by female artists,” says Rogers.
by Fred Zinneman Madison Square Garden, Velodrome (1932) Museum No. E.1683-1989 © The Estate of Fred Zinnemann Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery
Interior space
Most institutions would build something entirely new to house this kind of business. The V&A, by contrast, pursued a principle of inward expansion, aiming to restore the building to its original 19th-century glory while making it accessible to a 21st-century audience.
The Photography Center is made up of new galleries that for decades were back rooms. Prior to the restoration, rooms 96, 97 and 98 were variously used as classrooms for students and storage rooms for museum textiles. But the restoration revealed the secrets of the V&A’s history. Vaulted ceilings and archways with original wood panels covered in burlap were uncovered and renovated. Room 95 was a cleaning closet that for much of the building’s 166-year history was never made accessible to the public. It will now house a walk-in camera obscura.
