Aberdeen Portraits No. 1
George Washington Wilson British, Scottish
Not on view
As the leading portrait photographer in Aberdeen, Scotland, Wilson had on file hundreds of negatives of the city’s professional elite. At the suggestion of his friend George Walker, a bookseller, Wilson cut out and pasted a selection of portrait heads in a tight oval, placing the largest and most important figures at the center; then he re-photographed the collage. Displayed in the window of Walker’s bookshop, the completed photomontage attracted immediate attention. Remarkably, some passersby did not realize that the photograph was composed of separate portraits, and Wilson and Walker received inquiries about “when & where all these people had been collected & photographed.”
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
