Aberdeen Portraits No. 1
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.”
Artwork Details
- Title: Aberdeen Portraits No. 1
- Artist: George Washington Wilson (British, Grampian (Baffshire), Scotland 1823–1893 Abedeen, Scotland)
- Date: 1857
- Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
- Dimensions: Image: 21.3 x 17.2 cm (8 3/8 x 6 3/4 in.)
Mount: 37.7 x 30 cm (14 13/16 x 11 13/16 in.)
Frame: 43.2 x 35.6 cm (17 x 14 in.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2011
- Object Number: 2011.424
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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