The Historical Antecedents of Contemporary Photography Education: A British Case Study, 1966–79

Abstract

In recent years researchers studying the history of British photography have become increasingly interested in the period 1965–80. Up until the early 1970s galleries in Britain did little to promote photography, the Arts Council of Great Britain did not provide any specific funding and most British publishers were not interested in producing books on creative photography. Photography was taught as a vocational subject with an emphasis on technical training and almost no outlets for creative or experimental photographic work. Yet over a period of approximately fourteen years independent galleries dedicated to showing photographic work were established, publicly funded institutions were allocated funding for photographic collections, the Arts Council of Great Britain set up a photography committee with its own budget, and publishers produced high-quality monographs on historical and contemporary photographers. Photography had also become recognized as an academic discipline in its own right and a suitable subject for scholarship. What brought about this sea-change in the status of photography and the role of photographic education in this renaissance is explored. Against a backdrop of wider socio-cultural shifts of the late 1960s/1970s, groundbreaking photography education programmes are examined. These historical developments are presented as a British case study and critiqued as antecedents of contemporary photography education.

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