Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
Queen Square, Bristol
Albumen print, 1860s-1870s, from a paper negative, before 1855
15.4 x 20.3 cm mounted on 26.0 x 28.3 cm album sheet
Numbered "56" in pencil on mount

Queen's Square, named after Queen Anne who visited Bristol in 1702, was the home of the city's merchant elite for much of the eighteenth and early 19th century. In 1831 a riot to protest local political opposition to the Reform Bill erupted and destroyed more than half of the buildings located on the North and West side of the square. Despite a rapid effort to rebuild, the area never again attained the same residential popularity. In the early 1860s it was proposed to turn the area into the location of Bristol's central railway station, a plan which ultimately did not come to fruition. Owen's decision to capture the square in this particular print may have been influenced by the specter of its possible demise.

Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
Washing place with basket
Albumen print, 1860s-1870s, from a paper negative, before 1855
17.4 x 22.2 cm mounted on 26.0 x 28.3 cm album sheet
Numbered "74" in pencil on mount

Owen's range of subject matter, both during his years as an amateur and as a professional photographer, was varied. His ability to capture the poetic in the seemingly trivial landscape of both the natural and man-made worlds is notable. His sense of perspective imbues this particular print with a grandeur that might be more commonly associated with ancient ruins. His ability to push to the limits the artistic potential of the paper negative process as evidenced in this image is perhaps one explanation for his continued fidelity to its use.

Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
"Old Custom House "Broad Quay, Bristol" with figures
Albumen print, 1860s-1870s, from a paper negative, before 1855
15.3 x 20.5 cm mounted on 26.0 x 28.3 cm album sheet
Numbered "52" in pencil on mount

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries Bristol had flourished as one of England's most important ports of trading. However, competition from Liverpool, the disruption of maritime commerce as a result of conflicts with France and finally the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 all contributed to the city's failure to keep pace with the newer industrial centers of the North. The inauguration of the Great Western Railway connecting the city to London would do much to reverse its downward spiral. In this particular print Owen captures one of the symbols of Bristol's decaying merchant past in this wonderfully atmospheric rendering of the Old Custom House. 

Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
Street scene, Bristol, circa 1850
Salt print from a calotype negative
10.3 x 7.9 cm

Hugh Owen was one of the first generation of amateur photographers who later turned professional, working in the 1840s and 1850s both in Bristol and in London. Employed as a cashier for the Great Western Railway in Bristol, he began making daguerreotypes by 1845 and from around 1846 had migrated to making negatives using Talbot's calotype process. This early example of his work captures the still medieval like architectural features of a city that was experiencing the rapid change of 19th century industrialization.

Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
Oyster boats, Swansea
Albumen print, 1860s-1870s, from a paper negative, before 1855
17.3 x 22.2 cm mounted on 26.0 x 28.3 cm album sheet
Numbered "60" in pencil on mount

By the mid 1850s when the collodion on glass negative dominated British commercial photography, Hugh Owen remained loyal to Talbot's calotype negative process on paper. Owen's calotypes in the 1851 Great Exhibition so impressed the Commissioners that they hired him to record displays in the Crystal Palace. The following year, Owen became a member of the Founding Council of the Photographic Society and contributed regularly to their exhibitions. The oyster boats are beached by the low tide typical of Swansea's extreme tidal swing during the heyday of oyster fishing.

Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
Dredges and baskets at Oystermouth, The Gower
Albumen print, 1860s-1870s, from a paper negative, before 1855
17.3 x 22.4 cm mounted on 26.0 x 28.3 cm album sheet
Numbered "71" in pencil on mount

By the mid 1850s the glass wet collodion negative dominated British commercial photography, but Hugh Owen remained loyal to Talbot's calotype negative process on paper. Owen's calotypes in the 1851 Great Exhibition so impressed the Commissioners that they hired him to record displays in the Crystal Palace. The following year, Owen became a member of the Founding Council of the Photographic Society and contributed regularly to their exhibitions. This poignant image of the tools of commercial oyster fishing embodies a trade that, by this point, was well past its heyday in Bristol's commercial life.

Hugh Owen (English, 1808-1897)
Cart and thatched kindling storehouse
Albumen print, 1860s-1870s, from a paper negative, before 1855
17.6 x 22.5 cm mounted on 26.0 x 28.3 cm album sheet
Numbered "36" in pencil on mount

By the mid 1850s when the collodion on glass negative negative dominated British commercial photography, Hugh Owen remained loyal to Talbot's calotype negative process on paper.  Owen's day job, as a Cashier for Brunel's Great Western Railway, stood in marked contrast to his artistic endeavors. He began with the daguerreotype but, in 1845, he turned to Talbot and borrowed some calotypes to illustrate a lecture. Owen was smitten by what Talbot sent him and within less than two years became a master of the paper negative.

The range of tones in this study by Owen is extraordinary. Whether still life or urban street scene, nature or artifice, Owen's photographs are finely composed and exquisitely rendered.

Hugh OWEN (English, 1808-1897)
Branches and roots in dry riverbed, circa 1850
Salt print from a paper negative
17.3 x 22.4 cm image on 17.7 x 22.7 cm paper

Still life was a frequent subject for Hugh Owen, particularly in the early years of his photographic endeavors. He increasingly came under criticism for his refusal to abandon Talbot's calotype process in favour of the collodion wet plate process which was gaining favour in professional photographic circles. In an 1854 article in the "Journal of the Photographic Society" he forcefully defended its use writing "For the delineation of nature...I assert the superiority of paper, both for force and effect...".