Walter Benington photographic portraits
Neg. b. 4/1-14
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Description
From Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts
This is an extract only. For more information, see the catalogue record in Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts.
Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts contains descriptions of the Bodleian Libraries’ archival collections, including post-1500 manuscripts. Some manuscripts with records in other catalogues are also described here as part of a description of a larger archive. Learn more.
Title
Walter Benington photographic portraits
Shelfmark
Neg. b. 4/1-14
Summary
The collection comprises 200 glass plates of Benington's Oxbridge personalities and worthies of the wider world of literature, politics, the sciences and the arts, 1914, 1920-1, 1926, n.d.
Date
1914-1926, n.d.
Language
English
Physical extent
0.3 Linear metres
14 physical shelfmarks
Custodial history
Sometime after Benington's death in 1936, the plates may have passed into the keeping of the artist, Mr. Archie Utin. It seems probable that they were gifted to the Bodleian Library following Utin's death in 1977.
Acquisition
Without written documentation the precise details cannot be ascertained. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the plates were given by Benington's widow to an Oxford neighbour, the artist Archie Utin. We know that sometime in the early 1940s Utin had acquired two important portfolios of Benington's photographic work. The portfolios contained Benington's photographic record of the work of the young French sculptor, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
Archie Utin died in 1977 and for a period thereafter the Gaudier-Brzeska portfolios disappeared. They are now in the Tate Gallery Archive and in the Archive of Modern Conflict. It is not unreasonable to suggest that a similar pattern may have operated with the Photographic Portraits except that on Utin's death the plates were passed to the Bodleian.
Subject
20th century
Photographs
Photography
