Fox Talbot’s Articles of Glass (2017), a series of nine polymer photogravure etchings on paper, arose from Cornelia Parker’s investigations into photogravure, a photomechanical process that produces an image through the exposure of a photographic positive onto a copper printing plate. Inspired by the nineteenth-century photographic pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot, Parker combined two of his early techniques – solar prints and photogravure – creating a new hybrid form of print by exposing three-dimensional objects to ultraviolet light.
In these works, she uses the last remaining items of glassware belonging to Fox Talbot, which he famously used in his early photograph, Articles of Glass (c. 1844), and are now housed in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. The playful way Parker has positioned the decanters, partnered with their dryly descriptive titles, breathes a new celebratory life into the light-strewn glass objects.
Bradford Museums and Galleries have been collecting prints for over a hundred years and organised the British International Print Biennale from 1968 until 1990. Their collecting policy aspires to acquiring works by outstanding British and international artists with particular emphasis on contemporary British artists. Parker is an outstanding British artist who was not represented in the collection and this series demonstrates a new technique in the development of printmaking.
