Curator’s choice: The innovative photography of Helen Muspratt

From snapshots of life in Soviet Russia to intimate portraits taken at her studio in Oxford, Helen Muspratt’s photographs were both powerful and experimental. As one of the leading photographers of the early 20th century, she utilised innovative techniques such as solarisation, multiple exposures and rayographs, alongside a deft understanding of how to distil the essence of her subject through closely cropped compositions that focused on the face. Thanks to a recent gift made to the Bodleian Libraries, it is possible to see the enormous breadth of her work in a new exhibition curated by her daughter, Jessica Sutcliffe. Here, she selects some of the most important works on show, which come from an archive of more than 2,000 original prints and surviving negatives.

© Bodleian Libraries

Busking Miner, 1930

This photograph was taken very soon after Muspratt opened her first studio in her home town of Swanage. It is a portrait of a young unemployed miner from South Wales who Helen found busking with his violin on the old stone quay. He had come to the south coast to seek work at the beginning of the Depression. She thought he had a ‘wonderful face’ and invited him to sit for her in her studio and captured a hauntingly beautiful image. It is interesting to note that she chose to use the studio where she could concentrate on the pose and lighting. 

© Bodleian Libraries

Paul Nash, 1935

The painter Paul Nash came to live in Swanage and asked Muspratt to photograph him in his lodgings. She found him rather stiff and formal and tried to get him to relax by asking him to sit down and look through his own photographs. He is holding the translucent set squares that appeared in some of his abstract paintings. He wrote to his wife, ‘I enclose some pretty grim photographs; do I really look like that?’ Whatever his views, the series of photographs are regarded as some of the best portraits of him and are frequently used for books and exhibitions.

© Bodleian Libraries

Eileen Agar, 1935

The surrealist artist Eileen Agar was photographed in Swanage where, together with Paul Nash, she drew inspiration from beachcombing and found objects. Here, Muspratt was using her newly learned technique of solarisation inspired by the work of Man Ray. It involves the momentary exposure of the negative to light during the development process, giving an enhanced effect combining positive and negative and dark outlines. Her best-known image was also a solarised portrait of Agar lying over the arm of a sofa with hair flowing down.

© Bodleian Libraries

Hilda and Mary Spencer Watson performing Jacob and Esau, 1933

The Spencer Watsons were part of a Dorset group of artists, musicians and performers that included Francis Newbery, former head of the Glasgow School of Art. The mother and daughter duo performed a series of mimes, tableaux and dances, based on Greek myths, poetry and biblical stories, accompanied by members of the English Singers, in their barn theatre at their home, Dunshay Manor near Corfe Castle. Muspratt used her solarisation techniques to enhance her images. It was a truly collaborative artistic venture.

© Bodleian Libraries

Women resting under a threshing machine, collective farm near Rostov, Soviet Union, 1936

In 1932 Muspratt formed a partnership with Lettice Ramsey and opened a studio in Cambridge under the name of Ramsey & Muspratt. She began to show an interest in documentary photography and set off on a six-week tour of the USSR. After visiting Leningrad and Moscow she took a steamer down the Volga to Stalingrad and went to look at agricultural projects. She preferred the collective farms, where peasants worked cooperatively and shared machinery, to the huge, centrally run state farms. Her photographs were made into film strip, which she showed to groups around the country during World War II, when the Russians were our allies.

Helen Muspratt: Photographer at Bodleian Libraries, Oxford

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