Coloured images
22 December 2008 until 22 February 2009
Palestine photographed by the American Colony Photographers, 1898-1931
In 1926 and 1931 the grain
dealer Arie Speelman (1880-1964) and his wife Anne Christine
Speelman-van Vliet (1886-1967) took two trips to Palestine. During
these trips they visited the photo shop at the American Colony (a
religious community of American Christians), where they bought more
than a thousand lantern slides of the Holy Land. These images were
literally and figuratively coloured; literally in that they were
tinted by hand, and figuratively in that they present an image
coloured by ideology. In a sense, they show a dreamland, in which
the tensions between Palestinian Jews and Arabs are almost
invisible.
This unique exhibition features reproductions of fifty highlights
from this collection, plus fifty more displayed in a slide show.
They provide not only an impression of the Holy Land, but also a
fascinating image of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century
Palestine: the city of Jerusalem, the country's diverse ethnic
groups, urban scenes, and landscapes.
These lantern slides are examples of a very special photographic
technique. G. Eric Matson and Edith Yantiss (who later married)
started working with the American Colony Photographers in their
teenage years. It was there that they developed their signature
technique of colouring slides for the projectors known as magic
lanterns, using water paint and India ink. This involved
printing the negative on a glass plate and then skilfully
hand-tinting it, often with hair's-breadth precision. Finally, they
placed a second plate of glass on top, creating a slide for use in
a magic lantern. The Speelmans showed the lantern slides that they
had bought from the American Colony Photographers at evangelical
events called Palestine evenings.
The American Colony Photographers also hand-tinted photos taken by
other people, such as the Speelmans. A few such photos, which the
Speelmans took during their trips and at home, are included in this
exhibition.
The exhibition marks the publication of the book In the Footsteps
of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs, written by
Richard Hardiman and Helen Speelman, a granddaughter of Arie
Speelman who lives in Israel. The book will be available at the
Jewish Historical Museum shop from mid-November onwards
(€34.95).
For more information about this exhibition, see background
