Oscar Gustav Rejlander

Born: Sweden, 1813

Died: Bedford, England, 18 January 1875

Nationality: Swedish-English


Works by this Artist

Two Ways of Life
Oscar Gustav Rejlander, 1857

Background

uncertain - probably son of Swedish army officer

Studies

uncertain, perhaps self-taught painter; day-long photography lession with assistant of William Henry Fox-Talbot (1853)

Career

1830s - working in Rome as portraitist and copyist

1841 - moves to Lincoln, England

1845 - opens studio in Wolverhampton

1853 - begins photography

1855 - exhibits photographs at Exposition universelle (Paris), wins bronze medal

1857 - exhibits Two Ways of Life at Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition; attracts support of Prince Albert

1858 - exhibits Two Ways of Life at Photographic Society of Scotland - officials hung a curtain to cover the scantily clad exemplars of Vice

1862 - moves to London

1869 - hired by Charles Darwin to provide photographic illustrations for The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872)

died impoverished

Travels

Italy (c. 1830-1840; 1852)

Commissions from

Charles Darwin

Important Artworks

Night in Town or Homless and Poor Jo, c. 1860 (Royal Photographic Society). Used by Shaftesbury Society for more than a century to advertise conditions of homeless children

Rejlander made photographic portraits of many famous people, including Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Gustave Doré, and Prince Albert.

Readings

Spencer, Stephanie. O.G. Rejlander, Photography as Art. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1985

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