David Octavius Hill (Scottish, 1802–1870) and
Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821–1848)
Dumbarton Presbytery
INV-1601
David Octavius Hill (Scottish, 1802–1870) and
Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821–1848)March 29, 1845
Dumbarton Presbytery
David Octavius Hill (Scottish, 1802–1870) and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821–1848) →19th centurysalted paper printphotograph
Date
March 29, 1845
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 14.1 × 19.2 cm (5 9/16 × 7 9/16 in.); Hinged matte: 19.2 × 28.2 cm (7 9/16 × 11 1/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Photography Associates Fund
Painter and illustrator David Octavius Hill engaged photographer Robert Adamson to help him fulfill a monumental commission to commemorate the so-called Disruption of 1843, in which the Free Church of Scotland was formed when a group of ministers seceded from the country’s established church. Hill wished to portray each of the nearly 450 participants at the Disruption Assembly, and found an efficient means of doing so by working from photographs, specifically the recently patented paper negative process, which Adamson had begun practicing professionally earlier that year. Together, Hill and Adamson made around 2,500 images in the short period before Adamson’s illness and death; it then took Hill 20 years to complete the painting. This is one of the few carefully composed group portraits that Hill eventually transferred almost unchanged onto canvas—he painted one man as bald, however, to reflect his later appearance.
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