Jo Spence
Beyond the Family Album (opening images), 1979
Two Copy Prints
Series: 4. Opening up the Family Album (1988-89)
10555
Further images
Provenance
Jo Spence to Paul Hill, 1980Exhibitions
Three Perspectives on Photography, Hayward Gallery, London, 1979Jo Spence : from Fairy Tales to Phototherapy. Photographs from the Hyman Collection, Arnolfini Bristol, (18th May 2020 - 20th June 2021) (this print)
'The 80s: Photographing Britain' at Tate Britain: 21 November 2024 - 5 May 2025
Literature
Jo Spence/Photography Workshop, "Beyond the Family Album, Private Images, Public Conventions" in Three Perspectives on Photography, Hayward Gallery, London, 1979 (illustrated p.60)Paul Hill (forward by Aaron Scharf), Approaching Photography, Focal Press, 1982 (These prints illustrated p.60)
Dennett, T. (2013) 'Jo Spence's Family Album', in Photoworks Annual 20: Family Politics, ed. by Burbridge, B., Davies, C. Brighton: Antenne, pp.122-127
Jo Spence as a baby: 12.1 x 15.7 cms. Jo Spence as an adult: 12.1 x 17.8 cms. This paired image was the opening of Jo Spence's Beyond the Family...
Jo Spence as a baby: 12.1 x 15.7 cms.
Jo Spence as an adult: 12.1 x 17.8 cms.
This paired image was the opening of Jo Spence's Beyond the Family Album her contribution to the important over-view of British photography, Three Perspectives on Photography, Hayward Gallery, London, 1979.
For the key image of Beyond the Family Album Jo Spence put together two works, placing together a copy print of a photograph of herself as a baby, taken from a family album, and a later recreation showing herself as an adult.
The present prints are uncaptioned, but published reproductions of the work include the following witty captions: "eight and a half months" "five hundred and twenty nine months later" and for these actual prints: "Me at 8 1/2 months" and "Me at 44 years 9 months" (Approaching Photography, p.60)
In the catalogue for Three Perspectives, Jo Spence writes of this paired image: "These and all the images on the following pages are part of a 'visual history' I have collected of myself. The photographs of me can be viewed as a demonstration of various conventions and techniques operating within photography, as well as being part of 'my history'."
These copy prints come from the collection of photographer Paul Hill, who acquired them from Spence in 1980 when he was working on his seminal book Approaching Photography (1982).
Subsequently, Spence mentioned Hill's workshops in her autobiography and he wrote an obituary on her.
The paired photographs are also included by Spence in her undergraduate thesis: Jo Spence, 'Fairy Tales and Photography... or, another look at Cinderella', unpublished undergraduate thesis, Polytechnic of Central London, 1982. (see illustration)
"I began (through Beyond the Family Album) to reverse the process of the way I had been constructed as a woman by deconstructing myself visually in an attempt to identify the process by which I had been 'put together'. I still feel that personal is political. There is no way I could have understood fully the political implications of trying to represent other people (however well intentioned) if I had not first of all begun to explore how I had built a view of myself through other people's representations of me." Jo Spence
Jo Spence as an adult: 12.1 x 17.8 cms.
This paired image was the opening of Jo Spence's Beyond the Family Album her contribution to the important over-view of British photography, Three Perspectives on Photography, Hayward Gallery, London, 1979.
For the key image of Beyond the Family Album Jo Spence put together two works, placing together a copy print of a photograph of herself as a baby, taken from a family album, and a later recreation showing herself as an adult.
The present prints are uncaptioned, but published reproductions of the work include the following witty captions: "eight and a half months" "five hundred and twenty nine months later" and for these actual prints: "Me at 8 1/2 months" and "Me at 44 years 9 months" (Approaching Photography, p.60)
In the catalogue for Three Perspectives, Jo Spence writes of this paired image: "These and all the images on the following pages are part of a 'visual history' I have collected of myself. The photographs of me can be viewed as a demonstration of various conventions and techniques operating within photography, as well as being part of 'my history'."
These copy prints come from the collection of photographer Paul Hill, who acquired them from Spence in 1980 when he was working on his seminal book Approaching Photography (1982).
Subsequently, Spence mentioned Hill's workshops in her autobiography and he wrote an obituary on her.
The paired photographs are also included by Spence in her undergraduate thesis: Jo Spence, 'Fairy Tales and Photography... or, another look at Cinderella', unpublished undergraduate thesis, Polytechnic of Central London, 1982. (see illustration)
"I began (through Beyond the Family Album) to reverse the process of the way I had been constructed as a woman by deconstructing myself visually in an attempt to identify the process by which I had been 'put together'. I still feel that personal is political. There is no way I could have understood fully the political implications of trying to represent other people (however well intentioned) if I had not first of all begun to explore how I had built a view of myself through other people's representations of me." Jo Spence