The Relationship of the University of Glasgow's Collection to the SNPG Collection

In 1981, the National Galleries of Scotland published Sara Stevenson's pioneering catalogue raisonné, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. This publication included thumbnail reproductions of all the Hill &  Adamson photographs then in the defining collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Some additions have since been made to the SNPG holdings (notably the Riddell Collection and the Edinburgh Photographic Society Collection) and these have been incorporated in the present study. However, the 1981 publication remains useful and is largely complete.

The present catalogue (which builds on a preliminary listing made by Monica Thorp in 1989) is seen as a supplement to Sara Stevenson's catalogue raisonné. While collections held by other institutions have been examined wherever possible, this has been a process of opportunity, and much research work remains to be done in this area. It is hoped that the publication of the Glasgow catalogue will encourage such work and will permit comparisons to be made with prints and negatives in other collections.

Between them, the SNPG and Glasgow hold by far the majority of known surviving Hill & Adamson negatives; only a handful are known to be in other collections. Most of the known Hill & Adamson images are represented by prints in these two collections. There are 468 salted paper prints in the Glasgow collection. Of these, 361 are represented in the Stevenson catalogue, and 107 are additional to it. Of the total number of prints, 27 are from negatives in the Glasgow collection and 71 have thus far been identified as being from negatives in other collections (largely that of the SNPG).

The original calotype negatives are a more diverse lot. Of the 490 original negatives in the Glasgow collection, only 117 are represented in Stevenson. A few of the remaining 373 have been reproduced in publications, and some have been traced to prints in other collections, but most of these images are relatively unknown to scholars. Less than half the negatives in the Glasgow collection are portraits.

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Go to final section: Hill & Adamson bibliography

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