Photographs

MoDA's photographic collections are from a variety of sources.Some were used by Silver Studio designers as visual inspiration, while others are images of domestic interiors from personal archives and photograph albums.

Photograph of interior of house in Enfield, 1958

what kinds of photographs do we have?

1. Photographs in the Domestic Design Collection

– family/amateur photographs of domestic spaces

MoDA holds a large number of photographs (some originals, some copies and some in digital format) of family photographs. In most cases we have individual photographs or series of photographs, but in some cases we have accepted a whole album.

These images have been acquired because of the museum’s interest in “ordinary” domestic spaces. The interiors and gardens depicted in these photographs usually form the incidental backdrop to family life rather than being the main subject of the photograph. See for example, images of houses in Leytonstone in the 1910s and Southgate in the 1960s. In some cases we also have additional information from the donors to provide more context.

The majority of these photographs are from England and Wales, and dates range from roughly the 1870s to the 1970s. We have not yet made all of these images available online, so please ask for more information about exactly what we’ve got: moda@mdx.ac.uk

– architectural/professional images

MoDA holds a small number of photographs of the interiors and exteriors of domestic buildings, taken to record the work of particular architects, interior designers or housing estate developers. These include an album of photographs of houses designed by LJ Redgrave Cripps; a collection of material relating to North London housing developer George Reed; and an album of photographs of interiors designed by 1930s firm Reens Arta.

Please email: moda@mdx.ac.uk for more information.

– images relating to the business of design

MoDA holds a small number of photographs relating to the business of designing and selling wallpaper, including images from the Sanderson factory and showrooms, and from the Allan Cockshut wallpaper design studio.

2. Silver Studio Collection Photographic Material

The employees of the Silver Studio were early adopters of photographic techniques from the 1880s onwards. They used photography to record their design work as an integral part of their business process.  In the 1890s, Arthur Silver also created a series of photographic copies of objects in the V&A known as the Silvern Series.

The Silver Studio collected photographs to use as visual inspiration, including some important collotypes by Kasumasa Ogawa. We have three of Ogawa’s collotype albums, and we’ve digitized two of them.

The Silver family also made and kept photographic images of friends and family, giving us an insight into their social circle.