My assets were one small hand camera and UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE!: Locating Eva Barrett
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
8-3-2025 1:20 AM
Description
Catlin Langford, Catlin Langford, Curator, Independent/ PhD Student, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
‘My assets were one small hand camera and UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE!’: Locating Eva Barrett
Moving from England to Italy in 1913, Eva Barrett sought to establish a career in photography. Her “unlimited confidence” and talent led her to found one of the most noted photography studios in Rome in the early twentieth century and her photographs of eminent royalty, politicians and society beauties graced the pages of international journals. Her unique approach to styling her subjects and scenes and her pioneering editing techniques, including her application of “sketched” details, was celebrated and later copied by her contemporaries. On Barrett’s death in 1950, her obituary featured on the front pages of papers worldwide. By the twenty-first century, however, her work and career had been largely forgotten.
This paper reflects on seven years of work to locate Barrett’s photographs and assert the significance of her work. In 2017, I uncovered a selection of portraits by Barrett in the Royal Collection Trust, UK, as was later supplied with her unpublished manuscript, held by her family in Canada. Recently, I was contacted by archives in Turin, Italy who had found a collection of over 500 glass plates by Barrett, previously thought lost. Working with these plates revealed new details of Barrett's practice and working methods. Barrett’s story, and the means of piecing together this story, will be the focus of this paper, which will consider Barrett’s life and work, and the wider culture of why women photographers are “lost” to history.
Catlin Langford is a curator, writer and researcher, specialising in photography. She presently works with the V&A, Gallerie d’Italia and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in curatorial and consultancy roles. Langford previously held positions at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, V&A, Royal Collection Trust, Royal College of Art and Guildhall School. Her debut publication Colour Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome (Thames & Hudson/V&A) was released in 2022, and her writing has appeared in 1000 Words, Photographica, and The Burlington Magazine, among others. She is presently working on a publication on Eva Barrett with Gallerie d'Italia and is undertaking a PhD at RMIT.
Relational Format
Conference proceeding
Recommended Citation
Langford, Catlin, "My assets were one small hand camera and UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE!: Locating Eva Barrett" (2025). Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day 2025. 5.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2025/schedule/5
My assets were one small hand camera and UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE!: Locating Eva Barrett
Catlin Langford, Catlin Langford, Curator, Independent/ PhD Student, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
‘My assets were one small hand camera and UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE!’: Locating Eva Barrett
Moving from England to Italy in 1913, Eva Barrett sought to establish a career in photography. Her “unlimited confidence” and talent led her to found one of the most noted photography studios in Rome in the early twentieth century and her photographs of eminent royalty, politicians and society beauties graced the pages of international journals. Her unique approach to styling her subjects and scenes and her pioneering editing techniques, including her application of “sketched” details, was celebrated and later copied by her contemporaries. On Barrett’s death in 1950, her obituary featured on the front pages of papers worldwide. By the twenty-first century, however, her work and career had been largely forgotten.
This paper reflects on seven years of work to locate Barrett’s photographs and assert the significance of her work. In 2017, I uncovered a selection of portraits by Barrett in the Royal Collection Trust, UK, as was later supplied with her unpublished manuscript, held by her family in Canada. Recently, I was contacted by archives in Turin, Italy who had found a collection of over 500 glass plates by Barrett, previously thought lost. Working with these plates revealed new details of Barrett's practice and working methods. Barrett’s story, and the means of piecing together this story, will be the focus of this paper, which will consider Barrett’s life and work, and the wider culture of why women photographers are “lost” to history.
Catlin Langford is a curator, writer and researcher, specialising in photography. She presently works with the V&A, Gallerie d’Italia and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in curatorial and consultancy roles. Langford previously held positions at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, V&A, Royal Collection Trust, Royal College of Art and Guildhall School. Her debut publication Colour Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome (Thames & Hudson/V&A) was released in 2022, and her writing has appeared in 1000 Words, Photographica, and The Burlington Magazine, among others. She is presently working on a publication on Eva Barrett with Gallerie d'Italia and is undertaking a PhD at RMIT.
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