Side Gallery
Introduction
Open: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm (Thursday until 7pm)
Closed bank holidays
Since opening in 1977, the gallery's been committed to documentary in the tradition of the concerned photographer - our own production/commissions in the North of England and the historical and contemporary work from around the world, which continues to inspire us. Talks are organised around most of the exhibitions. The gallery sells a range of photography books, posters, postcards and prints, along with Amber films on DVD. It is open Tuesdays to Saturdays, 11am to 5pm and admission is FREE. It's closed on bank holidays and during exhibition changeover weeks.
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STREET LIFE, INSTANTANEOUS
Photographs of Newcastle in the 1890s 10/08/13-12/10/13
Photographer Aaron Guy, researching the archive at Newcastle’s North of England Mining Institute, stumbled on a set of remarkable glass plate negatives belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. A trail led to the Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn, where other boxes had been deposited and a set of fascinating photographs began to emerge of Newcastle street life in the early 1890s, largely taken with hand-held cameras. They strongly resembled the known work of Edgar G Lee, which Side Gallery had shown in the 1980s.
Edgar Lee was a respected Tyneside photographer and lantern slide maker, with a professional studio in Newcastle’s Eldon Square, who also made his own hand-held cameras with the fast exposure dry plates that had been patented by the Tyneside inventor Joseph Swan. It is possible that fellow members of the highly regarded Newcastle upon Tyne and Northern Counties Photographic Association are also represented in the Society of Antiquaries boxes, alongside those that can with certainty be attributed to Lee. There is an Edgar Lee photograph of a group on what appears to be a day out, photographing the poor of Newcastle’s Quayside - after the Swing Bridge was built, many of the families of the once prosperous Keelmen fell into destitution and provided ready subject matter. The renowned Hexham photographer John Pattison Gibson promoted Edgar Lee’s work, advertising his lantern slides for sale as CHILD LIFE IN THE SLUMS and STREET LIFE, INSTANTANEOUS. Fast exposure plates and hand-held cameras were offering photographers an immediacy in capturing the moment, laying the technogical ground for the development of documentary in the C20th. In the late C19th the North East of England was at the heart of taking these things forward.
Together with Aaron Guy, Side Gallery has curated an exhibition of photographs, a number of which have not been published or exhibited before. There were negatives of other pictorialist subjects in the collection, but the exhibition focuses on the street life of Newcastle upon Tyne, including fascinating images of Sandgate, Milk Market and the Quayside areas of the city. The images are drawn from the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, held at the Mining Institute and the Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn. 2013 is the bicentenary of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne.
DOWNLOAD FULL EXHIBITION TEXTS & NOTES HERE
Elephants at Barras Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, c. 1892
Accessing Our Collection: 12 Questions
We're in the middle of developing plans to make much, much more of the extraordinary AmberSide collection digitally accessible. We're looking at how we can do this in ways that go beyond the limitations of conventional search mechanisms and reveal its highways and byways, opening up the whole complex of connections between its rare film and photographic delights! We need your help, however... We need to know how/whether you use it at the moment, how you might use it in future, whether you might be interested helping us do all the work that needs to be done to achieve our plans. The survey just has 12 questions and your answers will really help us a lot. CLICK HERE
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Help Support Amber's Unique Collection
Murray Martin, founding member of Amber
Amber has launched a new development plan that will secure its unique film and photography collection and, where possible, make it accessible online and/or on site at Side Gallery. It involves a major programme of digitisation, interpretation, web development, digital/physical access development in the gallery and improved exhibition facilities. If you would like to know more, click here.
Your help and support is important. If you would like to make a financial contribution, CLICK HERE. Volunteers will be able help with the fundraising campaign and with the programme of work. If you would like to become involved or if there are other ways you think you can support these developments, please contact us.