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 Names behind the Exhibition
Joanna Scaddon Royal Geographical Society
Brett Rogers
Dr. Petrine Archer-Straw
Sean Williams
John Day
Nicola Johnson
Mike Grey
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  The photographs in Photos and Phantasms were taken in a six month period between 1908-1909 when Harry Johnston traveled through the Caribbean with his companion Arthur Greaves. They took over 250 photographs during their tour of the islands, the last leg of a longer journey through the Americas, or, as Johnston termed it, the "New World". The trip grew out of Johnston's friendship with United States President Theodore Roosevelt. Both shared interests in imperial expansion, the new sciences of geography and anthropology, and Africa. The President invited Johnston to America to discuss Roosevelt's forthcoming expedition to Africa. Roosevelt was also keen to learn more about the negroes in the Caribbean and asked Johnston to assess the political stability of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Panama. Johnston conceived a working trip to extend his comparative studies of blacks in Africa to the New World. He planned to use his camera extensively in documenting Afro-Caribbeans to accompany a book that he would compile later called The Negro in the New World. Johnston journeyed around the region by boat and through each island by road and railway. He travelled routes that were becoming increasingly popular as tourism in the Caribbean began to develop. So his photographs from Negro in the New World hover between those typical of nineteenth century expeditions and a more commercial picture postcard journalism of the 20th century. What distinguishes Johnston's photography from both these genres is his artistic eye, sense of industry and genuine curiosity that he brought to his extensive coverage of each island. |
 Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston was born in South London, England in 1858. Johnston's success as a progressive colonialist had much to do with his education and his background. His liberal arts education at Stockwell Grammar was an early sign of his modernity. At seventeen, he studied languages as an evening student at King's College while taking day classes in art at South London Art College. A year later, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts. His interest in zoological specimens gave him a lucrative part-time income, illustrating books for the new sciences of biology, geography,anthropology. The combination of art, languages and a developing interest in the sciences marked Johnston as a new breed of scholar whose skills met colonialism's need for exploration, expansion and documentation. Because of ill-health Johnston's trip to the Caribbean was Johnston's last extensive excursion, after that he retired to his country home in Poling, Sussex where he contined to write prolifically until his death of a stroke in 1927. |
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