In order of appearance:

PATRICK BOYD

Charles Bridge

MARGARET BENYON

Wrapped Flowers

CAROLINE PALMER

Sri Yantra

Moiré Squares

HARRIET CASDIN-SILVER

Grater

JIM MCINTYRE

Science Moths and Flies

PEARL JOHN

Kirsti

ANDREW PEPPER

Six Lines Folded

JONATHAN MITTON

Orgone Accelerator

ANDREW PEPPER

Square Eclipse

MARTIN WALL

Large Circles

JEFFREY ROBB

Landscape 3

DAN SCHWEITZER

The Sleeper

SUSAN COWLES

The Seedmakers

MARTIN RICHARDSON

Young Woman in a Dreamlike State

SUSAN COWLES

The Juggler

For many people today, the word ‘hologram’ may suggest something from a science fiction movie (Princess Leia has a lot to answer for) or a reanimated dead pop star (poor Tupac Shakur) and to involve some sort of projection system in a theatre or music venue, rather than something that belongs in an art gallery. It seems a long time since the 1980s and 90s when hologram exhibitions and galleries proliferated and the Royal College of Art had a department teaching holography.

Sydney Koke, who is an artist/musician/neuroscientist, was developing an interest in holography and asked if she could visit my collection, which is one of the few places in the world where ‘vintage’ holograms can be viewed. The hologram collection was established as a resource from which to make exhibitions and a reference source for those interested in researching the development of holography from the 1970s -2000s, so it is always gratifying to meet someone who shares my interest in the subject. I loved her response to the work and suggested that she might like to curate an exhibition for me.

It has been interesting to observe her choices, which include works by some of the most important pioneers of the medium, and it has been a great opportunity to exhibit pieces that have never been seen in the UK before and others that have not seen the light for years. I consider my collection to be a sort of Library of Light so I am delighted to take some of these early works off the shelves and to share them with a new audience.

I dedicate this exhibition to Steve Benton, Rudie Berkhout, Harriet Casdin-Silver, Dan Schweitzer and all the other holography pioneers who deserve to be better known.

Jonathan Ross, April 2023

In the future it will become clear that Jonathan Ross bears the same relation to early holography as do the rare early collectors of photography. I hope that the Ross collection will remain together and be preserved, not only as a repository of fine holographic art from the early phase of the medium, but also as a case study in the taste of an important early collector and a document of how, in its infancy, the medium appealed to its public.

Chris Titterington, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1994

STEVE BENTON
(1942-2003)
‘Crystal Beginnings’ 1977
White light transmission hologram
12”x12”

INAKI BEGUIRISTAIN
Born 1972
‘Reflections’ 2002
Multi-colour reflection hologram
30x40cm

RUDIE BERKHOUT
(1946-2008)
‘Breakthrough’ 1990
White light transmission hologram
30x40cm

PATRICK BOYD
Born 1960
‘Jackson Makes it to Manhattan’ 1990
Achromate reflection hologram and photograph in box frame
8”x10”

HARRIET CASDIN-SILVER
(1925-2008)
‘Venus of Willendorf 1991’ 1991
Nickel shim stereogram
180mm x 98mm

SUSAN COWLES
Born 1962
‘The House of Moons’ (A stage for the Chymical Theatre’) 1988
Reflection hologram
2 plates 40 x 30cm

PAULA DAWSON
Born 1954
‘Water Ray’ (Study for Luminous Presence) 2007
25 x 25cm
Computer graphic holographic stereogram

JACQUES DESBIENS
‘Distortions’ 2009
Full colour digital holographic stereogram
25 x 18cm

IKUO NAKAMURA
Born 1945
‘Memory II” 1999
White light transmission holographic stereogram

ANA MARIA NICHOLSON
Born 1939
‘Collaborative Work 3’ 1989
43 x 32cm
made with Rudie Berkhout

CAROLINE PALMER
Born 1957
‘Diamonds and Stripes’ 1989
Multi-colour reflection hologram

AMY RUSH
Born 1980
‘I’m Spinning Around’ 2005
Full colour digital stereogram

DAN SCHWEITZER
(1946-2001)
‘The Seed’ 1980
White light transmission hologram
8”x10”

DORA TASS
‘Perturbing Object’ 2015
Dichromate gelatin reflection hologram
41 x 34cm

STEVE WEINSTOCK
Born 1965
‘Big Lucian’ 1992
Mirror backed white light transmission hologram

There is a chapter in Graham Saxby’s textbook Practical Holography of which the heading is Achromatic and Pseudocolour Holograms, and the holograms I have selected for this small exhibition drawn from my collection, and from works on loan to me, provide some examples of the techniques available to the cool holographer.

Saxby defines Achromatic as ‘Colourless’ and explains that an achromatic image is an image that appears in shades of neutral grey instead of being in a single colour (‘monochromatic’).

Pseudocolour refers to a variety of techniques for making any image, or any part of any image, any colour you like – as opposed to true colour which suggests fidelity to natural colours.

When I started collecting holograms, Pulse Portrait of Susan Houde by Bill Molteni was an early acquisition. In contrast to the rainbow Multiplex holograms I had seen it had an eerie presence and I lent it out twice: once to an ‘in the round’ theatre performance “The Rontgen Light” – an evening dictated from Beyond the Grave, and once to The London Dungeons where it again stood in for a ghost!  I first saw Bill’s self-portrait ‘Stripes’ at the Light Dimensions exhibition in Bath in 1983 and was able to buy a copy some 30 years later from a colleague of his.

Jeffrey Robb is now better known for his fabulous lenticular nudes, but while a student at the RCA  in 1992 he made ‘Devon Coast’, a holographic stereogram generated from video filmed from a car window and by using an achromatic technique gave it the quality of a lunar landscape.

David Pizzanelli and I worked together in commercial holography for several years and he went on to take a PhD at the RCA in 1994 and produced a body of work using Edweard Muybridge’s photographic sequences which were perfectly suited to translation into achromatic holograms.  His Naous, which combines an achromatic skull with rainbow flowers, has always reminded me of an Andy Warhol.

Harriet Casdin-Silver made many unflinching studies of the human figure, using a variety of holographic techniques, but for her updated take on the Venus of Willendorf, a tiny prehistoric stone carving, her decision to collaborate with Hologram Industries of France to make a miniature achromatic stereogram could not have been more appropriate.

Patrick Boyd’s Lucy in a Tin Hat was originally made in 1989 and is recognised as a classic example of pulse laser portraiture. The copy on display was made in 2015 as a collaboration with August Muth, the contemporary master of dichromate gelatin holography, with whom Dora Tass also made her Perturbing Object hologram around the same date.

Patrick Boyd’s Virtual Dialogues is a pseudocolour stereogram on a nickel shim of the sort used to emboss holograms. Made in collaboration with the commercial company Applied Holographics, its subtle range of colours distinguish it from the more vivid palette usually associated with that medium.

Mike Medora’s aim was always to perfect the use of colour in holography, in which he has succeeded completely with his company Colour Holographic since 2000.  His 1989 work Nova is an earlier experiment using pseudocolour.

Isabel Azevedo is a Portuguese artist who studied at De Montfort University for several years in the early part of the 21^st century, learning both holographic and lenticular techniques. The results were exhibited in an exhibition, entitled Changing Thoughts, at Gallery 286 in 2010, and I am pleased to be re-exhibiting two of the holograms in this show.

New York based holographers Ana Maria Nicholson and Rudie Berkhout collaborated on a series of works using her pulse laser and his graphic style of holography to produce a unique series of portraits, one of which is one display here. Ana Maria kindly donated the series to me in 2014 and I purchased her beautiful solo work Cocoon a few years previously.

During the 1980s, Larry Lieberman’s Miami based Holographic Images studio produced a range of stock images using pseudocolour techniques and acted as a facility for artists from various backgrounds to realise their concepts. Crystal Dreams by Zeno is an example of one such collaboration.

Matthew Schreiber, who worked with Larry Lieberman for some time and subsequently with the light artist James Turrell, has established himself as one of the most original artists working with holography and light in the USA. Stereogram techniques are his forte and The Archer,  made from found footage, demonstrates his individual approach.

Caroline Palmer began her holographic career making museum quality reproductions of ancient artefacts but went on to do an MA at the RCA where she became more interested in geometric patterns and Sacred Art. Hexagram dates from that period in the 1990s.

I have chosen mainly holograms by artists to exhibit here but Steve Provence, who worked mainly in the commercial sector, made some beautiful embossed achromates including his Egyptian Queen, which graced the cover of L.A.S.E.R News in 1989.

Finally, The Girl and the Hologram, an interactive holographic installation by Guillermo F.Heinze from 2006, is a three-dimensional form with holograms on each face.  Exhibited for the first time at 286, this piece is definitely cool in more senses than one!

Jonathan Ross February 2020