An unparalleled collection of social and cultural history
Bridgeman acquires the Fotomas archive
The Fotomas archive, is also known as the John Freeman archive. John Freeman amassed this vast collection of images, over 250,000 images, from his father's lifetime as a photographer, followed by his own.
Leading figures in the arts are represented including Tolstoy, Keats and Lewis Carroll as well as royalty, revolutionaries like Karl Marx and significant explorers, philosophers and scientists.
Topics include scenes from medieval daily life, the Great Plague of London and the Industrial Revolution across diverse categories such as architecture, maps, posters and topography, as well as eye-opening photography including Victorian slums and Native American costumes. The archive also covers many unusual subjects such as monsters and lunatics, musketeers, Welsh history, Darwin's insect collection and Elizabethan past times.
"We are thrilled to be representing the Fotomas Archive. John Freeman has created an amazing collection of images that detail the fascinating minutiae of how an individual in a Western society viewed the rest of the world. It is collections such as these that provide insight into individual perspectives of contemporary life."
Harriet Bridgeman, managing director of The Bridgeman Art Library
