Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Lionel Gossman

In the wake of Glasgow?s transformation in the nineteenth-century into an industrial powerhouse, the "Second City of the Empire,? a substantial part of the old town of Adam Smith degenerated into an overcrowded and disease-ridden slum. The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, Thomas Annan?s photographic record of this central section of the city prior to its demolition in accordance with the City of Glasgow Improvements Act of 1866, is widely recognized as a classic of nineteenth-century documentary photography. Annan?s achievement as a photographer of paintings and a portrait and landscape photographer is less widely known. Thomas Annan: Photographer of Victorian Scotland offers a handy, comprehensive and copiously illustrated overview of the full range of the photographer?s work. The book opens with a brief account of the immediate context of Annan?s career as a photographer: the...