Lettice Ramsey
Lettice Ramsey (2 August 1898 – 12 July 1985) was a British photographer.
Lettice Ramsey | |
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![]() Portrait of Lettice Ramsey by PAL Brunney, c.1970 | |
Born | 2 August 1898 Guildford, Surrey, England |
Died | 12 July 1985 86) Cambridge, United Kingdom | (aged
Alma mater | Newnham College, Cambridge |
Known for | photography |
Spouse(s) | Frank P. Ramsey |
Life
Lettice Cautley Ramsey (née Baker) was born on 2 August 1898 in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father Cecil was a surveyor and her mother Frances (née Davies-Colley) was a painter, trained at the Slade.[1] The Baker family moved to County Sligo, Ireland, soon after Lettice's birth, where Cecil Baker had leased rights to oyster farming in the estuary near Rosses Point.[2] Ramsey's father died when she was a small child; her mother remarried in 1915.[1] She attended Bedales, then Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied philosophy.[3] After working for a brief time in vocational guidance in London, she returned to Cambridge to work in the Psychology Library.[4] In 1925, she married mathematician Frank P. Ramsey, and they had two daughters before his early death in 1930 from liver disease.[3]
To support her family, Ramsey took a photography course at Regent Street Polytechnic.[3] Introduced to photographer Helen Muspratt by artist F. H. "Fra" Newbery, the two women opened a studio together in Cambridge in 1932.[5]
Lettice Ramsey died on 12 July 1985 in Cambridge, England.
Work
The photography studio, Ramsey & Muspratt, was a successful commercial venture, and the pair photographed influential social, academic, and artistic figures in Cambridge throughout the 1930s.[6] Muspratt moved to Oxford in 1937 and opened a second studio there; Ramsey maintained the studio in Cambridge, and both retained the Ramsey & Muspratt studio name. They remained close throughout their lives.[7] In the 1930s, the Ramsey & Muspratt studio was noted for using the solarization process in some portrait work;[8] two of the firm's photographs were accepted in the London Salon of Photography in both 1936 and 1937.[9] While Ramsey's Cambridge work was primarily portraiture, she photographed on her travels, including Russia in 1933, an around-the-world trip in 1948, and later travel to Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Mexico. She visited Cambodia in the late 1960s.[10]
Fourteen of Ramsey's portraits of the Bloomsbury Group were published in a calendar by the Charleston Trust in 1990.[11] In 2012–2013, the National Portrait Gallery, London presented an exhibition of Ramsey & Muspratt work exploring Ramsey's friendship with the Bloomsbury Group poet Julian Bell.[12]
Ramsey retired in 1978.
References
- Kennedy, S. B.; Henry, Paul (2007). Paul Henry: With a Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations. Yale University Press. p. 314. ISBN 0300117124.
Frances Baker (1873-1944).
- Great Britain; Parliament; House of Commons (1903). Sessional papers. Inventory control record 1.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- "Lettice Ramsey". Times. July 30, 1985.
- Smith, Charles Saumarez (April 19, 2016). "Lettice Ramsey". charlessaumarezsmith.com. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
- Marsh, Jan (10 Aug 2001). "Helen Muspratt (obituary)". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
- "Lettice Ramsey". Cambridge Evening News. 18 Jul 1985.
- Moorhead, Joanna (12 March 2016). "Helen Muspratt: The woman who photographed the Cambridge spies". Independent.
- "Notice". Cambridge Daily News. 25 Oct 1935.
- "Cambridgeshire Photographers". FadingImages. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
- Payne, Sara (c. 1969). "Cambridge's own first lady". The Times.
- Miles, Philip (1989). Bloomsbury Portraits by Lettice Ramsey. The Charleston Trust.
- "The Bloomsbury Poet & The Cambridge Photographer: Julian Bell & Lettice Ramsey". National Portrait Gallery. Archived from the original on 22 February 2018.
External links
- Lettice Ramsey photos, Stephen Burch's Birding & Dragonfly Website.
- Portrait of Lettice Ramsey née Baker, by Frances Baker, Newnham College, University of Cambridge.
- Ramsey and Muspratt, Photographers, Cambridge. An Analysis of Desk Diaries from the Early Years of the Firm (1932-1935).
- Lettice Cautley Ramsey (née Baker), National Portrait Gallery.