The Gibson Dynasty: Pioneers of Photography was a selection of 24 photographic prints by the Gibson family of artist photographers.
The company’s founder, John Gibson was from a long line of Scilly seafarers. Following the death of his father, a coastguard stationed on the Isle of Aran, John and his mother returned to Scilly in 1840 and set up a general store on St Mary’s. John Gibson went to sea at the age of 12 to supplement the family income, picking up a camera at some time on his voyages. By 1866 he had turned his hobby into a business and set up a studio in Hugh Town, St Mary’s. He opened another shop on the Promenade in Penzance in 1877, moving to 10 Market Jew Street, Penzance in 1879.
His eldest son Alexander Gibson stepped straight into the family business at the age of 12, becoming a junior partner in 1871. The Gibsons divided the business between St Mary’s and Penzance, with younger brother Herbert Gibson (1861 – 1937) running the Scilly concern with his father, and Alexander Gibson managing the Penzance concern, which ran until 1925. Their sisters assisted in the shops and did book keeping.
The Gibsons gained a reputation for their artfully composed pictures of scenes of working life in West Cornwall, shipwrecks and antiquities. Herbert Gibson had a special interest in shipwrecks, leaving Alexander to focus on antiquities and archaeological sites. With the rise in tourism to the South West, their pictures were sold to visitors as souvenir prints and postcards.
There were other professional photographers working in the area, in particular Robert Preston of Penzance, to whom it is thought John Gibson was apprenticed in the 1860s. The Gibson family, however, were prolific, almost obsessive, in their output, covering a wide range of subjects and places, and they were meticulous in the staging and composition of their work. They were also technical pioneers, finding practical methods to overcome the challenges of outdoor photography. When photographing in the field, for example, they often carried a mobile developing tent. The wet plates were made up before they set out, and developed in the tent as soon as the photograph was taken, or the slide wrapped in moist rags to keep the plate wet until it could be developed back at the studio. The heavy 12” x 10” camera and its battery of lenses and plates also added to their difficulty.
The Gibsons turned these challenges to their advantage, and no other Cornish photographer came close in terms of commercial success and ingenuity. Their pictures document the working lives of the Cornish people as well as showing their passion for observing the ancient landscape.
