A hidden history of early colour photography in Britain: the photographs of Agnes B. Warburg (1872-1953)

Agnes Beatrice Warburg (1872-1953) was a British amateur photographer and active member of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS). The official collection of her works is housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and totals nearly 1000 black and white and colour photographs. Between about 1890 and 1949, Warburg experimented with nine different colour photographic and printing techniques, established the RPS Colour Group in 1927, and invented her own process called the War-type in 1918. This thesis will examine the hitherto untold history of Agnes B. Warburg, and narrate a history of early colour photography between 1907 and 1945, using her body of work as a reference. This approach allows us to see how amateur photographic practices informed and perpetuated the artistic and technical development of colour photography in the early 20th century, and in doing so provides us with a deeper understanding of photographic history.