George Davison

George Davison (19 September 1854 – 26 December 1930) was an English photographer, a proponent of impressionistic photography, a co-founder of the Linked Ring Brotherhood of British artists and a managing director of Kodak UK. He was also a millionaire, thanks to an early investment in Eastman Kodak.

Biography Even George Davison was born in Lowestoft, into the poor family of a shipyard carpenter. He received a good education, and gained employment as a civil servant at Somerset House, London in 1874.

He began to make photographs in 1885, and he joined the Camera Club photography society around that time. He took part in a Royal Photographic Society exhibition the next year, and became a member. He was influenced by naturalistic photographers in the early phase of his work, especially Peter Henry Emerson.

However, Davison experimented with techniques and processes, and soon turned away from naturalistic photography. He started to use a pinhole camera as one of the first pictorialistic photographers. He made a picture called The Onion Field (originally named An Old Farmstead) in 1890, without sharp outlines on a rough paper, giving the effect of painting. It is considered as the first impressionistic photograph. Nevertheless, Davison's photographs became a subject of polemics and controversy in the Royal Photographic Society. He decided to leave the society and to establish a new organisation, the Linked Ring Brotherhood, together with other followers in 1892.

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