The third exhibition at the Hidden Lane Gallery of the work of Margaret Watkins, almost half of whose life was spent unknown in Glasgow, covers previously unseen images from Paris, where she spent two productive months in the autumn of 1931.
When she died, in the gloomy seventeen room house in Glasgow’s West End in 1969, she left behind hundreds of “finished” images, many of which she had exhibited in major galleries in America, her home for over twenty years. These were secreted in a trunk she gave as a present to her new neighbour, Joe Mulholland on condition he did not open it till after her death. He did not know that she had been a photographer of note. He has spent the last forty years promoting her work, which is now recognised as being at the forefront of artistic and photographic achievement in the twentieth century.
She left behind thousands of negatives of her journeys from Glasgow to Germany, France and Russia. In November 2010, her Glasgow negatives were printed (by Robert Burns). Now we show a selection of those she made in Paris. Only a very small number were in other than negative form. Robert Burns has brought these to life, overcoming enormous difficulties due to the precarious state of the negatives, many of which had deteriorated with the years. All prints in the exhibition apart from those few originals by Margaret Watkins are selenium toned silver gelatin master prints by Robert Burns.
The exhibition has been extended until March 24th 2012.
