John G. Bullock Memorial Collection

John Griscom Bullock (1854-1939) was born in Wilmington, Delaware to a Quaker family. As a child, he printed and published his own newspaper, City Journal. He graduated from Haverford College in 1874 and received a Ph.G. from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy which prepared him for photographic chemistry requirements; he was a chemist and druggist for the firm Bullock & Crenshaw for 31 years beginning in 1874. He married Rebecca Malin Downing in 1888.

"Bullock's earliest photogarphs were made with a small view camera using 4 × 5 inch Carbutt dry plates. The lenses he employed were designed for rapid exposures and reduced distortion, and included a Ross Rapid Rectilinear lens and a Grubb landscape lens. By 1886 he had a larger format camera which took 61/2 × 81/2 inch dry plates.... In 1911, he began using a roll film camera which made 3 1/2 × 5 3/4 inch negatives." The earliest prints Bullock made were on albumen paper, followed by platinum paper to give a richer image. His platinum paper was manufactured by Willis & Clements and by Buchanan Bromley & Company. Although Bullock rarely made modifications to his prints, platinum printing allowed greater flexibility in manipulation of the image. When he did manipulate his images, it was to print clouds into blank skies or to change tonality; most of these alterations were made by retouching the negative.

The person or place in front of the camera was the dominant subject matter for Bullock, with secondary importance given to light or to symbolic meaning. His subjects were mostly rural America. From 1895-1898, his subjects were almost exclusively his children.

Bullock became interested in photography in 1882; the same year, he became a member of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, later its president. He studied under the photographer John C. Browne.

Bullock had two of his photographs accepted in the first international exhibition, the Vienna Salon. Alfred Stieglitz's work was also accepted. Bullock was an organizer of the Philadelphia Photographic Salon, an annual juried competition, and his work was known to Stieglitz. In approximately 1902, the latter became director of the Photo-Secession gathering together Bullock and others as founders to forward the cause of art photography; their work was called pictorial photography. The journal of this group, CameraWork, was founded by Stieglitz the same year to further modern photogarphy. Initial exhibitions of the group resulted in international invitations to Bullock to exhibit. Bullock's last major exhibition during his lifetime was at the Albright Art Gallery in 1910.

In the period 1911-1915, Bullock embarked on a project to photograph historic buildings in the area of his home in Germantown to illustrate the book by Charles F. Jenkins The Guide Book to Historic Germantown.. He served on several local historic societies including in West Chester where he had moved in 1923. There is no evidence that he made any photographs after 1935.

These notes were taken from Beck, Tom, An American Vision: John G. Bullock and the Photo-Secession. New York: Aperture in association with University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1989 and Biographical Catalog of the Matriculates of Haverford College, 1833-1922. Philadelphia: Alumni Association, 1922.