Nick Simpson Art

C-type archival print, edition of 10 12 x 16 inches, edition of 10, $1500 35 x 40 inches, edition of 3, $3500 20 x 24 inches, edition of 7, $1800 This sepia-toned antique-style figurative photograph was created by London-based photographer Nick Simpson. Here, the artist exemplifies steampunk style with a steam-powered rhinoceros of his own invention. Much of the photograph is staged, with real sets, props, and models wearing elaborate costumes, while other details are rendered in a photo-editing program. About the work: London-based artist Nick Simpson is celebrated for his fictional series entitled The Bumforth Man Collection. The series consists of archival prints inspired by a mythical story concerning a quantity of glass photographic plates discovered in an old oak chest on the Bumforth Manor estate in rural England, the family home of the Gascoigne-Simpsons for over nine generations. These plates, which had laid gathering dust for over a hundred years, were supposedly the work of Simpson’s great grandfather, Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson, a disciple of William Henry Fox Talbot, commonly considered to be the father of photography. To bring this story to life, Simpson starts by building a set, authentically styled and dressed to re-create the Victorian photographic salons of the late 1900s. This becomes the stage upon which he places his eclectic choice of models and actors, all following his original tight narrative to create a richly detailed tableau. The scene is then captured in a single sitting using an original 1867 'Petzval' lens mounted on a mahogany plate camera...