Sculpture and the Stereoscope: the work of Alajos Stróbl

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19.

Photo historian Denis Pellerin, from Dr Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company, will introduce Anna Peternák’s talk Sculpture and the Stereoscope the work of Alajos Stróbl by his wife and show how stereoscopic photographs were used by the Victorians and the Edwardians as the next best thing to seeing a real sculpture, making one wonder why, with faster and easier ways of capturing and displaying images, we have stopped doing the same.

From Mrs Stróbl’s (Alojzia Kratochwill) collection of about one thousand stereo images, our main speaker, Anna Peternák, who has worked on Alojzia Kratochwill's glass slides for several years, has chosen just over a hundred illustrating the studio, work and travels of the artist. These pictures, which have never been seen outside Hungary, show the whole process of how a sculpture was created at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The presentation will be accompanied by high-quality 3D projection and there will be an opportunity to ask questions of the speakers. 

Alojzia Kratochwill (1876-1964) was a talented amateur photographer. Her husband, Alajos Stróbl (1856-1926) was one of the leading sculptors in the Austo-Hungarian Empire. Although he is still well-known in Hungary few people are aware that Stróbl’s wife documented his life and work with a stereoscopic camera.

For the Stróbls stereo photography was not a game or a gimmick but served a very important purpose. They understood how the three-dimensional illusion created in the stereoscope could preserve something of the sculptures’ three-dimensionality. Alojzia Stróbl documented how her husband’s sculptures were made, from sketches, to maquette and on to the completed work.