Bertram C Sinkinson was born in 1909. He was artistically inclined and attended art school before training in photography with the long-established Birmingham studio of Whitlock which had its antecedents back to 1842. Such an experience provided him with a range of skills in lighting and posing for portraiture, and darkroom work that would stand him in good stead for his own photography, especially as portraiture which was the mainstay of the high street studio. After the second world war Sinkinson set up his own studio in Stafford, where he, too, specialised in portraiture.
Sinkinson joined the RPS in 1930 and gained his Associate in 1931 by which time he was already an established photographer and exhibitor. He was awarded his Fellowship in 1932. At the same time he was also active in the Institute of British Photographers (IBP), now the British Institute of Professional Photography, where he served as President in 1948. He became the RPS’s President in 1953-1955.
His commercial studio was successful and he photographed a range of celebrities of the period as well as civic dignitaries in Stafford, politicians, and society figures. Amongst those he photographed were Sir Malcolm Sargent, George Bernard Shaw, the actor Robert Donat, who played William Friese Greene, the Duke of York, later King George VI, and Patrick, Lord Lichfield, who was later a photographer in his own right and who’s ancestral home was close by.
He was awarded an OBE in 1957 for public service – he was active in Rotary and Freemasonry - and became Mayor of Stafford in 1959.
Sinkinson retired from business and moved to Eastbourne where he continued his own landscape photography. He died in 1985.
Pictorialism
Away from his successful business Sinkinson was an accomplished pictorial photographer and regularly photographed in the Sussex landscape, with its rolling hills and large skies. He was elected a member of the London Salon of Photography in 1952 and regularly exhibited in its exhibitions through to the 1980s. He served as its chair from 1959-1964. He was also President of the Photographic Convention, a gathering of photographers that had been formed in 1886 and met annually. He became its President in 1957 and 1958.
Sinkinson also exhibited his portraits and landscapes in the RPS annual print exhibition from 1931.
It was not just in the RPS and Salon exhibitions which were Britain the most prestigious photography exhibitions that many amateurs aspired too. Like many commercial photographers Sinkinson was involved with his local club the Stafford Photographic Society and showed his work in its exhibition. He also showed his work widely in other salons and exhibitions and exhibitions in Britain, America and Europe.
Looking through the 184 photographs one is struck by Sinkinson’s mastery of lighting in his portraits, not unexpected perhaps, as this was what his living was based on. His pictorial work is very much of its period but some of his views show an ability to capture the picturesque. Pictorialism was the dominant genre within photographic societies and clubs for much of the twentieth century and it is still with us today. What is unexpected is that Sinkinson did not seem to do any experimental work (or if he did, then it has not survived). Early on he made some Bromoil prints, perhaps reflecting his art training, but his regular black and white chloro-bromide, bromide, and colour work does not stray far the norms of the period.
On his death in 1985 the RPS’s Photographic Journal (July 1985, 322-327) carried a selection of his photographs with a short obituary. I will leave the final words to Sinkinon’s successor as President, R H Mason who wrote that he will be remembered ‘mostly for genial character, kindly manner, and sincerity in all his undertakings. He…did much for photography and young photographers in his active years’.
Author
Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS joined the RPS in 1979. He was its Director-General from 2011-2018 and Director of Programmes from 2018-2023. He now consults on photography and its history. Michael is a photo-historian and edits the RPS Historical Group’s The PhotoHistorian. He is currently writing a history of the RPS and British photography and be reached via his website: www.mpritchard.com
