An introduction to an upcoming article relating to the Maurice Richardson Collection donated to the Société Jersiasie Photographic Archive in 2022.
Being handed a chaotic personal archive of an individual you never knew is an enthralling and complex experience. It is laced with contradiction. Offering an intensely intimate invitation, to pull open the curtains on a private life, yet the person you see remains a fragmented reflection. As an archivist, you imitate an archaeologist, identifying artefacts as belonging to one strata or another, capturing records of transactions and interactions, arranging them to evidence an existence. The proximity of the objects to the subject, often held in their hands, created, shared and consumed by them, allows one to describe the subjects actions with great confidence but also to surmise intent and purpose. Stitching threads through material supports, weaving a tentative fabric depicting decisions across time and space.
When the individual is deceased much is inevitably limited to conjecture. Where possible one can conduct research with acquaintances, friends and/or family, allowing one to support or discount the suspicions glimpsed between the fragments. When the archive is almost entirely photographic, both the potential for profound insights and the risk of misplaced interpretations multiply exponentially. One must proceed with caution.
With then Société Jersiaise President, Nicolette Le Quesne Westwood, I made a short trip from 7 Pier Road, through and out the back of Town, up Trinity Hill to Maurice’s home, Ville Mars. Nestled above Grand Vaux, surrounded by defensive vegetation, the property was somewhat dilapidated, but refreshingly authentic compared to the vulgar wealth so prevalent in Jersey. Maurice had lived here since 1949. Crumpled boxes containing files, albums, and folders, as well as loose photographs were gathered in the hall of the granite farmhouse. The cardboard boxes were damaged and dusty, the files and folders mouldy and infested. As I packed them into the boot and along the backseats of the Nicky’s Mini Cooper, I wondered to myself whether this was going to be worth the trip. Eager to find out, I began cleaning and listing that afternoon.
Maurice’s collection is shaped in part by his involvement with the Société. Maurice served as President and was a very active member during a tense period in the organisation’s history. Portraits of Joan Stevens, Arthur Mourant, Frank Le Maistre and other giants originating from the Société’s golden pre-Occupation period are found throughout, between images of farm work, family and friends. In order to make sense of broader themes, an understanding of Maurice beyond these obvious associations is necessary. His obituary in the Société Jersiaise Annual Bulletin, describes him as ‘firmly conservative’, both politically and economically. This statement and similar anecdotal descriptions led me to question how much did these deep conservative views shape Maurice’s work as a photographer.
The up coming article will examine the Maurice Richardson Collection in this light. Specifically in relation to what Shawn Phillip Cooper describes as the four ‘principles of action’ for forming a ‘conservative cultural worldview’. These are to preserve traditional culture, to understand formal properties of ‘supreme’ cultural achievements, to create new work in conversation with this high cultural tradition and to advocate for the promotion of this tradition, in pursuit of the ‘True, the Good, and the Beautiful’. How closely does Maurice’s photography marry with Roger Scruton’s view of conservative aesthetics? For whom beauty, a value as important as truth and goodness, was rejected by 20th century in a desperate pursuit of originality.
In short, there are many elements of correlation, and significant contradictions. For example, the everyday is often rejected by conservative aesthetics in favour of the idealised and sublime. Yet the everyday is celebrated throughout Maurice’s work. Yes, there are moments where Maurice arguably seeks to monumentalise the everyday, to elevate it to the sublime. However, more often than not, the world is presented at face value, a place where Maurice finds no shortage of beauty. At times, Maurice’s search for beauty and preservation of tradition result in kitsch representations, a pornography of nostalgia is undoubtedly evident, echoing elements of romantic nationalism. Yet he approaches St Helier’s changing townscape with the same curious pursuit of beauty whether he is photographing the new or the old.
The collection suggests Maurice retained an open and flexible concept of beauty, prioritised social relations and cultural traditions above almost all else and was informed both by conservative aesthetics and politics. The resulting photographic practice is exemplary in its execution and vision, and demands a place in the pantheon Jersey photography.