Queen legend Sir Brian May has a passion for stereoscopes
Now part of his huge collection is going on view. Jane McGowan hears his photographic rhapsody.
You may be aware that Sir Brian May has sold more than 300 million records worldwide – as a solo artist and as one-quarter of Queen, one of the most iconic bands of all time. You may also be aware that he is a Doctor of Astrophysics, awarded a PhD in 2007 by London’s Imperial College, where he studied first for his physics degree in the 1960s.
But I bet you didn’t know that he is among the foremost collectors of images created using stereoscopy, the Victorian technique that brought about the birth of 3D.
Or that the newly knighted May is about to put part of his 200,000-strong collection on show. Victorian Virtual Reality: Photographs from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy clicks open at Watts Gallery, near Guildford, this month.
“It will be very experiential – that was a prime consideration,” explains the 75-year-old, who lives near the border of Surrey and Berkshire with his partner of more than 30 years, former EastEnders actress Anita Dobson.
“Visitors will be able to see stereo cards in their original state. They are not at all tarted up.” He laughs.
“Actually, it’s probably better to say that they are not restored. You’ll be able to see them in various ways – through the patented stereoscope viewers or via electronic devices. It is a very Victorian experience: seeing the pictures just as the original owners would have viewed them.”
His passion for the pictorial ephemera is palpable. But what exactly is this 19th century analogue of virtual reality? Well, according to sources, it’s a technique that “uses the illusion of depth to create a single 3D image from two flat images when viewed by each eye separately”.
Denis Pellerin
“Sir Charles Wheatstone discovered the principle in 1832,” explains Brian. “He was a humble man, quite shy about his discovery, but he spoke about it a couple of years later at the Royal Society, calling it ‘stereopsis’. Basically, the point is that we have two eyes that see the world slightly differently from each other, and our brains are able to combine those images to create a 3D picture in our head. Although, of course, 3D as a concept wasn’t coined until the 1950s. But you get the idea.”
It was back in his Hampton Hill childhood that Brian first fell in love with stereoscopy, after discovering a set of cards in his cereal packet.
“I was only about nine years old,” he recalls. “There was a little card in the Weetabix featuring two hippos in the water. It was a free gift, but you had to send away some money – about one and sixpence – to get the viewer. Once that arrived and I saw the image through the lens, I was blown away.
“I also started taking my own images with a little instant camera I bought in Woolworths. I would take a picture, move a few inches, take another and then those images would go in the viewer. It was quite incredible to me.”
As a student at Imperial College, the young May would walk past Christie’s auction house on his way to lectures. He noticed that there were often boxes of stereoscopes for sale. Although he couldn’t afford to bid on them, he would frequently pop in just for the chance to handle and view them.
It would be some years before musical success brought the funds that enabled him fully to embrace his hobby, but since then he has certainly made up for lost time.
According to photo historian Denis Pellerin, who has worked alongside Brian and the gallery to establish the forthcoming exhibition, the honour of owning the most stereoscopes belongs to a man in Spain whose collection numbers 350,000.
Brian, however, is one of the subject’s leading authorities. With a number of serious players in the stereoscope arena today, the chance of sourcing original images is diminishing.
Denis Pellerin
Yet the tantalising prospect of finding something previously unseen keeps collectors inspired. “You used to be able to pick them up at car boot sales, but that doesn’t happen anymore. Still, an occasional find at an auction – maybe a box of cards that’s part of a house clearance – is worth the wait,” says Brian.
“There is a tiny community of collectors like me who get incredibly excited about finding a stereo, maybe from the 1850s, that no one has seen before. And it still happens – only very occasionally, but it’s amazing when it does.”
In 2019, with an eye to the future, May set up a charitable incorporated organisation – the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy – with the dual aim of preserving his unique collection and keeping it relevant by making it accessible to the public.
Talks, articles, workshops, books: all these contribute to an ongoing initiative of which the Watts Gallery outing forms part.
Running until February of next year, the interactive exhibition explores the archive in all its variety, from celebrity portraits to snapshots of Victorian life and travel. Stereoscopic photographs and paintings from Watts Gallery Trust’s own collection will also feature among the loaned works.
And Brian believes that visitors will be as fascinated as their forebears with the phenomenon. “It is hard to imagine how big it was in mid-Victorian times,” he explains.
“Throughout the 1850s it was huge in England and France, and then a little bit later in America. Sadly, by the 1860s other inventions had eclipsed it, but for a short period stereoscopy was king. It was travel, portraiture, fantasy and a glimpse into other lives.
“You can look at an image and say: ‘Oh, that’s a nice photograph.’ But then you see it through the viewer and you go: ‘Oh my God! It is a different story altogether. It tells me a thousand times more about what it was like to be there taking this picture.’”
Denis Pellerin
The exhibition is neatly divided into categories, portraiture among them.
“The Victorians were actually very like us in that they loved to see celebrity. So there are images of politicians, such as Gladstone, and authors too. Dickens was a popular subject. “Travel is another area we’re covering. Although more people had begun to travel by this time, for the majority it was still too expensive. So we have stereoscopes of the pyramids, tea planting in India, rice growers in China.”
There is also a section devoted to artists. “The spirit of George Frederic Watts is very much in the gallery, so we wanted to honour that. And there is a stereo of Ellen Terry, the famous actress to whom Watts was briefly married.”
Aside from compiling his archive, Brian has published a number of books on the subject and patented his own viewer, known as the OWL.
He has even combined his two passions of astrophysics and stereoscopy to help scientists build up images of our solar system.
“Yes, my colleague, Claudia Manzoni, and I have been working with NASA and ESA [European Space Agency]. We are using Victorian stereoscopy in the 21st century, which shows how relevant it is.”
The aim now, says Brian, is to get an OWL viewer into every home. More than anything though, he wants people to come along to the exhibition and enjoy it.
“I want them to feel just as the Victorians would have felt,” he enthuses. “It is like seeing actual magic.”
Victorian Virtual Reality: Photographs from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy runs at Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, Compton, from July 4 – February 25, 2024. Visit: wattsgallery.org.uk
