photos and stories from the Powerhouse Museum
Chinese scroll paintings are executed on flimsy paper or silk and must be mounted on protective pieces of silk. Fine paintings are generally kept rolled up and are hung or, in the case of handscrolls, unrolled only on special occasions or to show friends.
Hedda Morrison, A Photographer in Old Peking, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1985, p.176
Photographer Hedda Morrison, (1908-1991), was born Hedda Hammer in Stuttgart, Germany. She acquired her first camera, a Box Brownie, at the age of 11. In 1931, after completing studies at the State Institute for Photography in Munich and working in the studio of photographer Adolf Lazi (1884-1955), she answered an advertisement in a photography journal for a job in Peking.
In Peking Morrison managed Hartung’s photographic studio from 1933-1938. After her contract expired she continued to work freelance from a small darkroom in her home in Nanchang Street. The young photographer travelled around the city, usually by bicycle, often photographing its inhabitants. This photograph is part of the Hedda Morrison Photographic Collection