William Carrick

(b Edinburgh, 31 Dec 1827; d St Petersburg, Nov 1878). Scottish photographer, active in Russia. He was the son of a Scottish timber merchant living in St Petersburg. He studied architecture and painting at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg from 1844 to 1853, when he went to Rome to further his studies in painting. On his return to St Petersburg in spring 1856 he had already decided to take up photography for financial reasons, and he became the assistant to a portrait photographer named Hoch. In 1857 he travelled to Edinburgh, where he studied photography briefly with James Good Tunny and met the photographer John McGregor (d 1872). McGregor agreed to travel to St Petersburg, and the two opened a portrait studio there in September 1859, making albumen prints using wet collodion plates. Their photographs received approval from the imperial household, and Carrick developed a relationship with the court painter Mih?ly Zichy, with whom he embarked on a project of photographing the works of artists (e.g. Zichy's watercolour of the Russian Emperor Shooting a Bear, 1864; see Ashbee, 1978, fig. 11), one of the first to do so professionally.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Carrick, William (1827-78), Scottish photographer active in Russia. Brought to Russia as an infant, Carrick was educated in St Petersburg and studied art in Rome, where he discovered photography. He opened a studio in St Petersburg in 1859 and specialized in the portrayal of Russia's humbler citizens—he had little time for the rich and powerful—and is now best known for his numerous studies of workers and peasants. Initially these were made in the studio, but as Carrick's skill increased he was able to capture convincingly natural images of his subjects at work in the fields. In all this he was assisted by the technician John MacGregor, whom he persuaded to leave Edinburgh to join him.

— Felicity Ashbee

Bibliography

• Ashbee, F., and Lawson, J., William Carrick 1827-1878 (1987)