150th Anniversary of the Death of David Octavius Hill

That the Parliament commemorates the 150th anniversary of the death of David Octavius Hill, Scottish painter and arts activist, who was born in Perth in 1802 and died on 17 May 1870; understands that, originally a landscape painter, Hill made a name for himself at age 19 by publishing a series of lithographic landscapes; is aware that he was a founding member of the Royal Scottish Academy and secretary of that organisation for 40 years; recognises that in 1843 he began to paint a large commemorative picture of the signing of the Deed of Demission, the act marking the founding of the Free Church of Scotland and that, in order to get an accurate record of the features of the several hundred delegates to the founding convention, Hill decided to make photographic portraits and enlisted the collaboration of Robert Adamson, a young chemist who, for a year, had experimented with the calotype, a then-revolutionary photographic process that created the first “negative” from which multiple prints could be made; notes that the pair used this technique, which allowed the photographer to control lighting, expression and gesture and thereby to emphasise the sitter’s personality, to capture portraits of many prominent Scots of the day, as well as local residents in small fishing villages, and many views of Edinburgh; further notes that, after Adamson’s premature death at age 27, Hill temporarily abandoned photography and returned to painting but that, between 1861 and 1862, he collaborated with Alexander McGlashan on a series of images made with collodion-glass negatives, and believes that this anniversary should be used to recognise and celebrate the work of this influential artist who helped to pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland.