High Street from the Cross
1868
Medium
Photogravure, plate 1 from the book "The Old Closes & Streets of Glasgow" (1900)
Dimensions
Image: 23.2 × 18 cm (9 3/16 × 7 1/8 in.); Paper: 38.1 × 27.3 cm (15 × 10 3/4 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
234005
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Thomas Annan created this evocative view of High Street from the Cross in Glasgow in 1868, capturing a bustling urban scene that would soon vanish amid the city’s rapid redevelopment. As plate 1 in his influential publication *The Old Closes & Streets of Glasgow*, issued in 1900, the image belongs to a pioneering documentary project commissioned to record the city’s historic closes and narrow thoroughfares before they were cleared for modern improvements. Printed as a photogravure, the work demonstrates the early transition of photography from a purely technical medium into a reproducible art form suitable for books. This technique allowed Annan’s detailed observations of Glasgow’s architecture and daily life to reach a wider audience, preserving a visual record of Victorian urban conditions. Today housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Photography and Media, the image remains a compelling example of 19th-century documentary photography and its power to shape our understanding of changing cityscapes.
About the Artist
Thomas Annan · 1829–1887
Thomas Annan (1829–1887) was born in Dairsie, Fife, the son of a farmer. He moved to Cupar in 1845, where he undertook a seven-year apprenticeship as a lithographic engraver with the printing firm of Tullis, acquiring a technical foundation in image reproduction that would later inform his approach to photography. In 1855 he committed to a new vocation as a photographer, establishing a studio in G...