James Craig Annan

Who was James Craig Annan?

James Craig Annan was a pioneering Scottish-born photographer and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

The second son of photographer Thomas Annan, James Craig Annan was born at Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, on 8 March 1864. He was educated at Hamilton Academy before studying chemistry and natural philosophy at Anderson's College, Glasgow

James Annan subsequently joined his family’s photographic business, T. & R. Annan and Sons of Glasgow, Hamilton and Edinburgh, and in 1883 went to Vienna to learn the process of photogravure from the inventor, Karel Klíč. James Annan introduced the photogravure process into Britain, and T. & R. Annan, having acquired the British Patent holder rights, were to become the leading firm in Britain in gravure photographic printing.

In 1891 James Craig Annan was elected to membership of Glasgow Art Club as a "photographic artist." In 1893 he exhibited his own photogravure work at the Photographic Salon in 1893, as a result of which he was, in 1894, elected a member of The Linked Ring, a select international group of art photographers.