Siniolchun from the left hand side of the Zemu Glacier, 1899 (telephotograph). © 2008 Fondazionne Sella, Biella

Exhibition preview – Frozen in Time: the mountain photography of Vittorio Sella (1859 – 1943) at the Estorick Collection until September 14 2008.

Three decades of one man’s passion for climbing and photographing mountains is being celebrated at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London.

Works considered by both photographers and mountaineers to be the greatest mountain photographs ever made make up this exhibition of the work of Vittorio Sella.

The exhibition houses 50 of his vintage photographs and multi-plate panoramas.

Born into the mountainous Piedmont region of Italy with a father who had written the first Italian-language treatise on photography (which was probably the first in any language in 1856) it seems that Sella’s destiny was shaped from the cradle.

Ice caves above the Märjelen glacial lake on the Aletsch Glacier, 22 July 1884 © Fondazione Sella, Biella

Without his skill as a mountaineer, developed over years of staggering expeditions, he could not have captured the grandeur of the mountains that consumed him. Similarly however, his mountaineering skills were matched by his expertise as a photographer.

But this expertise was backed by enthusiasm and unstinting joy when it came to capturing the essence of mountains and mountain landscapes. In 1882 when only 23 years old, he wrote to the English camera maker, Dallmeyer:

“I beg you to undertake immediately the camera for the 30 by 40 centimetre plates described in my letter. I beg you to make it in the best mahogany, with every care possible, as I will use it for taking views in the high Alps…I burn with impatience to start photographic excursions.”

Image - Brêche de la Meije from the Duhamel pyramid, 9 August 1888. © 2008 Fondanzione Sella, Biella

Although beginning his climbing and photography in the Alps, his career soon took him around the globe to such vastly different locations as the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896, Alaska in 1897, Nepal in 1899, the Himalyas and Uganda in 1906 and Morroco in 1925.

For this reason, the images in this exhibition reveal the generic mountain of imagination to infact and be individual and unique in terms of both geographic and, when captured by Sella, aesthetic character.

While height is an obvious concept if thinking of mountains, Sella revealed depth also. Whether shooting down from on high, focusing on crevices and fissures while revelling in the sheer scale of what he was aiming to present, or offering us mountains as great glowering figures looming above the valleys and people below.

What cannot be forgotten in all of these adventurous and aesthetic exploits however is that to capture what are now in many cases century-old but eternal images, his heavy photographic equipment would also have to be carried with him.

For instance, to take the panoramic images of the Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram range between Pakistan, China and India, he and his team carried his weighty Ross & Co camera 5,280 metres (17,330 feet).

Camp V and K2 from the Savoy Glacier, 1909. © 2008 Foundazione Sella, Biella

Commenting on such feats of endurance, skill and strength, Ansell Adams, an admirer of the work of Sella, once said: “Knowing the physical pressures of time and energy attendant on ambitious mountain expeditions, we are amazed by the mood of calmness and perfection pervading all of Sella’s photographs.”

For this reason, it is not just the beauty that emerges from these images. They also prompt and demand emotional responses.

Such was Sella’s pioneering spirit, he was the first to allow this experience of the impact that the scale and grandeur of mountains can have on the human psyche to be open to people beyond the mountaineering elite of the 19th century.

Sella’s work was widely shown during his lifetime in both Europe and the United States at venues such as the Alpine Club and Royal Geographical Society. He was also awarded many prizes in acknowledgement of his contribution to both mountaineering and photography.

While still widely known and respected in the two worlds he chose to inhabit, this exhibition will allow both those familiar with Sella’s work and those new to it to appreciate that, like his beloved mountains, his photographic achievements touch both the sky and the heart.

The images for the exhibition have been lent by the Fondazione Sella, owners of the Sella Museum in his hometown of Biella in Piedmont.

Informal talks on Saturdays at 3.00pm on aspects of the exhibition lasting about 40 minutes are free with admission.