James Craig Annan

Scottish photographer
British (Scottish), (1864–1946)
James Craig Annan learned photography from his father Thomas Annan. He joined the family business T. & R. Annan & Sons, in 1883. In 1883 Annan accompanied his father to Vienna, Austria to learn the photogravure process from its inventor Karl Klic. The Annans purchased the rights to the process and brought it to Britain. In 1887 after the death of Thomas Annan, James took over the portrait side of the business as well as direction of the photogravure printing. His brother John ran the commercial side of the business. In 1889 the firm T. & R. Annan & Sons became the photographers and photogravures to the Queen. In the 1890s Annan made prints of the negatives taken by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson and produced photogravures from these negatives. In 1892 Annan photographed in the northern Netherlands and in 1894 he traveled to the north of Italy. Annan was elected a member of the pictorial photography group the Linked Ring, London in 1894. In 1904 Annan became the first president of the International Society of Pictorial Photographers ('Pictorial Photography in Britain'). In 1913 Annan photographed in Spain. Annan left the firm ca. 1939.