James Valentine

Scottish, 1815-1879

BiographyJames Valentine (1815-1879) is remembered for his successful photo-publishing firm that specialized in topographical views of Scotland and England and international postcard business that continued to publish photographic cards until 1967.

Valentine joined his father’s Dundee, Scotland stationary printing company in 1832 after studying painting in Edinburgh. He traveled to Paris in the late 1840s to learn photography under M. Bulot and added portrait photography to the family business in 1851. His son, William Dobson Valentine (1844-1907), studied chemistry at London University and trained with the renowned landscape photographer Francis Frith (1822-1898) at his studio in Surrey, England before entering the family business in 1860. Approximately at the same time, father and son began to cater to the growing tourist industry and expanded their offerings to include travel views and landscapes of Scotland and Northern England to compete with their Aberdeen rival, George Washington Wilson (1823-1893). Marketing to middle- and upper-class tourists, Valentine remains best known for tourist images that were produced as both finely-bound photographic albums and individual prints available in a variety of sizes.

Valentine carried out his first royal photographic commission to photograph the Scottish Highlands from Queen Victoria in 1866 and received a Royal Warrant, granting his firm permission to display the Royal Arms in relation to the business, in 1867. By the 1870s, Valentine’s business was thriving and offered views of genteel tourist sites throughout Britain while his second son, George Valentine (1852-1890), maintained the portrait studio. He changed the company name to James Valentine and Sons in 1878, and after his death the following year, Valentine’s sons continued to expand the business first to include views of fashionable resorts abroad and then to post card printing in the 1890s. Valentine’s firm remains best known for its post cards and continued to publish new views until production ceased in 1967.

Today, St. Andrew’s University in Fife, Scotland holds James Valentine’s archive and his works can be found in the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; National Portrait Gallery, London; Tate Britain, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; International Center of Photography, New York; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the Art Institute of Chicago, in addition to five photographs in the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection.

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