Charles Scowen

British, 1852 - 1948

BiographyCharles T. Scowen (1852-1948) was a British photographer who was active in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from about 1873-1890. After initially working as a clerk for R. Edley, a commission agent, he established his own commercial photographic studio in Kandy in 1876, followed by a second studio in Colombo (1885). Scowen & Co. became one of the most successful photographic firms working in Ceylon and specialized in botanical studies, landscapes, antiquities, and portraits of Native people. Scowen and his assistants produced images for the tourist market as well as for commerce and industry, and many of their images were used as illustrations in English books about the tea trade. Facing growing competition, in 1893 Scowen sold his entire negative stock to the Colombo Apothecaries Co. and set himself up as a proprietary tea planter before returning to England around the turn of the century.

Today, Scowen’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge; and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

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