Photograph
Frants Hartmann (1927 - 1997)
Category
Photographs
Date
Unknown
Materials
Glass, Paper, Wood
Measurements
390 x 310 mm
Place of origin
Kenya
Order this imageCollection
Florence Court, County Fermanagh
NT 631187
Caption
From a vantage point among the giant groundsel plants that grow in the Afro-alpine zones, Frants Hartmann captures here the snow-capped Batian and Nelion peaks of Mount Kenya. Aside from its majestic profile, here seen from the west, Mount Kenya bears significant spiritual and cultural value for those living beneath its slopes, including the Kikuyu, Embu and Muru people. Danish-born Hartmann moved there in 1954. Like many European settlers in East Africa, he managed coffee estates and cattle farms, but he also developed his passion for wildlife photography during this time. Also present in the region was David Lowry Cole (1918–89), later the 6th Earl of Enniskillen, who farmed at his inherited Solio Range near Naro Moru, west of Mount Kenya. Both were witness to the Mau Mau uprising and its suppression and Cole was closely involved in the development of Kenya’s new constitution as it moved towards independence from Britain in the early 1960s. Hartmann continued to pursue photography and was awarded fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1971. His dangerous but photographically impressive encounter with a charging rhino was used to advertise Hasselblad cameras. In the East African Wildlife Society’s magazine Swara, to which Hartmann supplied photographs, aiding their cause, a friend later wrote that Hartmann’s photography was ‘an expression of his deep regard for Africa’. After succession to the earldom in 1963, Cole and his second wife Nancy MacLennan (1917–98) brought African objects to Florence Court, Northern Ireland. The later family acquisition of this photograph demonstrated their own regard for Africa and their memories of Mount Kenya.
Summary
Framed monochrome gelatin silver print photograph of Mount Kenya taken by Frans Hartmann c. 1965.
Makers and roles
Frants Hartmann (1927 - 1997), photographer