page_title: Frederick Christian Palmer
section_title: Photograph of Grand Pier Pavilion, 1910
hierarchical_section_title: Frederick Christian Palmer / Professional life / Photograph of Grand Pier Pavilion, 1910
caption_attribution_description: Postcard of the Grand Pier Pavilion, Herne Bay, Kent illuminated on the night of its grand opening by the Lord Mayor of London on 3 August 1910. Original photograph by Fred C. Palmer also appeared in the defunct newspaper Herne Bay Press, August 1910. The Grand Pier Pavilion burned down in 1970. The photographer was Fred C. Palmer of Tower Studio, Herne Bay, Kent, who is believed to have died 1936-1939. Points of interest A copy of this photograph was used by Paul Matisse in an artwork, having obtained the photograph from his stepfather Marcel Duchamp who visited Herne Bay in 1913. The camera position appears to be on top of the old theatre building at the pier entrance. The theatre burned down in 1928. If you zoom into the picture, the head and shoulders of a lady can be seen through the cafe window on the ground floor at the left-hand corner of the pavilion. At maximum resolution, some of the larger words are almost legible on the show-bills or advertisements by the main door.
context_page_description: Frederick Christian Palmer, known professionally as Fred C. Palmer, was the main public photographer of Herne Bay, Kent in the early years of the 20th century, working from Tower Studio. He photographed all the civic events in Herne Bay before 1914, and made portraits of the eccentric Edmund Reid, the erstwhile head of Metropolitan Police Service CID who had investigated the Whitechapel murders and then retired to Hampton-on-Sea, Herne Bay. In 1913 Marcel Duchamp used Palmer's 1910 photograph of the illuminated Grand Pier Pavilion as found object art in his Note 78, part of his Green Box artwork. In the 1920s and early 30s, Fred C. Palmer took over William Hooper's Cromwell Street studio in Swindon, again producing local postcards, photographing prominent people and doing freelance work for local newspapers and the Council.
context_section_description: Palmer's 1910 photograph of the illuminated Grand Pier Pavilion was incorporated as found object art in an artwork by Marcel Duchamp following the latter's visit to Herne Bay in 1913. Duchamp cut out Palmer's photo from a leaflet and attached it to Note 78 in The Green Box describing his plans for a work called The Large Glass (1915–1923). The notes including Palmer's photograph were published in two limited editions, and were considered part of, and not just an adjunct to, the Large Glass artwork.
  In August 2013 a "Duchamp in Herne Bay 1913–2013" festival was organised in the town to celebrate and explore Duchamp's 1913 visit to Herne Bay and the relationship between that experience and his artwork. Palmer's postcard of the Grand Pier Pavilion, illuminated, was used to promote that festival.
caption: Scan of an original print by Palmer of the Grand Pier Pavilion Illuminated
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