Ken. To be destroyed Sara Davidmann Edited by Val Williams
<< first and last page: An envelope belonging to Audrey Davidmann that contained archive objects. 32 x 22.7 cm.
< Surface. Sara Davidmann, 2015. Inkjet print using a photograph from the archive, detail enlarged. 50 x 40 cm.
archive: Three envelopes. Sara Davidmann with Graham Goldwater, 2015. Inkjet print. 50 x 40 cm.
Contents
9
Beginning
24
Secrets and Scraps:Val Williams
30
The Dress
46
Correspondence
56
Closer
71
In and Out of Camera: Sara Davidmann
74
Dealt with in Scotland
86
Investigations
98
Looking for K /â&#x20AC;&#x160;Finding K
108
For Ken
116
Archive
124
Ken. To be destroyed 2011-â&#x20AC;&#x160;2016. History of a Project
125
Letters and Transcripts
131
Acknowledgements
8
Wedding photograph ‘proof ’. Photograph by Alexanders Artists’ Colourmen and Photographers, 1954. 20.8 x 16 cm.
Beginning
These letters and photographs belonged to my uncle and aunt, Ken and Hazel Houston, and to my mother Audrey Davidmann. My brother, sister and I inherited them on the death of my mother. They are a partial chronicle of the relationship between Ken and Hazel. Before she married, Hazel had been a dental secretary. Ken practiced as an optician in Edinburgh. It emerged early in their marriage that Ken was transgender. In the context of a British marriage in the 1950s, this inevitably profoundly affected both their relationship with each other, and with the people around them. Nevertheless, theirs was a marriage based on love and affection. Ken died in 1979 and Hazel in 2003. They remained together from 1954 to the end of Kenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. They had no children.
9
The Dress
30
In response to the letters and family photographs which I found in the archive, I produced a new set of photographs using analogue, alternative and digital processes. Looking at the vintage photographs, I became acutely aware of their surfaces. The marks of time and damage had become part of the image. This led me to work on the surfaces of the photographs I produced from the vintage images, using ink, chalks, magic markers and correction fluid. I became particularly interested in a dress that Hazel was wearing in some of the photographs. Hazel looked so glamorous and charming in this beautiful 1950s dress, handbag, gloves and white shoes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I wondered how Ken must have felt when he was taking the photographs. I began to call him â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Kâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; because I wanted to give him the female identity which he so much wanted.
The Dress and Gloves. Sara Davidmann, 2013. Inkjet print with ink, correction fluid, magic marker. 14 x 12 cm.
Correspondence
46
The archive contains 93 letters and 52 envelopes. In 1959, when Hazel discovered that Ken was transgender, she was bewildered, and wrote to my mother Audrey asking for help and guidance. Hazel and Audrey wrote to each other many times over the next five years; these letters tell Ken’s and Hazel’s story through Hazel’s voice. By the end of this correspondence (which may be incomplete) in 1963, Hazel appeared to have accepted the situation. Publicly, Ken was a man, but in the privacy of the home he was a woman.
< Secret III. Sara Davidmann, 2015. Inkjet print using a detail from a letter typed by Audrey or Manfred, transcribed from a letter written by Hazel in 1958 or ’59. 50 x 40 cm.
> Thirty-one envelopes, various sizes.
Closer
56
I was particularly struck by a small photograph of Ken and Hazel together (see page 15). The photograph had a remarkable surface with a thumbprint, mould, scratches and rips. The more I looked at the picture the more I was drawn to the marks of time and damage, and the way in which they had become part of the image. I worked with the photograph, producing a photogram in the darkroom and then scanning both this and the original photograph at a high resolution. The scans, when seen digitally on screen, allowed me to look more closely at the surfaces and the resulting images took on different lives.
Ken and Hazel. Sara Davidmann, 2015. Inkjet print. 30 x 21.5 cm.
Dealt with in Scotland
74
Audrey and Manfred Davidmann were not entirely convinced that Hazel’s belief that Ken was transgender was accurate. They also believed that if it were true, then Hazel could not remain married to Ken. In 1960, Audrey and Manfred visited Ken and Hazel’s home in Edinburgh, where they found a collection of women’s clothing, belonging to Ken. Three notes were found in the archive, one by my father and two by my mother, which my father then annotated. One described the items they found, the others pose questions about Hazel’s future. There were also two photographs from this visit.
My Mother’s Writing – Crossed Out. Sara Davidmann, 2015. Inkjet print using a detail from a letter written to Hazel, 10th November 1960. 25 x 15 cm.
Investigations
86
During the 1950s and ’60s, Ken investigated what it meant to be transgender. He discovered the Beaumont Society, which supported transgender people. In the 1960s, he read Harry Benjamin’s seminal book The Transsexual Phenomenon (1966). It identified transsexuality as a medical condition, opening the gates for the medical profession to become involved in providing surgery and hormone treatment, which enabled transsexual people to transition. Benjamin (1885-1986) was born in Berlin and became an endocrinologist and sexologist. He was, at one time, a colleague of Alfred Kinsey. It is likely that Ken knew of the highly publicised case of Christine Jorgensen (one of Benjamin’s patients), who transitioned from man to woman in the early 1950s. In the archive, there are a number of letters and documents which show that Ken was researching his condition in the 1950s and ’60s. This material includes letters from Professor Millar of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, who advised Ken that: …Your wife must, I think, accept the unusual and painful fact that her husband is more woman than man and likely to become so increasingly as time goes on. In handwritten charts made in the 1970s, Ken documented in detail the changes that his body was going through as a result of oestrogen treatment.
Beaumont Society letter. Undated. 32.8 x 20.3 cm.
.
Looking for K /â&#x20AC;&#x160;Finding K
98
I wanted to visualise how Ken might have looked as a woman. I digitally combined some of the photographs of Hazel with photographs of Ken. I then printed and handcoloured them. I have always been drawn to hand-coloured photographs - the applied colour gives an air of heightened and altered reality. They are perhaps closer to painting than they are to photography. As I had begun my art career as a painter, I very much wanted to physically engage with the materiality of the photographs. The hand-coloured images gave a fictional vision of Kenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or Kâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. He was not able to dress as a woman outside the home, and I wanted to give him the freedom that he was never able to have in his lifetime. I used Marshalls photo oils applied with handmade cotton wool applicators, having first sealed the surface of the photo. I applied the colour and then removed it - the whole Ken project was built from layers of archive and practice, understanding and mystery - for me the process of handcolouring connected with this.
K at Duddingston Loch. Sara Davidmann, 2014. Hand-coloured inkjet print. 42 x 28 cm.
For Ken
108
These final photographs in this first part of the ‘Ken’ series were made in the summer of 2015. They were produced as chemigrams. In the early stages of the series, I had made digital files from photographs which I found in Ken and Hazel’s albums. I returned to these and made digital negatives. I exposed these onto photographic paper in the enlarger. After this, I used two different processes. The first used developer painted and dripped onto the paper’s surface. The second method used hand cream as a barrier to prevent the developer from reaching the paper’s surface. Photographic bleach added a further layer, allowing me to take away or lighten areas. I wanted to work with these volatile processes to produce images that were fluid and enigmatic.
For Ken I. Sara Davidmann, 2015 Chemigram print. 25.4 x 20.3cm
Archive
114
My mother Audrey inherited the archive after Hazel’s death in
Finding the archive was amazing. I had no idea that it existed.
2003. After Hazel died, my mother added copies of the letters
My mother had told me that Ken was transgender, but I
she had sent to her. She kept all the material in a brown paper
did not know that there were documents and letters. Of all
bag and two large brown envelopes. On one of the envelopes
the material in the archive, I was particularly struck by the
she wrote: ‘Ken. To be destroyed’. On the other envelope she
correspondence between Hazel and my mother. Hazel’s
wrote ‘Ken’s letters to Hazel. To be destroyed’ and on the bag
letters were vivid and powerful; my mother’s were supportive
‘Letters from Hazel re Ken.’
and non judgemental. There was no blame.
In 2011, after my mother had moved into a nursing home,
The archive contains 93 letters, 52 envelopes, 31 loose
my brother, my sister and I had to clear her house. We found
photographs, 4 photograph albums that belonged to Audrey
the Ken and Hazel archive in the garage in a chest of drawers.
Davidmann, 49 papers, 8 handmade cards and 2 dance cards.
The photograph albums and loose photographs were kept
These photographs of the archive are the result of a
separately.
collaboration between Sara Davidmann and Graham Goldwater.