The Collaborative Alchemy of W.G. Sebald’s Photographs

the extraordinary new catalogue of ’s photographic materials—the first-ever volume of the writer’s images—is an improbable book. In 2004, while working as the curator of photographic collections at the University of East Anglia’s Sainsbury Center of Photography and Art History, , one of the editors of the catalogue, stumbled upon a small Ilford photographic box faintly labeled “Sebald” in pencil, which contained a few handwritten notes and various black-and-white photographs. A few years later, Warr was introduced by chance to one of Sebald’s old friends, , a professor of European literature. Warr invited Scott to take a look at the Sebald box, and as they studied the material, they realized the photographs were in fact the original prints made for Sebald’s books. The accompanying notes were written by , the photographer based in the university’s art history department. Decoding them, writes Warr, was difficult and time-consuming, but doing so led to his most significant discovery: the 35mm film negatives Brandon-Jones made in collaboration with Sebald for all of his published work. is a testament to